The necessities of jungle life

It was my rain boots that saved me, the ones I impulsively purchased during my first days in Tarapoto, as we sloshed through the mud on the way to the chacra (field). It was an invitation I wouldn’t pass up. Everyday our community of Huapo has shut down while people hike into their chacras to work. This week they have been harvesting almiscla, a seed that is exported to Europe to make perfumes. Curious about what these Peruvian chacras were like I jumped on the opportunity to visit with a Señora, her 8 year old daughter and 2.5 year old son. Not even 5 minutes into our 20-minute hike up I felt relieved at my boots decision, for a poor choice of direction on this muddy path put me calf deep in mud. We laughed as Aurora, half my height and pregnant with her fifth baby and her daughter hoisted this “giant” foreigner out of the mud. I was not about to leave my boot behind.

As we walked the 8 year old, Rosemary, told me tongue twisters and asked me riddles, each one impossible for me to figure out with the local Spanish colloquialisms thrown in.  The two and a half year old, Samuel, slowed us up, so I swung him up on my shoulders and we continued on. Up the mountains, where there was one of numerous amazing landscapes, down into the valley, trudging through the rushing river, choosing carefully our footsteps, and over to the other side, and up into the chacra. Although what surprised me was the chacra was much more of a forest than the field planted with monocrops that I was expecting. It was filled with cacao trees, bananas, a tuber crop called dalé dalé, yucca, medicinal plants, almiscla, and much much more. As we arrived the rain started falling harder, for despite it being the summer dry season, climate change has pushed the rainy season later and the Amazon makes it ripe for rain! Rosemary ran off to find “refresco”, a refreshing drink of fresh sugar cane juice, sweet enough to feel your teeth rot but just what was needed after the hike. Aurora went looking for oranges and soon we were refreshed from our hike up into the chacra.

Unfortunately the rain stopped us from harvesting any almiscla. We sheltered ourselves below the roof of their no-walled storage shed, where they keep firewood, tools, crops, and sometimes sleep under.  We shared stories, more riddles and tongue twisters and Rosemary taught me words she is learning in Quechua while I taught her English. We filled pans with water draining off the roof and Rosemary and I started a fire to warm us while Aurora rested. As we waited for the rain to let up we shared plates of rice, beans, and eggs, and shelled beans for a meal later in the day.

Alas, the rain never let up, and the lateness of the morning forced the decision for us to begin our hike back to Huapo. On our way down we stopped at the dalé dalé plant to dig up some food for later. This root crop required some hefty digging from Aurora and a giant tug from Rosemary and myself. Once dug up we snapped the vegetable from the plant, a small fingerling potato looking crop. Perfect roasted in the oven with olive oil and rosemary (the spice, not the girl). We shook off the plant and Rosemary, crawling in the dirt, was filthy dirty by the end. When we reached the river Rosemary and I rinsed off our hands and knees. Samuel, by then, was hoisted upon Rosemary’s back and we once again carefully chose our steps, and I grateful for my boots. As we climbed up the other bank I realized that Rosemary was tiring from carrying Samuel. I offered to carry him and we switched roles. Me, carrying Samuel on my back, and Rosemary carrying my weightless backpack with the remaining refresco de caña. Aurora carried her bag filled up with dalé dalé strung across her forehead and we took our steps carefully through the muddy path.

While Samuel nodded off on my shoulders I took in, once again, the beautiful landscape and the way the trees grow in the jungle. This time I was careful not to place my foot in any muddy trenches, and I was glad I had on my boots as we walked through rain filled paths. Up and down the rocky hills, around the mountain slopes, we arrived home, with Samuel good and asleep and all of us covered in mud with smiles on our faces.

The view on our walk back, the hills covered in rain clouds.

Giving Value Back to the Amazon

You may have wondered what the heck I am doing in Peru this summer and for what purpose, besides the fact that I love to travel, speak Spanish, find new adventures, give power back to the marginalized and learn about new cultures. I am currently in a social work graduate program that requires me to complete 600 hours of a practice internship in my area of interest. My wide variety of interests fall somewhere between international development and community organizing with a little bit of agriculture and food security thrown in and participation as always being central to the work. So as I was looking for internship opportunities on idealist.org I put into the search function “agriculture” and “community development” and out came an organization looking for a “participatory community development planning” intern. Other opportunities with the organization included working with agricultural cooperatives and farmers. So I signed up! (Well, actually I sent in my resume)

Fundación Runa is the name of a multifaceted organization and you may recognize the name from a tea you have seen in your whole foods or organic gr

ocery store. This tea was the initial beginnings of an organization whose goal is to harness the Amazonian cultural and biological resources and ancestral knowledge and create socially sustainable opportunities. Within this core value their work is focused on cultural, ecological, economic, and social (i.e. governance) sustainability. They are bringing value back to the rainforest. In Ecuador they started with Guayusa tea, a beverage that is drunk daily by the people and have found ways to sustainable grow it and market it in the United States.

 Runa Tea Brand! Focused energy!

The Guayusa tree I planted in our yard. Ojala que crezca!

In Peru they are harnessing the medicinal plant knowledge of the rainforest to create a clinic called Rios Nete for the investigation and practice of traditional plants medicine. They are creating public and partnerships to turn this dream into a reality working with Shaman healers, doctors of western medicine, and development professionals. This area is highly deforested and the value of traditional healing is being lost. With the creation of Rios Nete in combination with community work value will be returned to traditional healing and the forests will be regrown. 

So where do I fit into all of this? I am living in the rural community that the Rios Nete Clinic will be located and developing sustainable relationships with the community to identify ways that Rios Nete can partner with the community to build on the values of Runa (Culture, ecology, economy, and society). We are starting from square one, and I am a part of the first round of interns on this project.

We are also partnering with the Fair Trade coffee and chocolate Cooperative, Oro Verde, to assist in surveys with their cooperative members to create baseline data for their organization and ours and assess the feasibility of introducing Guayusa (Runa Tea) with these farmers.

Join me on this journey as I explore the world of international NGOs, participatory community development, food security and agriculture, and Peru!

A little taste of what I get to see everyday!