Today I
write to you with a belly full of arepas, eggs, and chocolate, just
like in Colombia. Today I also write with much on my mind, not all of
which may make it into this one entry – I will likely need an
entirely separate entry to describe some events that have transpired
over the last month or so since my previous missive, but we'll see
what happens.
On one
of my days off each week I usually spend an hour or so in the morning
cooking a breakfast pretty typical of what we ate each day no matter
where we were in the country. I found a Spanish grocery store near my
house here where I can get arepa flour (though I cried a little when
it said “made in the States;” I had been hoping for “made in
Colombia” like the herbal tea I drink every day) and the same hot
chocolate we had in the village. I listen to Spanish rock and
alternative music and enjoy that little bit of vacation back to this
wonderful country, and it's a fun reminder to me that yes, I did live
that, and it isn't just something I thought about doing.
This
week, if anyone's been watching the news, you know things in Colombia
have been a bit dicey with protests against free trade agreements
that began with farmers and have now spread to students and various
labor groups. I have been in touch with David and he's fine, though
he said a cousin was injured in a protest. Trade is absolutely
important (more in a later entry, I'm sure) for economic growth in
Colombia, but of course, providers need to be properly compensated
for whatever they're trading.
Anyway...today's
entry is from 1 July (I missed a morning, but for good reason – the
morning in between I went to Peru!), which, sadly, feels so long ago
already. It's only been a bit over two months but it feels much
longer. Luckily, each time I review and edit my notes, it puts me
right back into our little cabin on the side of the hill in the
village, so here goes! This one's pretty long, but it was a very exciting time!
**
I made
it to yet another country! Yesterday we went to Peru so I could see
the animals at the nature preserve. We woke up very early and cooked
a quick breakfast of arepas, and then Gustavo took his wife, baby,
Estefani (the 7 year old who helped me clean up the school building),
David, and me out to his canoe – the very same one Ben was stuck in
during the storm. Now having seen it, I'm even more impressed neither
he nor anyone else nor any gear was lost during that great adventure!
Exactly one week ago today I boarded a plane for my first
international trip ever, and now I've been to three countries.
Ben had
told me there would be a baby jaguar but I wasn't sure what else we'd
find. I need to take a moment here and say how amazing it is that
Gustavo knows where everything is, and where he is, and how to get
everywhere. There aren't roads, very few signs, no GPS, no maps, and
yet those who have grown up here in the jungle have an innate sense
of where everything is located. In my vida aburrida I balked at using
a GPS for years, until my band was touring to unfamiliar areas too
often and it became much easier to rely on the GPS than read a map.
Four years later, I GPS myself just about everywhere and have a
fairly poor sense of direction a vehicle (though I am okay on foot).
But here in the jungle, Gustavo can just walk or get in his boat and
know exactly where he's going and how he's going to get there. Once
again, my modern life is thrown into perspective, thanks to the
deceptive complex simplicity of jungle life.
In Peru
we pulled the boat up and a lady holding a sloth met us first. I got
to hold the sloth while Gustavo asked her about other animals. In
Peru animals don't have the same rights they do in the US, so places
like “nature preserves” are very different as well. In the US,
nature preserves are often natural habitats protected by fences or
borders with little to no human development or impact, save for a few
trails or the like. In Peru, this nature preserve had private homes,
a school, a large kitchen/sleeping area for group tours, a gift shop,
and more – but of course, jungle-style. The school was one long
building with one classroom per grade and the children wore uniforms.
The homes were the stilted buildings with ladders like we had in La
Libertad. The most developed section was the kitchen and sleeping
building for group tours.
The
most surprising aspect of this preserve for me was that the animals
weren't hanging out in enclosed natural environments...they were
living in the private homes and to see them, we went into these
families' homes and they'd show us the enclosures they'd built to
house the animals. In one home I met a macaw, baby sloth, huge
anaconda, caiman, land tortoise babies, and water turtle babies. And
a baby puppy, of course. One home!! I love animals, but this house
was about the size of my apartment back in New York, there were at
least three humans living there (that we met), plus all these
animals. Such a reality check. We took many photos with the animals
and paid the family for letting us come in. In some homes, the fees
are by the animal, some are one fee for the entire home. I was glad
to have David and Gustavo with me so they were able to negotiate. My
Spanish is decent but my accent is decidedly foreign – not
necessarily from the States, but Colombians have a distinct manner of
speaking I absolutely haven't mastered, so it's clear I'm not from
there.
We also
met an 8-month-old manatee being housed in a kiddie pool under a
wall-less roofed building, an 8-year-old water turtle (the mata-mata)
also kept in another small pool, and finally the baby jaguar, which
they referred to as the tiger. We were warned prior to seeing her
that she was in heat and was tied up because she was very angry about
it. She too was kept in a private house. Just an aside here, but how
cool would it be to have a baby jaguar live in your house? But as we
entered and waited for our guide to unlock the door to her room and I
could hear her first, my though process changed from how cool to how
sad. She lived in a wooden room in a wooden house – the room about
10x10 feet – and had a makeshift halter tied around her forelegs
connected to the wall to keep her from getting out and hurting
someone. She wasn't happy at all to see us, and I wouldn't have been,
had I been in her situation. We took photos of her beautiful coat
while she kept her low growl steady and I felt sad about her living
situation. Jaguars should be outside running, not kept in windowless
rooms with wooden floors...(Note added after I got home, I now
believe the cat to be an ocelot, not a jaguar, based on her size and
coat pattern, but still, it was sad to see her locked up just the
same).
