On Our Way Up River
Trip Start
Jun 01, 2008
1
3
5
Trip End
Jun 13, 2008
Pucallpa,
Peru
Friday, June 6, 2008
The team of 5 had great success at all of our meetings in Lima. We learned all that we could from all the organizations and boarded our plane to meet the team of 8 in Pucallpa. But the Team of 8 had been up to their own adventures in Pucallpa. It seems that in the year we had been gone Dinamarca has undergone many changes. One of them being the purchase of a boat. The village was very excited for our arrival, and the boat was headed back with many members of the community. So, along with the village members went Colin (Spanish speaker extraordinaire), Rebecca, Amy, Aaron and Alysha. From what we heard, they are having fun, playing soccer and teaching English lessons at the secondary school.
It all started the day I was born.....
Here in Pucallpa, the original Team of 5 met up with Laura, Faith and Bob to become the new Team of 8. We have been attending many meetings with Bernardo (the Chief of Dinamarca) on the issue of the village boundaries. Yesterday Bryan, John and Bernardo took a flight over the village boundary. The purpose of the flight was to understand the extent of encroachment onto Dinamarca's land. It was both good and bad news to the community leaders. The area of encroachment is large, and is an emotional sight to see. However, most of the area is deforestation and does not contain as many settlers as anticipated which will hopefully make a resolution easier to reach.
We have also been on a search for more information to help in the future well drilling project. This too has been quite successful. Yesterday we were able to see our good friends Tommy & Angela Head who drill wells throughout Peru. They give us great advice on everything from what soils we'll encounter to sanitation training. The second pleasure of hanging out at the Head's house is getting to play with Monkeys while having these conversations. They have many monkeys they have rescued over the years, and they are a joy to be around. Be sure and ask Bob to see his pictures of the monkey and dogs playing together!
In the morning our Team of 8 will depart for Dinamarca, and finally be reunited into a Team of 13. We will begin filter training as soon as we arrive, and hope that the initial delay will not impact the overall success of the filter project.
To the Jungle we go!
Sumer
