Day 5

Saturday, August, 8, 2014

The day starts out like every other.  Wake up, dress, breakfast, fill water bottle, begin the day.

Instead of heading to the work sight in the morning we took a canoe ride across the river to a farm. 

We jump out of the canoe and walk down a gravel and dirt road to then turn onto a smaller path that took us to the farm. 

We all sit on long benches that form a semi circle facing the house. 

The house, like all the other homes I have seen so far, is raised off the ground in anticipation of floods. 

There are large blue basins with cloths strapped across the top of them to catch and strain rain water.

There are chickens and dogs roaming around and all around us the jungle is alive.

To my right there are coconuts on palms and coffee trees, the sun that reaches us on the benches is softened by the leaves as they filter out the bright intense light. 

The air is humid and sticky.  I am starting to get used to the humidity, but it still bothers me. 

A small couple; a man and a woman stand in front of us.  This is their home, their farm, and their livelihood.

Another man stands beside them.  He was on the first canoe ride to the lodge but I haven’t really noticed him since then.

He introduces himself as “Mauricio” and explains that he will be translating for the couple. 

Later I find that he is our guide, along with Rodrigo, on some of the activities we do that take us away from the build site and the lodge. 

I think that this is as good a time as any other to say that Mauricio is gorgeous.  Imagine the most buff Amazonian man you can think of, add a low rough voice, dark eyes, perfectly fitted t-shirt, and amazing arms.  That was Mauricio. 

It is safe to say pretty much every girl had a “little” crush on Mauricio by the end of the trip and it was on that very first day at the farm that we all noticed those arms, those heavenly arms. 

The man that owned the farm started to talk about his life story.

He grew up in a mountain village but his family needed money so he went to Tena to work.  He ended up with a farm that was good except it was very very far from the Napo river and would take him days to hull all of his produce to the river to then take it to the market to sell. So he got a new farm which is closer to the Napo river, except that it has no clean water near it. 

Right now they are collecting rain water, and water from a near by stream but neither are clean. 

He talked about how he met his wife and about their children. 

He told a story about how a lady was travelling in the area and learnt about his water situation and decided to help.  He told her about a water fall that had clean water but was too far to walk to and she asked how far away it was.  He guessed and she went to Tena and bought him pipe lines.  Only later they found out that the water fall was much further then he had said and by that time the lady had to go back home.  And they still have no way of getting clean water.

After he told his story we split up into two groups.  The group I was in went into the forest to harvest coffee beans. 

Coffee beans grow on long thin branches and to harvest them we put a blanket on the ground under a tree and stripped the beans off the branches.

After harvesting for about 10 minutes we carried the beans back to the farm and switched jobs with the other group. 

While they went to harvest more coffee beans, we took buckets to collect water. 

We walked for about 5-8 minutes to the river and collected water in the buckets.  Then walked back and dumped all of the water into a large barrel. 

At this point the other group had joined us back at the farm and we took a break to have some fruit. 

The fruit was from heaven itself.  I don’t even like fruit.  In fact I basically hate all fruit, but this fruit, oh my word.  Imagine the most juicy sweet sun kissed grapefruits, oranges, mangos, lemons, limes, bananas (which I didn’t try but apparently they were good…I am allergic to bananas…Its genetic, I know it is a weird allergy) 

We then went over to a coconut tree where Mauricio was cutting off the bark of a coconut with a machete.  *moment of silence for the arms* Then we had coconut milk and bit off pieces of splendid coconut for like 15 minutes. 

Around 12 we headed back to the canoes and went back to the lodge for lunch. 

After lunch we refilled our water bottles. Side note: I drank so much freaking water on this trip…no I am not even kidding, if you see me in real life I have a cup of water in my hand constantly, its like my thing.  So yeah I drink a lot of water in general so I know what drinking a lot of water is like.  But no, no, no, love this was insane.  I drank water like it was air, which was a good thing.

Back on topic.

