I´d Give up Forever to Touch You Because I Know that You Feel Me Somehow

Ever said to yourself, "If I could just have a net connection for 5 minutes, I would be so happy"? That's how I've felt most of this week and I am taking advantage of a bit of time that I seem to have a connection to write since I haven't been in contact with anyone for about two weeks now. I do apologize, but please keep in mind that I'm in the middle of the Amazon and the fact that I have a connection, even occasionally, is a miracle of science in itself. I hope you are all well and that life is treating you right. It's really just no fun when things are on the down and out.

These last days have been "so so" for me, or maybe that's just how I'm feeling today. Really it is hard to tell. The case is that life is, simply put, a roller coaster. For those of you who have never lived abroad, take a look at the following diagram and you'll understand a little better what I mean:



That diagram is created with study abroad in mind, but it works for living and working abroad too. I'll let you be the judge of which stage I am in, keep in mind that you can go back and forth between stages.

When I last had the chance to write, I had recently returned to the high school and I, along with the other volunteers and the staff, found things in "interesting" conditions. It's been a long time coming, but our freezer, which ran on propane, froze its last piece of carne (meat) just before the end of our last session. When we got back, we still had that great white beast sitting in the kitchen, mocking us with its inability to cool a single thing. It is, yet and still, occupying the space there and being used as glorified counter space. Apart from that, for reasons I won't get into, we had no cook, the facilities (pipes, water, showers, floor boards, etc.) have all been slowly deteriorating from the get go and we have arrived at a frustration point with the internet and other forms of communication problems. Don't let me exaggerate too much; as I keep reminding myself, we are in the Amazon after all. On the other hand, these small issues, which are really basic necessity faults, have been problematic and stress causing. If anyone reading this with a bit of pull and a desire to help with some kind of donation, has an idea of how to make a freezer arrive at this end of the jungle, please don't hesitate in writing me and letting me know. Nonetheless, we are getting along here and I am slowly seeing many of these problems getting resolved. I am, of course, doing my best to help the progress along as well. I did the 100 hour oil change on our generator just the other day. For lack of a better tool, I used a pipe wrench to remove the oil plug and, miraculously, didn't strip the nut.

Apart from those problem areas, things have been going as smoothly as they can. For my part, I have found it to be a little difficult getting back to work after a week off. I must confess that I have felt more than a little lazy during the last week of teaching and work. This doesn't mean that I have been working or teaching any less, on the contrary, I have been putting an extra effort forward and doing my damnedest to keep things on track. For my Spanish-speaking readers, I reference one of my favorite citations by Jorge Luis Borges, “Como ser humano, soy una especie de antología de contradicciones, de gaffes, de errores, pero tengo sentido ético. Eso no quiere decir que yo obre mejor que otros, sino simplemente que trato de obrar bien y no espero castigo ni recompensa. Que soy, digamos, insignificante, es decir, indigno de las dos cosas. El cielo y el infierno me quedan muy grandes” (pag. 29, texto #13).

During this week alone, I have organized an entirely new library of over one-hundred books, in Spanish, donated graciously by Mónica, whom I have spoken of in other blog entries. I have each one of my students reading a book on there own, which is a big deal for these kids. They will, hopefully, finish the books by the end of this three-week session and write up a short 1-2 page book report over them. I´m really anxious to see how they do with this work and I really hope it turns out well. In class, we have been looking at how to write a book report, how to read well, looking for certain information, and how to develop an opinion based on and about what you have read.

We have also been reading, together, Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria (Passages of the Revolutionary War) by Ernesto Guevar de la Serna. As I wrote before, In the last session, we read Diarios de motocicleta, and I considered it to be of utmost importance that the students see the complete story of "Che". He was not only a young idealist who set out to change the world, but also a Comandante (Commander) of the armed revolutions in Cuba, The Congo and Bolivia, where he was killed by Bolivian forces who were trained by and had the backing of the CIA. As Comandante Guevara, Ernesto was responsible for the deaths of many enemigos, traidores y desertores de la revolución (enemies, traitors and deserters of the revolution) and I wanted the students to see that side of the story as well so that they may form their own, well-informed, opinion later. Make no mistake, Ernesto did change the world, I´ll let you decide on weather he did it appropriately or not.

I'm having a fantastic experience as I'm writing this blog entry, "el ataque de la abejas del sudor," little sweat bees that don't sting, but love to swarm you when your sweating and sitting still. I've got about ten of them encircling my head and typing hands right now. They are driving me incredibly insane! The reason I am sweating so much is because it hasn't rained for going on seven days now and the temperatures have been going up to a cool mid to upper nineties every single friggin day! The sun has been baking everything to a crisp, including me. If anyone knows any good rain dances, please send them my way because I will seriously go out and dance in the downpour. I know it sounds like I am constantly complaining about the weather here, but, firstly, I'm from Indiana and that's what we do and, secondly, if you were here you would understand. Don't get me wrong, I don't wish that I were in Indiana right now, I know that it's starting to get cold and you all have another lovely deep freeze coming soon. I'll keep my hot and miserable jungle weather, thank you very much. At least here it never snows or freezes, even less so than our non-functioning freezer.

