Leeches

Fun Fact No. 47: Houses are long and narrow. Houses from the outside here look really small, like about half the size of a little two bedroom in Hyde Park. But actually, even the poorest house is huge because the houses here are really long and narrow. So there might be five or six rooms because houses here are really deep; they often stretch back an entire block. Still disconcerting when I think I´m walking into a shack and it just keeps going and going.


This week has been the best week in a long time, despite the Leech. Ah, the Leech. And So It Shall Be That He Who Was Rude and Icky Shall Be Referred To As THE LEECH. I´ll start from the beginning on this one. This guy calls last Sunday saying that he met my brother in Bolivia and my brother gave him my number. Sure, I live in Iquitos and I can even pick you up from the airport, I say. His flight gets in at 1am so I tell him he can stay in my house that first night and the next day I can take him to a hostel. There´s a really nice hostel that´s $4 a night and it has a kitchen and private bathrooms. It´s fabulous but he said he was looking for something cheaper. !!!! Well, I get to the airport and it´s a slightly older-than-my-brother guy (39) who we´ll call Leech for his privacy and whatnot, who says he´s been living in Buenos Aires for the last three years producing music and inventing stuff. And from Iquitos he´ll be heading out to Corpus Cristi to work in oil making boku bucks. Turns out he´s half Native American (Ponca Tribe from OK), and he´s here to get in touch with his indigenous roots, etc. And he´s an expert reflexologist, physicist, and music producer, among other things (April, does anyone from our Fem Studies class ring a bell?). And is WAY too touchy feely and can´t seem to ride on the back of my motorcycle without grabbing my waist in an offensive and "getcher mitts off me" kind of way. After excessive cringing and flinching, he asked if I have a boyfriend and I said yes, and I´m rather uncomfortable with the way yee-who-has-known-me-less-than-12-hours feels at liberty to invade my bubble. A brief apology was feebly uttered and then began the rampage. He´s all about getting back to his native roots and whatnot even though he´s been exiled repeatedly from his tribe and he´s about to go bust out a job in the petroleum industry which, as you may or may not know, is enemies with most native peoples because they´re sitting on goldmines in their little villages or reservations. AND he doesn´t believe in personal responsibility, just personal happiness. So the rest of the world can go screw itself because the only thing that he or God cares about is his happiness. And to top it all off, in the four days he was here, he seduced a 16 year old girl and talked about how when he´s chief of his tribe he wants a Peruvian princess at his side. And he said that the United States is the most evolved country in the world. That´s right folks, he said evolved. So spake the leech, one of the less evolved species among us.

How I put up with this, you ask, in my own home for 4 days? Insane patience and a quest for tranquility. I have been unhappy and depressed for many moons and this past week I started to come out of it, feeling much more relaxed. So I stayed away from my house, kept busy with fieldwork, and attempted not to commit homicide. Despite Leechy, it was a great week with lots of good interviews, some great flute lessons, and a general peace. And this is when I ask myself what I think many of us who have been to the jungle ask ourselves: why does the Amazon attract the weirdest people? Obviously I have to be counted among the weirdos as I am a white girl living in the Amazon, but most of the gringos here are extreme. Extreme nuts, that is. I´ll share an analysis of the fruits and nuts who live in this area another day.

On a non-leech note, tonight there´s a velada (relgious dance) celebrating Easter. Veladas are always nice because they serve food and coffee and dessert, and the old ladies dancing with their hankerchiefs in front of the statue of the Saint of the Day is really sweet and relaxing. The folkloric group I´ve been working with is playing it, and so it´s part of the fieldwork, but I really love it anyway.

I travel soon. Hooray!