Good Morning, Beautiful

I’ve found life around the house to be fairly chaotic this year. There’s been the usual boilerplate stresses like financial worries and relationship strife, and now that Maverick is a two year old he is a hurricane-grade source of chaos in himself. On top of that you’ve got Corrina and her mother acting out an age-old Latina mother-daughter conflict over how to raise the child, and every other household decision that really boils down to who’s in charge here and generally ends with them squawking at each other like a couple of riled-up mother hens fighting over a nest.

I’m ready to say goodbye to a lot of that stress, discord, and chaos. I have a high threshold for it, and I fully accept that life is messy and chaotic and full of loose threads and false pretenses and dead ends. Iquitos has certainly taught me that much. While I admire the beautiful landscapes here, neither do I ignore all the trash that’s lying around on the ground and gummed up in the bushes and floating in the rivers. They’re not separate from each other, much as I would like them to be. So, I don’t take the chaos personally anymore, or as a comment on my own life . . . but I do hope that the coming new year finds my family and I in a more peaceful and composed place.

Lots of people have daily rituals by which they set their compass each morning. Some exercise, others get up early to read the paper or meditate or just sit with a cup of tea and space out for a bit. At our house, I wake up and say good morning to the beautiful Corrina, and then we like to start with a super-smoothie of acai pulp blended with maca and banana and fresh fruit juice like camu camu or mango. Sometimes I go out back and pull down some coconuts from the tree, and we make the smoothie with fresh coconut water. Man, that’s good stuff. I live for simple pleasures like that.

After that, Maverick sits down to eat some eggs (bee-oh bee-oh is the term he’s coined for eggs) and we have a chat. Good morning, I say. And he either agrees or disagrees that it is a good morning. Then we discuss that. Maverick is now in the habit of repeating everything he hears, so it’s like talking to a parrot.

We also have an actual parrot, who wakes us up very early each morning by screaming bloody murder. It makes a horrifying screech (at airport-level decibels) that sounds exactly like the musical arrangement for strings from the shower scene in Psycho, at the moment when Janet Leigh gets stabbed. How would you like to wake up to that every day at dawn? Many’s the morning I have very nearly given that bird a real reason to scream bloody murder. In spite of this, Pepita is still the family pet after almost a decade.

So after breakfast I like to make a cup of coffee and perambulate around the garden while it’s still early. The birds are flickering everywhere and the light at that time of day has this soft, silky quality like the glow of off-stage lights before the sun gets higher in the sky and the klieg lights come on.

I like to kind of check in on the greenery and watch things as they grow. There’s an ancient, instinctive kind of communion there. I imagine it likely goes back to the first time a human being ever thought to put a seed into the ground, and then came back later to see what happened. My backyard here is getting more jungly, and I find if I look closely I find all kinds of bugs and insects and other critters that look like they just flew in from outer space. You can really see a lot if you just look. It helps to quiet the mind and focus one’s attention. Close observation is a bit like meditation, I suppose.

I always check in with the plants. I like to see how fast the maracuya (passionfruit) vines are growing, and I look for the first passion fruit flower. They look like this:

The well-named passion flower

I also say hello every day to the boganzana, a long-limbed shrub with flowers like glass fireworks, and a great ‘energy.’

Maverick, with a boganzana in full bloom

And I make sure to pause and pay my proper respects to the datura that I planted under the coconut tree. A plant growing under a tall coconut tree is like living under the sword of Damocles, and I can think of no better choice to occupy that real estate. Known here as toé, datura is an extremely powerful psychoactive medicinal plant, associated with black magic and witchcraft since before the Middle Ages. Datura is the botanical equivalent of Saruman, or Darth Sidious. It’s not something you want to fool with at all. It can seriously mess with your mind, make you crazy, even kill you dead. But it also has gorgeous flowers. So I planted it in a corner of the garden where we can all enjoy it from a distance.

Datura, the dark wizard of the plant kingdom

I was thinking of something Pete Davidson said the other day, when we were talking about gardening. He said, you may talk to the plants, but do the plants ever talk to you?

