We make our way through the village, buckets and scarves in hand. People are sitting out talking, laughing. Children are playing. Upon seeing our baggage one man wishes us luck.

“Search in peace,” he tells us.

Upon arrival at the water spigot, we find a small group of women, girls really, waiting. They sit on their buckets, laughing, talking, watching as the water level in the bucket under the spigot slowly rises. When full, a quick exchange is made, and the now full bucket is lifted onto a woman’s head, to be carried back to her home: to wash, cook, bathe, and drink.

After we’ve been waiting about twenty minutes, one girl anxiously calls our attention to the spigot.

“Look,” she says, “it’s slowing.”

We all take in a collective breath of anxiety. We watch as the stream of water slows to a trickle . . . and dies. A sigh is heard around the group.

“That’s bad luck,” my sister tells me. That’s an understatement, I sourly think to myself.

We pick up our buckets, empty as drums. We hang our head scarves over our shoulders, protecting us a little from the cold evening air. The other women talk of going to a farm down the road, where water might not have been turned off yet.

“It’s too far,” my sister says. The other women mutter in agreement. But for some of them, what choice do they have? If I don’t walk the extra kilometer, it means I don’t shower today. If some of the others choose not to, it means no food tomorrow.

We take leave of the group, still joking and laughing, and head back to our house. On our way we meet a woman walking towards the spigot.

“It’s been turned off,” we tell her. She lets out a sigh of exasperation. Then she asks my sister, “Can’t you wait until tomorrow? Don’t you have a reserve?”

My sister shakes her head. “I was working,” she explains. “I couldn’t call to tell them to start filling buckets.”

We arrive home to find my younger brother, Mohammed, with a bucket of water, taken from a nearby well. Without a word, we walk out again, buckets in hand. Each step I take I know I’ll be making it again, this time with fifteen liters of water on my head.

We make it to the well, a deep one, and fill our buckets. My sister tells me to stand back from the edge while she hoists the water, and I willingly comply. This is something I don’t really want to chance.

I help my sister hoist her bucket onto her head, and we call a girl walking by to lift mine. Within the first two steps water sloshes around in the bucket and over the sides, drenching the back of my t-shirt. My sister laughs and tells me to take it slow.

My mom greets outside the house, chuckles and says, “We should take a photo.” More water falls, this time soaking my skirt.

“Now I don’t need to shower,” I joke. “I just did.”

In our house, the unpredictable water cuts are obnoxious. It takes time and energy to fetch good, clean water. It hurts the top of your head, even with a scarf to cushion it. For others in the village, it is an everyday, sometimes all day occurence. It takes away from school, at least for Oumi and Hadi, twin girls about thirteen that live down the street. And the search is always the women’s job, or perhaps the girl’s. I dread the sound of the empty gurgle of the pipe as I turn the spigot, expecting water and receiving none. I now try to be grateful every time I fill my bucket, knowing that for an unbelievable number of people the search is constant and sometimes frightening. For me, the worst that could happen is I stay a little dirty.

I’ve been waiting to encounter the famed biodiversity of the Amazon.  I have pictures of the yellow green butterfly I picked nearly dead off the highway, and of the green frogs that hopped in when it rained too hard for too long.  The carpenter ants never stop marching.  The tarantula that lives in my brother’s bedroom has been the highlight so far, considering that however weird the pig may be, he’s still just a pig.

And so, I was delighted to be immediately robbed by a miniature Capuchin monkey when I stepped off the bus in the famed Eco-tourism hub of Misahualli.  My job brought me here to observe community presentations, but I am entranced by a butterfly- Giant, Iridescent blue and Black; it flutters by, flitting in and out the internet cafes and the general stores, like a wish that someone has made.

After the workshop on contamination, I’m invited to the river.   I am given a freshly split half of Cocoa bean (think chocolate) to eat the fruit and spit out the seeds (and there goes the chocolate)…-I feel a bite on my toe, stinging and sharp.  With a gasp, I kick off the nasty animal,  a giant spider-ant looking creature, all black, that had attached itself to me… the pain swipes in excruciating bursts through the toe, till it starts to swell and grow, and it dawns on me that the pain is not going to stop.  “It’s a Conga” my friend says, “it’ll pass after 10 minutes.”

“Ten Minutes?!” I step on my own toe whimpering till they make me put on some sandals.  I take off down the path to find the blasted river, sucking hard on some sort of distracting mango-lemon fruit.  Perhaps the physical pain is preferable and therapeutic to emotional torments.

And three hours later, the pain has receded from my calf and heel to a burning gnawing sensation within the bitten toe.  The soreness fades to a point where I can fall asleep.  This is real pain.  At least Andy shows me satisfying pity, “A Conga?  That has the venom to kill a baby!”  And then, my brother asks me if I would like to go ahead and touch a tarantula as its bite feels exactly the same.  “No thank you,” I tell him.  I’ve had my encounter with wildlife for today.  “Suficiente.“

If you haven’t read the first two parts to this adventure, be sure to do so before reading Part 3! Part 1 can be found at http://globalcitizenyear.org/2011/12/39-hours-pt-1/ and Part 2 can be found at http://globalcitizenyear.org/2011/12/39-hours-pt-2/.

