Notes from the Jungle-ground: monkeys, cockroaches, and Achuar viagra

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, but I did do some writing while I was in Pumpuentsa last time (Nov.). Most of it is huevada (nothing), but eh.

Nov. 5th, 2010
I am sitting in my mosquito net sanctuary writing by candlelight. I hear the creak crack squeak scrak of the jungle outside. No matter how many times I douse my body in the cool water I brought up from the creek, I am still covered in a layer of sweat. There are tiny bugs flying into my face, small enough to fly through the net and get stuck to my sticky skin.

We are here and it feels like always. Normal jungle green hot life. Yet whenever I come here, I am always hit hard by the hum and buzz of life - fertility makes itself known to the five senses.   The mother creation is here, in effect, her name is Nunkui - she is a Shuar/Achuar goddess entity that protects over the garden and blesses it with her fertility.  I am here to work on a maternal health program and am around beautiful mothers and babies all the time, so it is out of my control at times when the greeness and ache of fertility makes its presence known to me. Plants are growing, bugs chirp endlessly - I am surrounded by the reproduction of life.

The yuca plants were singing to me today as I walked through the huerta - a melody that made me aware of the heat and stickiness.

Thunder rolls in the distance now punctuated by bugs and I am slowly melting into my sleeping bag and mosquito net, trying to fend off the heat in order to fall asleep...

Nov. 6th, 2010

We went to my friend's in-law's farm in the jungle. They chopped down a palm tree and gave us the pollen to eat. It was delicious and crunchy...imagine hearts of palm but crunchier! After I stuffed my face with nearly the entire bunch, I asked what is it called and my friend giggled as she said "it's Achuar Viagra.  The Viagra of the jungle! You better watch out this next week!" I nervously shrugged and hoped that she was wrong...if not, Dear God help me.

Nov. 7th, 2010

A green hum
chirp
crack. trrrrrrrrreeeep!
These are the sounds of the jungle.
A flustered chicken walks by, picking fiercely at a discarded termite nest.
My legs are marked with little red spicy bites.
When I come home, will you kiss each one?

Writing by candlelight again
the crickets and cicadas and monkeys make greater poetry
than I ever will
they sing to you of a place
So wet with green
Better than I ever could
I sit here listening to them in my little salty sanctuary
hotter than they will ever be

Where will that little grasshopper jump to?
Upon what branch rests mi mono amiguito?
Is that a bird calling or a bug?
I think if I were a grasshopper, I might jump to you - right into your web.
And become stuck in your glistening net.
It certainly is a better fate than that of the cockroach I just killed -
smote with great precision by the bottom of my flashlight
rigor mortis sets in the pool of cockroach milk.
as the little ants await their midnight gala.
yes, there is creation, birth, and death here!
But this heat is unbearable.
I really must try to sleep.