I can’t say that, in the course of daily life, plants have ever talked to me. I know that talking and singing to plants, and getting messages in return, plays a key role in shamanism and the way medicinal plants are handled and prepared. Viewed in terms of a quantum-level energy transfer going on between two living beings, I can totally see how that could really work, and make a difference both to the person and the plant, in the medicinal efficacy or the shamanic experience that results.

More on this topic here: http://jungle-love.org/2011/12/20/the-return-of-the-tamshiyacu-plant-maestro/

But no, generally speaking, plants don’t talk to me. I’m not that attuned.  Then Pete told me that once he was getting ready to transplant a cocona plant, and it said to him, ‘you can’t transplant us while we’re fruiting, or we’ll die.’ So he transplanted them anyway, and they all died. Later he noticed them popping up randomly all over the lawn, and he realized that this is the way cocona likes to grow, and you can’t make it do otherwise. Plants, just like people, can be very much creatures of habit.

This morning, I was making the rounds, checking in with my big jungly backyard. I said good morning to the parrot. ‘Whatthefuck,’ replied Pepita. This is something I taught Pepita long ago, but she hardly ever says it. So that was pretty special right there. I went on down the path, and Corrina came out to feed the parrot.

Mira! Corrina said. Look!

Meeera, cried Maverick, as he came running out from the house to see. Meeera que?

 

There’s Pepita in the top right, eating coconut.

I walked back under Pepita’s tree, and saw what Corrina was pointing to. I had just walked right by it without noticing. Together we all admired an exquisite string of orchids that had just bloomed. The Peruvian Amazon has evolved a fantastic array of exotic, otherworldly orchids, and this particular strain of orchid grows as an epiphyte, meaning it does not need roots in the soil to get nutrients, but usually lives up in the branches of the rainforest canopy. This one had attached itself to the branch of a guayaba tree, where it had lived in obscurity until now.

A string of coyly hidden orchids.

 “Oooooh,” said Maverick.

“Mira, tienen pequeñas pelos, como una vagina,” said Corrina.

“Va-hee-na,” Maverick repeated.

I was going to correct him, but, well, that’s what flowers basically are, after all. And this one was pretty amazing.

“Flor, vagina, misma diferencia,” I said. And we all just sat there admiring it for awhile (the flower, that is.)

Then Maverick said, “Mishma diff’rensha. Que es, papa?” (Same difference. What’s this, papa?)

“Es donde bee-oh bee-ohs son hechos,” I replied. (It’s where eggs are made.)

“Flor,” said Maverick. “Va-hee-na. Que bonita.”

“Que bonita indeed, hijo.”

Orchids– God’s supermodels.

Which is funny, because the term ‘orchid’ comes from the Greek orkhis, which literally means ‘testicle.’ That’s because of the shape of the root, which resembles a nutsack. Ironic.

The earth laughs in flowers, Emerson said.

I like that.

The lesson I take from this is that there’s always more to see. Open yer eyes, and suddenly it’s all around–beauty is everywhere.  Every corner of the earth contains multitudes, from l’origine du monde to the last undiscovered orchid on the map, loveliness can be right under your nose at any moment. You need only be paying attention in order to see it.  And here I thought I was paying attention. I mean, whatthefuck, right?

This Baby Red Uakari Monkey Is Just One of The Reasons To Visit Pilpintuwasi, The Butterfly Farm

Here’s something fun. A baby monkey! It’s just a month old.

Cute. Very cute.

My friend Gudrun Sperrer shared these photos with me the other day. She is the founder and owner of Pilpintuwasi (Quechua for ‘Butterfly Home’), the most popular tourist attraction in Iquitos. The Butterfly Farm is many things: a nature sanctuary, a wildlife rescue center, an educational outreach facility, and the most ethically organized zoo you’ll ever see.

Gudrun has been out there at her center, in the jungle on the outskirts of the little village of Padre Cocha on the Nanay River, for several decades now, and in that time she’s developed something really unique. Locals bring her all varieties of orphaned and stranded wildlife that would otherwise not stand a chance. Recently, one of her workers showed up with a baby sloth, Benji, whose mother had been killed for food. The baby was still clinging to the mother’s side, and the worker made a plea with the people to take it away and let it have a chance to live, rather than be cooked for dinner.