Friday, 4:00 p.m., one kilometer from the edge of Bosque Colonso

I’m running on empty. Every step takes all the effort I can muster. My feet feel like they weigh a hundred pounds and my boots and clothes are completely soaked. Sweat clings to me like a wet towel, and I can’t tell if it’s sweat from my hair or water dripping from the trees above running down my forehead and into my eyes and mouth.

Wilson is talking to me, but I can barely hear him. It sounds like he’s a mile away, yelling to me from a mountaintop. He’s saying something about how we’re almost there.

“There” is relative, I think to myself.

A monkey screeches in the tree over us, and the buzz of ten thousand insects responds in kind.

Then the world seems to just fall away.

Friday, 4:01 p.m., one kilometer from the edge of Bosque Colonso

I’ve never fainted before in my entire life, but when I woke up with Wilson standing over me, I knew just what had happened.

At the time, I didn’t know the Spanish verb for “faint,” so I asked Wilson how long I had been sleeping. (I’ve since learned that “to faint” is “desmayarse.”)

“Not long,” he says. “I heard a thump behind me and saw you lying on the ground.”

“I need to sit here for a while,” I say. “I need to rest.”

“Okay,” Wilson responds. The first signs of worry flash across his face.

Friday, 4:15 p.m., one kilometer from the edge of Bosque Colonso

I tell Wilson that he should go ahead without me to the edge of the forest to get the GPS points. I can’t go any farther, and I know it. The last reserves of my energy have come and gone.

He agrees. He says he will be back within 45 minutes and sets off at a brisk pace.

I lean against a tree and watch him go. The forest is unusually quiet.

Friday, 4:30 p.m., the same spot

Thirst sets in. My mouth is unbelievably dry. I can’t even seem to produce spittle anymore. I hear a creek and follow the sound, stumbling through the trees and underbrush and crawling when I lose my footing.

I slip down a hillside of mud and arrive at the side of a tiny creek. Having landed on my possibly-broken thumb, the pain is almost unbearable and I actually collapse face-first into the water.

I pull myself out of the creek and kneel next to the water.

I splash it on my face and neck. I hear a bird squawk behind me, breaking the silence.

The water trickles by. It knows what I want.

I can’t. I know I shouldn’t. This is against every rule ever set for world travelers.

But I give in.

I bend to the water, cry out in defeat, and drink my fill.

Friday, 4:45 p.m., at the creek

I feel better. At least, enough to stand. I walk back to where Wilson left me, and arrive just as he does. Surprised to see me standing and looking more spry than when he left, he asks if I can walk.

I say yes, shoulder my bag, and set off, slower with every passing step.

Friday, 5:45 p.m., in the underbrush

Wilson tells me we’re four hours from Santa Rita, but that it’s going to be dark within the next half hour. We have a flashlight, but I know I can’t go any farther. I fall to my knees once again and curl up on my side.

I feel hopeless. I feel weak. I feel like a burden.

“Go ahead without me, Wilson. I can sleep here tonight. If you can come tomorrow with food…”

“No,” he says forcefully. “I will not let anything happen to you. I know of a lean-to about a half hour from here where we can spend the night.”

I’m not convinced. “We don’t have food. I can’t walk. You should get back to your family. I will wait.”

All of a sudden, he hears his phone buzz.

“Yes!” he exclaims. “We have service!”

This is the first time we’ve had service since we left Santa Rita. He immediately calls his family, but the call is lost. He tries again. It fails again.

“Let’s go!” I say. “I can make it to the lean-to, but no farther. The service will be better there, right?”

“Yes,” he says.

We set off. Step by step, inch by inch.

Friday, 6:20 p.m., the lean-to in sight

I would jump for joy at the sight of the lean-to, but I can’t. My vision is blurry and my muscles have one purpose: put one foot in front of the other. My arms hang limply at my sides and my breath comes short and fast.

The lean-to (if it could even earn that title) consists of a series of palm branches tied together and held up by two large sticks. I don’t care. It’s beautiful.

I put down my bag, fall to the ground, and am asleep before my head hits the earth.

Friday, 6:45 p.m., the lean-to

Wilson shakes me awake. “Good news, Chacho! Javier is coming! With food! He and Fabio are coming with food!”

Javier is my 20 year old host brother and Fabio, 23, is one of his closest friends.

I smile weakly and look around. Wilson had started a fire, I notice. The crackling embers are a welcome addition, more for their ability to keep away the mosquitoes than anything else. It was dark, and the thick blackness of the forest has already crept up to the edges of the fire’s reach.

Wilson sits down and lights a cigarette. He begins to write in his notebook.

I collapse back into sleep.

Friday, 10:15 p.m., the lean-to

I’m awoken by the sound of Javier’s voice as he and Fabio see the fire and make their way towards us. “Chacho! Chacho! Chacho!”

I slap two dozen mosquitoes away from me (by now, even the fire wasn’t enough to keep them off us) and lean up from where I’m propped against my backpack.

He sits down by the fire, opens his backpack, and pulls out huge bags of cooked yuca and rice.

“Eat.”

