I'm Back into the Light of Day...

Once again in April, the Adopt-A-School show went on the road! In April, we welcomed two volunteer groups—one group to help with school supply deliveries and one group to build a mini-water treatment plant in the village of Ramon Castilla.--An incredibility good time was had by all! The Detroit Zoo handles all recruiting and coordinating of the volunteers for our AAS expeditions. They do a great job and once again found enthusiastic volunteers always willing to go the extra mile. The communities we visited were ready and waiting for us and this year we saw a larger number of teachers posted in the jungle than ever before. We all hope that bodes well for the students by way of more commitment by educators and smaller teacher/student ratios in the classroom. A shout out to all the volunteers for 2010 plus those added extras who made the trip to help even before deliveries started: Bonnie, Mary, Bev, Ray, Erich, Linda, Kristine, Cheyanne, Earl, Susan, Martha, Camille, Megan, Pachita, Claire, Marcy, Nancy, Krisitian, Amy, Michelle, Mike, Missy, Sally and Carla. See you again next year?

Just before we departed for the deliveries, a passenger who was coming to Explorama emailed Pam and asked if there was anything she and her family could bring for the AAS program. Since we already had all the school supplies purchased, I suggested some art supplies. These are terribly expensive in the States for a whole classroom let alone here in Iquitos. We just don’t have the funds for that sort of thing. Well, our donor/passenger came through in a big way. She brought a whole suitcase crammed full of water paint, finger paint, markers, glue, pipe cleaners, scissors, etc. It truly was like Christmas to receive all these goodies. We put this to good use with our volunteers by making rainforest animal mobiles and a large fabric banner called the “Friendship Tree”, where we painted trees then all the kids and other participants placed their painted handprints for leaves with their name below. What a wonderful gift this woman gave us, but the most interesting thing was her constant apologies for not bringing more goodies! I think she will be back in one form or another as she was one of those folks who really falls in love with the rainforest. Thanks, Lorna of Texas, for your great help!

March 31st was my 54th birthday (and thankfully I feel closer to 16 :) Last year I had a great day with lots of new friends helping me celebrate. I really didn’t think I could top it this year but I think I did. Along with hugs, kisses, cakes and gifts I was able to take my first plane ride over the Amazon River in a small float plane. What fun!! The plane itself was just about as old as I was—built in 1962, it felt a bit like I was flying in a Volkswagen, but it did the job! We were up only about 2,000 feet which gave me a completely different perspective of something I’ve only seen from a boat. It was very interesting but too short of a ride. I hope to get up again and go a little further down river. I want to see the Napo River and its point of entry to the Amazon but for now, another thing off my “bucket list”!

Sad news personally during April as my former father-in-law, Fred Snyder, died. He was 90 years old and a WWII vet, truly one of the “Greatest Generation”. He came of age during the depression and then served his country well until the end of the war, then home to Detroit, MI where he married, raised a family and worked for Chrysler for 42 years—they just don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Always a gentlemen but ready and willing to give warm hugs and kisses, he will be missed by all his family and friends. We should all be blessed to live lives so long and so well!

I attended my first Peruvian wedding over the weekend. Once again, things are done differently here. The event was at the “tennis club” so I had no idea what to expect. The bride and groom are friends whom I’ve known since I first arrived in 2008. Carmen is our resident mani/pedi person who is more of an artist than anything else with her ability to create works of art on your toes and fingers. Well, their wedding turned out to be a mass wedding made up of 115 couples! There were at least 600 people there and at times it seemed all taking pictures in front of the same wedding cake! There were two live bands, crazy, sexy girl dancers, photographers, food, beer and gifts for each of the couples. It started at 10 AM but that really was only a suggestion. The actual formalities got going about 12:15 PM--Ah, Peruvian time!! Anyway, the bottom line to all this, which I couldn’t quite figure out before hand due to my pitiful Spanish skills, was the whole event was put on by the local mayor who, guess what?, happens to be running for office this year. The brides and grooms were volunteers or in some other way connected with his campaign. I suppose it’s a creative way to support the idea of legal marriage (which is rare here) and gain some hardcore, loyal voters, too. Ah, never a dull “momentito”, as they say here in Iquitos. :)