La Selva

Hey yall! Well, what do ya know, I'm out of the jungle, and words cannot emulate the other planet that my grateful feet were planted on for that week. It truly is one of the most peaceful, untouched natural landscapes in the world, the lungs of our Earth. We all have an obligation to learn about the severity of the environmental degridation spreading its disease throughout the rainforest because unless you walk and bike, oh or rollerblade, or have an electric car, we all are part of the huge demand for oil, which is threatening so much of the livelihood in the rainforest... trees, animals, and ancient peaceful communities alike. I have never been surrounded by so many living species...ancient plants of medicinal wisdom, hundred year old trees spreading its roots far and wide to support sustenance of countless other species, animals, natural colors and movement.

Bathing in the river, being able to listen to any and every  bird and monkey that felt like expressing its vocal abillity, straddling the washboard to wash my clothes and dishes in the cool water and sitting with this silence along  the bank of black pearled sand reminded me of the healthy simplicity our world emcompassed for so long. Not being preoccupied with 'things to do' is truly a civilized life in my mind because we are living off the land, co-creating in its existence in harmony, not using her for our own motivations and supposed growth. I will have to post a picture of the 'poop shack', Cass and I deemed this as a worthy name. I will just tell you that I never set foot in it!!!

I am back in Quito now and am easily reacclimated to the distractions our world is now built upon, but I will take my desire for sustainability with me everywhere. We would eat the fish that we caught in the river that day, bathe in the river, which is a healing process, a true connection with our existence, not just taking a shower to hurry up and get clean so we can run around and produce and complete all sorts of mindless errands. Not that I don't enjoy indulging in this lifestyle, but being in the jungle removed all of those routine distractions and really pulled the attention inward. It wasn't always easy, when the environment you are in allows so much of your focus to be drawn inward. But I feel this is how we maintain our health, through that internal understanding of ourselves...actually feeling the product of our so often busy lives. 

Come night, we would head to bed around 8 or 9. One night, Cass and I went and sat on the canoe and just listened to all the amazing different sounds coming from all around. The sight through my eyes literally looked like a dream, where the trees and their reflection on the water were the same and the river expansively carried its beauty as far as I could see until it met with the cradling net of magestic stars above. I just so happened to buy a tent in El Salvador for 12 bucks....just hoping that I would be able to camp in it one day during my travels. Well thank the Heeeeeeeeeeeeavens I bought this tent, because as our wooden house had no windows and come night, we would be joined by beautiful massive dive-bombing maniac jungle bugs! We were accompanied by little critters at night, mainly down in the kitchen area...Cass's remedy to this was to pound her heal on the wood planks in an effort to scare them away...it was hilarious. I have to include this because it's just too funny....we also adopted one of the cooking bowls as our 'pee bowl.' I'll tell ya, there's no way you would go outside in the middle of the night either when the least that would happen is getting dive-bombed by a bug the size of your two thumbs. I loved every second of it.  

The family we stayed with were so generous and kind. They are part of an indigenous community called the Secoya. Suffering a 98% population reduction in 300 years, the Secoya now number around 800 people, with 500 being in Ecuador, and 300 in Peru. The 22,000 hectares of Secoyan land is still some of the only land left untouched by the Oil companies. It is so important that we live sustainably to help protect communities like this. It was so ironic, and envoked major cognitive dissonance thinking that we were using oil to travel out to this community whose livelihood is threatened by exactly that...and we were using exactly what we resent in its raping of so much of a land that fosters so much life. It is very sad to think that in ten years the pristine jewel that we were fortunate enough to experience may not be there anymore. It is very disenchanting to leave this extreme gem of natural wonder and travel only 3 hours to a dirty oil town that is created on consumption. Now that our week there is over, I feel it went by extremely fast. However, while there, the days are wonderfully long as you rise with the sun and lay your head with the moon.

The dreams I had while there were unbelievable. I dreamt a lot about people from my childhood, and I swear I almost hung out with my Grams (my mom's mother, Barbara) in one my dreams. Our last night was an absolute kick. We were about to go on a jungle night walk with our papa, and it started pouring. As we settled in our tent, the thunder rumbled and growled like the great ancestral Lion of the Amazon. Right in tow was the harnessing lightning that illuminated every sillohuette of every tree. Cass and I lay there laughing half the time because it was undoubtedly the most intense storm we had ever experienced. I honestly felt like I was in the Wizard of Oz.

During the day we would read, learn about the medicinal uses of the jungle plants, and go on awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwesome jungle walks. We visited two Ceiba trees that were about 400 years old. I cannot tell you the might and beauty of the buttress roots of these gifts of the Earth, and their branches!!!! their branches spread so high into the sky, it was amazing! Truly the tree of life...their roots are easily taller than a grown person.

Cass and I parted ways the other day as she's headed to Peru. I was going to go with her but there is this animal rescue center that I have had my heart set on working at since Guatemala.  I will be going to the center on Monday for two weeks, and I am really excited about this. I really look forward to hanging in the mountains with jaguars, pumas, and a Galapogos turtle that is 200 hundred years old!!!....among many other animals. These are animals who are being helped to be rehabilited back into the wild due to possible subjection to animal trafficking or other means of malnourishment etc. This work is very important and close to my heart. Here is the website of where I will be...

http://www.santamartharescue.org/index.html

I will then either be heading home, or traveling south to Peru for Machu Picchu and then flying out of Lima, but I'll for sure be home by May 20th to celebrate my amazing brother's 18th birthday wahoooo!!!!! I hope you all are doing well, it really will feel good to be with all you friends and family once again.

Much Love and Respect,

Whitney