The name of this entry is a quote from a guy named Marcos who organized our community service day in a small village called San Antonio de Marupa. Before I get to talking about our service day I need to talk about how this trip empowered me. I was incredibly impressed with all of our students and how well they accepted the difficult leadership tasks that had been given to them. The visually impaired students were incredible team players and proved how capable they really are. Our sighted students became great communicators and describers who approached every obstacle as a member of a team. I feel so lucky to have been given the opportunity to be a part of this unique Global Explorers trip and really feel that the experience has solidified my desire to be an educator on trips such as this.
Since I graduated in May I have experienced moments of doubt - did I really pick the right major? Will I ever get a job that I love and pays enough? Am I living in a dreamland thinking that I can actually become an outdoor educator and like doing it? The long days, the stress, not showering, difficult students, etc... This trip made me realize that I am one of the few lucky people who got a degree in something they love and fully plan on using it to have a career they love. No matter how sweaty, frustrated, or dirty I get I cannot imagine myself doing any other job. After seeing what a positive impact a trip like this made on the students I realized that I always want to be a part of forming such solid experiences and that it is one of the few things I am truly passionate about.
Ok - enough self realization and more about the actual trip...
8/4: Land in Iquitos, meet our guide Willy and head to the dock owned by Explorama (the company that owns all the places we stayed at). Hop on a huge boat called the Island Queen and take our first trip on the Amazon to a nice lodge called Ceiba Tops.
The Island Queen
8/5: I managed to embarrass myself and sleep in through three alarms (granted I did set them an hour early without knowing it, but still...) After breakfast and playing with a cockroach we took a large speedboat to the main Explorama Lodge. Exact quote from my journal that day "I couldn't believe that I was actually sitting on a boat on the Amazon River." It was pretty surreal, I mean the Amazon is something that you learn about from the time you are in grade school - but to actually be on that amazing river and see for yourself how huge it is is really something else.
After arriving at Explorama Lodge we hiked out a short ways to a small market area where a tribe called the Yaguas come to display their traditional clothing and sell handicrafts. I was struck by how beautiful the women and children were, especially when compared to the men who looked worn and tired. After doing some tribal dances for us and having us join in they took us outside to show us their skill with blow dart guns. They asked if any of us wanted to try it and I was impressed with how eager everyone was to try something new. Brian (another instructor) made his cell phone ring and put it on top of the target so that even the visually impaired kids could give it a shot. I think the locals were pretty impressed with our students, and I know that other tourists in the area definitely were.
I was a little disappointed to learn that wearing traditional dress and doing their dances is more like a day job for these people because the lodge pays them to do these "shows" for the tourists. On the other hand, I think that it is great that their culture can still survive and that by showing foreigners these things they are educating others and getting paid to do it.
This day was also Caitlin's 20th birthday and we surprised her with a cake and voice recorded birthday wishes from each of us. What a cool place to celebrate a birthday!8/6: We woke up early and went out with Stan and Willy to catch some birds. We set up a thing called a "mist net" that is basically two poles with a very thin, practically invisible net that is used to catch birds and sometimes bats. We caught three birds before we had to go in for breakfast and it was a great opportunity for the students to have a hands on learning experience with birds that were totally unfamiliar to them.
That afternoon we went out on a boat with Willy to a small tributary of the Amazon and managed to record some sounds of fish in the water and a troupe of Squirrel Monkeys high up in the trees. We saw a local fisherman in a canoe on our way into the tributary and Brian told him that he would buy some fish from him on our way out. Sure enough, whe we got back to the fisherman he had told others in his community about us and there were about 6 or 7 boat of locals floating around us trying to sell us jewelry and fish. It really showed how much these people rely on the river and their boats as part of their livelihood, and it was such a unique experience for us. It's not often that friendly people in canoes paddle over to you to sell their wares.
the walk to the boat
recording squirrel monkeys with the parabolic dish
selling fish and jewelry
can you find the piranha?
After buying some fish and a few necklaces we headed back to Explorama. Some of the students decided to go on a hike with Stan to set up sound recording equipment with Brian, Jonathon, Caitlin, and I went swimming. We had a lot of fun splashing around and trying not to imagine what things might be swimming around us or on the bottom of the river.
A row of piranhas and my piranha face after swimming :)
That evening after dinner we did a night float and took our sound equipment and bat detectors. The bat detectors are little devices that pick up high frequency sounds that we cannot hear and work well for picking up the sounds bats make while hunting. We found a great spot to just sit and float with the motor off while bats zipped around above us. It was so cool to be able to hear the bats hunting and after a loud few minutes of listening to bats I remember Brian saying something like "See? Bats are screaming at the top of their lungs all the time and we just can't hear them." Definitely one of the neatest listening experiences we had.8/7: We did an early morning float trip with the main purpose of bird watching. We ended up seeing and hearing much more than birds...
