Papa Sierra 25

A bit later than usually with my blog article, as yesterday I was on a visit in the district of Belén, something I had been looking forward to for some time. This district is for the most part built on the Itaya River and a lot of the houses there are literally floating. I had the opportunity to visit the family of one of my colleagues living in a house that is built on the ground, but in this time of the year the water around it is very deep and the first floor isn’t used as it is full of water. After making a small tour with a boat we arrived at the house to prepare and eat a delicious dinner. We started with tasting all kinds of Amazon fruits and after this we ate a plate with chicken and rice and a dish with fish and banana. The dinner was followed by a refreshing dive in the river and the visit was concluded by a strong Peruvian cocktail. In the early evening we returned to Iquitos, before it became too difficult to find boats that can bring you back to shore.

The evening before we had another party at the boat of the French volunteers, as one of the leaders of the project celebrated his birthday. Besides French and Peruvian people there was also one Russian guy, so I thought it was a good moment to start practising my Russian as well, but after exactly two seconds I had to let go of this plan. As his Spanish is even worse than mine we did however have some interesting conversations in English. He explained fleeing Russia some years ago to escape military service (and the system of dedovshchina that comes with it) and travelling a great part of the world before arriving in Peru. As he had studied history in Russia and was specialized in 20th century culture in his country, it was also fine to have some discussions about Russian history. Although the French probably found it a bit dull.

Another special experience I had on Friday evening. At the invitation of my Italian neighbour I went for the first time to a discotheque in Punchana, another district outside the centre of Iquitos. The contrast with the more upscale Noa in the centre was enormous. When coming in you have the impression to be in a dirty and slightly perverted Latino/R’n’B music clip. But one must say it had some special atmosphere and as the entrance is free you have a very diverse public coming there. First thing we did was buying a drink, together with some Peruvian friends of my neighbour, and instead of each receiving a glass it is the habit in such dancing places to buy one big bottle of beer with which you receive one small glass. The idea is that you fill the glass, drink it fast and give bottle and glass to the next person. One rather strange thing was that they were also projecting the movie Hotel Rwanda in the place. Not really the kind of movie I enjoy when being at a party.

During the week at the office I had been mostly busy with organizing the journey to the Putumayo River, where we’ll be travelling to from the 5th of May. As this is quite some work we even had to skip a march in the city that was organized to support the indigenous communities in the province, which was a bit unfortunate. Another important event was a meeting with ORPIO, the regional indigenous organization, on Friday. Also on that day during lunchtime I was invited to eat at the house of Leyla, one of my colleagues, where I was learned to eat fish the Peruvian way. This means you don’t only have to eat it with your hands, but that you also eat almost everything, including the head of the fish. It was quite crunchy, but there wasn’t a lot of taste to it and I must admit that this time I couldn’t bring myself to eating all of it. I was already glad my stomach didn’t react in a bad way, so maybe I’ll make a better attempt next time.

Goodbye for now,

Jero