Intuition. Are you listening to it? Oftentimes not. How can we, when we keep our world so full of preocupations - the internet, world events, social mundanities/obligations, work, stress, etc? It's somewhat akin to a little candle; sometimes we're able to keep it lit and other times it gets blown out by the winds of distraction. Sometimes it flares up and burns bright, reminding us -- "Hey! I'm here!" amidst the darkness of quotidian chaos and confusion. There are times when we willfully blow it out because the message it brings is far from what we desire. We force it to shine a certain way in order to bring light to shadows that shouldn't be revealed or to bring darkness to those that should be in the clear.
Last week, I was reminded just how strongly that little light can burn and how the choice to recognize its existence can potentially cost you your life. On Monday, I was going to canoe down the Copataza river with a co-worker, one carved out of a tree trunk to visit various indigenous communities along the river. It had been raining very hard throughout the province of Pastaza, causing many rivers and their estuaries to rise and shake their fluid fists at their shores and at the trees.
We drove to the community of Miraflores where we would lower ourselves into the canoe and navigate the river. A paved road led us to what seemed like the middle of nowhere and we suddenly come upon a community of Kichwas and mestizos (colonists or colonos). We walk to the iver and our jaws drop as we observe that the river has reached above the tree line, and not a single boulder or stone under the surface was visible. Looking at the river and its muddy texture reminds me of the chocolate river from the movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, except not nearly as inviting or sweet. We all looked at each other: the gringa, the kichwa, the achuar, the mestizo and said "there's no way we're risking our lives in that!" The plan was to return at dawn the following morning to see if the level had gotten any lower.
On the drive back in the pouring rain, we discover a young indigenous leader had just passed away, and I was reminded of the time that I was trapped in Pumpuentsa for 30 hours because the airplane could not land in the community due to torrential rainstorms. We had given away all of our food and were going crazy with anticipation and doubt. I had never seen it rain so hard. Just that day, a young man had died in a neighboring community after taking floripondio (the plant datura), which is a plant often used for spiritual journeys and drowning in the river. A friend of mine from the community told me that whenever a strong person dies, it will usually downpour the next day to represent the energy of that person making its full circle from life to death. The death of this indigenous leader must have been the cause of this rainstorm, one so powerful as to cost the lives of 14 other people and disappearance of 3 people in flash floods in Puyo, Pastaza. It was a day of reckoning with mother nature. The fluid forces of water had made its power and superiority known to everyone, and our excitement for the Amazon adventure was reduced to a desire to retreat back to the mountainous and welcoming cradle of Quito.
Back in Puyo, we visited the Achuar federation's offices (NAE) and conversed briefly with one of the leaders. He says: "It's not worth it. One shouldn't force trips in frog season" (aka don't have grand expectations for plans into the jungle when it's rainy season). That stuck with us. And so the great adventure was suspended for another season, one where the frogs would not come out to mock us as we struggle through the current. I was incredibly disappointed. Our adventure was going to be fantastic - we were going to Achuar communities to talk about sustainable fish farming and the social impacts of oil extraction and exploitation, in addition to hunting peccary (and eating it!); truly a different type of jungle adventure. But thinking back to the Achuar leader, it really is necessary to not have high expectations in the jungle of your plans carrying through. You never know what kind of curve ball nature is going to throw you, and it's best to be finely attuned to your intuition and to pay attention to the signs around you. Fir this trip, all signs were pointing to "do not enter," and thankfully we were listening.
Working in the jungle requires patience, flexibility, and a keen sense of intuition. If you don't have one, you certainly learn to cultivate it, because not listening to it could mean an extra several days trapped in a community without food, or worse, trying to rush flying out of that community in bad weather and risking a plane or canoe crash. And if some sort of a complication results in your plans getting destroyed, you have to just shrug "oh well, that's nature." This is the general attitude that people have and it's a pretty good one; for if you don't have high expectations and if you pay attention to your intuition, perhaps you will be able to negate disappointment altogether. A valuable lesson learned indeed.
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