To tell you a little about other goings-on here at Yachana, we went to Los Ríos on Thursday and bought víveres (provisions) for the week. If you have me on Facebook, you can see some pictures of this event. Basically, the trip involves carrying propane tanks (3-4) to the canoe and upriver to exchange them for recharged one and buying other food and supplies that we need for the week. This takes place every Thursday because that´s the day they have the market in Los Ríos. Yes, I too carry tanks and other supplies. I try to do my best to share the burden of this type of work with the students and the jungle is doing its part to condition me for this work. I´m, slowly but surely, acquiring a little of that strength that I wrote about the students having before. I guess I´m not so old after all. For myself, I bought some Venus Lonas, which are these really neat shoes that are made in Ecuador and only cost me six dollars. They´re blue and white and made of a material that drys out very fast, ideal for jungle life and I love them. I looked all over for shaving cream as well, but couldn´t find it anywhere. Fortunately, someone gifted me a can so that I don´t run around looking like one of Che´s barbudos (hairy men).

En fin, we are about midway through Pasajes as well as midway through the drought. I would like to finish up with the book as soon as possible so that we can have a movie night and watch the very well-made, two-part, film, Che: El Argentino, by director Steven Soderbergh http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892255/ with Benicio del Toro as Che. If you haven´t seen it, I highly recommend it. It´s a bit long, but a very good and accurate depiction of the true events. I want you all to know that I´m thinking a lot about you and hope that you are doing the same. I have some days, or nights, when I feel very much alone and isolated, and I really wish that I had my dear friends near. I know that you are with me and for me, but you´re not here physically and that is damned hard to cope with at times...

Thinking of you always, un abrazote, big hug,

Christopher Mackenzie

The Sun Going Down in the Jungle, from my Perspective

The sky that evening was a painter emptying out his paint trays at the end of the day. He had been using fall colors to depict the leaves that held on tight to what was left of their lives. To the east, the tray was clean and empty, it was white and clear. To the west the paint came falling together to form the colors of the sun going down. The river was in the forefront, the trees were behind it and, after that, the painter’s paint, filling the sky, was all that was visible. The auburn was mixing with the yellow and red, there was some white and grey as well, rays shot up through the paint streams and lights danced in the background, highlighting the entire scene. All of the colors, flowing together, painted a more beautiful image than the artist had fabricated during an entire day’s worth of work. 

Don't Worry Buenos Aires, you Will Always be my First Love

            I can hardly remember where I left you last time. It’s probably only been a week or so, but it feels like time has flown at an incredible pace. The only thing that I can say about that is that I too have been flying, I hope not to come crashing down any time soon, although the flight pattern has been intermittent at times. God I miss the selva (jungle), or should I say, God I miss certain things about my selva life. What I miss most has only been gone for a couple of days, I’m not sure what exactly that means, but it’s a little exciting.

Me encuentro, I find myself in Quito yet again. It is about the same as I described before, but this time it is much colder and raining every day. I was going to write “rainier” and Word didn’t correct it, but I went ahead and filed it under the “Sounds Funny” category and opted for, “raining every day.” For those of you who have never been to Quito or experienced the climate of a city of very high elevation, I would describe the weather now as similar to a rainy fall in Indiana. It’s chilly in the morning, the temperature goes up to comfortable around midday, things change drastically and the temp drops in the afternoon/evening when it starts to rain and the day finishes out with a rather cold night in which you must sleep with a few blankets. The air outside of the covers is always so cold at night that I am constantly waking up with extremely dry lips and a sore throat. Why the hell did I leave my wonderful jungle climate? The funny thing is, just as I wrote that last line, I thought about the humidity and how damp I always feel in the jungle and the way it gets ridiculously hot and nasty afterwards, and I got a little fonder of the cold weather. I better stop myself now because, as I’m sure most of you know, if you’re from Indiana, you can go on and on about the weather for hours.

You are probably wondering what I’m doing in Quito and why I’ve left the selva. I hadn’t explained this earlier, but I get a week off every month! After each rotation of teaching (sort of like mini semesters), they let us loose, free to run around Ecuador. Ecuador may be a very small country, but you can trust when I say that it takes a LONG time to get from one place to another if you’re not flying. To travel a distance comparable to Terre Haute to Indianapolis, around 50 miles, it can take up to three hours!