I’ve never been so happy to see food, even bland rice and yuca, in my entire life. It’s the best-tasting meal I’ve ever had.

Wilson and I ravenously devour the food and down a liter of juice apiece. I’m still hungry, and Javier notices me eyeing his backpack.

“More?” asks Javier.

“Yes!” Wilson and I say simultaneously.

We eat and eat, the happiest and most relieved I’ve ever felt.

Friday, 10:45 p.m., stuffed with food and, more importantly, alive

We pack up the campsite. I’m rejuvenated. Although my energy levels are only about a quarter of what they normally are, a quarter is considerably better than what I had been operating at the last day.

We split up all the weight of the backpacks. When Wilson offers to take my stuff, I decline and say that I’m feeling much better. I need to preserve at least a little of my dignity.

Recovered, refreshed, regenerated, and revitalized (that’s a lot of “re’s,” but it helps get my point across), we set out at a nimble pace for home.

Friday, 11:30 p.m., the city of Tena visible kilometers away beneath us

The sight of Tena is a turning point. We are walking in complete silence to concentrate on not losing footing on the trail. And this time, we actually were walking on a trail.

As I would discover later, Wilson called several different people to see if anybody knew where we were, based on his observation of the forest around us. Javier and Fabio happened to overhear the conversation with Patricio, my host father, and volunteered to come find us. Having spent time at the very lean-to where he believed we were, Javier threw together a pack of food from my host mother Eva and set out with a flashlight into the jungle.

We have two flashlights among the group of four, so two of us are walking in almost complete darkness. I volunteer to follow behind Javier and try and mimic his footing, because I obviously can’t see a thing. It’s amazing how the thickness of the jungle can swallow even the light of a flashlight after only a few feet. The “black hole of Energizer,” I joke to myself, then realize how horrible a joke it is. Oh well.

We stop for a short break and look at Tena beneath us, and Archidona just ahead. So close, and yet so far: Santa Rita is located on the mountain above Archidona.

“How much more time?” I ask Javier.

“About three more hours,” he responds.

I don’t care. All I know is that a bed, a hot mug of guayusa, and a family worried witless about me awaits me in Santa Rita.

I stand up and jokingly say “Why are you all resting? What are you, tired?”

Fabio, Javier, and Wilson roar with laughter at my self-deprecation and we begin the long descent toward Santa Rita.

Saturday, 12:45 a.m., the lights of Archidona directly beneath us

The sky opens up. Within a minute, we are soaked to the bone. Thunder and lightning hammer the sky, and I start to laugh. Javier looks back, starts to laugh with me, and suddenly his flashlight goes out.

“CHUTA!” he swears. (Comment has been edited for select language.)

Wilson turns off the other flashlight. At this point, we’re out from under the canopy and can see better by the light of the moon than four people trying to share a six-foot radius of light.

He shouts over the thunder that we’re getting close. I feel excellent. I’m still exhausted beyond description, but the realization that Santa Rita is so close is enough to keep me going.

We walk through the forest by the light of the moon, pounded by the rain, slipping down mudslides, and not caring about anything but getting home.

Saturday, 2:00 a.m., close to Santa Rita

All of a sudden I look up from where I’m carefully placing my feet and notice that we’re next to a farm plot. Cacao, coffee, yuca, and corn populate the field next to us (which I can see every few seconds thanks to the lightning), and I remember coming up here on an expedition a few weeks ago. The trail seems familiar.

The happy realization of realizing we’ve reached the edges of Santa Rita is quickly dampened when I slip and slide 10 feet down the trail, stopping just before I take Javier out with me.

“What happened?!” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “Let’s go home!”

He grins, high fives me, and we head home.

Saturday, 2:30 a.m., Santa Rita, Napo, Ecuador

We arrive in Santa Rita. Javier had called the family to let them know we were close, and they were waiting outside for us.

Wilson goes home to sleep after shaking my hand and saying “I thought we’d lost you there! I’ll see you tomorrow to give you the GPS points.”

Gilmar and Fidel, my younger brothers, run up to me and wrap themselves around my legs (which is as high as they can reach to hug).

Patricio and Eva tell me there’s a hot meal waiting for me inside. I ask if there’s guayusa.

“Of course there’s guayusa!” Eva says. “It’s your favorite!”

My toothy smile says all.

Alicia and her boyfriend/soon-to-be-husband Efren hug me, and lastly my younger sister Adelaide runs up to do the same. I wrap my arms around all of them for a moment before pulling away to thank Fabio and Javier for saving my life.

Fabio, soft-spoken, responds with nothing more than “De nada, Chacho,” before shaking my hand, smiling, and heading home to sleep.

Javier tells me not to worry about it. “I know you’d do the same, Chacho. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

I go inside the house, eat another massive meal of rice, yuca, and mountain ferns, down a liter of guayusa, and thank my family again. Without them, my expedition into the rainforest could have turned out very differently.

Today

I spent 39 hours in the jungle, 28 hours of which without food. I drank creek water, almost died several times, and actually gave up on hope of getting out at several instances. Since recovering, I’ve come to look at the fragility of life and our interdependence with one another much differently. And before you ask, my thumb was not broken. The doctors said it’s a very bad sprain, and as of the writing of this blog, is still healing and swollen. It will be fine in a few weeks.

