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Clare Reed writes

...about her experience while volunteering in Ecuador.

The clothes on my back... 20 July 2004
And so this journal begins...
In the beginning there was... Manchester Airport. Just kidding. I'm here and I arrived safely so your minds can be at peace once more - mine unfortunately, cannot. While I'm here in Quito my luggage is in Amsterdam!!
Yup, I waited and waited at that little conveyor belt thing and it turns out that ALL my stuff never made it out of Europe. So all I have right now is a few dollars in my pocket and the clothes on my back. There goes my last chance at a hot shower in the hotel as I have no towel and no soap and no change of clothing... I guess I'm sleeping in my skirt again tonight. But I made it to the hotel without a problem which is something positive! Faith is keeping me believing that my luggage will get here tomorrow. But it means that I don't think I'll be able to leave for the Amazon tomorrow, it looks like its going to be the day after instead.

Last night a rather wonderful and strange thing happened... I bumped into my old friend Phil Ord of all people at Manchester airport!! and stranger still, he was going to Amsterdam on the same flight as me to house sit for his aunt so we sat together and had a blast. The flight was pretty cool: so much unrecognisable but suprisingly tasty food, and theres somerthing almost sublime about watching the sunset and little fluffy clouds of of the window while chilling to Joni Mitchell.

Well, I best go hunt for a travel alarm - I'll need something to wake me up in the morning... as the one that I splashed out on back home is... in Amsterdam. Everything is. (Sob!). What's the word for travel alarm in Spanish I wonder?? It's going to be a long day...


lemon flavoured ants... 1 August 2004
¡Hola mie Chicas y Chicos!

Sorry I have not been in touch soon - the closest internet cafe to the Amazon reserve is over 1 hour away in Tena and this is the first full day off I´ve been given!

But hey - I got here! (Eventually...) and to say that I'm having an absolutely AWESOME experience doesn't even come close to the fantastic time I'm having! Quito itself was a bit of a dump really: there are loads of unfinished concrete buildings, police walking around with huge guns and far, far too many street kids. It's depressing - you wonder what the Ecuadorian government is really spending its money on. My second day there though was pretty cool - I met a guy called Damon over breakfast from New York and we spent the day together in the "Old Town" looking at the pretty cathedrals, local markets and then I finally got my luggage back despite the fact that when I got to the airport the staff told me to "come back tomorrow" (but I made sure got it!) That evening we met up with Damon's sister Melanie and we went to a cool live salsa bar she knew and salsa-d the night away!

Next day I said goodbye to the other travellers and left Quito for the Amazon! I had to get a bus to Tena first, which consisted of a 6 hour bus journey into the mountains a though cloud forests at about 3000metres, past so many waterfalls, shanty towns, on unstable crazy dirt tracks. When we got into the clouds it was so scary because you could only see about 5metres in front of you. Occasionally we stopped to let pass oil tankers (grrr...) Tena is very run down too but most of the people are actually really friendly. It took about an hour through thick rainforest to get to the reserve and it was pretty breathtaking.

There are 12 volunteers at the reserve and there all such interesting and fun people to be with! The researchers here mostly speak Spanish and Ketchwa (the local indigenous language) so you find yourself having to understand and speak Spanish about 50% of the time (...not easy!). My day starts at 6 am where I shake myself awake, get out of my cabaña, and cross 2 little bridges, as well as walk through a little bit of jungle just to get breakfast! The food here is v.v.different from what I have at home... mainly because it consists of rice, rice, and (you guessed it) more RICE! In as many different combinations as possible (and a banana if your lucky). But I've adapted to it surprisingly well. Work starts at 7.00-7.15am and I've been working mostly in the C.C.P.A recently (Centre of Conservation of Plants and Animals) where I've been taught to use a machete for chopping down diseased and unnative shrubs, etc. The work is hard and it didn't rain for the first 3 days so the midday equatorial sun can be almost intolerable, but the other volunteers make it so much fun! On my first day here Pedro, my boss, member of the local indigenous community, and friend said we could go and jump in the Rio Napo with our clothes on because it was so hot! We finish most days at about 3.30pm where I jump into a shower (a cold shower of course - v.hard to get used to at first) and, after a tea of (you guessed it) RICE, me and the rest of the volunteers go to ‘Cafe Tamboran', also know to us as "little bar", as it is owned by the bosses wife. She makes the best Pina Colada ever for $2! (That's about one pound in England!) We drink cheaply, are merry, and act stupid.

