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.