A Day in Upper Belen

Today I took a trip with David to upper Belen, which is just further South of lower Belen, not to be confused with Belen Bajo. We went to visit a non profit group called PROÑOS, whos goal is to assist in building ecological sanitation toilets for community members in Belen, and in or around the Iquitos area. They are up to some pretty amazing things there. The building which houses the toilets is very well kept and has tons of childrens pictures, community photos, and coincidentally, maps of France and French propoganda.

The picture here is of Tristian, a highly animated character who tries his hand at seemingly every language that comes before him. He´s definitely the figure head of PROYÑOS, and in charge of the education part of their two part behavior change communication (BCC) model. The second part, as well as much of the more detailed logistical stuff, is run by another French guy by the name of Julian. Julian is a bit more soft spoken, but equally if not more considerate and genuinely involved in any conversation he embarks on. Both Tristian and Julian speak primarily Spanish with everyone they come in contact with, however Tristian is getting pretty good with his English sounding English accent, since he´s dating a AfricanEuropian (is that PC?) who just so happened to be on her way to Argentina a couple months ago and decided to stay. It´s pretty crazy, a lot of the people involved with construction size of PROÑOS, are either from France, or gringo´s from other countries who were just passing through. Ah the life of the traveler. Oh sorry, let me make this a bit more clear, ahem, the life of the traveling hippie. Many gringo´s would not be game with just tagging along on some crazy projects started by a French person.

















Tristian (can you tell he´s French?)















Picture of the living conditions of Upper Belen
Tristian and Julian are having a party at their place. I think it´s a soccer party. I´m going to be hitting this party up solo since my buddies David and Christie, have a date night. I don´t blame them, they work so hard and I´m sure it´s faily easy to get worn down, causing them to lose sight of they other priority which is their relationship. Good for them. Plus it allows me to get in some more awkward situations that test my Spanish.

Today I have somewhat of a study date with a Peruvian girl I met on the malacona (boardwalk by the river....and yes I´m probably spelling it wrong, I´m pretty good at this). I am teaching her English and she is teaching me Spanish. We´ll see how this goes...it´s likely to be, yes you said it, awkward. Perfect.

Other than this, it´s just meetings, meetings, meetings. Meetings where I only can understand a decent portion of the conversation, and when prompted to speak, I just say, si pues, and estoy de acuerdo....but i´m getting better. And fast. Most of these meetings are talking with students from UNAP...the university in Peru, CARITAS Amazonias, the NGO in charge of a few sanitation project, various UNAP faculty, and San Juan Bautista, the regional municipality, who apparently has asperations to build 600 baños ecologicos. we´ll see what actually happens here, since most of this is apparently for building up the campain of some political bigwigs.

That´s about it. Thanks for reading, and basically participating in somewhat of a journal. Blogs are pretty awesome in that I can use this as kind of a story explaining my travels, since I usually forget where I´ve been and what I´ve been up to. Sorry that some of us have to be the cassualties of my egocentric blabbing.

Hasta nada mas tarde mis amigos!

A night with the Frenchies

Man French people are effing everywhere. I suppose I shouldn't be too amazed since most of Africa was under French rule at some point, and what's further away and more exotic than Africa? But I never thought I would see a French man here speaking French Spanish in the Amazon. Hummmm, but I suppose I ever thought I would see my white ass in the Amazon neither.

It was amazing. These dudes were great. Let me see if I can get this just right: these guys were French Hippie Latrine Constuctors. So fine in my book, but again, fitting the typical mold of the "hippie" that I ranted about earlier. The great part about these guys is A.) they're super energetic and B.) they like ecological latrines, which immediately puts them on my "you're pretty effing rad" list. Joining us in this eclectic meeting was an Australian woman who didn't want to talk with me, a dude from Portugal who looked like the latin dude from Duce Bigelo Male Giggelo (I don't have spell check....it is too much demand on the bandwidth)...this guy apparently loves worms and says that the worms in his compost are as thick as a mans arem. They all work for a NGO (non-governmental organization) called PRONYOS (N should have the squiggly thing), specializing in latrines. Pretty awesome. Our group is going to be meeting with them to construct and "oversee" the constuction of, otros banos. Should be a ton of fun.

Other than that, everything is going great. Worth mentioning:

-ended my relationship with my scamming spanish teacher named Angelo (short for Michaelangelo). It was a tearful goodbye

-Am having an awesome time brainstorming ways to assess rural amazonian communities for the appropriate use of composting toilets...the funny part is it's all theoretical, and I'm making it all up. Ah academia.

-got stung by a bee while eating with David and Christie. It was a single bee, no hive. Dude the jungle is rough.

That's about it. Meeting with students from the Universidad Nacional de Amazonia Peru (UNAP), I think I said that right--to begin putting together research objectivos for the next three weeks concerning composting toilets (ecosan). Should be awesome.

Thanks for reading!

Un foto para que todos

holy crap this thing took 1 hr to load, and I never thought it would. sweet. So yeah, this is a picture taken from my pacapaca (wooden canoe with a weed wacker for an engine). This girls belly was all bloated, probably with tape worms.....hope you weren't eating anything.

Si pues.