On weekends it's slightly different - we all have to go on a "Bosque" on Saturdays which is basically an exploration through the jungle with a local guard who tells us about all the medicinal uses of the plants, points out all the Toucans, monkeys, poisonous spiders, water snakes, strange but fascinating florescent insects, the list is endless! Its also to make sure that there are no evil poachers or loggers lurking around. We've seen trees 1000 years old with trunks the size of buses (no joke - I have pictures!) and the canopy is so high up its breathtaking! Pedro also makes us taste leaves that taste like aniseed, as well as different fruits, one of which, a "cherimoya", tastes like rice pudding! And ants which taste like lemon! While on our ‘bosque' we stop to have lunch and make plates out of banana leaves! On Sundays its ‘indigenous craft' day where we make necklaces and rings out of seeds we find. Pedro made me a necklace this morning and scratched out a Toucan on it for me! Tomorrow we're getting up at 5am to climb up the 90ft observation tower with our harnesses so that we can meditate above the canopy.


Lemon Flavoured Ants continued... 1 August 2004
¡Buenos Tardes!

Last weekend the volunteers organised a trip to AmaZOOnico, a rescue centre for the local forest creatures, so we took a canoe down a tributary of the Rio Napo which was so beautiful! When we got there we found that most of the animals were rescued after being found being sold illegally or being kept as pets and not looked after properly or are threatened species. They also sold crafts made by the indigenous people that lived there so I bought a blowpipe! Then we headed further down the river and over some small rapids to a little island with a beach and it was quite possibly one of the best afternoons of my life! We swam in the river and ate out of banana leaves.

On Friday night it was Nathan's (from London) and Nick's (from Utah) final night at the reserve so we had a BBQ at "little bar" and made a bonfire, then Pedro, with one of his friends from the local community and Lauren (a volunteer from California) dressed up in traditional Ketchwa dress and played music while we danced around the fire and drank pineapple punch. It was absolutely fantastic! Then, last night, Pedro took me to see a Shaman (a spiritual healer) who performed an ancient Ketchwa ritual my friend Dan from Canada and myself using Sur Panga (special types of leaves in Ketchwa) to relieve us of any evil spirits. It was awesome.

ANIMALS:
I couldn't possibly name all of the creatures I've seen here already for 2 reasons. Firstly: because I don't know all of their names yet and, secondly: because there are way too many! The butterflies are perhaps the most outrageous coloured creatures with huge florescent wings of blues and yellows. There are stick insects, moths and spiders in the shower rooms as big as your hand! I've seen 3 water snakes and 2 boas - one of which my friend picked up and it tried to constrict its hand! I've been bitten a stupid number of times but compared to a lot of volunteers I'm one of the lucky ones. The mosquitoes are not the insects to be weary of either as it's the ants you need to worry about: They're huge and boy do they bite! I've seen squirrel monkeys and spider monkeys, armadillo holes, anteaters, Ocelots (they are beautiful creatures which look like small leopards) that we caught sight of at the rescue centre, and weasel cats. As far as birds go I've seen toucans and parrots at the rescue centre and many more that I don't know the name of yet.

So anyway, that is what life is like so far in the jungle, but its not all laughs – there is a very dark side to it that you cannot escape from - the reserve's biggest threat: THE OIL COMPANIES. Outside the CCPA is an oil pipe that runs right though this part of the Amazon. They promised the local people here use of communication for their schools in return, and a couple of years on this has still not arrived. On the 5th, 6th and 7th I'm taking a bus ride to stay with a community in Lago Agrio where the oil pipe (implemented by Texaco) has burst more than 60 times and we will see the effect that it has had on the surrounding communities and rainforest. It's not going to be pretty.


Alle tuta... 8 August 2004
"Nuca shuti can Clara"

...which translates to "my name is Clare" in Ketchwa. Pedro and Gregorio (2 of the workers here) are teaching me how to speak the indigenous language!

