Beginning the Independent Study Project

                Here I am at the beginning of November which means in my SIT program: the start of the month long research project we all conduct independently. It also means no more classes. I guess I’ve basically been out of class for the past 3 weeks, but have been working on organizing my project which I’ll explain a bit further down.

                It’s been awhile since my last entry, but this program is jam packed of classes, excursions, trips, interactions, host family time, etc etc. But I should start with what’s been happening since I travelled to the Amazon.

Iquitos – city of rubber

                We arrived in Iquitos, eager to get out of Cusco for a bit and explore the Amazon. We arrived to the Iquitos airport and left the plane to meet an immense humidity and heat that no one was ready for—especially after living at 11,000ft in the mountains. We could breathe! We could also sweat… and we sweat a lot. We spent a few days in the city of Iquitos which began as a missionary post for the jungle. The city passed through a city of revivals and boosts through the rubber industry especially during the end of the 19^th century and during the world wars. The production of rubber in this region has ended, moved on to southern Asia and now the city is an oasis in the middle of the jungle.

                In Iquitos, we walked through the streets, enjoying wearing shorts and t-shirts for the first time since summer in the States. We went to a huge street market where we were bombarded with clothes, gizmos and gadgets aplenty, and places to buy chopped up turtle and cooked larvae. Yummy. It was weird going from the Andes Mountains to the Amazon Basin in only a few hours. Technology is magic!

                We found the favorite local bar ‘Margaritaville’ just kidding super touristy, but I laughed at the title. Apparently the owner of the bar bought out the copyright for the WHOLE country of Peru, so, I am very proud to say that I dined and drank at the one and only Peruvian Margaritaville. Sorry, Jimmy Buffett. We left Iquitos after a few days to head into the Amazon – legit.

Pacaya Samiria – the community of Veinte de Enero

                This is a community about 3 hours down the river from Iquitos. We rode in long narrow boats deeper and deeper into the Amazon. I couldn’t help but think about the Amazon Trail. We arrived to Veinte de Enero (20^th of January) a small, quaint campesino community that thrives off tourism and the production of aguaje, a crazy fruit that has a ton of weird capabilities and is currently being used for make-up production.

                Here we stayed in two different cabins and enjoyed the heat (I sweat a lot) and the nature. There were mosquitos galore, but luckily it isn’t a malaria zone (I didn’t take the pills). I got to hold a Boa constrictor that snuck into someone’s HOUSE in the community. Our guide was not fazed at all by it. He carried the snake in his backpack for about an hour hike then told us he was letting it go. Snake charming in the amazon.

                Here we were grouped into pairs to go do a series of interviews about our own personal topics. I stuck with tourism and effects on the community and set off to talk to some people. I got a lot of mixed reviews: tourism isn’t as strong as it was, tourism is great, and tourism is awful. It really depends on someone’s level of involvement in tourism. For instance, the man who said tourism isn’t as strong anymore, while he is a farmer, his family is involved in artisan crafts and souvenirs. Ultimately, the tourists that come do not buy as much as they used to because of the ever-growing tourist market in the surrounding communities as well as Iquitos. The lady who said tourism was great worked as a cook for a tourist organization for several years and made good money. She currently is unemployed and doesn’t necessarily thrive off tourism anymore, but remembered very fondly her time as a chef. The man who said tourism is awful owns a small store in the community and has little to no involvement in tourism; however, he explained that every member of the community is required to aid in maintaining the community clean and expecting tourism in the community. Being a tourist in his community, I felt very uncomfortable, but at the same time eager to listen to show him that tourism is multifaceted.

                We were there for a few days and headed back to Iquitos and spent my friend’s birthday in Margaritaville.

Lima – capital of el Peru

                We spent a few days in Lima getting to know basically Miraflores, a very bougie neighborhood in Lima. I got to enjoy how different the regions of Peru are: from quaint, small Cusco, to booming Amazonian city to rich and humongous capital city. We had classes in both Iquitos and Lima about all sorts of topics from Amazon family structure, history, indigenous rights, the terrorism from Sendero Luminoso, urban immigration, etc etc. I wish I could’ve spent more time in Lima, as of yet I know very little of the city and even the structure.

                We spent one day going to the oldest archaeological site in South America and is deemed to be the 4^th oldest in the world: Caral. We went with a friend of the director of the program who actually got his doctorate from Pitt. Small world. Caral was beautiful and I think I posted some pictures of them—be sure to always check my flickr or facebook.

Quechua – Noqaqa manan rumasimitachu rimani

                ‘I don’t speak Quechua’ but I think it’s wrong. We spent the next two weeks after Lima in Cusco learning Quechua and continuing lectures from professors and community members about all sorts of things. Quechua is a beautiful language, but an indigenous language to several parts of South America, therefore a bit of a learning curve happened.

                After the two weeks, we had a test in the country in a community called Ccorcca. It was a beautiful community, very magical and eerie at the same time. I loved it and wish I had brought my camera, but I wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

                I think it’s safe to say I passed my Quechua exam. We learned very little, but just enough to get me excited to speak it more and more. But that didn’t really happen.

Puno, Colca, Arequipa – the south of Peru

                I’m a bit bored of writing right now and I am leaving tomorrow morning for Ocongate a community two hours away to do a week of research and then coming back to work more on my research project:

                Basically my premise is tourism and utilizing as my medium: woven textiles from indigenous communities. I am looking at how certain factors such as: exoticism, the ‘other’, agency, power, manipulation and performance, searching for the ‘authentic’, and capitalism play into economic transactions of buying and selling of textiles in the tourist market.

                My brain is a little dead and I keep thinking in Spanish syntax, yikes, but I would like to have a more well-developed blog that sounds more intelligent, but things keep getting more and more busy and backed up.

Juan