Iquitos and the first night in the Amazon

I tried to post this last night but have been unable to connect to the internet. Tonight, it took me 40 minutes of patience for the page to upload, so hopefully this works! Yesterday, we flew into Iquitos. It was a lovely, warm summer rain when we landed. We made our way to thte hostal to drop off our bags and then walked around the town a little bit. Came back for a quick meeting. Iquitos is celebrating its 150th anniversary, so there was a lot going on in town last night! We saw a lot of performers, including a drummer/ snake dancer combo, comedic dancers, one of which was a man dressed like a woman and dancing around in high heels, and a set of young boys who were breakdancers. The most impressive thing about them was that they did everything barefoot on the stone. Ouch! While we were watching, I ended up talking (or trying to with my very awful Spanish) to a young girl named Jennifer. She was 15 and with a friend and two younger children, who I later found out were her brother and sister. She explained to us this game that they had set up, you take .10 sole pieces (analogous to a dime) and throw them onto the board, which is composed of many rectangles, weach of which has a number on it. If you get the piece in the box without touching any of the border, then you win that much money back. I did not win at all. Then we walked down the street where they had stages set up with a live band. Everyone else just stood and watched the band, but we started dancing and we danced for hours! Throughout the time, other people would come dance with us for a little bit. I danced with a lot of young kids, who I’d guess at aboutu 4 years old. They all gave me hugs afterwards and I was so happy. I later found out that Jennifer’s mother had passed away, leaving her as a maternal figure for her younger siblings. I could tell she took care of them with such grace and I wanted to be able to tell her that, and to be somewhat of a big sister to her, if she ever needed it. Again, my Spanish was inadequate and all I could say was that she is beautiful. I hope she understood what I meant by that. Being able to speak so little with these kids but feeling so much by their short presence in my life reminds me of the humanity in us all, that regardless of who or where we are, we have the capacity to love and to be loved. This morning, we went to the market where I bought eight starfruit for one sole, which is approximately 30 cents! Starfruit is my favorite fruit down here, so I wanted to stock up ☺ then, we went to IMET, which is part of Peru’s public health system. They are currently performing studies on various medicinal plants, in order to scientifically prove there beneficial physiological activities. Two major plants that show promise are Sangre de grato (dragon’s blood) and uña de gato (cat’s claw). He told us that in general, it is very difficult to keep the plants that they are testing the same, because the properties may change with the age of the plant, the parts used, and the altitude at which it grows. There is also difficulty in distinguishing one species from another, or if they are even different species at all. I really hope that they can draw some nice conclusions from their experiments and earn some respect for complementary medicine from the scientific community. After that, we ate lunch (rice wrapped in a banana leaf and some other snacks) and then finally, took the 2 ½ hour boat ride into the heart of the Amazon. We settled into our rooms and walked around the ReNu PeRu Ethnobotanical garden that professor helped establish. On our trip is a man named Rodolfo Vaquez, who is one of the greatest botanists in all of peru. Professora said that she has been trying to get him to come for years, and this time her finally said yes. She is learning a lot more about the plants from him and she is really excited about him being here. The Amazon is still as beautiful as I remember it, although the water is about 20 feet more shallow than last time. The soccer field at the base of the lodge is actually visible now. Last time, it was completely under water. The sounds are still magnificent, a beautiful chorus of birds, frogs and bugs. I am so content, swaying gently in a hammock and enjoying the warmth of my favorite place.