Me da cuenta (I realize) that I live the Swiss Family Robinson life!!!! My sisters and I LOVED the Swiss Family (how could you not!), and I could never have imagined that one day I would live this jungle life.
First though, I have to tell you that Luz (Jose Antonio’s mom) is not here this week. OH man, what will we do? Anita and I don’t have time to prepare our food and though we have electricity, we don’t have a refrigerator. We prepare our raman noodles every night and I fry platanos. Mmmmmm, I love fried platanos, but I love having Luz here more.
This week was yet another FULL week of action. Anita and I visited another 5 remote communities only this time our mission was to Pap it up home visit style.
After doing 20 paps and well woman exams at the health post, we packed for more paps in the jungle. First we attempted to get to Nueva Jerusalen (a community about 20 Km away) but motocar pushing became tiresome. Every 5 minutes we came across large mud puddles, baja’d the motocar, and started pushing. We kept thinking that this muddy mess would be the last, but there was always another waiting. We looked like chanchitos playing in the mud!!! After the heavy rains we have had over the past few days, we should not have attempted to get to Nueva Jerusalen, but we thought that the long day of strong sunrays would have dried out the mud by now. Not so much. Luz swept rain from our house most of the day of rain as it seeps everywhere with its force. After our failed attempt to get to Jerusalen, we switched gears and went to Santa Rosa where we held a women’s clinic at their tiny health post. When we arrived to the quiet town, we walked the small square surrounded by houses and advertised our pap clinic. 6 women came and I did paps and breast exams on a little mattress in a makeshift clinic room. I use my headlamp as an exam light and am not sure that I will ever give up this routine even when I return to the US. It really works well.
The very next day, Anita and I traveled the CNC to KM 12 to visit 2 small communities today: Nueva Juanjui and Libertad de Pasa Raya. Neither town has electricity or running water and both towns are lush and beautiful, inundated with palm and platano crops. Juanjui doesn’t have a town center and appears to be a few houses each hidden amidst its owner’s crops. It often took us awhile just to locate a house, let alone the time it took us to locate the owner’s of the house. Luckily, as I have mentioned, Anita knows ALL!!!!! And I have learned the special call we use to alert people in the jungle that we are looking for them. It’s a little like a cross between a monkey and a bird call. You can see Anita doing the call in a photo on flicker. You have to form your lips into a trumpet horn. I LOVE it!
I did a well woman exam with a woman who raises cows with her husband in Juanjui. Their land and home is beautiful and they live there with their 3 children. They met and fell in love in their home town of Iquitos, but because land is so expensive there they decided to leave their families behind and start their own life together in Ucayali. They are younger than me and have built a beautiful life for themselves here.
Home visits are one of my favorite activities because I get an insiders view into the life of an Amazon jungle mama. You all have read about the small farm chacras that we visit. They are BEAUTIFUL and often tucked away and surrounded by lush jungle and crops. Not only are the homes surrounding by lush beauty but they are constructed in an open home fashion. Imagine a wooden frame built about 2-3 feet off the ground in case the rivers grow (we are completely surrounded by rivers, small and large). Add a thatch roof on top and vua la. Most families build a few small frames in a cluster. One frame serves as the kitchen, another as the main living home, etc. The main living home most often consists of 2 stories. It has a tall ladder that takes you up up up closer to the thatch roof for slumber in the sky. Slumber in the sky in this jungle includes a blanket underneath your body, your dreams, and your loved ones nearby, nada mas.
I HAVE to tell you about “nada mas.” Here in la selva, the Spanish makes my head swoon starry starry night (one of my favorite songs) fashion. My new favorite sounds in this entire world are musica de la selva, sonidos de la selva, and selva Spanish. When I hear the music from this region, my body moves and my bottom begins to shake all by itself (Check out Juaneco, a group from this region)! When I hear the sounds of the selva, my muscles soften and my nerves crawl into their cave to sleep. And when I hear the Spanish of the selva my smile and my soul grow as quickly as the platano leaves after a long day of rain. OH HOW I LOVE THE SOUNDS! Selva Spanish is rustic and pointed, yet it smooths off the tongue. It’s a combination of indigenous languages with lots of hard “K” sounds and as many soft “ssshhhhh” sounds. In addition, in the carretera communities, everything gets the “-ito” end, particularly if one is impassioned, and most everything is a topic of passion to these beautiful and very passionate people. When discussing pain, women point to the pain and say “Todo todo todatito todito le duele, acaaaaa, aaaaaaKa, aca de todadito de mi curepito…” I get so caught up in the sounds of the hard “D” and lovely “-itos” that I forget to mind the importance of the signs and symptoms to which I am assessing and frequently have to ask for a repeat story. At first, I couldn’t understand a word of Selva Spanish. Now, I live for it AND understand it sometimes too. So, back to “nada mas.” “Nada mas” = “That’s all” or “no mas” = “nothing more” get added to most complete sentences. It’s SO beautiful to me, nada mas. Drop me off here, no mas. I miss and love you all, nada mas. It adds strength to what you are saying, but you have to say it with a certain tone, like you are shrugging your shoulders, obviously, nada mas.
I will say goodbye for now but hope you all are doing fabulously! Nada mas.
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