Poop is PC

So I’m gonna geek out on you all for a few minutes and tell you about something that I was very much looking forward to during my time in Peru and it is being fulfilled! Its gonna sound really weird, but I was very excited when I found out that I was going to be using a composting latrine for the summer! Yes, that’s right, I was excited about the human waste disposal system. If you have ever travelled to developing countries you know that the bathroom facilities are usually not what we are used to in the United States, and in the countryside they are even more minimal, consisting most often of merely a hole in the ground that you squat over. These holes are usually swarming with flies and reek of human waste. I don’t ever recommend looking down into the hole, for what you will find will surely turn your stomach. 

A traditional latrine.

Quaint, but not very sanitary

I was first introduced to the concept of composting latrines in Paraguay, where a few of my Peace Corps friends had constructed their own personal composting latrines as both an alternative to the unsanitary options as well as a way to begin to implement alternative sanitation projects in their community. Of all the varieties of improved latrine projects that exist, this is the most sanitary as well as environmentally sustainable, even comparable to the toilets in the United States. How so? Well you don’t use any water and the waste will eventually be used as a fertilizer, completing the natural cycle. Also, proper maintenance of the composting latrine results in no smells and no bugs!

A composting latrine is built elevated, with the first level of the structure containing openable and/or removable compartments where the waste is first deposited and later removed. Human waste needs about a year to decompose before it can be used as fertilizer, so the compartments are divided into two so that one side is decomposing while the other is in use.

Elevated composting latrine with two divided compartments

So how does it work? After you do your business (both solid and liquid), throw a cup of sawdust, (well, we are using sawdust here, but you can also use ash…basically anything that will soak up liquids and maintain a dry atmosphere. All forms of human waste are acceptable to put in the composting toilet as well as toilet paper. Feminine Hygiene product won’t work here though (BUT, diva cup friendly!) Then, make sure the lid is closed. If the latrine starts to smell or have a lot of flies, just throw on more sawdust to maintain a dry environment!

A clean dry environment!

My favorite thing about our composting latrine is the cloth door made of Shipibo textiles. Its beautiful and blue!

SO...?  How did I do talking about shit in a politically correct way??

The Rainforest's Release

How long has it been?...

since I have walked in the rain like that?

Walking without a care in the world?

Not worrying about getting wet?

Saint Louis rainy days have forced me into the rain

Raincoat, rainboots, umbrella

All the necessary gear to protect me from the rain

Dashing from door to car

Store front to store front

Sidewalk to bus

Protecting my hair, my makeup, my clothes, my shoes, my computer, my books

Walking through the jungle, my clothes and hair sopping

I raised my head to the sky and outstretched my arms

The rain won’t stop me from enjoying this day

I have once again been released from the worries

Woman and earth have been reconnected

Woman and self have been reconnected

I am free, but I am planted

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.