"7:04 AM: Dolphins! We can hear them with the hydrophone. Willy says that they are baby pink dolphins. This is so incredible, the weather is cool with a slight mist in the air and we can hear many birds and insects along the shore. With the engine off and everyone silent t is so peaceful with the water lapping around our boat. What a great morning. The sound they make is something between a fart and a zipper pulling."
I don't know how long we sat there listening to the dolphins but it was one of the most peaceful moments I have experienced in a long time...probably since the last time I was in Alaska. Our boat floated in circles in a huge eddy and every once in awhile one of the dolphins would surface for just a moment. I had heard about these elusive pink freshwater dolphins before, but I never thought I would be priveleged enough to actually see them and listen to their songs.
Birds in the mist
Listening to the dolphins...
After our morning float and breakfast we headed out to spend some time with a local shaman or healer. He taught us a lot about how much the people in the rainforest know about the world around them. I was blown away by his knowledge of all of the plants and what they can be used for. It was a great learning experience for us all and a neat comparison to the world of pills, tablets, and antibiotics that Westerners live in.
When our time with the healer was over we began our hour long hike to the ACTS Field Station. ACTS is an acronym for the Amazon Conservatory of Tropical Studies. This was the deepest we went into the Amazon and I loved it. The only people who stay at ACTS are scientists, students, and educators who are studying or otherwise learning about the tropical environment. We only spent a day and a night at ACTS but we got to know some of the other students there who were taking some type of conservation class through the university in Iquitos. ACTS is also well known for having the world's longest canopy walkway.
The walkway was incredible and it gave us a great opportunity to learn about the ecology of the canopy and the different levels of the rainforest. As some of you may know, I am terrified of heights. At first I had a hard time being on the walkways and had to take deep breaths and hum to myself to keep from flipping out. The students probably thought I was crazy, but I felt pretty proud of myself for doing the entire length of the walkway more than once. We went up there for the first time that afternoon, and then backtracked and did the whole thing again on the way back to ACTS. We were there for the sunset and I was so blown away by the beauty that surrounded me. I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves...
8/8: We went back to the canopy to greet the sun. The sunrise was not as spectacular as the sunset the night before but it was still calm and beautiful in its own way.
Brian and Stan recording morning bird songs
sound recording equipment
We took the boat back to Explorama Lodge and had a fun day of trying to fish for piranhas which we were all pretty bad at (yes, even you Brian). After fishing for awhile Willy took us to a spot to go "swimming," which ended up being a huge mud flat. I felt like a little kid playing in a huge mud puddle - it was so much fun!
8/9: This was a special day because it was our community service day with a small community on the bank of the Amazon. We partnered with a nonprofit in Peru called CONAPAC that uses an Adopt-A-School program to support schools in the Peruvian rainforest. CONAPAC helped identify projects that we could do that were needed and would benefit the community as a whole. We divided up into trios and worked on painting the classroom, painting desks, planting trees, and making thatched roofing. We worked hard and I am pretty sure I sweated out every fluid that ever existed in my body. The children were shy, friendly, and giggly and I couldn't help but be reminded of the kids I bonded with in Kenya. I am coming to realize that children have an appealing young innocence no matter where you are in the world. We played a lot of fun games with the locals after our service, including a crazy modified pinyata game that involved a "tree" made of bamboo with treats tied on top of it, and large machete, oh yeah- and some visually impaired teenagers. Though a bit nerve-racking the game was fun and ended with all of us soaked from thrown buckets of water, covered in a red substance from a fruit, and sticky from thrown papaya. After that crazy game we played soccer with the local kids and I was amazed at how good they all were. They must have thought we were hilarious all wet, covered in red, and leading our visually impaired students around the field attempting to get the ball (which was covered in a plastic bag so they could hear it).Our students were all impacted by our day spent in the community, though I was surprised at how quickly they made assumptions and came to certan conclusions about the lives of these people. For the most part I think that those assumptions can be chalked up to being young and not having any other similar experiences to draw from.
my friend Merlita
waving goodbye from the boat
This has turned into the longest blog entry ever and I admire you if you made it this far. The rest of the days in our trip had their own exciting moments, but not so much that I will continue going through them day by day. When we went back to Iquitos Willy took us through a local market that was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of it because I didn't feel comfortable bringing my camera, but there were so many sights, sounds, and smells that it would have been impossible to capture it on film. I think for all of us being back in a busy city after spending so much time in the jungle was a shock.
Our travel days were full of stress and frustration (generally to be expected). After a cancelled flight, close connections, last boarding calls and 4 flights in 18 hours. I was incredibly glad to be home. At least this time I prepared myself for the huge differences I would find between here and Peru, so I wasn't nearly as discombobulated as I was when I got home from Kenya.I'll write more later...
