Field Work in the City
Upon reaching Puerto Maldonado, after our rapid exodus from CICRA en masse, we were directed to a rather charming family-run hotel called Perú Amazónica. There we met with other researchers who were also held up in Puerto to wait out the strike. It was the 13th of November, a Friday. Yes, great timing.
We all greeted each other like long lost friends but there was of course, no great reason to be reuniting in Puerto. A sense of defeat permeated everything. To top it all off, Puerto remained absolutely unchanged. No matter whom we asked – the taxi drivers, shop keepers, waitresses – we got the same answer: “Strike? What strike? Sure, we’ll be open on Monday!”
This feeling of being a little unhinged from reality continued until we were granted an audience with the director of ACCA. This guy runs five research stations and is pretty much the one that makes the call to evacuate if we should. He spoke about threats he’d received, the intelligence on the street, the 4g of gold each miner was contributing to make this strike possible and the fact that, even though the town thought the strike was not going to happen, truckloads of miners were due to arrive in town on Sunday. I don’t have fond memories of that meal. Everyone was really tense and I got the feeling that nothing anyone said was going to make a difference. Research in science was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Politics, on the other hand, seemed to govern everything. Politics and fear.
We resigned ourselves to staying in Puerto until Tuesday or until everything looked calm. There are worse things, that’s for sure. Puerto is chock full of little restaurants that keep opening and folding so every visit is a bunch of little surprises. There’s Vaca Loca or the Mad Cow Restaurant (this wouldn’t fly in England) with its delicious selection of Pisco sours with various local fruit juices thrown in the mix. There is also a terrific portrait of a mad cow, rolling about with laughter hanging from the roof of the restaurant. Burgos is a little out of the way and has a great stuffed avocado entrée. Gustitos has the best ice cream, hands down. Maracuya, lucomar, guanabana…the names just roll off your tongue and the flavours create, as Gid likes to put it, a party in your mouth!
The days rolled by in Puerto, ice cream after ice cream to beat the heat, plenty of cold showers to wash off the dust, and lots of pirated movies to beat the boredom. The highlight of our stay there, however, has to be Peggy and René’s wedding, which we almost invited ourselves to since Peggy’s family wasn’t able to make it from the US. René, a Puerto Maldonian through and through, has a delightful little home in Barrio Nuevo, or the New Neighbourhood of Puerto. We all met in the lobby of our hospedaje and took three motocars to his house at about 7pm. The wedding was supposed to begin then but we were assured that the house was just around the corner so we would make it in on time. Of course, we stopped along the way to buy some spirits, for who can party without them. By the time we had all arrived, we were a clean 40 minutes late.
Strolling into the living room, however, we were taken aback by the fact that we were clearly the first major group of guests to arrive. Inside stood Peggy, the perfect picture of the blushing bride embarrassed that we were all seeing her in her finery, out of her field clothes at last. René’s sisters had taken her to get her hair done and it looked lovely. The decorators had come in and strung up long wine coloured satin all over the living room and the most beautiful wedding cake, complete with five split layers, made the centerpiece.
Then the rest of the family began to arrive. Soon they began to hand out the drinks, only in Perú, this means a completely different thing. Bottles of cold beer were passed along through the crowd along with a limited number of glasses. People got together in groups and began to pour out the beer into the group’s glass. Then, one person would drink his fill from it, throw the rest on the floor (or out the nearest window) to maintain some standards of hygiene and then pass the glass and bottle along to the next person. In this way, you make friends a whole lot faster than you would normally. And all this before the wedding had even begun!
Not having had a drink in a while, I was already feeling it go to my head. Then, there was a little murmur as a lady walked in dressed from head to toe in a bright red suit. She turned out to be the person officiating the wedding. She read out a rather long and dreary legal document to the seated couple while we all watched and snapped photographs. Then, she took a deep breath and launched into one of the most beautifully honest wedding speeches I’ve ever seen given. She talked about how marriage is hard, and that there was no getting out of that. She didn’t bring up anything religious or spiritual or mythical but just spoke as a human being to another – honesty, she said, was the key to making everything work. Compassion and understanding were required in large doses but most of awful, amor puede solucionar todos sus problemas…Love can solve all your problems.
We cheered like howler monkeys when she pronounced them husband and wife and René shyly pecked Peggy on the lips. Champagne was passed out, we toasted to the couple. The father of the groom spoke and then we all gathered around to congratulate them.
There were kids running about, beer spilled everywhere, a dog called Sameera that kept wandering in when no one was paying any attention, and of course, great appetizers. There was a real live DJ in the back of the tiny room, and the first thing she sang was Summer Wine in Spanish!
Not only did Peggy throw her bouquet of flowers to all the solteras, but I also caught it! Then as the soltera especial I was asked to pull one end of the piñata to release all this fluffy stuff onto the couple. They danced their first dance and we danced about a hundred dances that night. We did the salsa, rumba, kumbiah, bachata and the electric slide. If I anyone were ever foolish enough to ask me to throw a big shindig for similar reasons I could only hope that it would turn out like this one.
The next morning we awoke hungover and exhausted and sort of grimy from the party but we took a motocar right back there to meet Peggy before she left for the airport on her honeymoon. We found her valiantly trying to resuscitate René who had partied a little too hard and was in serious risk of missing the flight to their romantic getaway. I believe we heard later that they were able to pry the beer out of his hands and they did indeed set off on time.
The next few days in Puerto passed lazily. Sarah bought a pretty dress in Puerto that she was able to get altered to fit at a long, busy line of tailors, each with their own sewing machine in the market alleyway. Alison learned to ride a motorbike with a little help from Jorge, who is on CICRA’s staff. Gideon went out to play soccer with Jeffrey, who was Peggy’s field assistant from Puerto Maldonado. We played a full game of Monopoly, which to my surprise and horror (I don’t enjoy getting rich at the expense of everyone else), I won. We made some terrific guacamole to go with the game. We even watched pirated Bollywood movies (Dil Se).
It was a great break that I absolutely didn’t want. In any case, when Monday rolled around, we were told that the strike had been put off until talks on the 23rd of the month were complete. So we were to take the boat back the next day! Unfortunately, a nagging pain in my jaw necessitated a visit to the dentist, which was rather incredible considering the setting. I didn’t know where to go to find one or what to expect when I got there. At breakfast I broached the subject, mentioning how hard it had become to smile or chew, both things that I love to do.
“That’s funny,” said Roxana, “because I have to get a filling replaced. It fell out the other day while I was flossing.”
“Oh!” said Adrian, our director, “Actually, I need to see a dentist too. I think I chipped a tooth on something earlier.”
And so it was that the three of us, in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon, decided to find a dentist. We were all bowled away by the service. For all of 70 soles, or about $25, I had a wonderful dentist in clean and ironed scrubs attend to me with great care, explain all my options, sterilize all his equipment in front of me and then proceed to do the least painful tooth extraction that I have ever had. I wish the many dentists of my childhood that have left me scarred could see this guy’s technique.
Tooth taken care of, but forgotten at the dentists, I returned triumphantly to the hotel to show off my latest loss. Other than not being able to eat rice for three days, I had no other restrictions. Gideon was amazed. I only took a couple of painkillers and then it quite bothering me entirely.
Tuesday rolled around and we were all shuttled back to Laberinto, into the boat and onward to CICRA. When we docked I had that most distinctive feeling – a true mixture of emotions of gladness at being back and absolute horror at having to lug all our stuff up those stairs again. I hope we can just stay and not ever have to do that again. I’m afraid that’s wishful thinking though.
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