Yesterday morning Maricarmen, Nicolay and I took the bus to Pilcopata, our jungle headquarters, capital of the district of Kosñipata, and one of the main doorways to Manu national park. Most of Maria's family lives here: her parents, 2 brothers with wives and kids, aunts, ouncles, etc.
The distance between Cusco and Pilco il 200 km, or 9 hours by bus (because we were lucky). We left at 9 am and by 10:30 I was seriously worried for my life. The landscape is beautiful but the road makes Tanzanian country roads look like highways: entirely unpaved, narrow, windy, carved in the mountain, which during the rain season means you cross a number of rivers and ponds, and pray you don't meet too many trucks coming the other way. At one point we all had to get off the bus for safety because we were crossing a huge muddy pond. Maricarmen was telling me about how once she came with a group of Spanish tourists who were literally crying the entire way. Finally I relaxed and fell asleep, only to be awaken by people shouting "Está cayendo!" (It's falling!)--the mountain, clearly. Some people wanted to get off the bus, but the majority convinced the driver to pass quickly before too much of the mountain fell and blocked our way. And my favourite part of the drive was when a waterfall had formed crossing the road and we drove under it, with the driver tellnig everyone to sit on the left side of the bus to balance it out.
(Now that my parents are probably about to pass out picturing me in that bus, I can tell you I won't be taking that road again during the rain season, so by next time I come to Pilcopata it should have improved significantly).
The jungle is goprgeous, the vegetation amazing. It is significantly poorer that the Valley, mainly because here they only produce fruit and have to import everything else, while there they produce food staples like potatoes and corn. Maria has this brilliant idea, and here's what we are planning to do (if there is local interest and funding): work with the poorest women in the jungle communities and give them microcredit loans to set up a fruit market in the main square of Pilcopata. Most tourists going to Manu national park stop by here, so it would be great to have stalls with all the different fruits with names and all (since you've never seen most of them), and sell juices, jams, fruit cakes, and the fruits themselves. We're planning to do something similar in the Valley with Andean products.
There is a coulpe, Alicia and Americo, who work closely with Maria here, taking care of her house and building the volunteer housing--which is looking great and hopefully it will be ready by April when 4 volunteers will be here. Americo took me by motorcycle to meet some people who live deep in the jungle in wooden houses (one room for people, animals, cooking, sleeping and washing, the river to bathe), to see if they would be suitable for volunteers. It would be interesting if the volunteers worked with them on the farm, but if I plan for the volunteers to survive I don't think they can live there...
We also met the priest, the guy in the shorts and baseball cap. Very different from the Italian idea of a priest. He's quite young and has just arrived here a couple month ago, and he is very active and interested in working with us on the project for women and in setting up an after-school program for kids. He'll start telling people about the project so when we come in April we can start.
In the afternoon I went with Maricarmen by motorcycle to Patria, 8 km from here. We visited her aunt, a little old lady with only one hand, who raised all her grandkids because her kids lived in Japan. She grows coca and was drying some to sell, and showed me her orchard. Her niece thought the automatic association between the coca plant and cocaine hilarious. Most people in these communities grow coca, it's a small plant about 1 m tall, and the leaves need to be handpicked and dried in the sun the next day. If they are not dried properly they become black and cannot be sold. It is then used for tea and as a medicinal plant. It takes various kilos of coca leaves to make 1 gram of cocaine. If you try to fly to the US or Europe with coca leaves you'll be stopped immediately, but if it weren't for cocaine it would be one of the most effective and widely used medicinal plants.
It's going to be harder to work in the jungle than in the Valley, because people are less organised and less eager to receive volunteers. Possibly because in the Valley they've seen tons of volunteers and NGO projects while here there are none.
