Chaco Day, A Bugs Life,

The last few weeks have gone by quickly and here are some of my adventures here in the Amazon Forest.

Chaco Day. Few  weeks ago, for 2 weekends, the Internado folks  (workers and kids) had to go to chaco   (farming field) to work. Its about 3 miles from the Internado Property. Hermano Andres works there everyday taking care of the banana trees, cacao and other vegetables. For 2 Sundays, we helped him weed the plants.  On the first Sunday, we worked all day using machete to cut the tall weeds and other wild grass that grew around  the field.  Few kids were assigned each row. I paired up with some of the girls, and since I was not familiar with how they do it, I had to ask her where is our area. As I carpir (cut) the tall, wild grass and other weeds, I was excited cutting anywhere. So  the girls had to  tell me several times, “that is not our row”.  Besides the heat of the sun, we also had to work through some attacks of the bees and other bugs.  I tried to be careful as I was already beaten by a wasp just few days before that. Sad to say, Rachel was beaten by some wasps. She is okay though Mrs. Marsha.  We brought our lunch ( a vegetable salad with sardines and rice of course) and had a picnic at the barn.  After the long day work, some of the girls walked to the nearby river or streams of water.

The following  day  I didn’t realized how tiring it was, and I was sore and achy all over. I thought it was the age, but some of the girls had the same thing.    We all showed each other the callous and cuts we had on our fingers from the carpir. I enjoyed though working with the earth. The following weekend, some of the kids who didn’t get to go the previous weekend, had to go. For which I had to stay in the Internado to watch the kids who didn’t go the 2nd Sunday.

A BugS Life.

Back to the story where I was beaten by a wasp couple of weeks ago.We normally have wasps and other bugs flying around (of course) esp at night when there is light, all kinds of bugs in different colors, shapes and sizes fly around. One lunch time, as a usual thing there were some wasps flying around, I did not notice one on my drinking cup, until I felt a sharp pain and sting on my mouth. I screamed but it was too late. (most of the kids were gone in the river, they did not hear my scream.)  Just after few minutes, a kid noticed my lip is different. For a couple of days, half of my lip is swollen, and  I felt the sting, eventhough I put some hydrocortisone and took some paracetamol.   Just before that, I was also beaten by giant red ants that left  some marks around my right hand up to now. Its funny for me that it seems coming here in the jungle has change my prayer from he place where I used to be. Before, I would pray, “Lord protect me from watching eyes, and from dangers of being caught by the country authorities because of the work I do for you.”

Now my prayer sometimes is like this, “Lord protect me from the bugs” and when I go to the river, “Lord let me not meet a bibora (snake) today, or something like  this “ I would not really appreciate a visit of a cayman, not today!”  Some kids claimed that they saw some snakes in the river.

To be continued…a Bugs Life

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