Remember the summer days you used to have in your childhood? Makeshift games of kick the can, adventures trekking through the creek mimicking Indiana Jones. I never worried about the germs that may be having a landrun through the plains of my hands or the scrapes forming scabs on my knees Maybe development is the perfect career for mixing work and play.
Dan, Fabio and I grabbed a 30 meter tape measure, a notebook, a machete and approximately one gallon of bug repellent in preparation for the hike up to the Colegio’s agricultural fields to make a lofty attempt at mapping the area.
Mono, which actually means monkey in Spanish, happens to be the nickname of the long-haired, hard-working chef of the Colegio. Mono hiked up from his home in Mondana with his two kids that morning and was diligently sweeping the floors of the comedor when we found him. Simple, quiet, straightforward, Mono graciously supplied us with his menu, more or less, for the year at the Colegio, in hopes that we could plan agricultural plots that could better serve the high school and the products they needed.
After receiving our helpful guidelines, with ideas brewing in our heads, we hiked down into the terrenos which have become such a familiar home in my short time here. The next five hours looked something like a GIS topographer’s nightmare. One 30 meter tape measure was dragged through the rugged forest with our best attempts at direct lines. I would hold down the fort in the middle of a chaotic fury of corn and plantain and peppers and god knows what else as the boys drug the other end of the tape as long as it would stretch, at which point they’d chop down a branch of yucca or banana trees to place as an x-marks-the-spot treasure for me to find. I spent most of my lonely time waiting in the middle of the jungle gawking at the soup of organic matter in beautiful disarray on the forest floor, imagining the millions of different life forms that call that one square meter home. My hippy-dippy natural repellent, needless to say, isn’t powerful enough to repel the fear that ensues from standing in the jungle alone, looking down to find centipedes crawling up my rubber boots. Soon, Fabio shouts “listo!” and I begin a slight trot towards the boys, feigning tranquility as soon as they can see me again. Mono showed up armed with his machete to assist in the messy attempts at cutting make-shift paths through the over-grown jungle plots.
The afternoon sun made its appearance bursting through suddenly blue skies. Desperate for rehydration, the universe answered my call with a naranjillo tree. Fabio darts to the left and after a few minutes says, “Come!”. He’s chopped down one of the luscious, orange fruits for me and begins to peel back nature’s packaging with his machete. “How do I eat it?” asks the inexperienced Gringo. “Bite and suck!!” responds the amused Amazonian.
We needed to measure another plot. We needed to meet back at the Lodge with Douglas. We needed to do our daily exercises we’ve made routine during our days here. We wanted to jump in the river to cool ourselves off. A moment’s decision plopped three twenty-somethings right back into their childhood summertime memories in the middle of a Mondana resident’s property on some flat(ish) sand. As I lay there, sand in my hair, mud on my pants, sweat drenching my skin, eyes glancing out over my heavy rubber boots as I wallowed in the pain-staking cries ringing through my torso, I couldn’t help but smile at the peace of my day. Upon word of the last situp, like clockwork, no words exchanged, we were down the path and ducking under the last leaves overhead as we break out onto the shore of the river. Boots off, clothes off, skin gasping for air as its enveloped in freshness, in coolness. The boys immediately follow suit with the requisite competition – attempting to outswim each other upstream; they didn’t make it too far. I sat on the shore soaking up my happiness.
We make our way back through paths unexplored, stopping in a Mondana neighbor’s land at which Fabio converses with “Don Quixote”, the nickname of his friend who is drying coffee beans on a big mesh bag laid out along his muddy lawn. They exchange words I can’t understand as I ponder how incredibly content I feel in my clothes dripping in river water, my pants covered in mud a melting pot of plants and bugs, my hair a humid mass.
I truly enjoyed, for the first time, my cold shower as I cleaned off the day’s adventures. The tourists have all made their departure for the week and my co-workers are down at the Mondana volleyball game (I think its oil guys versus locals today), a cultural portrait of women cheering them on over their Ecuadorean Pilseners. I opted for a sunset alone. I close my day in paradise perched upon a comfy chair, listening to the symphony of the selva. Birds making the last calls of the day, monkeys whistling each other into the twilight, night insects taking stage, and a young man off in the distance casting his net over the river in hopes to catch the dusk’s offerings. I hear everything. I feel nothing. I feel free. I feel like a little girl who just had a great day in paradise.
No comments:
Post a Comment