Wilson stuck with me even when I was a hopeless burden, a lump of flesh unable to do anything but complain and slow him down. Fabio joined Javier to hunt for me in the middle of the night in the forest, when he could have easily gone to bed at a reasonable hour. Javier volunteered to find me in the forest, undeterred by bugs, the dark, or not knowing exactly where we actually were.

So when people from home ask me if I have a support system here in Ecuador (and believe me, it happens a lot), I know the answer. And it’s an answer that’s been tested in the harshest of conditions.

Yes. Yes I do.

If you haven’t yet read the first part of this adventure, be sure to do so before reading this blog. It might make a bit more sense! http://globalcitizenyear.org/2011/12/39-hours-pt-1/

Thursday, 7:00 p.m., the abandoned ranchito

Wilson and I wake to the roof being violently blown off the lean-to. The world is a whirlwind of insanity; my clothes have blown into the field nearby and the rain is pounding us with a fury.

“The blankets!” he yells, and takes off after the plastic “roof.” I grab our sleeping materials, stuff them into bunches, and put them under my backpack so they don’t fly into the maelstrom.

The pots and pans are whisked off the board where they sat next to the fire in the fury of the storm. Wilson returns a moment later with the plastic and begins re-tying it. Every few seconds the wind rips it from his hands and he starts over. As I start to help him, he shouts “We should wait for the storm to pass! We can’t do it now!”

We sit down, soaked to the bone, and wait.

Thursday, 7:30 p.m., the abandoned ranchito

The wind relents. The rain is still pounding, but the break in the fury allows Wilson and I to tie down the plastic.

Exhausted, grumpy, water permeating everything I can feel, smell, see, and touch, we unwrap our blankets, squeeze out as much water as we can, and collapse into sleep.

Every sound jolts me awake, but Wilson sleeps like a rock. Around midnight, I finally pass out into a deep sleep.

Friday, 5:30 a.m., the abandoned ranchito

We wake up and finally see the damage. The ranchito is completely trashed. Pots and pans litter a six-foot radius around the firepit. I plod into the field, locate my change of clothes (so much for having clean, dry clothes for today), and come back to the ranchito to find Wilson making a batch of chicha.

Chicha is a fermented beverage, often made from yuca, which the Kichwa and many other indigenous groups drink on a regular basis in the Andes and Amazon regions of Latin America.

I can’t stand the taste of chicha, but I choke down a few mouthfuls for whatever strength it may offer. We pack our things, thank the heaven’s above that our GPS devices weren’t destroyed, and set out for the unknown.

Friday, 8:30 a.m., a small river deep in Bosque Colonso

The waterfall.

Wilson tells me that we’re coming up to a waterfall soon. Apparently among his family and Santa Rita, this waterfall is legendary for the huge numbers of small fish that congregate near the bottom. Hunting expeditions a few times a year harvest as many as they’re able to bring back to the village.

We emerge from under the canopy into the sunlight. Already sweating and soaked from trudging through a half dozen streams, I rub my eyes until they adjust to the sudden brilliance.

It’s stunning. A huge volume of water crashes over two massive rocks into a deep pool below. Wilson tells me it’s about three meters, or almost ten feet deep. I peek over the edge and sure enough, see a plethora of fish congregating in the pool.

He snaps a picture of me in front of the waterfall and we continue.

Friday, 9:00 a.m., the side of a mountain in Bosque Colonso

We run into a man, maybe 70 years old, chiseled by years of physical labor and dressed simply, working on a new trail with a machete and nothing more. He hammers away at the underbrush with precision, but jolts to attention when Wilson greets him with “Alli puncha!” (Kichwa for “good morning” or “good day”)

He and Wilson talk in Kichwa for several minutes, and I’m reminded of how annoying it is to be unable to understand a conversation happening right next to you. I vow to myself to approach speaking English the same way: if there are people in the group that can’t understand, make the effort to speak Spanish around my Ecuadorian friends and co-workers.

A few minutes later, Wilson comes over to me perched on a downed log and says “It is much farther than I expected. We will not make it back until this afternoon. We have much walking to do.”

We thank the man, Wilson in Kichwa and me in “Spanwa,” and at his biddance, take his new directions and go off further into the unknown.

Me in front of the waterfall.

Friday, 10:15 a.m., a small creek

We’ve been walking up another creek for over an hour. Wilson says it’s easier than trying to break trail in the jungle, and I grumpily follow him, soaked to my waist from slipping into the water so many times.

As we round a corner in the creek, Wilson suddenly says “STOP! Do not move.”

I don’t know what’s going on, but I stop nonetheless.

He takes his walking stick, thrusts it into the water in front of me, and flicks a three-foot purple and white striped snake into the brush on the side of the water.

“What was that?” I ask, paralyzed in fear.

“Bad snake. Can kill man. It is good you did not walk into it.”

We keep walking.

Friday, 11:00 a.m., a few kilometers farther up the creek

I’m starting to tire. Not having eaten since dinner the night before, my stomach was rumbling like a ’77 Camaro and my feet wouldn’t move as fast as I wanted them to. I found myself losing sight of Wilson every five minutes and hurrying to catch up with him, only to lose sight again within a few minutes.

