Christmas in Bolivia

Christmas in Bolivia is celebrated on the 24th of December and, after a vote among the volunteers here at Parque Machia, we decided to follow suite. We planned a big dinner with all of the volunteers (both Bolivian and foreign), a secret santa, and decorated the cafe and casa in Christmas cheer. Even though it was Christmas, however, the animals needed to be fed and walked and everyone worked a full day as usual before rushing off to prepare their part of the meal. The food was not standard Bolivian Christmas fare but rather an eclectic mix of various Christmas traditions mashed together into one meal. It was a fun night and there were many nice people there but I couldn´t help feeling a little homesick on my first Christmas away from my family.
Christmas day dawned far too early for most of us. I had beach day with Gato and had to begin at 8 instead of the usual 9 am. I was at the Cafe at 7 45 but my partner, a 3rd year Bolivian veternary student who had started with Gato while I had been sick a few days before, did not show up until 9 30. I was more than a little angry and became more so when after explicit instructions to keep up on the way down to the beach, he failed to do so and was found 20 minutes later laying in the hammock at Gato´s rest spot. I told him to go home and spent a beautiful Christmas day wandering the beach alone with my Puma. The last few days had been sunny and the water was the lowest I had seen it in months. It was one of the best days I have had here. Still, I did glance at my watch and shed a tear as I followed my family´s Christmas festivities in my mind. In the evening, my 9 housemates and I made a dinner, opened stockings, and played games together.

Two days after Christmas, after many hours of thought and a few tears, I decided that I would no longer be able to work with Gato. The old tendonitis in my knees had flared up painfully and I realised that I might jeopardize many things in the rest of my trip if I continued to walk the Puma trails. I was reassigned to Spider Monkey park for my last week here at Inti Wara Yassi.

I like the Spider Monkies a lot but it is a very different day than that of a cat person. The day starts at 7 30 in the morning and lasts until 7 in the evening. In between, we feed the monkies (3 times), clean their night cage, and try and keep them happy by grooming them and playing with them. I even got up at 4 30 one morning to guard the male spider monkey, who does not sleep in a cage, from two wild Spider monkies trying to steal his females. It was pretty cool to watch the sunrise with a Spider monkey snuggled up under my shirt.

I leave Villa Tunari on the 2nd of January to meet up with my parents in Argentina. I love it here but, now that I know I am leaving, I am excited to go. I may come back but I am ready for a change.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my friends and family. I will be celebrating christmas here in the steamy hot jungle. We have put up a christmas tree and have hung up some stockings but boy it feels much too hot for christmas! I hope everyone is well and has a merry day



Love

Meghan

The Rainy Season

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=77934&l=3aaf3&id=802760462


The rainy season has finally set in here in the jungle...and while the river may be swollen and the rain plentiful there is a distinct drought of volunteers. Everyday it becomes harder to juggle people so that all of the animals get taken care of properly. In the shuffle, I have taken on the job of walking Gato...alone. Under normal circumstances Pumas are always walked by a pair of volunteers. In times of shortage, it is possible for one experienced volunteer to walk Gato by him or herself. I am both thrilled to have the opportunity and a bit disapointed that I did not perservere with Maggie. Still, I think things worked out the best in the end.

I have two weeks left here at Inti Wara Yassi and everyone is gearing up for Christmas. I find the concept of Christmas in the jungle hard to grasp but I think it will be a day to remember.
I only have two more weeks here before I head down to Mendoza to meet up with my parents.

Never Turn Your Back on a Puma

I have been here in Villa Tunari at Inti Wara Yassi going on 2 months now. There have been many changes during my time here but the biggest change came last week when after 6 wonderful weeks working with Gato, I switched pumas. I am now working with Maggie, Gato´s polar opposite in the park. Gato is 13, calm, and motivated to walk. Maggie (the only female puma in the park) is a kitten (11 months old), full of energy at times and frusteratingly lazy at others. Maggie is a cat that operates in 3 dimensions, she is just as likely to be in a tree above you, as the path ahead of you or the jungle below you and will jump on you from anywhere. I knew when I started with Maggie that working with her would be a different experience than working with Gato but I wasn´t quite prepared for how much I felt like I was starting from the very beginning again. The most difficult lessons that I had to learn were to never turn your back on a puma and never step away from a jump, step into it. These things are not instinctual and I have the bruises and scratches to show from my inability to look a puma in the eyes and stand my ground as she charged me. Maggie has never attacked hard enough to do serious damage but she is tenacious and she is testing me. For the first several days every time that I would touch the rope she would begin an attacking fit that would often leave me in tears of frusteration and pain. I began to seriously doubt my ability to continue working with her because I was quite convinced that she hated me. It also wasn´t helpful that my partner, Cyril, has the same command of English as I do of his native French...not much. We communicate in Spanish, which is great practice but causes big problems when Maggie has her teeth in my love handles and I can´t remember the words for ¨don´t pull her off it´ll only make the scratches worse¨. One day I really believed that I would have to quit but I realised that I had much more to gain by staying and gaining Maggie´s respect than I did by walking away. Things have become marginally better in the subsequent days but I must admit that I am much more relieved to walk away from Maggie´s cage at the end of the day than I ever was with Gato.

The other big change here has been the coming of rainy season. It has been raining more often than not and since both my pink rain jacket and the yellow plastic rain ponchos they sell in town are extremely reminiscent of the plush toys that Maggie takes delight in mauling I have opted to just get wet. I know that it sounds like I am not enjoying my time as much any more but that is not the truth. I love the people (especially my longtime housemates) and animals of Inti Wara Yassi and it is where I want to be the most of anywhere right now.