Las Amazonas: Days on the River

"Cuantos años tienes?"

The sway of the hammocks 

nearly touching

and definitely touching.

Hammocks in every possible suspended inch of air.

The London-Peruvian-Gringo, surrounded by niños—telling stories?

No.  Teaching a card game? Or was it a magic trick?

And is he charging them?  Or beating children a poker?

Largest gathering of niños I've seen on board.

Long lines wrapped around the 1st floor deck hall,

plastic bowls and tupperware in hand, awaiting the meal

meat and rice, again.

If you're lucky early, you might catch a little lentil, vegetable or sauce to accompany the meat and interminable rice.

The casual bathrooms: men, women, children.  Wash your lunch plate, take an Amazon shower, go poop:  the 3-in-one.

"Quieres probar esta fruta?"

Sharing fruit on our deck with the families headed to Yurimaguas.

Zapote: the sweet pumpkin-evoking fruit.

Throw the rinds and the pits overboard.  Feed the fish.  Just like

the fruit-dropping trees are doing now, many submerged in the rising river.

The rainy season is hard on fishing, the fish

already have plenty falling Amazon fruit to eat.

The woman who shared her fruit listens in on our conversations,

never joining in, except for her smiles and gentle silent laughter

curious and attentive.

The men who gather on the decks of the boat just watching.

Thinking? Sometimes talking.  Mostly 3½ days of watching.

The men who flipped their tops when I walked by in a swimsuit and towel -- I, hoping to swim in not too crocodile or pirana or snake or eel or any bity-itchy-electrocuty-infested waters.  I wasn't particularly human to the crowd.  I became pure body.  They became pure animal.

The Captain who fell for the clear blue eyes, like those in storybooks, and bought fried beatles for me to try.  Who heard my Bolivian Artist story and lowered our pasaje to 80 soles.  "I like you."

The two German friends we made: the Writer-Director (who knew the Amazon was such a thespian hotspot!) and the Pharmacist, who destroyed my natural assumption that all pharmacists belong to the most boring possible class of human beings.  His passion for drugs and the human body nearly enrolled me in pharmacy school.

Patricio, who spied on me from his hammock until we began a face-making game:  read a paragraph, entertain the child.  Read my book, find new contorted configuration with my mouth.  Smile at the dear niño.

These were our neighbors.  In our bedroom of 160 swinging people. 

I've never been so glad to get on a crowded boat--300? or 400? people, plus animals and cargo—boarding the river to leave loud, obnoxious Iquitos, where I was little more than a female, a gringa, a tourist, surrounded by piranhas of tour guides and taxis.  On the 3 day boat to Yurigmaguas I could be what I have forever most wanted to be.  Even in those 3½ days when I failed to shake off my femininity, my gringinity, my blue eye-inity.  More than all those definers, for 3½ days I became (only) human.

Those 3½ days we sat and ate and laid side-by-side and caught each others eyes and when we overcame our shyness we spoke, and we shared those 3 sunsets, those 3 sunrises, and we were our best curious simple selves.  Human.

The 5am cell phone, unconcious of his roommates (160 of them), the assumptive man with the stereo we're all inevitably "blessed" to enjoy.  The quiet mornings before the 6am bustle.

"Tienes un novio?"

A pregunta I've decided I'm done with. You're not going to be my 36 hour Peruvian boyfriend, nor does my dating status have much to do with my quality as a person, so the next gets a north american biting response.

Too many Peruvian men certain they want to find a gringa wife.  No, you don't.  After 3 days in Iquitos Machisma, I couldn't handle "letting it go" on the cab ride:  there are exceptions, but that machismo crap makes most of us vomit, as I explained to my driver.  We're not interested in insecure, desperate, I'm-so-afraid-of-seeming-feminine-that-I-can't-even-hug-my-male-friends-and-I-succumb-to-the-peer-pressure-of-treating-women-like-objects version of "masculinity."   Trust me, you don't want a gringa wife.

I pull out the stash of avocados, fruits and vegetables that we brought on board to supplement another boat meal of meat and rice, which I find surprising since neither seem particular native to the Amazon.  Despite one of the most proliferous ecosystems in the world, the jungle buds with malnutrition.  But many residents assert that no ever goes hungry: "There's always chicken, and there's always rice."  But bellies bulge with malnourished want: for the vitamins and minerals crowding the immediate land and water.  Western influence pulls the natives away from centuries-old culinary, nutritional and medicinal practices. 

A dear friend who recently stayed in one of the villages I passed while heading up-river felt the crisis of conscious during her jungle stay: health and medicine being taught to those living in the richest natural medicinal area in the world. Western doctors visit and medicate rural jungle inhabitants.  Reinforcing the system of western-dependence, a line of patients eagerly awaits the all-knowing doctor's diagnosis and prescription drugs.  "Could I have some more to bring back to my brother too? He is also sick."  The western medical patient-doctor system is new to them—why shouldn't a doctor visit include a handout of drugs for the entire family?  They have no idea what the small pills do, really – the risks involved, the chemicals, the side-effects.  Just give me something to fix this. Do your magic, medicine man. 

These good-intentioned service trips are rarely done in partnership with local traditional medicinalists, even though these local healers lead tours of hotshot New York researchers visiting the same jungle for botany tours to learn about the healing jungle plants.  They carry plants back to their pharmaceutical labs.  Perhaps in 20 years they will sell them back in pill form to sick jungle communities.

Dinner number two on the river:  meat and rice.  Like lunch.  I wait till the end of the line, so I miss the paltry serving of vegetables.  But there's still plenty of processed white rice.  Good news that we're two days in and I almost feel that time on the slow-boat is going too fast.  This peaceful slow boat, crowded pleasantly with regular people on this endless river.  Endless river.  Endless jungle.

The upper deck crowds at sunset, todos attentive to the sun.

3½ days by boat in the Amazon, with nothing to do but

to make sure you pay attention 

to sunsets.