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!

When traditional is sustainable...

My taxi driver on the way to the bus station out of Trujillo, Peru, attempted to make small talk with me by discussing how more advanced the United States is than Peru. After 2 days of visiting the Peruvian ruins of Chan Chan and Huaca de la luna y del sol I had a hard time agreeing with him, for societies have existed in Peru for hundreds of years longer than the United States could even imagine.

Chan Chan is the largest man made ruin in Peru and is the largest adobe city in the world. It was built around AD 1300 and covers 20sq km. It once housed approximately 60,000 inhabitants. It is the remnant of the Chimú empire, which existed well before the Incans.

Huacas de la luna y del sol sit further off the ocean and are 700 years older than Chan Chan. These two temples existed during the Moche period and the Huaca del Sol is the largest single pre-Colombian structure in Peru. The friezes on the walls of this massive temple are something to be admired, for they have endured over 1500 years. Between the 500m expanse of the two temples sits the city of the society that worshipped at these temples.

After visiting these two ruins it was hard to agree with a taxi driver claiming that the United States is one of the most advanced, for hundreds of years before us, complex societies were created merely with adobe and they ruled for hundreds of years. Even as I enter into the lives of traditional agriculture practices here in Peru it is impressive to note that the methods that these societies used before the conquest of the Spaniards, are still being used today, and it is methods like these that are being used in sustainable agriculture practices today.

Terraces in the Colca Canyon, Arequipa, Peru

It is from these societies from that we must learn.

Small town life

Maybe one of these days I will settle down and live in a community that I can call my own. And I hope that this community is something like Acworth, NH, where the wonderful Barb Neff-Davis lives. I just had the pleasure to spend the past week with Barb on her farm in Acworth, NH and it was a pleasure to share that week with her, as well as with her whole town. I lived life with Barb and met many of her friends and acquantainces as well.

What's so special about Acworth? Or more specifically Barb's farm? Well, about 30 years ago Barb and her former husband began to homestead some land. It started with a cabin without electricity and water and a small garden. The farm has grown since then into a main house and a few dwelling around the property. She continues to maintain a simple lifestyle. On cold days we build fires in her wood burning stove to heat our dwelling, to bathe with warm water also required firing up the stove, meaning on warmer days this was didn't occur as often.

But what is truly beautiful about Barb's life are the people that she shares it with and the way she chooses to pass the time. I met Jenny and Stan who have lived their whole married life without electricity or running water and grow Pansies for their income as well as prune and pick apple trees. We participated in a communal work day, helping a friend and his wife haul firewood from the forest he is clearing. We attended a fundraiser at the fire station for a firefighter that was in a car accident. We attended church yard sales, visited the town store, made meals together, attended church, watched community baseball, shared Paraguayan traditions with the high school, worked in the garden, pruned fruit trees...

Growing up in the suburbs this lifestyle that Barb has chosen to live, was not one I was as familiar with. Sure, small town life has its irritations. But there was a bond that was felt between Barb and her community. These people care about her and want to see her succeed, the same way she cares about them.

It was a great vacation in Acworth, NH. One that was much needed after four months of sitting and writing papers for graduate school. I hope that I can take some of what I lived and apply it to my own life, and maybe in 10 years when my life begins to settle down and Barb is tired of farm life I will inherit the farm and make that life my own. 

Getting Caught Up

Well followers, its been a while since I've posted on this page. After 2 years of posting on my blog "Becoming Paraguaya" and a year and a half break while I readjusted to the US and maintained a rigorous academic lifestyle, I have returned to the blogosphere of "Color Our World" to keep you posted on the comings and goings, and travels and reflections of my life.

So what have I been up to?

Upon completing my Peace Corps service I traveled the world. Literally. Over a period of two and a half months I had been on four continents and 8/9 countries (depending on how you classify Palestine). I have been very fortunate to be able to travel and those two and a half months I saw beauty and pain. Division and healing. History and change.

Final farewells in Paraguay

Wine Tasting in Mendoza, Argentina

Relaxing and exploring the colorful town of Valparaiso, Chile

Climbing historical ruins in Jordan

Walking the ancient streets of Petra, Jordan

"Best Day Ever!" Camel Trek in Wadi Rum, Jordan

Seeing the reality of injustice and the struggle for reconciliation in Bethlehem, Palestine

 Discovering the streets of the Holy City of Jerusalem

Crossing the Sea of Galilee, Israel

Food, Wine, Cafés, and Eiffel Towers in Paris, France

Celebrating Carnaval in Venice, Italy

In February 2013 I decided to return to my birth country to transition into something new. I spent six months working in the service industry at Dunn Bros. Coffee, getting reacquainted with family and friends, training for and running 2 half marathons, volunteering in my community, visiting Peace Corps friends, and readjusting to speaking English and everything else that comes with moving back to your hometown after seven years away.

Baseball games with my other half

Readjusting to the frozen tundra

Enjoying the company of Peace Corps friends in Acworth, NH

In August 2013 I started another journey. I began a graduate program in Social Work at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St Louis. Attending one of the top schools of social work in the country is a great honor and challenge. I have had the chance to learn from some of the top scholars and have access to some of the best resources, but what I think the best part of this education is bringing together my previous education, experience, and interests to discover what I am passionate about and capable of accomplishing.

I have been able to connect my interest in community development during undergrad, my experience in community organizing at the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, and my work in participatory development in the Peace Corps, with my work on an organic vegetable CSA, agriculture extension role in the Peace Corps, and growing knowledge and understanding of food deserts and the global food market to understand my role in an unjust food and agriculture system that is leaving us all poorer and sicker.

I am concentrating my studies, therefore, on social and economic development. But more specifically I am looking at Participatory methods for collective community action as it relates to food security and agriculture. Where this may take me, I am unsure. I hope that it allows me to work with farmers in developing countries whose livelihoods are unable to compete in the global market, or alongside peasants who have been displaced by unequal land distribution protesting and organizing for change, or alongside migrant farmers in the United States, or with users of SNAP benefits, or with community gardeners and dietitians.

But where is this taking me next week? That is what I hope to share with you over the next three months. I will be departing for Peru, to work with an organization called Fundación Runa. I will be completing an Participatory Community Development Planning internship, working alongside farmers and families to identify how their knowledge of local plant medicine can be cultivated and created into an income generating business. Stay tuned as I share how this internship contributes to my increased understanding of food justice, community development, and environmental sustainability.