What, me hurry?

Here’s a photo of another rescue sloth. Lucy is not actually from Iquitos; she was discovered on a roof in a suburb of Lima and rescued after the police were called to remove her. Word got out after a local radio DJ got wind of the story and announced it on air.

Now Pilpintuwasi welcomes their newest resident, a baby red uakari monkey.  Red uakari monkeys are listed as a vulnerable species; their entire territory is limited to flooded forests in the upper Amazon regions of Peru and Brazil. Not too much is known about the breeding habits of this particular species—the gestation period is about six months, though they seem to reproduce only once every two years at most.  Gudrun told me that the baby (who does not have a name, until its mother lets Gudrun close enough to determine the baby’s sex) was conceived against the odds.  The male and female uakaris are kept separate—the females run free, while the males are caged, and are only allowed out on Mondays (The Butterfly Farm is closed to the public on Mondays), and even then they are monitored. But even with this limitation, Nico and Princesa managed to find a way to make some Hot Monkey Love.

Mondays are the best.

The males are monitored so closely because they are apparently jealous of human couples who visit the center. Normally amiable and peaceful in their demeanor, they can get a little worked up when they see a human female canoodling with her boyfriend! If you thought there was a lot of machismo among Latin men, that’s nothing compared to the red uakari, whose jealous tendencies extend even beyond their own species.

Gudrun told me that Princesa, the mother, went up into a tree when it was time to give birth, and brought her down later, stealing into Gudrun’s bedroom to leave her a little gift—Princesa ejected her placenta onto the bed. Adorable! I’d venture to say that’s an occupational hazard very few of us have faced, coming home in the evening to find a fresh monkey placenta on your pillow.  The fact that she just laughs about it shows you how much Gudrun is in the right line of work.

A howler monkey hanging out at Pilpintuwasi.

Gudrun has a lot of other pretty cool animals too. Besides the enormous circus-tent enclosure filled with butterflies, which is awesome in itself, she has howler monkeys, titi monkeys, pretty much monkeys everywhere you look. But my favorite reason to visit Pilpintuwasi has always been to see Sr. Pedro Bello.

Oh, hi there.

Pedro is a healthy, happy, bad-ass jaguar. He lives in a big enclosure and he is one of the very few big cats I have ever seen in captivity who don’t look like they’ve already died inside from boredom. This is the point in most tours where zoos become depressing, but in fact Pedro looks like he’s in top form. They feed him fresh red meat in front of the tour groups, so you get to watch him eat, and let me tell you, it’s intense. To see an apex predator like that up close inspires chills in a deep-down, ancestral-memory kind of way. When I see Pedro chowing down on a piece of raw steak, I think: but for this chain link fence, that could be my leg.

So, to sum up: jaguars, sloths, and baby monkeys, not to mention caimans, giant rats, crazy looking birds, and of course, lots and lots of butterflies.

Big thanks to Gudrun for the photos and the stories, and much appreciation for being such a strong voice for animal rights and a righteous force for education and community outreach these many years here in Iquitos.

Apocalypse Now and Then

What’s all this then? The apocalypse upon us already?! I haven’t answered any of my emails! And I was going to learn how to speak Mandarin one day. On the other hand, I guess I don’t have to worry about all those piles of dirty laundry, or wearing a condom tonight. I’m going to go ahead and eat everything in the fridge, and drink the liquor cabinet dry, on the off chance it’ll all go to waste.

I mean, seriously, people. Let’s just take a moment here. This whole End Times hysteria has worked its way up to a fever pitch, and I’m ready to be done hearing about it. You know who is going to be affected by the whole Mayan Apocalypse tomorrow? Those who already believe something radical is going to happen. For them, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. For the rest of us, it will just be another day.

If you are intelligent and know how to Google, then you already know that the infamous Mayan Long Count merely means a starting over, like flipping the calendar on New Year’s Eve, and not the end of the world. Nonetheless, it’s important to note who has really done well from this Mayan End Times thing– the media-entertainment complex and the travel industry. Yes, many millions of books and movie tickets have been sold exploiting the public anxiety over Dec. 21, and so have many cruises and End Times-themed packages tours. Personally I have witnessed the selling of many ‘spiritual’ tours to Peru, including sacred plant ceremonies, in which people have paid thousands of dollars to travel to Peru and have the honor of tripping balls on sacred ground when the End Times come. Sounds like something I might have done in college, if I’d had that kind of cash.