We then went to the build site and continued digging, and making wood walls, and filling ditches in with dirt for 2 hours. 

After work we went to the soccer stadium and played a game of soccer against some of the local kids.  Who won the game.  Also the soccer stadium is actually intense and you can't help but notice how seriously soccer is taken there.

We then went back to the lodge, showered, and went to the big gazebo for supper.  After supper Rodrigo went over some Spanish words so that we could talk to some of the kids in the village. 

I was sitting beside Kinsey who I roomed with on the first night in Quito and haven’t really introduced yet.

Kinsey. Is. Hilarious.  No like this girl has serious funny skills. She is 18 but I didn’t know that for over half the trip because she seems so…so young.  I don’t think that made any sense…You know how some people get kind of “I know the secret to life because I can now change my name, go to jail, and run away from home legally”..yeah well Kinsey wasn’t at all like that.

Anyways there was this simple conversation that Rodrigo wanted everyone to have with the two people beside them.  SO it started at the end of our table.  And well when it got to me and Kinsey we completely messed it up.

What our conversation was supposed to look like it this:

Kinsey: “Como se llama?”  (pronounced, “Como say yama?” Which means “what is your name”)

Me: “me llamo Katie” (pronounced, “May yam-oh Katie” which means “I call myself Katie”)

What actually happened:

Kinsey: “Camo saw yama?” *intense laughter*

Me: “Mayonaise Katie” By this time everyone is yelling what I am supposed to be saying in Spanish and Kinsey is laughing and I am laughing and then I turn to Ivana beside me

Me: como-Me-Jamas 

And then Ivana takes it from there and I think either the entire room is laughing or it is just me and everyone else is just thinking “what the heck is wrong with her”

And that ladies and gents was my Spanish lesson for the evening.

After the Spanish lesson we moved all the tables to the sides of the room and made a huge circle out of chairs to play “move your butt”. Which is a lot like musical chairs in the sense that it is violent and causes intense emotional stress. 

So the rules of the game are that one person is to stand in the middle and they are to say something that relates to them like “move your butt if you hate bananas” and then everyone that hates bananas has to get out of their chairs and switch with someone else that hates bananas.  But this is done in a very rushed manor because there is one less chair then needed so everyone is going to find a chair except one poor soul that is going to be chair-less and then has to think of something that relates to them and then find a chair before everything it taken.  Also you can’t just go to a chair right beside you and you can’t go back to your own chair. 

The game is extremely fun and if I ever have a large group of people with a ton of chairs we are totally playing this because a: you get to push people off chairs and it is socially acceptable and b: sometimes you get to play with a Kinsey who is absolutely hilarious because she says things like

“move your butt if you hate birds”   * no one moves *

“move your butt if you hate the bodies of water” * no one moves *

“move your butt if you hate butterflies” *no one moves*

The someone got up to save her. 

After the game we move all of the chairs to the side and are told to stand in a line in the middle of the room. 

The rules of the next activity are then explained to us. 

There is an imaginary line in front of us. 

Esta or Katie is going to say something like “cross the line if you are left handed” and if you are left handed you cross the line. 

You then look around at all the other left handed people and then step back over the line. 

There is no talking and you don’t have to cross the line if you are too uncomfortable doing so.

The activity was pretty intense and some parts were very raw and some were heart breaking and some were very revealing. 

After the activity we circled up again and talked a little bit about it. 

Then we put the tables and chairs back and had like 1-2 hours before lights out so Kinsey, Ivana, Katie, Ioana, Summer, and I filled our water bottles and sat down for an honest old fashioned game of truth or dare. 

This was hilarious and for privacy issues I will not talk about this game anymore other than to say it was hilarious. 

After the game we all went to bed and I fell asleep feeling very open. 

Which was an uncomfortable feeling for me because I am, believe it or not, a very personal person.  What I didn’t know then was that I was going to lose literally every single wall that I had around any unshared part of me and I was to become an open book.

-Z