| Early one morning, Mariska sends me off on a bus with
Marlene, a talkative, friendly sociologist who's working with Mariska's
non-governmental organization, "Warmayllu". Marlene's mission
is to interview teachers and others involved in education in the Peruvian
Amazon, and my mission is to document these interviews on videotape. The
familiar 6-hour winding bus ride down to the coastal desert plains pales
in comparison to the 17-hour bus ride out to the Amazon jungle. When I
awake the next morning and look out the steamy window of the crowded bus,
I see lush jungle interspersed with large tracts of land that have been
cleared for farming, roads, and towns.
Our destination is Lamas, a peaceful village located amongst pineapple, mango, banana and many other prolific fruit trees that thrive in the sweltering humidity and daily rains.
In Lamas' restaurants at night, all TV's seem to be turned to the Discovery Channel. The locals gather to watch documentaries on animals and nature. It makes sense - this is the jungle. It's a refreshing change from the violent news programs and soap operas of the big city. Everything grows large in this fertile environment - the fruits, the trees, even the insects. Of the latter, I am introduced to the "mamaco" (pronounced maMAco), a massive jungle ant as big as a New York City cockroach. In the lively early-morning market (it opens at 4am and is winding down by about 8) of Lamas, a woman selling mamacos offers me one, prods me in the arm with it, and then eats it with relish, with large black ant legs sticking out through her teeth. She seems to delight in freaking out travelers like myself with this protein-packed local delicacy. We meet Hugo, whom Mariska had earlier recruited to
teach art to children in local schools. He's perfect for the job, full
of energy, ideas and enthusiasm for the task of bringing art education
to the local schools. On hearing my reservations about eating mamaco,
he brings out a plate overflowing with them and demonstrates how he
and his adorable 2-year-old daughter, Dhangy, eat them with relish.
In spite of their recommendations, I don't partake - my loss, I guess. |
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 A plate of creepy crawly delicacies. 
Hugo and Dhangy demonstrate the proper way to feast on large jungle ants. |
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| Our days and nights in Lamas are filled with activity.
I clown for the school where Hugo does his work, and another school. |
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In our interviews on education, Marlene and I find that the Peruvian government has started a new program of art "education" that gets rid of art as a separate class. The government suggests in place of art classes, that art would be a part of every class - use art to help teach science, literature, etc. It seems like a thinly-veiled plot to stop funding art education. We interview Hernan del Castillo Morey, who holds a respected post in education. He comments that the Peruvian government always comes up with a new program like this, changing everything and beginning anew without studying earlier programs and learning from their past successes and mistakes. Nights are anything but quiet in the center of Lamas,
because it's the last week before national elections. Each night, a
different political party sets up a stage and a bank of loudspeakers
on the town's main thoroughfare. When all is ready, a large, boisterous
group of people from all the surrounding towns comes blazing into Lamas,
with drums, whistles, balloons, banners and bullhorns, cheering and
chanting the 3-letter acronym of the party they support.
Political parties that claim to be for family values have scantily-clad women shaking it on stage to tunes supplied by a keyboard, drums and a singer. The songs all sound to me to have the same beat and melody, with only the lyrics changing. In between these bits of mild burlesque, politicians make fervent speeches. By the end of the evening, everyone is completely drunk and having a great time. Chicha is the drink of choice - boiled corn that's been fermented, a cheap drink to be shared liberally. Each evening for a week or more, the same story plays out with a different political party parading into town, chanting its own acronym, courting votes with dancing girls and booming speeches and plenty of alcohol. I'm struck by how excitedly everyone gets into the electoral process. One afternoon Marlene and I hike along narrow dirt roads, muddy with the day's rains, past pineapple and banana groves to Waman Wasi, a non-governmental organization (like Mariska's "Warmayllu") that works with children and students from abroad. They have an amazing garden that seeks to preserve the knowledge of the Amazon rainforests. At Waman Wasi we meet Luis, who gives a description of the Amazonian Andean cosmovision of life (my translation of the Spanish word "cosmovision" - perhaps one could say "cosmic vision"). There are three parts to it - humans; nature; and the spirits, which includes the gods and goddesses and the spirits of the plants. All three are interrelated, and very importantly, there is mutual respect between these three elements of life. If one is sick, be it a human or the land or the spirits, all are sick. If you are sick, that sickness is seen as a being that visits you. When a plant cures that sickness, it is not the chemicals found in the plant that cure you, but the spirit of the plant. Luis compares this cosmovision to our modern cosmovision, where nature is seen as something to use what you want from. There is no mutual respect here. According to Luis, we think of food as having 'x' amount of protein, 'x' amount of carbohydrates, and so on, and we try to get enough of each. In the Amazonian cosmovision, they don't think of proteins and carbohydrates, but of what is available to eat throughout the year, what Pachamama (Mother Earth) provides for us at a given time. Diet changes during the year according to what is available. With my limited knowledge of what Alfredo from the teacher's workshop in Cajamarca and Luis of Waman Wasi have described, I begin to see a connection between the Amazonian and rural high Andes ways of seeing the world. Both involve mutual respect between all elements of life. The interdependence of humans, animals, nature and the spirit world is seen clearly, and none is considered to be above the others. All the roads, technology, and education we try to bring to these ancient peoples may seem to us to be a great help to them, but the exchange of knowledge needs to be mutual. I feel we could benefit greatly from listening to and integrating their cosmovision of life. Our cosmovision seems to bring about the destruction of the ancient forests, and the spirits of the plants along with it. Luis is taking a group of children on a trip to a bioreserve
- undisturbed, ancient Amazon rainforest - and invites us along. The
next morning I find myself crammed in a minivan with 27 other people,
mostly small children who fit into every square inch of available space.
They fill the journey with songs, many I recognize as U.S. standards
that they've adapted with Catholic lyrics. We wind through increasingly
dense jungle, then park and hike along small footpaths into the heart
of a nature preserve |
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 From right to left, Luis, Marlene and myself (Chris) on a trail leading to the jungle nature preserve. |
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After extending our stay in Lamas as
long as possible, it's time to endure another 24 hours of bus rides
back to Cajamarca. This time we take an express bus, which hurtles along
the narrow highway and is only stopped by a flat tire on a hairpin turn.
The flat is fixed, amazingly enough, without asking a single passenger
to step outside. My prayers are answered when we arrive back in Cajarmarca
in one piece. I don't stay long this time, however; a day later I take
an overnight bus to Lima, then a flight out of Lima's smoggy, perpetual
marine layer haze and up over the snowy Andes to Cuzco.
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