I call ahead that I need to take a break.

“A break? Why?” He stops and turns back to me curiously, but obliges, whistling to himself and humming a tune I don’t recognize.

Three minutes later, we set off again.

Friday, 11:45 a.m., underneath a waterfall 25 or 30 feet high

We come up to a waterfall towering over us. We obviously can’t go over it. Unfazed, Wilson pulls out his machete and we start to carve a path up and around the mountain. The exhaustion is really catching up with me, and I take out my water bottle and drain the last of my Dasani. Chuta. (“chuta!” is the Spanish equivalent of “shoot!”)

Ten minutes of trailblazing later, we emerge over the waterfall. 

“It’s beautiful!” Wilson exclaims, and I earnestly nod my head in agreement, thinking that this event might warrant a break.

Not the case.

“Let’s go!” he says enthusiastically. I grunt in reluctant agreement.

We keep walking.

Friday, 12:30 p.m., once again trudging through a creek somewhere deep in Bosque Colonso

I have no idea where we are. I ask Wilson, and he says “I don’t either, but according to the GPS, we are three kilometers from the edge of the forest.”

How inspiring, I think to myself. The exhaustion is making me sarcastic, and I scold myself.

“One hour more,” he reassures me from ahead on the “trail” we are creating.

Relieved, senses somewhat dulled by the never-ending stimulation of the forest, I take a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other once again.

Friday, 2:00 p.m., on a small mountain in the forest

After an hour and a half pass without us reaching the edge of the forest, Wilson adjusts his estimation again.

“We will be there by 3:00.”

My feet don’t want to move anymore, and neither do I. My breath scrapes against the back of my throat like sandpaper, and my stomach has given up rumbling in place of dull throbbing in time with my steps, which grow slower every minute. Even Wilson has noticed my decline in my already-slow pace, and asks if I’m okay.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little tired.” I ask if he has any water left, but he too ran out several hours ago.

“We cannot take a break. We must get back to Santa Rita before dark.”

I hadn’t thought of that. Several choice words run through my head, and I tell him I’m ready.

We walk.

Friday, 3:00 p.m., coming down another mountain into a clearing

I can’t go any farther. I’m walking about at about a quarter the rate as when I first started, and Wilson is growing somewhat impatient with me.

I abruptly lose footing coming down a slope and slide uncontrollably 20 feet through the mud before coming to an abrupt halt with my thumb jammed against a rock and an inch-long piece of bark sticking out of one of my fingernails.

Agony washes over me, my vision blurs, and I yank the wood out from my ring finger. Blood spurts in a disgusting arc and I jam my finger into the cloth of my shirt to try and stem the bleeding.

Only then do I notice my thumb: already purple, nearly twice the size it should be, and completely immobile. More choice words fly through my head, and I let out a howl of pain.

Although I once broke my pinky finger during a football match gone bad, I’ve never actually broken any other bones. The pain radiating from my thumb was excruciating. I lose my footing again and fall onto my hand.

Tears streaming down my cheeks (even at the writing of this blog, I can still remember how embarrassed I felt for crying in front of Wilson), heart beating like I had just run a 100-meter dash, I plant myself on a log next to the trail as Wilson makes his way carefully back up the trail to where I sit.

“Chuta!” he exclaims.

“Chuta,” I agree weakly. I feel wretched.

Miles from any village, my thumb possibly broken, a hole in the bottom of my left foot, three wasp stings that have evolved into red bumps on my chest and shoulder, not having eaten for almost 24 hours, sweating out the last of my water, and in a race against time to get to the edge of Bosque Colonso and back to Santa Rita before dark, the gravity of what’s happening hits me.

I start to get scared.

Stay tuned for the third and final part of this adventure, coming in my next blog post. It should be up within the next week. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to this blog by clicking the green button next to my name in the right-hand column!

My most recent project at my internship site, Runa Amazon Guayusa, is creating a GPS map of Bosque Colonso, a 22,000 acre rainforest preserve stretching from my village of Santa Rita, past the towns of Archidona and Tena, and through a number of other Kichwa villages. All conversations within the story took place in Spanish and/or Kichwa and has been translated for your reading pleasure.

The 39 hours between 11 a.m. on Thursday, December 1^st and 2 a.m. on Saturday, December 3^rd were, without exaggeration, the scariest and yet most transformative day and a half of my life. Let’s start at the beginning.

Thursday, 10:30 a.m., Santa Rita

I’m with Alexandra, an Ecuadorian woman working in the Runa office. We arrive in Santa Rita in order to mosey up to the edge of Bosque Colonso, two kilometers to the west of Santa Rita through the forest. However, neither of us know the way to the edge of Santa Rita, so we enlist the help of Wilson, a neighbor of mine and the Santa Rita representative on Runa’s farmers association.

When he lets us know we can’t go directly to the edge of Colonso, it will be a six-hour hike to get there, and that we will have to spend the night on the mountain, Alexandra says she absolutely cannot go because she needs to be in the office early tomorrow. I volunteer to go.

