Frida Kahlo day and all her colors

Riding on the back of a truck through the andes is not a good idea

We planned to leave Tarapoto earlier, but we got stuck in pulls of waterfalls that looked like something out of fairytales. We swam all day, and climbed rocks, and when it was time to go back, already dark, there were no more buses returning to Tarapoto, only families that offer the back of their pick-up trucks, along with everyone else they can pick up all the things they have bought in Tarapoto. Its extremely cheap, and it seems like there is always room for one more person, although there really really isnt. But somehow it happens. We had no choice but to climb on, on top of sheets of metal, and many other things we couldnt see because it was so dark, but didnt care because we were so tired.
We squeezed past people alread in the truck, and i sat down in the far corner of the truck, on mounds of what seemed like cushioned surface. I began to scream a few minutes later when I realized that i was sitting on thin burlap bags filled with piglets who were biting me and screaming themselves. I started to cry out of anger and fear that i had killed them, while Molly and Franca and the old woman who owned them were laughing. Then we heard chickens, and realized that we were sitting with a whole farm of animals, with bags of baby chickens hanging off the side of the truck. I slept/cried/laughed the entire way back, avoiding angry piglets, and trying to look at the stars and the rocks that dont fall from the mountain and smash the car only by chance. Five hours later, we were finally back.

El Indio Luis

We met a man who goes by El Indio Luis, probably in his 30´s. He´s an artisan and street vendor, and at night he makes jewelry out of colorful seeds. He gave us anklets as a present for travelling in Latin America. He´s from Chiclayo, where he teaches free classes to kids. He told us about his travels through the continent (he travelled six years throughout latin america, making jewelry and selling it at night). He told us about every place, but Brazil, he said, he would never return to. He said if it had been faster, he would have swam the whole Amazon to get out of Brazil. When we asked him why, he said ´´las mujeres!´´ ¨Thos Brazilian women know what they want¨, he said. His ´chica´next to him making jewelry just laughed.

Capital Of Folklore

This past weekend we went on a crowded tiny bus, back to Tarapoto, with signs calling it the capital of folklore. To go from one city to the other, we have to pass through a part of Andes which is terrifying because the roads are narrow and they curve upwards, with no fence to protect the extremely tired drivers. But we made it, though everything seems in question during the ride. We had been there the week before, in the middle of las pandillas, a festival that celebrates the region´s indigenous heritage, the main part being the live music and the dancing that left us with bruised knees and elbows. I met a graduate student from France who comes to Peru every year for the Festival de Cuenta Cuentos (festival of storytelling), which was going on now. We spent most of the night with him, going to our favorite international little bar that knows us by now, because within minutes of our arrival, they put on Guantanamera, my favorite song, and the rest of the night is a repertoir of cuban music, and some blues.
There are always festival going on in Tarapoto and Yurimaguas. In a few weeks, Yurimaguas will have its folklore festival, which lasts the whole month. There is also a tense political situation going on, having to do with a land law that just passed. The government passed a law that said the land belonged to the indigenous residents of the region, but companies and government officials have ignored the law and use the land for the production of ethanol, sometimes bribing the residents into not working the land, but instead receiving a stipend for giving it up. People around here say its a matter of time before the whole region explodes. The political graffiti on the walls are picking up, and most of it is about the law.

Motocycleta y Lluvia

Today might have been the most ridiculous adventure of the past week. We decided to look for more rivers, so we rode a motorcyle an hour down a highway that goes deeper into the jungle. We found a town called Pucamayo, walked and walked until we found barbed wire and a small gate that led to a small hill that oversees a river. The river is so low from the lack of rain, that we crossed it with the water only coming up to our knees, and we found a tiny island, the width of a house, and there were hudreds of tiny neon colored butterflies. We spent along time swimming around it and seeing how far we could go before we got scared of snakes or anything else that we couldnt see. By the time we decided to leave, there were three big bulls with sharp horns waiting for us, and watching us, protecting the baby bull that was walking around. We tried to walk up the small hill in silence so that they wouldn{t notice us, but all of a sudden, they began to charge at us. (the attack, if it had been successful, was vicious and uncalled for). We had no where else to go, but to jump in the river.
Franca´s shoe got stuck in the mud on the run down, so she tripped and more like flew into the river, but we did not know the detail about the shoe, we just though she jumped, so we jumped in after her, with all our clothes and backpacks. ..
We waited in the river while the bulls made angry grunts and kicked their hooves against the mud as it flung in the air. Finally, after what seemed like a long time, some brave men from the town we thought was unpopulated, and scarred off the bulls, while we climbed under the barbed wire, to the safety of a rickety motorcycle, one less shoe.

