Wonder and Awe

“The richest gifts we can bestow are the least marketable.”-Henry David Thoreau

I can now add wanta to my list of things I have eaten while in the Amazon. Wanta is a small nocturnal mammal that lives in the jungle. It has a golden brown fur with white dots and it looks a bit like a giant rat. My host family actually caught it during the late evening. They surrounded it at the river and finally caught it. They way that it was prepared was in shredded Plantain soup that turned thick when cooked and it was good. The meat tasted a bit like pork and it was nice and juicy.
The other night Marlon was heading out at night to go check on his armadillo trap he has out in the jungle somewhere and when he got back he said, ‘Lydia you want to see a glowing bug?’ I was like ‘Sure.’ I thought to myself it is not as if I haven’t seen lightning bugs before but I’ll humor him. He comes over to my room and he said, ‘Turn off your light.’ I did and he open his hand and in it was this glowing fluorescent green blob. He was said, ‘Touch it’, I did and it was mushy. I turned the light on and it was actually a brown mushroom! He told me that where the mushrooms grow it looks like it is the night sky on the ground. He promised to take me one of these days so I can see it. I hope it will be soon. I’m sure it will make a great story.
I am always taken aback by people’s generosity out in the jungle. They will always give you something even when they have nothing they always find something to give you. The other day for example I was out trying to go look to see if a community had cleared the land to make a nursery. I arrived and the parents weren’t home. The kids offer to take me and see the land. We went and on our way back, they start whispering amongst themselves. Finally they look at me and ask me if I wanted some chonta (chonta is a jungle fruit that grows really high up on a palm tree). I said sure. We arrive at the chonta palm and its really high up. I ask the kids how they would get the chonta. They where like we are going to climb the tree next to it (since the chonta palm is wrapped with thorns). The tree next to it is about 8 inches in diameter and they start climbing. About half way thru he starts slapping his arms and legs and he said there fire ant on it. He got down and I told them that it was ok we could go. Robinson was like no, I’m going up. I said you’ll be bitten. He didn’t answer just started to climb. The other kids assure me that he can handle it he’s tough. He goes up grabs the longest stick ever and starts climbing further up. He lasts longer than the other little boy (about 3 x more) does but eventually the ants are all over him. He climbs down and we help take the ants off. He later tells me one bit him right by his eye, the poor little guy, those hurt so bad! Eventually we gave up there but they where not going to let me go without giving me chonta. They said they knew of another palm tree and we go their and success. The boys are 10 years old.
Even though it has been 15 months of being in Ecuador, I can’t help but still have moments that give me awe and amaze me.

Find Joy In Work

“I love Nature because she is not man, but a retreat from him. In her midst, I can be glad with and entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this.” –Henry David Thoreau

Somewhat of a normal workday…

6am – Wake up

6:15am – Making breakfast

6:45am or 7:30am – head out to the community I’m going to visit. Traveling either by foot or on the Ranchera (it’s this big bus like thing, like a universal studios tram). If traveling by foot I have my trusted companion with me, Frijol. She loves going on these adventures. One of the communities I visit, named Bella Vista, is about a 20-minute walk from the main road and like 10 minutes on a muddy, muddy, muddy trail. Did I mention it was muddy? I take ten minutes because I have to decided where I’m going to step and hope it’s stable enough to support me without having my foot go knee deep in mud. About 60% of the time, I guess right. I’m getting better. Thank god for rubber boots! After the muddy trail I have to cross a river. Sometimes I just don’t because it’s rained to much the day before and the current is too strong (aka I’m scared, since the locals cross it no matter what). When its not, I just walk across it, the water reaching my knees at the deepest, and this is because I don’t know the river that well yet, to remember all the shallow spots. Again, I’m getting better. Frijol, meanwhile swims across diagonally as the current carries her slowly down river and then returns to me and jumps around getting me wet and crosses yet again.

7:30am or 8:00am-I arrive at the community and I stop at the person’s home I’m working with or the school I’m working with. Then I usually wait around for like 30 minutes because no one, NO ONE, is on time. Of course, I can’t complain because I am always fed.

8:00am or 9:00am- I head out to the chacra aka the farm. This usually involves muddy hikes thru the jungle, sometimes on paths with logs over streams that are very unstable. Once at the chacra I do a couple of different things depending on the stage, we are in with the farmer. First stage is check out the soil. If the soil is good, we will do direct planting, so the next step would be to have the farmer clear the hectare. Once that is done I return to see if the land is cleared, once its cleared I come back and stake out the land for the direct planting of the guayusa. Lets say the soil is not good for direct planting then I have to tell the farmer that we have to make a nursery. So the farmer has to clear out and area to make a nursery. The next time I return I bring the guayusa and then we plant the guayusa in the nursery. After all this is done, my job becomes a follow up with the farmers to see how the guayusa is growing. As with the farmers that have nurseries in about 3-4 months we can transplant the guayusa in to the hectare of land so I have to have them clear the land and then come back to stake out the land.

4pm or 5pm- I head home to make dinner and spend the afternoon with my host family and Marlon. Sometimes watch the kids play soccer or volley.

9pm or 10pm – bed time.

So this is mas o menos (give or take) a normal work day for me.