Amazon and on...

Its hard for me to process what I need to say. I just returned from a 6-day field trip in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and though I’ve visited the area before, and saw what I thought were similar areas in Costa Rica, here I experienced an energy and mystery unlike I ever have before. Or at least I’ve never embraced it the way I did this past week. I experienced extreme joy, extreme sorrow, extreme confusion and extreme sureness. At times I felt homesick from the incredible closeness of this family and these friends looking forward to rekindling that with family and friends and home, while other times I felt like I could abandon everything and live there forever. Until I can further process this experience, and use it to rebalance (because I think this is what will ultimately come of these extremes) I’ll leave you with two of my journal entries:

(Excerpt from my journal-11/4/09)

I know that people live like this. I know that way too many people live like this. I know this, because I’ve seen dozen of documentaries that prove this awful truth. But still, sitting on that contaminated hectare of land, taking to the hopeless duena, we’ll call her Maria, as she explained her inability to relocate her sick family, brought me to tears. They probably blended in with the sweat dripping off my face, as I did my best to keep my cool among my silent peers, but as I stood there in the humid heat of the Ecuadorian Amazon, I realized that I, like her, felt helpless.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected this same way due to the oil exploitation in the Amazon Basin. This particular site, less than 5o meters from the wells, had be “recuperated” by Texaco after they left in 2002, but still produced an oily pool and disgusting odor of contaminated black earth when dug less than a foot below the surface.

For every one barrel of oil that this small plant produces, they dump 15 barrels of contaminated wastewater into local streams and rivers, eventually feeding into the Amazon and later the Atlantic. This water invades the soil contaminating the cacao that Maria produces for export to the United States and Europe. This water is drunk by Maria and her family when the rainwater catcher/filter presented to Maria by Sting’s wife (this is how grave the situation is) from Friends of the Amazon and UNICEF runs out. This is the water that makes Maria and her family perpetually sick and resulted in Maria’s mango-sized tumor on her ankle. This is the water that killed Maria’s neighbor and her seven-year-old daughter of liver cancer. All of this, because they have no choice.

They have no money. No one will buy contaminated land, not even the oil companies. Why? Because its almost gone. The whole of the Ecuadorian Amazon has enough oil to supply U.S. drivers with fuel for one day, yet we continue to exploit.

This conversation. Those tears. And so much more. Then, we hopped in our gas-guzzling tour bus, quenched our thirst with our imported Dasani water bottles and drove away. ________________?!?! I can’t decide which frustrating exclamation to put here. Maybe take a moment to think about this yourself. What would you say? What would you do? What can we say? What can we do?

Cut the shit. This is it. This is why I came to Ecuador. And now I have to do more.

(Excerpt from my journal 11/6/09)

I’m sitting here inside my green-tinted mosquito net, writing in my battered field notebook, trying not to crinkle my leaf samples pressed in the back cover, noticing apathetically how horrible my handwriting has become, listening to Andres play his guitar outside on the bench, wondering how to express where I am, besides in an indescribably good place.

I don’t even know exactly where I am, physically. Though we’ve spent the last few days of our field trip of “El Oriente” in the middle of rare primary forests, eating off the land, swimming and bathing in the river (for lack of running water and electricity) discovering a shit-ton from the mysterious jungle by day and by the shadows of our candles on the river by night, I still don’t know where I am on a map and I’m okay with that.

The freedom of being directionless has been liberating. There are no trails; we make them with a machete. There are no expectations of presentation; I’ve been covered with mud all week. There is barely a schedule; I can stumble slowly through the dark jungle, finding my way without a flashlight and not worry about being late. There are no pressures; I can smoke tobacco rolled in a banana leaf with the dueno as he tells me stories, knowing that this is what I’m supposed to be doing: learning from the locals, the land and the love of the people around me.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever learned this much in this short a period of time. Not just about plants that cure cancer and schizophrenia, not just about the process of oil production, not just about community solidarity and collaboration, but also about myself. This whole time, I’ve been trying to narrow my focus and figure out details and priorities about how my life will go by crossing off lists and trying to organize and simplify everything. If there’s one thing that our productivity-oriented society drives us toward, its specialization. Now, its not that I’ve abandoned all this, but this sneak peak into this polar opposite lifestyle has reminded me that all of the time and energy that it takes to care about all of this, takes us away from caring about other things. We don’t have to specialize in what we care about! And we shouldn’t.

Now realistically, there must be some focus, but I feel like my peripheral vision has doubled and I have no desire to look through a narrow tunnel to an endpoint. Forward direction doesn’t require directions. I don’t care anymore, because I care now.