In all seriousness, I don’t mean to belittle the sincerity of those seekers who are looking to receive something profound from the events of 12/21/12, but let’s look a little closer here. In my own personal sphere, there are three schools of thought on this event. The first is that Dec. 21st represents the dawning of a new age in which human consciousness begins to refine its frequencies–the fine tuning of the human mind to cosmic frequencies, as it were. This to me is the most plausible. If some are going to become more awake, merely by paying attention to the Frequencies That Be, some movement towards a Fundamental Vibration while others begin to spin more wildly on their axes, well, why wait until now to go on about it? Why haven’t you put more time and energy towards refining and sharpening your senses in daily life up until now– why wait until the Mayan Apocalypse to do it? You were expecting a half-off sale on higher consciousness, perhaps?

To be frank, I can see a scenario in which the human mind graduates upwards in response to its gyroscopic attunement with higher cosmic frequencies, learned over time and through effort and study and reflection. I just don’t think we need the invitation of a media-fabricated holiday in order to begin the process.

The second scenario is a darker vision, in which war, rumours of war, mass shootings, public anarchy, martial law, and other human-made events converge with natural disasters to form a total vision of the world going to hell. To these people I say, there have always been hurricanes and earthquakes. And if people in the Stone Age had had Bushmaster rifles, we wouldn’t even be here right now. Crickets and toads would be running the show. So be thankful for what you’ve got.

The third scenario is the most pernicious. Zealous religious types who have dwelt one too many hours before the kiln, re-reading the Book of Revelation and whatnot, want to tell us that the end is nigh. It inspires fear, and fearful people are easy to control. Anyone who lived through the W. years in America knows that script very well, whether they know it or not.

Well, OK. That dog won’t hunt, and let me tell you why.

I want to go back to a series of conversations I had a few years back with a friend of mine here, a gringo whom I like and respect, who runs popular ayahuasca workshops with mestizo shamans for a living. I ran into him out at a retreat center in the jungle, where he had been doing intensive ayahuasca sessions. This friend, who I’ll call Charles, also has a strain of evangelicalism to his thinking (that was true of his shaman as well), which is not necessarily bad, but makes for an interesting worldview when you combine those two perspectives. That day, we got into a bit of a spat because he was telling me, among other things, that Barack Obama and George W. Bush represented essentially the same thing. (this was just after the outcome of the 2008 election was decided.) I told him that he was naive. He responded that the powers behind each candidate, the people who really made the decisions, were like two heads of the hydra– the same basic malignant force behind different masks. This was boilerplate political conspiracy fare for me, so OK, but even still, anyone who lived in America in those times knows how stark the differences were between the two candidates, and how different America became as a result of Obama’s election (Charles was not living in the US during that time.)

Then Charles told me that, I might laugh, but that did I know who was really the controlling force behind television? I give up, tell me. It’s Satan. That’s right, Satan is behind the impulses that cause people everywhere to create and air television programming.

Again, Charles is a smart guy, and he clearly believed this. So I was willing to listen.

So Charles tells me, you better prepare yourself. Because I have seen in ayahuasca visions that Obama was going to be assassinated near the end of his first term, at the end of 2011, and that martial law would result. He said this with such certainty that I held it in my mind for years afterwards, waiting for the day that I could safely refute it, and happily, that day has arrived.

Charles went on to tell me that he had foreseen in his recent visions how the 2102 Mayan Apocalypse was going to go down. He believed that an Evangelical Christian, “Left Behind” style Rapture was going to happen on Earth on Dec. 21st, 2012. He said that true believers were going to be swept to the sky, and that those resonating on lower frequencies were going to be left behind on Earth with the rest of us dullards and drunks.

I said, “you mean people are going to literally disappear and be swept up into the sky?”

And Charles answered, “yes, righteous people are going to be literally vaporized, and disappear from the Earth in an instant.”

