3.17.10 – Anamalitos

Thank God I read Barbara Kingslover’s magnificent novel Prodigal Summer before I left for the jungle.  One of the 3 protagonists, Deanna, lives in the mountains of Zubulon County in southern Appalachia and works as a ranger for the National Parks Service.  She lives alone in a cabin deep in the woods.  Among the thousands of other animals, birds, and insects that Deanna observes and articulately describes, she details the sounds and life of a snake that lives in her ceiling all summer.  I, too, live with creatures in my ceiling, only mine are LOUD and incessantly playful at night.  Murcielagos (bats).  I don’t sleep so well sometimes. 

I carry the last paragraph of Prodigal Summer with me in my journal “Solitude is a human presumption.  Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, a tug of impalpable thread on the web pulling mate to mate and predator to prey, a beginning or an end.  Every choice is a world made new for the chosen.”  Life in the jungle of Peru only exemplifies this beautiful quote.  Unfortunately, I am often the prey in this world…

I have had Isangos twice now.  Connie, my stepmom won the “What are Isangos???!!!???” competition.  CHIGGERS!  They love me.  I have a Doctora de Isangos named Juanita.  She is 15 years old with impeccable eyesight and she comes over to pick Isangos out of my bum cheeks and bra line once a week on average.

Anita, Luz, and I eat dinner in plastic chairs in our 3ft by 8ft kitchen and 1 or 2 little flies always seem to fall from the millions bouncing off the florescent light above.  Luz looks up occasionally and says, “OHhhhh, these anamalitos.”  I laugh and laugh and will forever and ever call insects little animalitos.

I have decided that I am officially a jungle woman now.  My body is full of bites and even living anamalitos at times when there isn’t time to pick out the Isangos.  No me importa.  I really don’t mind.  I eat, sleep, daydream, and work immersed in anamalitos and figure that if I make them my friends, I will live a longer life in the end.