After settling down in a cheap bunkhouse close to the plaza I found myself faced with unlimited options for the first time on my trip. Not having any future commitments meant that I could spend as long as I desired here, but I had the feeling that this humidity was going to get on my nerves at some point, so I figured it would be no longer than a couple of weeks. As usual I met new people in the bunkhouse, nearly all of which had come to Iquitos especially to do multi day jungle tours, where as I had no idea what I was really here for.
Walking round this city was so fascinating that I found that to be an interesting enough experience in and of it’s self. As I looked around I could notice the signs of the times when this city was very wealthy. There were many huge buildings close to the main square which looked like they would have been expensive hotels back in the good old days; now most of them had been turned into banks, or convenience stores. As I walked down the boulevard I noticed old, dried up, unusual sculptures of concrete. I used my imagination to picture them being spectacular fountains, surrounded by rose gardens at some point in time. Now they were nothing more than broken down eye sores covered in graffiti. One thing that hadn’t changed over the years was the spectacular view of the Amazon. As I looked past the man made features I was struck by the grand presence of both the forest, and the river. I realized that this whole city owes its entire existence to this ecosystem.
The city first indulged in excessive wealth in the late 19th century, due to a huge rubber boom. This discovery was made with nearly no respect to the local people, or the environment itself. The people of the land were forced into slave hood, and the natural recourses were raped. This of course meant that those glory days were short lived. The natural resources were then once again tapped in the 1960s when oil made it a prosperous city once again, and now today the city owes much of its money to tourism throughout the Amazon. The city also relies on the river for cargo & transport to and from the city as there is no access by road. It fascinated me that this ecosystem continues to unconditionally support this city in different ways, but many of the people have no respect what so ever for the eco system. The river is used as a gigantic waste line for anything from sewerage to plastic bottles, and it seems that many of the tour agencies use the indigenous culture as a basis of their tourism, whist giving very little back to the actual communities.
After spending four or five days wondering around the city and going to some of the near by tourist attractions, I decided that a week was enough for me here. I had become good friends with a fellow traveler from California, Alex. We decided that a flight to Lima was the next best step. After looking around a few different places for some cheap flights, we found that the only options for cheap flights were still another week away. We were living cheaply so we decided that another week wouldn’t hurt. As I thought about what to do for a week, I remembered the girl that I met who was doing volunteer work here, Rachel. I’d traveled with her on the boat as well and realized that now was the perfect time to do some of the volunteer work with her.
The work she was doing was with Patch Adams. It was a huge project with over 100 people volunteering from all over the world. One part of it involved doing clown work with special needs children, and also in underprivileged neighborhoods. The other part involved painting the houses of one of the poor neighborhoods. I hadn’t had any prior “clowning experience,” so I figured that I’d be helping out with a paintbrush. The instructions were to meet up at the headquarters in the morning and go from there. The project seemed to have a great community feel within it so I was really looking forward to getting involved.
The meeting point in the morning was a scene of clowns getting ready wearing a range of crazy colorful outfits. I felt a wee bit out of place with my dull colored outfit, but luckily the painters didn’t need to look like clowns so it was ok. The neighborhood that we were going to had a reputation for being dangerous so we all piled on to the back of a truck and made our way down to the area. When we arrived I was given a tee shirt and a hat to paint with, which was good, at least I was wearing a uniform of some sort. This was great because I now felt part of the team. It also meant that when you walked around the area the locals knew you were part of the volunteer team, not just some lost gringo walking around.
After getting my painting kit on we were teamed up into groups of four, and then given two buckets of bright paint and the directions to the house that we needed to paint. Upon arrival at the house the lady of the house would tell us exactly how she wanted it to be painted. All the houses were raised high of the ground because in the rainy season the water level raises about ten meters, turning the whole area into a floating neighborhood. It was always an interesting challenge because most of the houses were just slapped together with pieces of wood. I’d joined into the project late so there were many houses that had already been painted. The colors looked very impressive and seemed to bring a lighter feel to these neighborhoods which are generally considered to be too be inaccessible for tourists. It also felt great to help out in a different way other than teaching English or Music. It didn’t take long before we were well involved in the project. After the first day of work we were invited to a concert that evening, which was to be held in the heart of the community.
The stage was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and the backdrop was decorated with many bright colors in true clown fashion. I was also very surprised by the amount of people that had shown up. It seemed that the people of the community had all turned out to take advantage of this unique opportunity. As I watched the concert begin, I realized that already I was experiencing the way things turn out once I let go of having an agenda. Things from this moment always worked out, I always met the right people at the right time, and even when things didn’t go to plan, they always worked out with a silver lining; (not getting the flights five days earlier when I originally wanted them is just one example of this.)