Since last week I've got up to loads but I will give you a shorter version of what has been going on this side of the equator as looking over my last journal entries they have been a bit on the ´novel´ side. Most of the original volunteers I have been with these first few weeks have finished there time here (Sob!) and have gone off travelling, etc, but its ok because usually when one person leaves another person comes so I'm getting to know a whole new group of people again. This week we've had a group of 16 scouts from a sixth form in Cambridge coming to volunteer for a week. It was a great laugh! They're all really sorted. On Friday it was their last night here so they took part in the "Golpe Challenge" (a tradition at nights in little bar). Basically "Golpe bars" are the only source of chocolate for miles around in the jungle - and they're pretty disgusting. Basically, there are four rounds where contestants have to consume a bottle of beer followed by 4 of these bars - and the winner is the first to finish without being sick (many didn't make it past the first round). It was so funny! (…and a bit of a mess to put it lightly)

On Wednesday myself and 6 other volunteers went on an 8 hour trip to Lago Agrio, a town where vast amount of jungle has been destroyed, rivers polluted, rates of cancer have risen, and desertification taken place where farmland once lay due to the oil company Texaco. Once we got there we travelled round these sites in the back of pick up truck which was a new experience and so very hot. Sometimes we would see the areas where Texaco was burning the local gas (a by-product of oil extraction) simply for the reason that they make more money importing it into Ecuador from other countries - what a waste! It was really sad - huge pipes reaching into the sky with flames coming out of the top. That evening we stayed with a host family that reared chickens for a living and they were such lovely people.
The children were so sweet: they were really happy despite the fact that they had so little.

Yesterday I went on my last ever Bosque (sob!) with Gato, one of the reserves guards, who we gave the nickname "Indiana" because he was so fast and good with a machete! When we stopped for our lunch break by a "yaku" (‘yaku' means ‘river' in Ketchwa) he rubbed different coloured stones together to make paint and insisted that he put war paint on my face. So I did it to him (really badly) and put a green colour in his hair and platted it! Then the heavens opened and it REALLY rained but we carried on anyway because he wanted to show us this cool waterfall so we had to walk up this river with water up to our knees - it was fantastic!

I have also been working of course: I've done some lab work, lifted lots of logs again in the C.C.P.A, and planted seeds in the "Grande Organica". The heavy labour has been a bit more bearable this week because the rain has finally come and it makes everything a bit more fresh and manageable. I've also been up the 90ft observation tower a lot more now that I'm not so scared to go up it. Pedro and I went up it the other day to watch the sun set - it was so amazing - it honestly feels like you are on top of the world and you can see everything: so much rainforest! ("sacha" in Ketchwa), and you can even see the Rio Napo and volcanoes in the distance.


Unable to stay, Unwilling to leave... 18 August 2004
I arrived home safe and sound on Monday morning and I'm still quite shocked and proud of myself that I didn't end up getting the wrong flight or missing the bus (which is easy to do in Ecuador), even mum said she was shocked to greet me at the airport! (She reckoned I wasn't going to make it... thanks mum!!) It was great to see her even though she didn't want to hug me properly because I smelt of "rainforest" (whatever that smells of... I'm guessing a mixture of sweat, dampness, and clothes that have not been washed for a month...thanks again). The thing is though it was sad at the same time: I've just had the most awesome experience of my life and I had to leave all that behind and get back to the "real" world. I woke up this morning and still thought I was in the jungle. Then looking around and seeing how much stuff I have, and comparing that to the single bed, wooden stool and shelf that I have in my cabin, realising that I was more happy when I had nothing - it was a strange type of freedom - not having to conform by buying make-up, clothes and music like I do back in England. It's not just that though: I miss everything so much, the people, the place, the volunteers who believed in the same things as I, Ecuador's culture, and how laid back and happy everyone was despite the fact that they have so little.
I can't stress how different life is there.

My last week there, like every other, was a total blast. I've worked more in the C.C.P.A where one day we were constructing a new hut. Traditionally the roof is made of leaves, similar to thatched roofs in England but instead we used leaves similar to banana leaves, split them in half, and facing downwards, wrapped their stalks around the wooden frames. It was so clever, funny too because Sarah (a volunteer from Leeds), and Debbie (a volunteer from London), and I kept pouncing upon each other then whacking each other with the leaves we'd collected (I guess u had to be there!).