When we returned to our little metropolis, we were set up with yet another neighbor´s dashing son, who took Franca and I on a motorcycle ride through empty beautiful roads. It began to rain very heavily, but there was no where to go, because it was just an open road. I drank the water off of my hair, mostly because there was nothing else to do, and because the rain here tastes sweet.

We´re stuck in the most violent rainstorms ive ever seen, and the most beautiful. Althought every day seems to be a crazy adventure, there is so much time to just think. Yesterday was a rough day, and I started to wonder if id be happier continuing earlier, and not spending time alone here afterwards, but after today´s class, the excitement of the first days returned. We started with this poem:

Soy mujer

Soy todas las mujeres

Soy una fuente de creatividad
Soy una fuente de maravilla

Soy una fuente
Soy muchas partes de una persona

Soy el epitome de dolor y placer

Soy pura y preciosa

Soy un fenómeno
Soy un espíritu libre

Soy felina y agresiva

Estoy llena de temor

Soy una fuente de temor
Soy sensual

Estoy suculenta de carne

Soy una sirena subreal

Soy sudor – Soy la serpiente
Soy el ritmo de la cólera

Soy el ritmo del ciclo

Soy el refugio

Tengo un apetito voraz

Soy una realidad rítmica
Soy la joya en creación

Soy mujer

Estoy aquí

SoyYo
por Eilish Mc Art

We talked a lot about bodies, and they giggled for most of it (the class seems to begin and end with giggling). But I told them they should be as bad as they want.

Alfonsina Storni in Yurimaguas

We arrived in Yurimaguas a few days ago, after not having slept at all the night before in Tarapoto. We are living with 20 girls and a nun, and a basque priest. I get the feeling the nuns are pretty revolutionary. We were up all night with the girls who were teaching us traditional Peruvian dances, which involve a lot of jumping. We´ve been getting adjusted to everything before we start teaching the class.
First lesson: Yo Soy. where we´ll be reading Alfonsina Storni
Crossing the river Huallaga, a man in a truck yelled, {wellcome to the capital of heaven{- We ended up jumping in the river, and im glad we could not see underneath us. The currents in the Amazon are very strong, and things you didnt know exist live underneath the water. There are tiny parasitic fish that swim up the vagina, so thats not cool.
Being here made me realize why ive chosen these specific places to spend my time in, in Latin America. I dont care for cities at all. Like in the Amazon, and in Tacuarembo, near the border of Brazil where ill be, its these areas that sustain the entire country, and its where culture is the most alive, the most concentrated, not the other way around.

Through the Andes to the Amazon

We finally arrived in the Amazon, in a city called Tarapoto. It´s known as ¨la ceja de los Andes¨, or the eyebrow of the Andes, where the spine of the Andes ends, and the jungle begins. We´ve only been here one day, but i don´t know how i could ever leave. We had to stay in this city for a night, before heading to Yurimaguas, because roads are blocked from a national strike that occured yesterday. We rode all over the town, and up mountain roads, avoiding giant fallen rocks, and crossed the river, and found where dance pandillas (gangs) were being held. Pandillas are when anyone walking by is asked to join in and dance, and a bowl of intensely alcoholic jungle grape, yuca and maiz drink is passed around, and everyone dances in a circle and runs into each other and runs around each other. It is very intimate.
Time passes so slowly here, I feel like I can´t even write fast, it´s like everything has slowed down. I´ve been trying to write poetry, or to record, but I can´t yet, because there´s only dancing and music and eating wild boars and hallucinogenic cactus. It´s winter here, though, so sometimes it drops to a 90 degrees.