Charles also told me, on a different occasion this past December, that he had foreseen that his wife was going to get pregnant with their first child the following month, so he was making all the preparations to be a father. He says all of these things with utter earnestness and sincerity, and he is a likeable guy so you are inclined to believe him. But this to me is the ultimate presumption. If there is any decision in all of human life that is left up to the forces of Nature/The Creator/God/What Have You, it is when and if a woman gets pregnant! We accept it as a miracle/blessing/gift/major life expense, and we move on. As it happened, his wife did not get pregnant.

And so, after tomorrow has passed, I will relish the first opportunity to point out to him that I did not see anyone vaporize and vanish into Heaven, and that Obama is about to start his second term in office, and that everybody knows that Satan has an exclusive contract with Fox News.

So prophecy is a tricky business. You might have had a vision that seemed So Real during ayahuasca, or while you were floating in the sensory deprivation tank, or while you were climbing that mountain or having a stroke or banging a movie star, but the truth is that very, very few of us have the skills to hang credibly in this game, and the rest of us should show some good sense and keep quiet, in the opinion of this prematurely cranky old man. And stay off my lawn!

Really though, I think it is important always to take a moment to point out everyone who is wrong about predicting the future, so we can keep the hucksters in check. Otherwise they kind of get away with it, no? It’s like the difference between writing a huge check, and sticking around for the moment when it bounces.

These past few weeks, I have been fond of pointing out the long and vainglorious history of those who have tried to predict the End Times. It goes all the way back to John of Patmos, and even before. And across all the centuries and differences in language and culture, you know what all of those soothsayers had in common?

They were all wrong.

The so-called Rapture, by the way, is a recent invention. Most people associate it with the Book of Revelation, or (more accurately) with 1 Thessalonians 4:17, in which “we who are alive and remain” will be “caught up in the clouds” to meet the Lord. Rapture theology has developed over the past 400 years, from the early rumblings of Cotton Mather among 17^th century American Puritans to modern-day Christian eschatology, but it really only came to prominence in the 1830’s, developed by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren. So the Rapture is really a very modern appendage in the context of Christianity’s two thousand year evolution.

The linguistic origin of Rapture, derived from that phrase ‘to be caught up in the clouds’, wants closer inspection. The Latin Vulgate translates from the Greek as ‘rapiemur’ from the verb ‘rapio’ meaning ‘to catch up’ or ‘take away.’ This is the same root word from which we get the words rape and raptor– signifying a seizure, a kidnapping, a carrying-off, smartly describing the hunting method of an eagle or some other bird of prey. Later English versions of the Bible have translated it variously as ‘rushed,’ ‘suddenly caught up,’ or ‘snatched up.”

After these Biblical precedents, as well as rock stars like Nostradamus (who claimed that his prophecies in fact extend through the year 3797), comes a wealth of contemporary examples.

William Miller’s failed predictions (he changed the date, claiming to have miscalculated Scriptural numbers, but got it wrong twice) resulted in the Great Disappointment of 1844, but it failed to prevent the Adventist movement from ultimately gelling together as a religious movement.

The upper management of the Jehovah’s Witnesses unsuccessfully predicted End Times would occur during 1914, 1918, 1925 and 1942. Finally they learned their lesson and just left it as an open, undefined date, to occur sometime soon, very soon, so don’t slack off!

An unhealthy obsession with the Book of Revelation seems to be endemic to the American Evangelical tradition, to whom both of the above examples belong. But there have also been many more examples from the 20th century as well. So what happens when tomorrow comes and goes, and we are all still here? What date will we look to as the next end of the world?

Well, there was this one fellow, Adam Clarke, a Methodist theologian, who came up with 2015 as a possible End Times date. And he proposed that in 1825.

Not convinced? How about the proposal of none other than physics genius Isaac Newton, about as far from a New Age kook as you can get. Newton proposed that, based on figures available in the Book of Daniel, that the Apocalypse could happen no sooner than 2060. I’ll be 86 then. Maybe I’ll still be around to mock Sir Isaac when nothing happens, and pooh-pooh his faulty math right into my adult diapers. I’ll look forward to that dubious honor.