Sarah and I have also done a lot more work in the Grande Organica with Pedro this week. V.v.hard work. We were using shovels and pickaxes to dig up the earth for the new seeds that needed to be planted and it hadn't rained for the past 2 days! Oh. My. Goodness. I don't think that Pedro realised English women are not like Ecuadorian women who are all butch when it comes to working on the land - they're so strong! But it was fun because we were laughing at how awful at it we both were - and Sarah hit a root at one point and tried to wrench her shovel back out of the earth but ended up falling on her backside in the process! (Sorry Sarah...)

The second lot of boy scouts came this week too: lovely lads just like the last lot. One of the jobs in the C.C.P.A was to shovel gravel out of the river and transport it to the land in buckets to create gravel paths for the visitors at the station, so first we needed to cut a log in half and make a bridge out of it and, of course, I was the one who had to jump into the water and catch the log when it fell in! But it was fun and we got a production line going: then the scouts started treating it like the crystal maze and made us do it really fast so we were sliding all over the place, breaking buckets, etc, it was hilarious! (Again, I guess you had to be there...)

On Thursday evening Pedro invited me to visit his family who live in Tena, so we took the last bus into the town and went to eat in a cafe (which cost me $1 - that's about 60p!) He spotted 2 of his friends eating so we joined them. They were beautiful people and I tried my best to speak in Spanish to them, and then was really embarrassed to find that they both spoke really good English! One of them, Freddy think he was called, I recognised from the BBQ we had held at little bar a couple of weeks earlier, but he had a black eye and lots of cuts + stitching on his face now. This was because his job was to protect the indigenous rites of the Ketchwa people in Tena (keeping their culture, preventing their land from not having to have oil pipes running through them, etc) so the Ecuadorian military had come around to his house and smashed his face in as a threat. I had no idea it was this bad. I felt suddenly really guilty too because I knew that this was partly the fault of the Western world in general, and I, after all, am a consumer. He also explained to me how the current president of Ecuador had actually lived in Tena when he was younger! You would think that a person who had lived a large part of his life in the rainforest would want to protect it!

It was then a 45 minute walk to Pedro's house and by the time we had got there it was pitch black. His father, a wonderful man, welcomed me into his home, where every room (about 4 or 5 in all) was lit by candlelight as there was no electricity. His arm was in a cast because he had broken it in 2 places after a fall so he could not work, even though he was the main breadwinner for the family as a fisherman. We then went into his parents bedroom and met his mother, she was in bed because she was very ill but still she greeted me warmly. Pedro told me that she had had 2 operations but that her condition had not improved, and even though a lot of the Spanish I didn't pick up on, I could see it in his eyes that she's not going to get better. Funny thing is though, they were still so happy to have me there and were interested to here about all my family and my studies in England and his dad was impressed with my Ketchwa! That night I slept in Pedro's sisters bedroom that was divided from the rest of the house only by a few breeze blocks that reached up to about my shoulders. The bed consisted of a blanket and a wooden mattress... ouch! We then had to get up at 4am the next morning so that we could get back to the station on time for work. It was a distressing but amazing experience as it meant I could see truly what a life was like to an Ecuadorian like Pedro.

The next day me and Gato, one of the reserves guards, went of our own "bosque" (jungle trek) primarily to look for poachers (which have become a little bit of problem here), but also to see some primary forest. It was the perfect day for it too, sunny and shaded under the vast canopy. We ended up coming out at a one horse-town called San Pedro after about 7 hours of no food! (Gato didn't take any with us!) Then in the evening I went to the observation tower one last time to watch the sun set over the Amazon. I saw a flock of parrots dart and swoop out of and back into the canopy: I'll never forget it.

On my second to last and last night we had 2 fiestas! It was fantastic (...people bought me drinks!) And we danced like idiots, I had danced the Meringue with Gato and a few Salsas with Pedro... I don't understand how men can be so good at dancing! It's unnatural! There were no clouds that night so all the stars were shining. It all just made it so much harder to leave on Saturday morning.

I don't think a month is long enough for something like this really, no sooner had I finally stopped having to pinch myself that I was in the rainforest that it was time to leave. But I have my memories, my photos, the jewellery that was given to me, new friends, so much knowledge to share with the rest of the world, and the motivation to want to help now I realise what I'm really helping. Studying this in a text book for your A Levels is one thing, but I don't think it's actually until you see it for yourself that you really understand what it's all about...

THANK YOU EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING

...here ends this journal.