Safe as Milk or: My Journey to the Putumayo Region

On the 5th of May I left Iquitos for a trip of three weeks to the Putumayo River, which forms the border between Peru and Colombia. It’s in this border region that the indigenous peoples live that Vzw Putumayo is supporting, so it was an opportunity to see the results and problems of some of the projects from close by. The trip didn’t start very well as I became sick the day before we were leaving. With the necessary quantities of antibiotics however I managed to get well soon and against all odds I didn’t get sick during the whole rest of the journey. This journey would take 22 days for me and my colleague, agricultural engineer Sixto and the first 10 days we would be accompanied by Ellen, president of the Belgian branch of the organization, who would be working to do the final part of her fieldwork for her PhD.

Our first goal was El Estrecho, a city that can be reached relatively easy by plane from Iquitos. The first day there we used to buy some necessary supplies for the trip like drinking water, bread and conserve food. After one night of rest in a local hostel, we took off for our first boat trip. A pequé-pequé, a small motorboat, brought us to the Huitoto community of Puerto Limón, a journey that took us the whole day, of which unfortunately it was raining almost half of the time. In this village I could finally see the rice peeling machine that was installed with the support of Vzw Putumayo for the communal enterprise MOK+A+. During the morning of the 7th of May a meeting was planned with the Board of Directors of this enterprise. More information about what we discussed on the meetings and our work will soon be found on the official Putumayo blog.

The following day was again spent on the water as we had to get to the Alto Putumayo region were the Secoya communities and a great number of Kichwa communities are located. To get there we would normally take a Colombian line boat, as these are the fastest way to travel on the Putumayo River, but for an obscure reason it decided it didn’t want to stop in the Colombian village of Belén where we were waiting. As the line boat makes its trip to the Upper Putumayo only once a week, it was no option to wait for the next one, so the only solution was travelling half a day by pequé-pequé to the Colombian city of El Encanto. There we managed to find some Colombians who were prepared to bring us to our destination for a good price. Good for them that is. In the end two somewhat clumsy Colombian youths brought us to our next goal, the Kichwa community of Nueva Esperanza.

There we stayed in the house of FIKAPIR president Demecio Tangoa, who has a nice house looking over the Putumayo River. On the other side of that river was the little Colombian village of La Colonia, in fact not much more than the shop and bar of Doña Mary and her, quite attractive, daughter-in-law Claudia. Here we went to buy more supplies and the necessary gasoline for the people of the different neighbouring communities that would come for the meeting with the Board of Directors of FIKAPIR and the first workshop, which was organised in Nueva Esperanza. As mentioned in the previous post we were going to reproduce a workshop about petroleum exploitation and indigenous rights, given in Iquitos by a lawyer of Solsticio Perú, in some of the villages in the Upper Putumayo. In Nueva Esperanza this would be given in two languages, Castilian and Kichwa. For the translations to Kichwa we received the help of bilingual teacher Jaime Condé.

Both the meeting with the Board of Directors of the Kichwa federation and the workshop went well and the 10th of May we were once more travelling. This time it was only a short distance to the Secoya village of Bellavista, which is located at the Yubineto River. In Bellavista also we had a meeting with a Board of Directors, this time of the Peruvian Secoya organization OISPE, and a workshop, organized in Castilian and Secoya. For the translations we received the help of three different teachers, each helping on a different part of the workshop. The stay in Bellavista was great as it was located really beautiful and the people were very friendly. A feeling I also had in the other Secoya village where we would stay later on the trip.

First however we were visiting another Kichwa village, namely Nueva Angusilla. Here we organized the workshop only in Castilian as all of the attendees were capable of understanding and speaking this language. The stay in this village will mostly be remembered for the abundant presence of mosquitoes, certainly in the health post where we were sleeping, so when I left my arms and legs where covered with dozens of red spots. And it was also the place where I washed my clothes for the first time in a river.

The most distant village we have visited on the trip was the Secoya community of Mashunta.
The evening of our arrival there was immediately a big party to celebrate the birthday of a two-year old, which appeared to be an excuse for the whole village to get drunk on masato, a beverage made of yucca that is fermented by the local women by chewing it. After they served my colleague and me a dinner we were invited to another house where we had the opportunity to dance on Ecuadorian indigenous music. When this house ran out of solar energy we had to move again to the next one. However this next house had only sufficient energy for the music if they turned out the light. Subsequently they started to break leaves from the roof to make a big fire in the house, which made a nice atmosphere, but probably wouldn’t make the owners very happy when they were sober again. As everyone had to sleep long the next day to recuperate from the party, the workshop started for once in the afternoon and was again given in two languages. The 19th of May we left for Nueva Esperanza from where we would take the line boat back to Puerto Limón. There we had to attend the General Assembly of MOK+A+, where a new Board of Directors was elected.

It was the 24th of May when we finally arrived back in El Estrecho, where we celebrated the end of the big journey by playing pool and visiting one of the local discotheques. The next day we made some final visits in the city and then the next part of our work started with the preparation of the necessary reports. It was in the morning of the 26th of May that a plane took us back to Iquitos, which gave me the curious feeling of coming home again.

So, as my experiences in Iquitos might get a bit dull if I keep writing every week, probably I’ll write a bit less often from now on, but I’ll keep doing my best to keep you all informed.

Bye,

Jero