During the third song of the concert, Rachel said, “hey tonight is the music concert so why don’t you get up and perform a song?” I actually loved the idea straight away; one of the biggest things I’ve been missing on this trip has been performing on stage and playing with other people. Despite this I gave her a modest answer and said, “well I would like to play but I don’t really like to sing without a guitar, it just feels kinda strange, but if you can find a guitar I’ll play.” (I hadn’t seen any guitars by this point so I didn’t think that there were any around.) As the song finished the next guy walked on stage, and sure enough he was holding a guitar. Rachel then looked at me and I realized that I was now pretty much on the list to play. I decided to make it a bit more fun by getting her to perform with me. I thought about playing an original, but after going over many ideas we decided on a very simple Bob Marley song, it was the only one that we both knew, he is also very popular in South America so we figured that most people in the audience would know it as well.
After the guy walked off the stage I asked if I could borrow his guitar and he kindly agreed. I really had no idea when I’d be playing; we were basically waiting to squeeze in between two acts. After a short wait we were rushed on stage, I decided to exercise a bit of my Spanish by introducing the song saying, “esto es una cancion de Bob Marley, se llama Three Little Birds.” The MC of the concert was from Argentina, he knew the song so he joined in also. After singing through a couple of times he sang part of it in Spanish. It turned out being the perfect song to sing, everyone in the crowd sang along and I came off the stage with a massive high. Someone also happened to record part of it on video; you can check it out here:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1148545567&v=wall&story_fbid=1459786771840&ref=notif¬if_t=wall#!/video/video.php?v=110549162336458&subj=1148545567
On my third day of volunteering I had the opportunity to have a go at clowning. I had never done anything like this before so I jumped at the opportunity to have a go. As usual when I turned up, everyone had bright and beautiful clown outfits, and all I was wearing was some dull green shorts and a beige colored tee shirt. A friend noticed my lack of color and offered me a colorful tie, and I was also able to find a red nose to borrow for the morning, I learnt that the red nose is the most important accessory that a clown should own. We all pilled into this huge old Bedford style bus and headed to our first location, a school for children with special needs. I sat in the bus wondering how I was gong to approach this whole clowning thing, I was slightly nervous because I noticed most of the people were very extravert, whilst I very much considered myself to be more on the introverted side when it came to this sort of thing.
Upon arriving we all pilled out of the bus and immediately I noticed everyone had now turned into their clowning alter ego. I still hadn’t really decided on what my alter ego was going to be, so I just tried my best to communicate with the children some how. It was truly amazing to see how great full these children were for what these volunteers were giving them. This experience really taught me a lot. I had previously thought that clowning was simply letting go of being self conscious and just jumping around having no regard for you dignity what so ever. But I quickly learnt that although that is a small part of it, there is also a lot more to it.
All these people were very passionate about what they did, they saw it very differently. This sort of clowning was very much about creating a relationship with the child and through that relationship allowing them to express some part of themselves, allowing them to find a sense of self esteem & empowerment through that expression. These guys actually have amazing communication skills. As I observed them it was as if they used their character as a way to enter in to the fantasy world of the child and through that fantasy world they were able to communicate. I noticed the tremendous effect that this had on the children. For the first time in their lives a grown up person was actually entering their world to play with them, rather than encouraging them to let go of it.
It didn’t take long before my time volunteering was up, and the day of my flight had fast approached. Over a few days I had made so many friends and had so much fun helping out that I was slightly guttered that I was leaving. Never before had I been welcomed into such a huge group of people who were all simply putting their energy into helping not only communities, but also each other. It didn’t matter who you were, or where you were from. If you shared that same intention you were unconditionally welcomed as a member of the team. This project is an annual event and many of the clowns return year after year to do the work. After spending a few days I could see how people would want to return to participate each year.
The next step for me was Lima. I had been volunteering throughout the time with Alex. We were both heading in the same direction so we decided that we’d travel together for a few days. I enjoyed the boat ride here, but a flight was by far the easiest option to get to Lima. After my experience in Iquitos I was eager to see what other surprises my trip had in store for me. I’d now become comfortable with not really having a clue what’s going to happen, we had a basic plan to use Lima as a stop over point before heading to Huacachina, a small oasis near the coast which was very popular for sand boarding. I originally was going to take a direct route to Cusco, but figured a day or two sand boarding sounded like fun. After a long delay on our flight, our plane was finally on its way and I looked out at the Amazon for perhaps the final time of my trip.
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