“Great. You’ll need plastic to sleep on, a blanket, and enough food to last until 10 a.m. tomorrow. Can you be ready in a half hour? We need to leave soon to make it there by dark.” says Wilson.

Not even knowing what “there” is and far from worrying about it, I say, “yes” and practically run to my room in excitement. I throw my things together: the GPS to take the Colonso points, a change of clothes, plastic and a blanket, a clipboard for notes, a bar of soap, and some snacks: two bottles of water, a Nestea, crackers, three pieces of bread, and some fruit.

We meet outside his house at 11 and depart.

 Thursday, 1:00 p.m., far up the mountain next to Santa Rita

I’m tired, but excited. This is going to be an adventure to remember forever. I’m going to be living like a true Kichwa. Just me, Wilson, and the forest. Little did I know how many times my life would be in the hands of this man over the next 37 hours.

I put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.

 Thursday, 1:30 p.m., a steep ridge over a straight shot into a river 300 feet below

My first near-death experience. Normally, Wilson walks in front of me and I follow, but for some reason (thank the heavens above), he decides to let me break trail for an hour or so. I lose my footing and tip over the 75-degree ledge toward the trees, thinking to myself “Chacho, this is a really sad way to die…” But Wilson catches me. Hanging over the edge of a ridge, arms flailing, being held up by my backpack straps by a Kichwa man who could probably beat Brock Lesner in a wrestling match, I start to laugh. I can’t explain why, it just falls out. Gringos and the rainforest just don’t mix.

He hauls me back up.

“What would have happened if I fell?” I ask him.

“You would have died or broken a leg, or both.” he responds.

I should probably let the reader know, in case you can’t already tell, that Wilson is a man of few words.

Thursday, 2:30 p.m., somewhere in Bosque Colonso

Cell phone service is officially gone. This was also my first encounter with unhappy insects. Walking by a large tree with a hole full of Amazonian wasps, Wilson says “Bees. Move quickly.” He runs past the tree and looks back at me. I do the same.

I start to run by the tree, but a wasp lodges itself under my right backpack strap. Another flies down through my undone top button. The first sting comes from the one in my shirt, and I screamed and tried to frantically beat it out of my flannel. The next two come from the one under my backpack strap, twice in a row in the same place. We run for about 30 meters and I collapse on the side of the trail, two massive bumps already forming on my blanched Irish skin. I can’t lift my right arm, and Wilson says “Wait. I will return.” I sit on the side of the trail, crawling with ants and unable to think, and he returns ten minutes later with several large green leaves.

“Chew,” he orders.

I chew.

“Good. Let’s go. You will be better in a half hour, but we must walk.”

A half hour later, most of the pain from the stings is gone. I ask him what the leaves did.

“Nothing. But you thought they were medicine, didn’t you?”

We keep walking.

 Thursday, 3:15 p.m., somewhere in Bosque Colonso

My first of many foot injuries. A small stick about as big around as a pencil slams through the bottom of my boot and into the arch of my left foot. It makes it about a quarter of an inch into my foot before I can adjust my weight to my other foot, and I fall on the ground with a yelp. Wilson sees the stick, pulls it out, and says “Are you okay?”

I say that I’ll be fine.

“Good. We have many more kilometers to go.”

Blood seeping through my sock and into my boot, I stand back up and keep walking.

 Thursday, 3:16 p.m., somewhere in Bosque Colonso

“Wilson, where are we going tonight?” I ask the man.

“A small lean-to on an abandoned ranch. There is a river next to it.”

“How long ago did you last visit this place?” I ask, suddenly worried.

“Two years ago,” he responds.

“And if it’s not there?” I press.

“We will sleep in the forest.”

 Thursday, 3:25 p.m., a small river in Bosque Colonso

“Over that cliff is the lean-to,” Wilson informs me.

We try to cross the river, but the current is too strong. Neither of us can afford to get our things wet, because we each have several-hundred-dollar GPS devices in our backpacks.

“We must strip down and carry our things over our head,” he says. He strips down to nothing but his rubber boots and puts everything in his bag. I do the same.

He walks into the current, backpack over his head. He nearly falls several times, but makes it safely across with only one major loss of footing near the other bank.

I come next. I slip on the very first touch of current, but steady myself. I take a step, then another.

The current is too strong. “I can’t do it!” I yell to Wilson.

“Try harder!” he responds.

I take another step, lose the footing of my right foot, but catch a lucky rock and remain upright.

“It’s too strong!” I holler over the roar of the water.

“You must! FUERTE, CHACHO! FUERTE!” he yells back over the roar of the water.

I hoist my bag higher, dig my boots into the river bottom, and walk. Fuerte.

 Thursday, 3:30 p.m., an abandoned ranch on the northern border of Bosque Colonso

When I see the lean-to, I practically squeal with delight. Half-dragging my left foot and my right arm throbbing, I forget my pain and run the rest of the way there. Wilson arrives a moment later and we both take short naps.

A half hour later, we wake up to make dinner. I unpack the yuca and my bread, go to the river to fetch water for chicha, and lay out our beds while Wilson gathers wood and makes the fire.

Two minutes later, Wilson has a fire roaring outside the lean-to and the bugs have evacuated the premises. We roast the yuca, eat, laugh about my misfortune thus far, and end up eating all of the food that I brought. In retrospect, it was not the smartest move I’ve ever done.