Finally, if you are reading this in US Eastern Standard Time, the actual, precise mathematical moment of the solstice is scheduled for 6:11 AM. So get up early, have some coffee, look to the sky, and hope for an uneventful Mayan Apocalypse. Who knows, maybe you’ll experience spontaneous enlightenment? Anything’s possible. It’s a marvelous thing to get caught up in the clouds, as long as you keep your feet on the ground.

Today Is Tomorrow

Here we find Jungle Love, safely back again in Iquitos, after several weeks traveling and visiting family back to the States.  Going back after an absence of almost three years gave me a lot of insight on what’s so great about both places. In Iquitos, the joke is that every day is Groundhog Day, the same basic template playing itself out over and over with minor variations. I realize now why that analogy is so perfect. Iquitos is an island in the wilderness, surrounded by a vast jungle sea. It is geographically isolated from the rest of the world, and there’s not a whole lot of cultural diversity as a result.

Their culture is vibrant and expressive, but it occupies a narrow bandwidth. The radio, for example, plays the same dozen or so pop songs over and over. I’m not kidding, I’ve been here for almost three years and they are still playing the same accursed songs everywhere. I’ll be hearing them in my nightmares when I’m ninety. You go to public events or dance clubs or backyard barbecues, and you will hear those same songs. There’s never anything new. That’s why it seems like Groundhog Day here—there’s something essential about this culture that is comforted by the familiar, and not looking to expand its horizons.

The States, on the other hand, is obsessed with the new. Everyone is always looking for the next interesting idea, the latest app, listening to the new band with that one song that just came out, there’s layers upon endless layers of new stuff always coming out and competing fiercely for the bandwidth that makes up the great riotous diversity of cultures and voices in the States.

It’s like one big culture generator, which it refines and then exports all across the globe. I never properly appreciated this before; I must admit I took it somewhat for granted.  Not to mention the clubs and restaurants and pubs and bookstores and movies and overstuffed supermarkets bulging with flavorful morsels from every corner of the world, and best of all, there is high speed internet everywhere you look, and everybody has a smart phone, and they’re all plugged in for maximum multi-tasking efficiency and the world is moving fast, man.

Life back stateside is efficient, orderly, and governed by rules that are enforced. The streets are safe and clean (at least in my hometown), the trash gets picked up regularly, municipal services function like they are supposed to, and there are schedules and timetables and appointments and everything generally happens on time, and when it doesn’t, there are consequences.

It’s sleek and well designed and yields a thrill like driving a sports car compared to life in Iquitos, which in comparison is more like a jury-rigged Rube Goldberg device that never works properly because the pieces keep getting stuck or misplaced.

On the other hand, rules and consequences have their downside. After driving that sports car for the first time in awhile, I remembered that it was not OK to pass that highway patrolman on the highway, lest they think I am an uppity driver and pull me over, wherein I’ll have to act earnest and deferential and hope my signifying act will get me out of a ticket that will cost time and money that I do not have.

I laughed, thinking of how blithely and carefree I pass motorcycle cops in Iquitos, sometimes crossing into the other lane to do so, and not only to they not care, they don’t even notice. I think of how I’ve never met a roadblock in Iquitos that I haven’t sailed through without even deigning to glance to either side or make eye contact as I ignore the half-assed cop whistles that chime in my wake, knowing full well that none of those dozen or so cops can be bothered to do much more than blow their whistles, much less get on their bikes and chase after me.  Try that one in the States, and see how far you get!

So there is a great deal to be said for the many small personal freedoms that Peru does so well. No helmet, no license, no registration? No problem! Here’s twenty soles, see you later. I have come to love, in a perverse way, the fact that cops won’t get involved in actual lawbreaking incidents unless you pay them to do so. If you go to the station and demand an officer investigate the case, you might get a reasonable pantomime of police procedural work– some paperwork will be shuffled, and you might get a few comforting words. If you want real justice, you have to pay to play. I used to despise this aspect of the culture, the utterly cynical and unfettered corruption that seeps into all aspects of life here, but now I kind of appreciate the purity of it, the fact that you get exactly what you pay for, no more or less.