I asked
David at one point how these families got all these animals and were
able to keep them and he responded simply “Porque es la selva”
(Because it's the jungle). Out here, it was basically
finders-keepers. If you found an animal and you could take it home,
it was yours, whether a sloth, a caiman, whatever. On one hand,
that's kind of exciting, but on the other hand, it doesn't bode well
for the animals. They can be kept in conditions that can't possibly
be happy for many of them, eating food that's very different from
their natural diets. These families don't have a lot of money to
build special enclosures for the animals or buy specific food, and
there's not a lot of work to go around in the jungle, so keeping the
animals provides a source of income. It seemed somewhat of a vicious
cycle to me, as an animal lover with a completely different set of
cultural norms.
We
stopped for some sodas at the kitchen building and talked to our
guide a little bit about the different adventures they offer there,
so Gustavo could network and can bring future tours here. We took a
lot of photos so Gustavo can have them to show tour groups as well,
so the trip not only was fun for me, but helpful for Gustavo's
financial future, since he makes most of his money by guiding tour
groups from Leticia.
On the
boat ride back to La Libertad, in the little canoe on the Amazon
river, I kept thinking, “This is my real life. I am really in a
canoe on the Amazon and I really just held a baby sloth and shook
hands with a manatee. Look what happens when you can change your
mind and get focused. I went from growing up poor (relative to the
States) to teaching English and holding a sloth in the Amazon,
walking through Peru, and drinking a $1 bottle of Brasilian cachasa
in good company last night. Who gets to do this if they don't have a
travel show on TV?”
In the
afternoon I taught one class since we skipped the morning class while
I was in Peru. The markers Ben got helped SO much as I was able to
write out specific words the kids wanted, and they were able to write
both the words and translations. They were also doing really well
remembering words from previous lessons.
After
class but before dinner I played catch with some of my children –
ages probably from about 5-8. The older kids played soccer with David
at the base of the hill and the little ones and I tossed the ball
around at the top of the hill. After basic catch got boring I
introduced them to the brilliance that is “monkey in the middle”
and they got a kick out of that. We ended up playing for hours. Then
the really little girls – about 4 years old – came to sit with me
and slowly started gathering flowers and leaves from nearby plants. I
don't remember who started it but one of them tied a leaf around my
head and they all began sticking flowers and grasses into the
“crown.” One put tiny flowers in my empty earring holes and
another put a tiny flower on the bridge of my sunglasses. When they
decided I was finally done, one announced, “You're the queen now.
The Queen of the Amazon!” I was blown away by the love and kindness
shown to me by these tiny humans. Queen of the Amazon is quite a
title and I was honored to have it bestowed upon me, so we made sure
to get photos of me with my “subjects.”
While
playing, kids would occasionally step out of the circle and climb to
the top of a tree to pick some fruit. I was the only crazy person
cautioning them to “be careful, be careful!” and everyone looked
at me like something was inherently wrong with my way of thinking. I
realized these kids are far more self-sufficient and strong than I
imagined. They're adept at climbing and will often climb up a tree,
get the fruit, and jump down from the top of the tree, no harm done.
They're very athletic and they know what they're capable of. The kids
shared the fruit with me and once again I was struck by their
kindness. They have so little – they pick the fruit because they
are hungry – and yet they wanted me to have some of everything they
had. I would generally take a bite or two and pass it along to a
smaller child because I didn't want to eat all of their food. I did
get to try some really crazy fruits unlike anything we have here
though.
After
playing it was time to cook dinner. Ben and David handled the cooking
and I sang while they cooked. I actually had children request a song
I'd written myself and played a couple of days before. The chorus has
the words “baby, baby please don't, baby don't bring me down” in
it, and two children said to me in Spanish, “Sarah, sing the baby
song.” I was utterly confused and asked them what baby song a few
times before one started singing and it hit me that it was my song –
MY song, a song in English that I had written – that had made such
an impact on them that they remembered it and wanted to hear it. That
one word stuck out to them because it's repeated over and over and
they latched on to it. Amazed and humbled once again, I obliged them,
feeling more appreciation for my craft than I'd felt in a long time, and they sang along with me, making up words to the English ones they didn't understand.
Not
only did I have children singing along with me, but at one point,
Yuki, the motherless baby monkey, climbed into my lap, and actually
started howling along with me. I was shocked. It had taken him a
little time to warm up to the three of us “outsiders” and now
here he was, sitting in my lap, singing along with me. A wild animal
of a different species who doesn't speak English and isn't a pet had
willingly and of his own accord climbed into my lap to sing with me.
Even now, writing this entry in my apartment months later, I feel the
same sense of surprise and unity I felt then with him in my lap.
I want
my life to be full of such adventure always. I realize how much I
missed out on because of my mindset. And it's not just about music
and my tunnel-vision way of life for the past ten years. I will
always be a musician. Now it is time to be a human too. To
experience, to love, try, take risks, explore, throw caution to the
wind (within reason – I still take my malaria pills and wear bug
spray, but if the kids hand me food, I eat it. They don't have much
so it's a big deal).
It is
time for me to keep living and enjoy and embrace life.
