May 22-24 The jungle adventure

May 20-22 The Jungle Adventure
The jungle trip begins the evening before we leave when we all try to find a pair of boots that fits. Those with smaller feet don’t have too much trouble but our beautiful 6’2” Allison never found a pair to really fit her. We may or may not need them depending on how high the water is in the jungle villages, but like good scouts we are prepared. Early in the morning we helped to pack our backpacks, the camping tents, food, and utensils into the bus and then into People of Peru’s big boat. Loading the boat is a challenge because it is docked at the bottom of a steep and uneven set of wooden stairs. Most items were loaded by passing them hand to hand from the bus down to the boat. The loading process went very quickly although I really felt very sorry for the translators who had to carry the heavy ice chests down after hoisting them on their heads. These guys are really strong! Once we loaded the boat, we donned our life vests for the trip out of Iquitos harbor. Once we are out of the harbor we can take them off. The view of Iquitos from the boat really helped everyone to see the commerce that comes into the port and the outstanding buildings of the city. After we have gone a little way upriver on the Nanay we came to the place where the Amazon begins at the confluence of the Nanay, the Negra and the Amazon. The Amazon is muddy brown, the Nanay is lighter in color than the Amazon, the negra as its name implies is black. As we progressed down the river we saw floating houses, rafts of logs being floated down from the Amazon forest, and local taxi and bus boats who ply the river from Iquitos to the many small communities up and down the river. Our first stop is the Bora tribe. The Bora people originally came from Columbia. I have heard two stories about how they came to live in Peru. The first story I heard was that they were essentially kidnapped by the rubber farmers in the early 19th century and brought to Peru as slave labor in the rubber plantations. The story the chief told us today was that they were a tribe that did not pierce their ears and lips and so they were persecuted, pursued, and eaten by those tribes who did, consequently they fled to Peru as refugees. I don’t doubt his story and wonder if they were then enslaved by the rubber growers as they were vulnerable refugees. The Bora have created a facsimile of their original village where they sell traditional crafts designed to appeal to tourists and do their traditional dances wearing their indigenous clothing made of bark cloth (tapa) and painted with traditional designs. One thing I noticed this year at the Bora village was they had become much more aggressive in selling their wares. I actually got cheated when I bought a necklace and then wanted to trade it for another I liked. So I gave it back but then I had to pay to get the one I wanted and I never got the first one back. I know they understood me and it makes me feel sad because they have always been so gracious in the past.
When we left the Bora we traveled on a little way to the “petting zoo”. There we found many fewer animals than in the past however conditions for the animals were much improved. There were only the big Anacondas, the Boa, one monkey, two sloths, and a large prehistoric looking turtle. The Anaconda which weighs more than 100 pounds got very cranky after several students had their picture taken with it around their necks and then one student dropped him. Cranky snakes that big can be dangerous so that was the last of the pictures with him. As we moved up river we saw that the water was lower than it had been the previous two years but still quite high. The damage done to steps carved out of the banks of the river near several villages was quite evident and men could be seen carving new steps in several places.
The ride up river is always peaceful and pleasant. Most of the student slept for a good part of the journey either down below or in the 4 hammocks on the top deck. I just enjoyed the ride and scenery and getting to know some of the students. We stopped in Tamishiyacu a large village about 2/3 of the way up river. Tamishiyacu is a major stopping place for travelers on the river needing food and fluids and is the shopping hub for people unable to make the long trip to Iquitos. The village sits high on the banks of the river and has a large central plaza stretching two blocks from the river into the village. The plaza is paved and also has plantings. This year there had been some new civic construction consisting of a lovely cement walkway from about ½ way up the river bank and continuing on into the plaza. Along the pathway there were a number of vendors selling water and prepared foods. The group didn’t stop at any of these for we were intent on getting to the bakery at the end of the plaza where we knew we would find hot sweet bread fresh from the oven. The big loaves have a slit made in the middle before rising and baking that spreads to look like two wide lips. One of our translators told me that the slang name for this loaf was “pussy bread”. I bought 4 single rolls and scarfed two down almost immediately.
After our visit to Tamishiyacu it was just a short hour and a half to the jungle camp but we arrived just as night was falling so we had to hurry to help the translators and other workers set up the tents and get them closed up before the mosquitoes swarmed. The temperature and humidity were very high – much higher than they have been in previous years so it was stifling sweaty work. Once the tents were up and our little bit of gear moved in we slathered ourselves with repellant (which seemed to do little good against the swarms of mosquitoes) and prepared for dinner of chicken and rice. After dinner the translators played guitar, found a way to hook up a radio to some big batteries and proceeded to hold a dance party until 11 PM when I asked them to be quiet. At about 8 PM I escaped to my tent mainly because I was too darn hot in all the clothes I had to wear to protect myself from the mosquitoes and I could lay in my bed practically nude and cool off. Despite all precautions we all got pretty badly bitten. Most of the women got their buttocks bitten as they went to the bathroom – nasty buggers!