I’m going to go into detail about all of the following things, but, first, let me paint a “getting out of the jungle” travel picture for you:

-Saturday, October 1^st, 08:45- The young (yet and still), joven aún, Christopher Mackenzie

Baumunk, after an incredible and long night of dancing and celebration, departs, in canoe, from the community where he is residing and teaching, Mondaña, Napo, Ecuador (pop. 75-100), headed upriver to the Los Ríos Community.

-Saturday, October 1^st, 09:15- After 15-30 minutes in canoe, the protagonist arrives at Los

Ríos accompanied by his compañeros (a much more affectionate and better word than “colleagues or co-workers” to describe people who you not only work with, but are also friends with), Erika Lizbeth, Ryan, Amanda and Megan; also traveling with the group were Lizbeth’s brother, Stalin, and her friend, Gimabel.

-Saturday, October 1^st, 09:20- The group discovers that there isn’t a bus leaving until 10:00.

-Saturday, October 1^st, 10:15- The group boards the bus heading for Tena, Orellana, Ecuador

-Saturday, October 1^st, 13:30- After a very “interesting” (I’ll explain later) three hour bus

ride, the group arrives in Tena.

-Sunday, October 2^nd, 14:00- After yet another incredible night of dancing, the group heads

out of Tena, together, to visit a nearby town called Misahuallí. 

-Sunday, October 2^nd, 14:45- The group arrives at Misahuallí.

-Sunday, October 2^nd, 17:00- The group departs from Misahuallí, returning to Tena.

 -Sunday, October 2^nd, 17:45- The group arrives again in Tena.

-Monday, October 3^rd, 02:00- The protagonist, joven aún, leaves Tena, headed for Quito,

Ecuador (I don´t remember the province, opps L) and accompanied by Erika Lizbeth

-Monday, October 3^rd, 06:30- The couple arrives in the terminal Quitumbe, Quito, Ecuador,

right when the sun has just woken up.

In case you missed it, that was roughly 8 hours, give or take, of bus travel over a few days. Now, either tomorrow evening or early Saturday morning, I get to do that trip all over again, but, this time, without any layovers or side trips. I haven´t quite figured it out yet, but I will either be leaving Quito in the evening tomorrow to get to Tena in the night and stay until the morning to, later, depart for Los Ríos. If I don´t work that scenario, I will be leaving at 05:30 on Saturday morning from Quito to get to Tena by around 10:00 and pray like hell I make a it, from there, to Los Ríos by 13:00ish so the only canoe doesn´t leave me stranded there. By the time I actually get to post this blog, I will, hopefully, be back in the jungle and I´ll add a side note to let you know how it went.

Let me go into detail about some of the interesting points of the itinerary I have just provided you with. The compañeros and I had originally planned on leaving from Mondaña on Friday, September 30, but I am very glad that we decided not to. That Friday was one of the best days I have spent in Yachana up until now. The students had a seminar with Megan in the morning, I was “serving” as vice-principal because that principal had left bright and early. On his way out in the morning, at 05:30, he was sure to ring the bell and wake everyone up even though breakfast wasn´t for another hour and a half. I suppose he thought that we should be up if he had to be, what a funny guy… Anyhow, the day was very relaxed, the students did their seminar in the morning and, just like that, they were all packed and heading off to various destinations to spend their week off. I will admit that I felt a little sad as I saw them all leaving. I know it´s only a week, but I´ve gotten very much used to all of those kids, we are like a big family, and I´ve missed them a lot.

After all the kids were gone, the high school felt eerily empty and strange, I didn´t like the feeling at all. With the compañeros, we left the school and walked to the lodge where we passed most of the rest of the day. We ate lunch and, shortly afterwards, my day became really great. Lizbeth had been preparing, for weeks, a big party in the community to celebrate the birthday of her brother, Robert. She needed to make two big cakes to serve everyone that was going to be there. Not many people know this about me, but I love to be in the kitchen, and I actually really know how to make a pretty good cake, so I volunteered to help. I know that this would be against the health code in the states, but I took off my shoes and installed myself, barefoot, in the kitchen of the Yachana lodge and began whipping up the mixings for two very large cakes. I don´t think I have ever mixed up such a large batch; fortunately, we had an electric beater. The chocolate cake came out delicious, I´m proud to say. Meagan turned out to be very talented with icing and drew a very impressive “¡Feliz Cumpleaños Robert!” along with flowers.

