jungle haiku

This past week, Mario and I were invited to a ***** albergue in the folds of the Amazon basin where in exchange for doing an evaluation of the 12 highly professional guides they have and going on all of the expeditions to the canopy, the lakes, and the river, we were given free food and board. It was cool. Weird though to share the week almost solely with honeymooners, fresh from the altar. Fresh faces, fresh rings, young and a little scared looking. Although, tarantulas don't help.

So I wrote them a haiku.

new rings like torches

heavy held by trembling hands

illuminate paths

In honor of my childhood buddy, Katie, and her brand new husband, Ryan.

malariainsomnia

Mosquitoes. The warriors of the Amazons. The only place in the US that compares is St Simon's Island, Georgia where old wooden churches are built on top of mangrove swamps.

At least in Georgia, they speak your language.

Here they are organized and tribal. They are bigger, or worse, invisible and then only identifiable by the fever you develop three weeks later; malaria, dengue, la uta.

One afternoon while a bunch of us were camping along Rio de Piedra, Mario developed chills and then fever and had to forgo the southern hemisphere astros for the warmth of his tent. 'Rub alcohol on your forehead', 'drink some tea' were the remedies, and the following day he was well... For 48 hours. Because then the symptoms repeated themselves. Chills and fever, then gone. I didn't look at the confirmation on my Peruvian friend's faces as I said out loud, "These are the symptoms of malaria."

Well, that was 3 weeks ago and for better or for worse Mario didn't get any more strange fevers or the number 1 tropical disease. Not this time. I won't say he wasn't a little disappointed.

I, on the other hand, having received strict mandate from the prestigious Duke travel clinic, am taking Mefloquine, malaria's drug nemesis. It says to stop taking it if I go crazy, aka, get paranoid, think the world is against me, have exploding diarreah.

None of that. But it does wake me up at 3 a.m. every morning, before even the roosters who wake up before the barking dogs who wake up before the motos who wake up before the riotously loud salsa music next door, which is WHEN I'd like to wake up. But instead I am wide awake at 3, debating the topics of free trade and fair trade (look for this in an upcoming blog entry).

There is nothing to do at 3 am. My mom says that is sacred conversation time. My dad says it is ice cream time.

I can't sleep so I think about sacred ice cream.

I have a friend who got malaria in Africa in the 90s. She is normal and has normal children. The Peruvians say there is no malaria here. That they haven't seen a tourist case in decades. I leave the jungle in 5 days and from there on will be in climates and altitudes unfriendly to the insect picante. In the meantime, my active nonviolent strategy will be the drug mefloquine and sacred ice cream.

el cielo

The Source

HERE;I am. Iñapari, Perù

Here, I am at the source. The source of our resources. Wood, rubber, water, oxygen, it all evaporates out of the Amazon basin and into our homes. The Spanish word for source is fuente which is also the word for fountain. I imagine the fountain in front of St. Peter’s where weary summer pilgrims intentionally walk under the spray. You can imagine whichever fountain you want.

Now imagine a dry fountain. One that makes you feel thirsty and even frantic to see its chapped mold and crusty paint. My west Texaners know about this, I think. Too many dry days under an adobe oven. Orange dust caked into makeup and salon hairdos.

Can you imagine the Amazons like that? It already is. Trucks heaving down the road, sun and dust flying up behind them to disguise their cargo – trees. Thick ones, wider than I am tall. Old ones, having served centuries of use in providing oxygen to the ground and air. Dead ones. Piled up like corpses, and although retaining their noble form, decaying faster than they grew. You think you can get used to that sight and envision the development that will be made possible through their life. But even the diesel engines that carry them seem to moan sorrowfully in their slow procession.

Here, my neighbors buy their necessities at the Abastecedor, or mini grocery store. The word is related to basta and bastante which mean enough. To buy enough. Just enough. Unfortunately, the forest still provides enough for the people in these communities, still feeds their children, still offers shade and rivers, consequently they haven’t learned how to exploit their own backyard and the source continues to evaporate out of here.

So I have to wonder whether I am really at the source or part of the source. The source of consumerism, of use and disuse, of mounted wants that evolve into needs. Or… a source of information, a fountain of perspective, un fuente de aguas refrescantes.

park nap

what you need:

a heavy lunch

a heavy head

a heavy sun

a heavy tree

a little sweat

a little breeze

a little time

dirt thirsty

Today is Tuesday. I was 24 when I last showered. Since then I have squeezed into a tiny phone booth for 30 minutes talking to my family, kneeled on the earthy church floor to receive communion, popped a piñata with my eyes covered and then crawled on the floor to collect my goodies, bounced through 150 kilometers of dusty jungle road where every time a car passed, you roll up the window for 3 minutes of insufferable shared heat while the dust passes, walked in Brasil, slept with solamente a mosquito net between myself and a family of rats eating my towel, cuddled new puppies, and just now practiced multiplication tables with my 9 year old neighbor. Oh, and on my birthday, I went to the bathroom here.