The distance between Cusco and Pilco il 200 km, or 9 hours by bus (because we were lucky). We left at 9 am and by 10:30 I was seriously worried for my life. The landscape is beautiful but the road makes Tanzanian country roads look like highways: entirely unpaved, narrow, windy, carved in the mountain, which during the rain season means you cross a number of rivers and ponds, and pray you don't meet too many trucks coming the other way. At one point we all had to get off the bus for safety because we were crossing a huge muddy pond. Maricarmen was telling me about how once she came with a group of Spanish tourists who were literally crying the entire way. Finally I relaxed and fell asleep, only to be awaken by people shouting "Está cayendo!" (It's falling!)--the mountain, clearly. Some people wanted to get off the bus, but the majority convinced the driver to pass quickly before too much of the mountain fell and blocked our way. And my favourite part of the drive was when a waterfall had formed crossing the road and we drove under it, with the driver tellnig everyone to sit on the left side of the bus to balance it out.
(Now that my parents are probably about to pass out picturing me in that bus, I can tell you I won't be taking that road again during the rain season, so by next time I come to Pilcopata it should have improved significantly).
The jungle is goprgeous, the vegetation amazing. It is significantly poorer that the Valley, mainly because here they only produce fruit and have to import everything else, while there they produce food staples like potatoes and corn. Maria has this brilliant idea, and here's what we are planning to do (if there is local interest and funding): work with the poorest women in the jungle communities and give them microcredit loans to set up a fruit market in the main square of Pilcopata. Most tourists going to Manu national park stop by here, so it would be great to have stalls with all the different fruits with names and all (since you've never seen most of them), and sell juices, jams, fruit cakes, and the fruits themselves. We're planning to do something similar in the Valley with Andean products.
There is a coulpe, Alicia and Americo, who work closely with Maria here, taking care of her house and building the volunteer housing--which is looking great and hopefully it will be ready by April when 4 volunteers will be here. Americo took me by motorcycle to meet some people who live deep in the jungle in wooden houses (one room for people, animals, cooking, sleeping and washing, the river to bathe), to see if they would be suitable for volunteers. It would be interesting if the volunteers worked with them on the farm, but if I plan for the volunteers to survive I don't think they can live there...
We also met the priest, the guy in the shorts and baseball cap. Very different from the Italian idea of a priest. He's quite young and has just arrived here a couple month ago, and he is very active and interested in working with us on the project for women and in setting up an after-school program for kids. He'll start telling people about the project so when we come in April we can start.
In the afternoon I went with Maricarmen by motorcycle to Patria, 8 km from here. We visited her aunt, a little old lady with only one hand, who raised all her grandkids because her kids lived in Japan. She grows coca and was drying some to sell, and showed me her orchard. Her niece thought the automatic association between the coca plant and cocaine hilarious. Most people in these communities grow coca, it's a small plant about 1 m tall, and the leaves need to be handpicked and dried in the sun the next day. If they are not dried properly they become black and cannot be sold. It is then used for tea and as a medicinal plant. It takes various kilos of coca leaves to make 1 gram of cocaine. If you try to fly to the US or Europe with coca leaves you'll be stopped immediately, but if it weren't for cocaine it would be one of the most effective and widely used medicinal plants.
It's going to be harder to work in the jungle than in the Valley, because people are less organised and less eager to receive volunteers. Possibly because in the Valley they've seen tons of volunteers and NGO projects while here there are none.
I like it here but I had sensed right when I thought I wouldn't come to Peru to spend a year in Pilco: mountains, cold weather, and the city of Cusco are more for me. I'll download pictures as soon as I can (today my bag fell in the river and the camera got soaked, thankfully it still works!)
2 comments:
Sono sopravvissuto al racconto del viaggio in pulman; in effetti è noto che le corriere nelle Ande a volte finiscono giù nella valle...
Stai facendo un grande lavoro. Il prete di Pilcopata è cattolico, immagino.
Papà
capisco che la cultura cattolica ti sia estranea, ma un prete e' per definizione cattolico, altrimenti si chiama pastore...
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