Hello!

It’s one week now that I’m in Peru, so time to write down my first experiences before they start to become clouded. The trip to this country went without any problems worth mentioning, I had a long (almost 12 hours from Madrid) but good flight. As soon as I arrived I was welcomed by the delightful South American warmth and a taxista who would bring me to my sleeping place in Lima. I only stayed two nights in that city, to arrange some things like going to the Belgian embassy, where I was received by two friendly people from the Belgian development cooperation. Also, I arranged my flight to Iquitos for the next day – taking a domestic flight in Peru is quite easy, especially outside the touristic season. Lima looked to me like a busy and lively city, so it’s a bit sad I couldn’t see more of it, but probably there’ll be more opportunities. That day I also started having a sore throat, which turned out to be pharyngitis and would bother me for the rest of the week –partly because of the not so very good antibiotics the Iquitos farmacía decided to give me.

The flight to Iquitos also went smoothly and gave a nice view over the fantastic Peruvian selva. To everyone’s comfort: there’s still quite a lot of it left. Let’s only hope politicians will be dedicated to keeping it that way. The arrival at Iquitos was like entering another world. It started with the quiet little airport, where they just let the old planes quietly rust away. I was glad to be received by my Belgian colleague Felien, who immediately arranged us a mototaxi to the centre for a fair price. These mototaxis make up for most of the transport in the city. Besides these you have the people who have their own motorcycle, some buses and very few cars. This is because Iquitos, which is a city of more or less 400.000 inhabitants, isn’t connected to any road system, which makes it only possible to get to the city by plane or by boat. It is said to be the biggest city in the world that can’t be reached by car.

Upon arrival I was appointed a room with all necessary comfort. I have a bed, a rocking chair and a closet. Something that pretends to be a door leads me to my little bathroom with a toilet, shower and sink. My neighbours include my Belgian colleague Felien, an Italian guy (who sings Spanish the Italian way) and a friendly Peruvian family. In the room next to me there’s also a drunken Peruvian guy, who already managed to keep me awake for most of the first night, but has been relatively silent since then. Relatively.

The next morning I immediately had a first chance to meet the leaders of the indigenous organisations with which we work together. Their communities are quite some distance from Iquitos, near the Colombian border at the Putumayo River, but as part of an action against the coming of a Brazilian oil firm to that area they had travelled to both Lima and Iquitos to give a press conference about their situation. Also, I met with my three Peruvian colleagues from the organisation and with Tomas, a Secoya who is studying health care in Iquitos thanks to the funds we collect in Belgium. My other work for the organisation this week is a bit too boring to talk about, as it was mainly reading a lot of texts to be up to date with everything that is happening lately and filling in documents that will be sent to Belgium.

This gives a little more time to talk about Iquitos, the city I’ll be staying in for most of the time the coming six months. Because it is such a big but remote city it has a very special charm and character to it. The most important thing you have to get used to is the noise in the city. I thought Lima was already noisy, but Iquitos manages to take this to a whole new level. Most important reason for this are all the mototaxis and motorcycles in the city, but in the evening you also have the impression there’s music coming from everywhere. Then there’s also the heat off course, but I’ve never had that much problems with hot climates and as long as you have an electric fan nearby it’s possible to work here. And finally the tropical rainstorms give some refreshment from time to time (although on those moments I’m also glad the office of the organisation is just across the street from where I live) and make me think about Belgium again. All in all I can say I really like the atmosphere here and the people are very friendly (maybe a bit too friendly sometimes, it’s a bit annoying when strangers are calling you ‘friend’ or ‘amigo’ just to try to get something from you). Despite my being a bit sick a great first week, hopefully there are a lot more to come!

A lot of greetings to everyone in Belgium and beyond,

Jeroen