Water is precious. Here, in Iñapare, Perú, it only flows for 2 hours in the morning and if the people working on the new transnational Brasil-Perú super highway, break the pipe, water doesn't arrive. And then, before you know it, you're 25 and still in your 24 year old skin. In my "city" home in Puerto Maldonado, 5 hours from here, water can cut out at any time and it doesn't matter if you just got back from aerobics. So, you keep a few extra bottles of murky water on hand to toss over your back and flush down the toilet when the time comes. There are no tears in this girl's story, though. Thirst and dirt keep us strong.

June 18, 2007

For my 25th birthday, my parents bought me a home. Costing a quarter grand for this quarter-cent. girl, it’s about 3 sq. feet in size and is offered in Cardinal Red or Colorado River Blue. With 7 pockets, waterproof zippers, and a flexible skeleton that adjusts to my back, I comfortably carry my wardrobe, first aid, and pen and paper through South America.
In this home, I am a slow-moving nomad, hoping like any pilgrim, that foreign hearths will give me welcome. It’s a presumptuous thing, the nomad’s existence. Arriving on the doorstep of a friend’s Brooklyn life, bearing a meagre bag of coffee beans. Allowing old school buddies to pick up the tab while I question them endlessly on the life of theirs that I’ve been absent from for the last several years. Setting my place at the family dinner table and watching my parents watch me as a little girl again, their eyes blurring with memories and hopes. And then, I leave. Leaving behind no cell phone number, no 5-year plan, and no promise to repay their generosity.
Here, in Latin America, the presumptions are no different. Many times arriving to the home of a friend of a friend at 11 pm because that’s when the bus gets me there, I pick up a bunch of bananas on the way, or a chicken, or hope that just sharing my chocolate bar from the city will be enough. They smile and accommodate through my Costa Rican Spanish while preparing an extraordinary traveller’s feast. All of this is not necessary, I want to say to them, but then what generosity is?
At 25, I find myself not aching for a car or a monthly metro pass or a letter of acceptance from someone. I don’t have anywhere to put a nice pair of shoes or a business suit from H&M. And I don’t understand MySpace/YouTube.
At 25, I do want one sticky summer evening in the south before they’re gone. I want my brothers to get girlfriends who aren’t orange and who like to dance. I want my friends to get jobs with health insurance and dental insurance and bad-boyfriend insurance and mostly I don’t want them to forget about me. I want my family to keep growing and learning new things and sharing that with me. I want a cow, one day. I want to run more miles and sweat foul smelling sweat and get real thirsty and then drink clean water straight from the faucet. I want to be more humble, live healthily, serve love, and grow bigger to hold past and present and future together.
But mostly, at 25 I want to make a promise to repay everyone’s generosity. Parents, friends, friends’ parents, Kenyon (slowly), teachers, students, mentors, forests and rivers in Costa Rica and Durham, and all of your homes. I’m far away from most of you right now, but thinking about all of you. Happy 25 years.

Last 3 Soles

The peaks of the Andes around us had recently become shadows against the dusky night. Mario and I sought out a plaza bench where we could think of ways to avoid spending our last 3 soles or essentially $1. It wasn’t that we were broke, just trapped temporarily without ATM. So what can you buy with a dollar in Latin America? A handful of dulces, some cold bubble gum colas, a national newspaper, a few postcards to scribble on. Answering the same question for the young mom who sat nearby watching her kids climb through the fountain, I might've said, a dinner, some fancy shoes for first communion, 10 days worth of penicillin, some cold bubble gum colas.

Suddenly we perked to the sound of a drum and a shout that wet the night. The sound came from above us on the mountain and was joined now by trumpet, horn, violin and more shout. We could feel the noise descending on us, growing in size, but we weren't sure what it would look like, what shape it would take; a group of children, drunkeness, danger? It arrived into the plaza like a snake, long and narrow with spirited bodies of men and women moving to the tune created by their own exaltations of "He!" and the few minstrels whose shirts were soaked through with emotion. Some moved in costumes, some in fumes of alcohol, everyone shining, eyes big and sparkly and mouths open with release of the song. Quickly, the snake snatched us up as well, carrying us around and through this mountain pueblo of Aguas Calientes in its contagious and unknown joy. Amidst the procession I saw in Mario's face that he did not recognize this thing, this exposed ecstacy, but that he felt it as if it were part of his story. It is becoming part of my story as well. Tres soles, tres Americas, a sol above that alternatively blazes and blesses. The simultaneous resource and irrelevance of a dollar in the story. The soul of Latin America. Inside it, Mario, me, you. An entire town out to celebrate our three soles.