After a hot night in the tent we got up early and prepared to go up river to do a clinic. We were told we were going to one village but then told no we actually were going to Samaria. So we loaded up the boat with medical supplies and all of us and headed upriver a little further until we came to a high bank. This is where my travel coffee cup decided to take a swim in the Amazon. I waved bye, bye but lo and behold about an hour later someone gave it back to me sans lid. One of the village boys had retrieved it and brought it back. This was one of the many things I lost on this trip that came back to me).
We climbed up the bank and found a concrete walkway leading into the village, after a ten minutewalk we arrived at the central square where the school we would be using was located. It was very very hot and the there was little ventilation in the one-room school house where we set up the clinic. This was hands down the most miserable clinic we have ever done – everyone was itchy from multiple mosquito bites, it was hot as Hades with no breeze so the sweat was pouring off us and to add to the misery there were black biting flies that took big chunks of flesh along with them. The students complained very little they just did what needed to be done. I am so proud of them.
There was a relatively long line of people waiting to see us. Most looked quite healthy and unlike the clinics we did in the city, there were a significant number of older people. From past clinics I know that the jungle people are much healthier overall than the city people. We saw the usual colds, flu, earaches, requests for parasite medicines and pregnancy related issues. The two people who really stood out for me were both elderly. One was a woman of about 70 who had diabetes. Her blood sugar was quite high and she was on an inadequate dose or oral meds and was in all probability not taking them regularly anyway. She certainly needed a dose adjustment but she couldn’t get them at the clinic in Tamishiyacu because they were out as usual. We couldn’t give her any because we couldn’t monitor her and also Paul’s organization would not be able to do anything else if they began to provide for people with chronic disease. The other one was a man (see photo) 89 years old. He had spent most of his life in the altiplano driving a truck between Aeriquipa and Lima. He had 3 wives (some of them simultaneously I think) and “at least 40 other women”. He had 27 children in various parts of Peru and was currently living with another woman who appeared to be about 60 (see photo). He said he still had sex and that he didn’t even need the help of jungle Viagra. He said he still worked every day and he appeared very strong and younger than his age. He also appeared to be quite well-to-do. His house was fairly large with a large garden and many pigs. He wanted help with headaches, vision problems and some other age related problems. He had cataracts and rather large Ptyergiums neither of which can fixed in Iquitos, and he of course did not drink adequate fluids. His blood pressure was low as was his pulse attesting to his good conditioning. We finished the clinic around 1:30 and packed our sweaty, itchy selves and our equipment back to the boat and went back to camp for lunch and to see the members of the jungle caretaker’s family most of whom were really quite well. Their two year old was the one Sue had drained a the scalp boil on the previous Sunday so we were happy to see that it was healing well and that she had no further problems. Neither the students or faculty were in any mood to provide care but we buckled down and did it. Our reward was a swim in the Amazon’
The boat captain took us to new spot across the river from the tributary the camp is on. We went a short ways up another tributary to a black sand beach area where the water was quite shallow. This allowed even our non-swimmers a chance to cool off. Even though it was shallow the current was quite strong so we were content to float the length of the boat and walk back to the front since they had warned us there was a big drop off. The swim was an absolute treat and we returned to camp just as night was falling for a supper of yes you guessed it chicken and rice. After a short sing along small groups were invited to go alligator hunting. However the first group got a fishing net tangled in the motor and had to paddle back for a machete to cut it off the propeller so they had an adventure in the dark and didn’t get any alligators. The second group which I was in had no mishaps and found a foot long baby and a smaller one. However by then everyone was so tired we were falling asleep on the bare boards at the bottom of the boat. When we got back we all just went to bed and looked forward to morning when at least for a short time we would be cool. The next morning we got up early packed our belongings, took down the tents and got ready to leave. Nearly everyone but me went on the jungle walk but didn’t see much that was new to me. I stayed behind and listened to Carlos play guitar and sing and I also talked with the cooks. When everyone returned we passed everything hand to hand and got the boat packed and we were ready for the return trip down to Iquitos. We had been promised a treat so the boat went down a smaller channel off the main river until we came to a village where we were told there was a lake. After a short walk through town we came to a beautiful little spring fed lake with clear clean cool water. Nearly everyone played in the water or swam for over an hour. What a treat!!. On our way out we stopped and bought handcrafts from the village women which because we were in such an out of the way place were much cheaper than on the main river. After a leisurely sail down the Amazon which most people slept through we were back at the port of Iquitos where we once again carried all our equipment and personal stuff hand over hand up the steep stairs. Everyone was delighted to get “home” and take a shower and then we were off to have a good pizza dinner downtown. At the pizza shop we met a small group of people who were part of a singles group at a big church in North Carolina that were there to do dental wrok and to work with the kids on religious studies. They were also helping Paul feed some street kids and more than half the students joined them after dinner to go feed the street kids. We were just happy to go home to bed in sleep in a cooler less buggy environment.