Thursday, 6:00 p.m., the abandoned ranchito

We go to bed at 6:00 as the sun goes down. A drop of water hits my face as I lay down my head, and the clouds start to rumble.

Stay tuned for the second part of this adventure, coming in my next blog post. It should be up within the next week. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to this blog by clicking the green button next to my name in the right column!

One of the most prominent features of the average street in my rural village of Leona, aside from the sand, is the trash. It lines the streets — mainly plastic bags, packaging, the occasional discarded sandal. Plastic and processed goods have reached rural Senegal, but there is simply no centralized location to discard them when they break. Upon seeing this trash, my Western knee-jerk reaction was, “This is horrible for the environment. What a shame!” I now realize that this is valid, but far from the whole story.

Trash on a street near my village

There may be trash everywhere, but the average family in Leona, Senegal produces far less waste than the average family in my hometown of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The difference is that the residents of Leona have no centralized location to dispose of the waste, whereas at my house in Wisconsin, the trash is collected weekly and taken “away.” No one really seems to know or care where it is going – only that they don’t have to worry about it anymore. The trash situation in the United States is best summarized as “Out of sight out of mind.” Because we can’t see the trash, we can conveniently forget that all that trash is indeed harming the environment. However, just because my family in the United States disposes of its trash in a landfill does not necessarily mean that our actions have a smaller impact on the environment. In fact, I would argue the opposite – that my Senegalese family has a smaller environmental impact in the long term, even though they “litter” on a daily basis.

The difference lies in the quantity. When one considers the resources and energy required to manufacture the great quantity of packaging and ultimately transport it to a landfill it becomes apparent that my family has a greater environmental impact, from a macroscopic point of view. While my Senegalese family’s lack of a central trash disposal system may have a more superficial, temporary environmental impact, the resources consumed to manufacture, transport and dispose of the comparatively large quantity of my family’s trash in the United States has an even greater environmental impact in the long term. Trash disposal here is certainly a problem, but perhaps I and other Westerners astonished by all the “littering” in developing countries should examine our own practices and decide who is really doing greater harm to the environment.

Water and power outages are a really big problem in Senegal. I’d go so far to say that it could very well be the biggest problem in Senegal, but I never put anything number one on any list because I’m usually proven wrong. So let’s just say that as far as I can tell right now, water and power outages could potentially be the biggest problem in Senegal. That being said, it’s easy and sometimes astonishing how people adapt to those problems. Before I left for our January monthly meeting, the water had been out for about two days. Two days. If something like this were to happen in the US, people would riot. However, here it is almost a weekly occurrence, and, well, much like all things that happen often, people find ways to live with them.

When I turn the faucet on and nothing comes out but the sound of gurgled emptiness in the pipes, I’m still not entirely sure what to do. Sometimes I stand awkwardly in the middle of my courtyard in the house and wait for the water to maybe come back on so I can take a shower. Sometimes I just don’t wash my clothes when I really need to, and I brush my teeth with the drinking water in my bottle that I should be using for, well, drinking. I’m still learning that not all things, especially here, are used for the things they’re intended to be used for.

So it was one of those dirty, grungy, I-didn’t-take-a-shower-last-night-and-now-I-don’t-even-feel-like-wearing-clean-clothes type of mornings that I felt truly proud of myself for my adjustment. I woke up and stayed in my pajamas all morning and helped with housework. When the maid walked in with a basin full of well-water on her head, my first thoughts were something along the lines of, “wow, I really want to do that someday”. So after doing the dishes and cleaning up under the staircase, low and behold we’re out of water again and the maid is nowhere to be seen. “This is my chance!” I’m thinking. And when I see the look on my mother’s face that there is no water and there very well should be, I’m practically jumping with excitement. Please ask me, please ask me, I can do it, I’m right here. Just say the word! I’ll go!

“Emily, would you go get some water from the well Marcel works at? You know the farm across the street. You know Marcel? There. Yes. Do you understand? Water,” she says cautiously.

I am beaming and quickly tell her yes in all three languages I know how to say yes in, and hurry across the street and into town with my big blue basin and a big hearty grin. I suppose I’ll admit that it took a minute to find exactly the door that led into the farm, but when I did, I cheerfully set my basin down to have it filled, with Marcel giggling at me for being slightly more bouncy than all the other women lined up who do this almost weekly. And then the moment came where I lifted the basin of water onto my head, and very very carefully walked out of the farm, across the street, down the street, and into my house. There was a little spilling and a lot of giggling and pointing from kids playing by the road, but it was beyond worth it. I’d have given so much money for a picture of me carrying a big water bin on my head in my pajamas. No more standing awkwardly waiting for life, or in this case, water, to happen. I’m carrying it on my head from here on out, even if it smells slightly like chicken farm.

I now know the full process of making farinha, and have participated in almost all of it.

