I have officially arrived in Iquitos after quite an interesting journey. I am busy with clowning activities and helping out with bits of organization--you wouldn´t imagine how long it takes to print a document and then make copies of it...
Segundo and I finally got on the boat on the 29th of July at 7 am and arrived to a jungle community about 9 hours down the river called Lagunas. We decided we weren´t in too much of a hurry, so we`d stop and spend some time in the community, and hop on the next boat that went by (there`s usually a couple per day).
Well. The boat we wanted did not end up coming until about 60 hours later. So in the port of a small ¨town¨with radio phones, electricity from 6pm-midnight, and an obsorbident about of sun we sat and drank beer (Segundo) and coconuts (me...6 of them in fact), waiting like shipwrecked passengers on a deserted island for a boat to pass. One did pass during that time, but we decided not to embark because that company has recently run a boat aground and we were not looking forward to swimming at night (with the wildlife of the Amazon). That first day, my deodorant literally foamed out of my armpits, perhaps as a refusal to the futility of it´s given task. After that, I simply stopped bothering with it.
We passed the time in the day sitting in front of a store, chasing shade. That´s basically all the locals do during the day too--hang around one of the public phones, fan one´s self/swat bugs with a towel, eat aguaje and spit the shell on the ground, pick bugs out of children´s hair, and shoot the shit. The sun is strong and there isn´t much shade which seems rediculous for the jungle, but this poor little area was cut clean for this poor little town. It has dirt roads that are half full of rice drying in the sun on big tarps and homes built of thin plywood and leaves. The people look dispondent during the day--the sun seems to completely rob everyone of their mentality...at least until night falls and the music and TVs come on.
At night the people become animated and everyone hits the streets. I enjoyed the activity of peering into people´s wide open windows or standing in their doorway to catch the volleyball game or Peru´s version of American Idol on one of three channels on a snowy TV screen. The houses are very open and the people do not seem so concerned about modesty. I walked by at least 2 houses and saw people fresh from their showers lounging about in their undies or towel. There are also several soccer games being played in the streets with men of all age groups.
I felt like I was loosing my mind several times throughout the day (which stretched for hours), but then clarity would come and I´d laugh my head off at the hilariousness of reality. I couldn´t even read because it was so hot that I couldn´t wrap my brain around the words, and I frankly was not motivated to do anything but sit. Sometimes we took walks...very slowly...with with no where to be or go and the humidity creating a dense obstacle in our path. In the late afternoon on 2 of the 3 days we took dips in the river, which helped immensely. We also befriended 2 kids. One was named Milagro and she sold empanadas de yucca and fried chicken and fish outside her family´s home. The other was Gomer, whose name alone gave me reason to smile every time I saw the (truely gomery) kid. He is 8 years old and he hangs around the same store that we did. He wore a T-shirt that had clearly been passed down several times from the US, with OBGYN Associates written across the back like a jersey. Like all the kids (and many adults) he was barefoot.
At last we boarded a boat at 11pm on the 31st. My last note of Lagunas was that even the bugs are lazy there. They hardly move when you swat at them, though I did somehow acquire a fair number of mosquito bites....
more to come about the boat ride (amazing!) and the bliss of being back in Iquitos with my clowning family from around the world.
beso de payaso!
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