Over the past 3 days I have managed to experience quite a few things. Pretty typical for being in a new place. Every day I peel my sweaty body from my bed sheets, look in the mirror and comment aloud at how I look like shit. I set out into the amazon heat and humidity (which actually isn't as bad as I'm making it sound....well maybe it is), and walk around town and grab some breakfast. I managed to make my way to down to the Amazon boardwalk, which is where I took my first picture from. It's kind of where the eclectic group of travelers from around the world sit around and act like useless hippies, selling beads on strings, and various handicrafts. It's funny how non-eclectic hippidom is, it changes a potentially diverse group of people into one hemp enfused, homogenous dirt ball. Wow that was a bit harsh, but just today I had some crazy ass English hippie come up to me, tell me this long story about how he "just a second ago" got hit by a car, had "mum" sending out his visa, and needed 30 soles (about 10 bucks) to go to the aeropuerto. Not buying it. Hippy-ass lier.

These hippies are taking away a market of handicrafting from the indigenous peruvian women who are trying to make a buck a day selling their amazing textiles. Trustafarian liers all of them.

Ok, enough naysaying. I really do love it here, but have been getting angry with the non-indigenous, disingenuous european/american nialist types.

I got off track. Where I was going with this was I met some cool folks who are teaching me Spanish by the boardwalk. Only problem is I think the guy who is teaching me may or may not be trying to swindle me. It's kind of an unsettling environment to learn in, when a person is trying to hide their waistband wallet from his/her teacher. Yeah?

Other than this, I have had a chance to see the slums of Iquitos called Belen, or more specifically Belen bajo, which is below Belen itself and is actually more slummy. Here is a picture of Belen, it's like Venece, but with Giardia. It won't let me load the picture. The internet here is pretty bad, I'll try to load it later.

Anyway, it's crazy here, and sad to see people living in Belen. Yet it is also inspiring to see everyone stoked to be alive, and stoked to be with their families and three legged dogs. It continually shows me what is importent in life.

Ok, thats about it, have a great day everyone!

-Jeff

Ok got one picture to load....don't want to take any chances :)

downloading pictures here in my hotel in Iquitos is difficult. Here is the only picture I could get out, looking away from the city into Belen the slums. This place is unreal.

En Iquitos Por Fin!

Ok, I'll make this a bit quick because I need to hit the sack. Made it to Iquitos, the plane ride went great, basically passed out the whole time but woke up with one hell of an ear ache. Met David Sparkman outside the airport just in time before about 100 peruvian taxi drivers tried to taxi rape me. They were relentless!



Now I'm staying in a pretty posh place for about 15 bucks a night, which isn't cheap, but isn't expensive either. I'll be here for a little more than a month so this will be more than perfect for a home for that time period.



Just ate a questionable sausage. Hope this isn't the beginning of the end.



Here are a few pictures to show the area, hope you all area having a great day!

WTF Continental

OK I get it. I'm a cheapskate and therefore have to reap the ramification of my frugality. I suppose buying tickets to Peru for 50 bucks less than normal price should mean that I'd have 16hrs of layovers. That makes sense. yeah.

Crap.

I'm in the butthole of our dear country: Houston, but more specifically, our wonderful 2 termed president of late GW Bush's airport. Sigh. The only way I'm getting internet for free is I'm outside of the fat cats continental president club and I'm pirating their super fast internet...otherwise I'd have to pay 10 bucks to GW on the "Boing" account. Capitalists. **holy crap I just saw a person running with a baby carriage so fast that she got speed wobbles.....let's see here, catch the plane, have a bludgeoned child with a mental disability. I guess these are things we have to weigh on the balance scale of life everyday. Oh the baby is crying now. I wonder why** sorry about that I had to comment on that.

If you can't tell I'm a bit on the frustrated/tired/fedupwithpeople side. I'm about to catch the last of my continental leg to Lima, where I will spend the night and catch a plane to Iquitos to meet David Sparkman, aka. my night in shining armor...he he. I'm looking forward to seeing the Amazon man, what a rad and unique experience I have before me, once again I have to give a shout out to the Lord who whether you believe or not, is the orchestrator of our lives and the one in charge of my clustered life :). I love it.

Ok, back to secular land. Whew.

That's it for now, let's thank those in the presidents club who are secretly planning their next sex trafficking exploits, for the internet access. Too soon? :)

Laters!

My first blog post

Hey there. If you're reading this blog you're either a.) family, b.) friends, c.) bored, or d.) all of the above. Either way, I'll continue to flatter myself with the idea that you guys care what I'm up to, and I'll try to keep this thing updated.

This blog will start with some travels in Peru, as I am leaving in about 3 hours to meet David Sparkman (a rad PhD type) in Iquitos to do some WASH assessment stuff (more on this later). Don't know where we're staying, don't know what we're eating, and don't really care too much :). Because as you might or might not know, I just travel, with one common theme, flatulence. I know it's a bit crude, but it persists in almost a comforting way, always there....it's my rock. Hence the blog name.

And I couldn't figure out a better blog name. Wanna fight about it?

I can't wait to get this things started and begin to show you the wonderful things I have been blessed with in my life in terms of traveling. This is becoming a passion of mine, and I'm excited to have the chance to help people while I pursue this passion.

Much love folks, more to come in the following weeks!! Thanks for your support!

-Jeff