It all begins with a field, a tractor, a plow, and some manioc seeds. The plantation process  I have not witnessed or been part of yet, but word has it that I will get the opportunity before I leave. The manioc is planted with about two square feet of space around each root, and though I do not know how long it takes to mature, I can attest that harvesting the root is a lot easier if the field is kept well-manicured. When harvest time arrives, it’s simply a matter of digging around the root a little with a hoe, and then pulling. After that, twist, pull, or cut the big brown chunks off the roots (this is your mandioc) and collect for peeling. Repeat many, many times, until the field is finished.

I’ve already described the peeling process in another blog—but I’ve learned that this fantastic get-together occurs very frequently around here. Long story short, scrape the brown skin (it’s almost like bark) off of the root to reveal the white underneath, and place on the piles for collection.

From here, the mandioc goes to the casa de farinha. The casa that I know of is in Sitio Camacari, the community next door to Nova Suica. The building has an area for peeling as well, but the main event occurs in a room whose walls and rafters are splattered white with ground manioc. This room contains two grinders, a press, about 4 different tiled tub-type structures, and a mixer/toaster which is warmed by a fire underneath, built around the side of the building. The manioc goes through the grinder and then is put into sacks, which are piled into the press to remove the water from the mandioc mush. After a couple of hours and a few strong-willed twists of a huge cog, the sacks are hauled into one of the tubs and the now semi-solid mandioc is broken apart with hands and sticks—somewhat like play dough. These chunks are then passed through the grinder again, and dumped into the mixer/toaster, where what is now a fine powder gets swished around for a couple hours. The final step of the process, once this “farinha quentinha” (nice hot farinha) is in the final tub, is to sift it and run the residual chunks through one last grinder before everything is ready to be distributed. And thus, you have your sacks of farinha, ready to sell—or dump on your beans.

We were at the health post, handing out bottles to those who were interested in buying.

“10 reais for one liter? Really?”

“You kidding? Smell it. Flavored, washed with spring water, mashed by hand—and with an American helper? How often does that happen?”

This was the basic negotiation going on—I was being used as part of the marketing campaign, and my host mom Raquel was talking up her product—“not what you find at the market,” she said.

She managed to sell a good 9 liters of the homemade dende oil in a matter of 30 minutes. And when I say homemade, I’m not kidding. For about two weeks, there was a mini dende factory going on in my back yard.

But what is dende oil, exactly? It’s a traditional Bahian cooking base with a distinctive burnt orange color and a unique flavor that’s hard to pin. The only type of oil readily available in the region for a long time, it’s a key ingredient in the popular street food acaraje and in the native stews known as moquecas.

It’s role as such a staple here was striking once I saw the dende plant and participated in the production process. I gained an appreciation for those who had been doing it for centuries—it’s a lucrative but laborious process.

It began with the bizarre, cruel, spiked bunches of dense orange and purple berries that apparently grow very high up on the tree—challenging both to cut and transport. To make it easier to pick the berries around the spikes, usually someone would take a machete to the cluster, and then we would go through picking and removing leaves and thorns. The berries were then washed and cooked with a little bit of salt until softened, when they were taken to be mashed in what was essentially a huge pestle and mortar.

The mashing process resulted in yellow-orange stringy mass spotted with black pits, full of oil waiting to be washed off of the fibers. This is, in my opinion, the backbreaking part of the process: sitting on a log in front of a basin of water, rubbing the oil off the fibers and pits, agitating the water to separate the oil, and trying to collect the oil from the water’s surface. The oil collected is cooked to allow any trapped water to evaporate, and to refine the product. My family also seasons their product with a plant they call favaca (my host mom uses it to season chicken as well) and a little more salt—this, really, is what sets it apart. The oil is then bottled and ready for transport. And my little bottle of azeite de dende is sitting on a table in the kitchen, waiting to be taken to the US and used in a traditional Bahian dish.

Ok this shouldn’t be that bad
Wait this might be harder than i thought
No No there has to be an easier way. Yes, that’s what it is I’m doing it wrong
This should work. Better
Ah I feel pain again
Ok I need a break
Let’s look back and see how far I’ve gotten
Oh Man, I barely went anywhere, less than 5 feet
No, I have to keep going. Can’t let anyone see me struggle like this
“Look at the American struggle to carry water.” Or they would say
“Olhar para a luta americana para levar água”
I don’t think so I will not be the laughing stock of my community
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ok 5 steps more, 4 steps more, 3 steps more, 2 more
steps, 1 more step
Break.
I can do this
Why does this walk seem longer than before?
Maybe I passed my house. No my house is the last house on the road
My feet hurt and these rocks are making it worst
Will I have to do this every night? Lord please no
Ok I’m getting closer
The closer I get to my house the more the water falls and at this point
It’s evidently on me
I see my house I think
I think I might take less showers while here. Yes, I will
This is the last break, I have to keep moving
I’m better than this
But this bucket is heavy and I’m getting wet
Oh man there is somebody watching
Wait
Smile, hide the pain “Oi Boa Noite”
The act is up, the pain is now written all over my face
Home, sweet home
Look at me
I’ve lost 1/5 of the product i started with and it has found a new home
On my clothes
My bed clothes are now soaked
Well I made it! I’ll do better next time
I have five months here I’ll be a pro by next month

First experience carrying water – 1/5 of the water I started with +
newly developed body pain + new appreciation for water = A Night Shower