Later that night, the party would turn out to be the highlight of the day. Robert, the cumpleañero, was the DJ, guest and host of honor. There were very fun and entertaining games, the whole community was out and, later, there was dancing, followed by more dancing. As you´re reading this, if you take this next part the wrong way, it´s because you don´t really know me. After several weeks of getting use to the selva, adapting, overcoming obstacles and straight teaching every day with limited materials and nearly zero technology, among other things, I definitely needed a beer and it was the best damn tasting $1.00 Pilsener I have drank in my life! What I was alluding to with the “knowing or not knowing me part”, is that doesn’t mean that I got intoxicated or anything ridiculous like that, because I most certainly didn’t. I simply enjoyed a single, well-deserved, brew. The dance brought my back to my Buenos Aires days, when I used to go out with a big group of friends and dance all night long. Keeping in mind that we’re in the jungle, we danced until 01:30, until the poor generator could take no more; I haven’t felt so alive in quite a long time. I might not be the greatest dancer, and I’m far from professional, but I just love to do it. ¡Qué viva el cumpleañero!

I´ll group Tena and Misahuallí together. Tena was fun, it isn´t a big city, but it is nice, the people seem hospitable and it is relaxing. You have the luxuries that you miss in the jungle (electricity, warm water, internet, cell phone, limited bugs, etc.), minus the rush and die of a city overfull like Quito. Don´t ask me what “rush and die” means, it just came to me like that. I think I had in mind something like, “In a hurry to get nowhere,” or, “In a hurry to die,” thus, “rush and die.” We went out on Saturday night in Tena and it was just as great, if not better, as the dancing of the previous night. At 02:00, leaving the club in Tena, someone in the group had caught wind of a party in the outskirts of the city. We all jumped into a taxi-truck, that´s right, a taxi-truck, with the girls up front in the crew cab and the guys all in the back, and, $1.00 dollar later, we arrived at a party at the house of someone I didn´t know at all. On the rooftop of their house, we continued dancing until 03:30! Lizbeth was very clever in acquiring the number of the taxi-truck before her left us, and we called him up to have him pick us up.

The next day, we went to Misahuallí, a very interesting little town/community with a bunch of monkeys. I know that people love monkeys and they think they´re cute and all, but I really don´t trust them one bit, they´re sketchy as hell. If you let your guard down, they will grab whatever you might have on you at the time (cell phones, cameras, watches, etc.) and smash it against whatever hard thing they can find. They are also mean little suckers, one of the compañeros got threatened big time over some food. I apologize to certain readers, you know who you are, ahead of time for what I´m about to say, but the monkey went, well, ape-shit crazy J.

Finally, I´d like to end with my return to Quito. Lizbeth´s younger sister lives in Quito, but she recently moved here and has only been for a few weeks; she will be studying at the UCA later, but is working for the time being. Liz wanted to see her sister and get to know Quito a little better. I was more than thrilled because I get along very well with her and I also know Quito really well at this point. I can´t tell you how good it was to not have to travel alone. Trust me, I´m not looking forward to it in the next few days.

I had a great time in Quito showing Liz around. It felt great to know where to go and be able to point out different places and accommodate. I have never really been a guide before, so I had a great time of it. The rain didn´t impede us too much, but it was rather cold at times. We went to all of my favorite places in Quito: to the major shopping centers (El Jardín, CCI, Equicentro), the Centro Histórico, the Basilica (from afar), the Panecillo (from afar), Plaza Grande (the central plaza with the government house and everything), The Water Museum (Yacu), the Mariscal, the taxis, the colectivos (argentine for bus, in Ecuador they say “bus” or “omnibus”), the ecovía and everything in between. To be entirely honest, these were probably the best days I have ever had in Quito, and I am beginning to really like this city, it grows on you. Don´t worry Buenos Aires, you will always be my first love. 


Postdata:

I decided to go to Tena from Quito last night. I left Quito, arriving at the terminal right at 6pm, just in time to see that Ecuador was beating Venezuela 2-0 and Argentina was smashing Chile! That helped the night along. It took about 5 hours for us to get to Tena; the bus stopped in every single little town on the way. I sat up front, next to the driver, and it was an interesting experience. I could see everything, which was great and terrifying at the same time. Highways in Ecuador only have two lanes, when you pass in a big bus, it's a bit scary. Add to that curves around mountains, fog and a bunch of blind spots, and you can understand my fear.

I got into Tena around 23:00-00:00, checked into an $8 dollar a night hostal and crashed. I caught the bus out of Tena to Los Ríos this morning and the trip lasted about 3 hours. That was with the wait for a fallen tree on the road, which was removed by machete. The bus driver loaned the machete to some guy in a pickup, he cut up the tree and moved it and took off with the machete! Don't worry, we caught up to him later and stole the machete back. We arrived at Los Ríos just in time to wait 3 hours because they had forgotten to send a canoe to come and pick us up.

I´m back in the school with a million things to tell, but I´ll fill you in later. It´s dinner time!