I love the low-key, laid-back, mañana attitude here, the ‘you won’t have problems if you don’t ask questions’ approach. I love that successful thieves get beatings while successful con men get respect.  And sometimes I even love the disorder and the chaos. You might look at a diseased, mangy, scab-crusted dog in the market and ask, what’s going to happen to this dog? Who is responsible? But Peruvians already know the answer. No one is responsible, and that’s why that dog looks like it does. It’s not your problem, so why should it matter.

Life here is not exactly cheap, but neither is it precious. Peruvians have an acceptance of this on a soul level that is incongruous with gringo culture’s worship of youth and beauty and its pathological obsession with good health. Perhaps the people of Loreto have seen too much suffering already, if generational memories preserve them. They see children die, they mourn them, and then they make more children, and life goes on. I saw a funeral procession going down my street the other day, with a tiny little casket, and the expressions on the faces of the mourners just slayed me. No hysteria or lack of composure, but every face an image of solemn, grim acceptance. Not stopping traffic, which squeezed the lanes to make room for them, motorcars on their way to business as usual and no one even slowing down to look.

Not that the people here care any less about their children, or their futures. There’s just a fatalistic acceptance of the larger forces in life here that is in sharp contrast to the gringo way of ceaselessly trying to dominate reality through willpower and ideology.

One of the most refreshing moments I had while I was back in the States was when I went into the AT&T store to activate a phone. There were several people waiting, and only one clerk. She noticed the line, announced that she was going to summon help, and when she returned with another clerk, she pointed out the order in which we had come into the store so that we would be waited on in the proper order. And then she apologized to us for the delay.

That, friends, is customer service. I almost forgot how good it felt! That is what the US of A is all about. You will never in a thousand years experience even one of those points of service in Iquitos, I promise you. Walk into a store in Iquitos, and one of two things will happen—you will be peppered with questions about what you are looking for, after which then the clerk will proceed to call out by name all the other items for sale in the store, as though the mere naming of the thing will compel you to buy it—or you will be ignored completely.

And an Iquitos sales clerk actually considering the order in which people are waiting in line… hilarious. No, you’re on your own, don’t expect any help from the employees, the best service goes to those who want it the most by cutting to the front of the line, which is elevated to almost an art form here. Jungle Love has often commented about how living in Iquitos makes even nice people into just a wee bit of an asshole, because you are forced to be aggressive when people cut in front of you in line, or else you remain silent and just sit there and take it, in which case you are a spineless wuss.

Which brings me to my latest customer-service-moment of knowing not whether to laugh or cry. I stopped at a soda counter to order a Coke, and while I was asking her how much, another woman walked up and demanded a refresco to go. The clerk stopped actually diverted her path to the soda cooler and went to get the woman’s drink instead. Unbelievable.

“Look,” I said to the clerk, “I was here first. Put down that refresco and get my coke.

She did.

“And you, señora, can you not see that there is a line here?”

No answer.

“There is a line here, si or no? Do you see me waiting in line ahead of you?” (This, the script I have rehearsed and perfected by employing it in a thousand such encounters here in Iquitos.)

After pressing the point several times, the woman finally said, with exaggerated slowness: “I don’t understand your language.”

Oh, it’s going to be like that. So it’s on, then.

“Lady, you can wait your turn. If you don’t understand my Spanish, I’ll have to shout at you.”

No response. I needed to show her that ignoring me was not a good strategy.

“You don’t want to understand me,” I said, squaring myself up for confrontation. “That’s different from not understanding.”

The clerk handed me my Coke, chuckling at the way I was calling this lady out.

“And you!” I said to the clerk. “Pathetic. You’re almost as bad as her! Next time, stay on task a little better.”

“Go on then, get out of the way,” the lady said.

“I’m not done here,” I replied. “You don’t have any patience, lady. What’s the hurry? There is no hurry in this life. There is plenty of time.”

“There is no hurry,” she agreed. “There is plenty of time.”

She repeated this last part in a drone-like, affectless way. It was weird.  I suddenly decided to drop it altogether, so I stepped aside and watched as she got her drink and ambled back to . . . the evangelical church across the street, which was in mid-thundering-revival! She had left the church service to go get herself some refreshments! It was a conservative Adventist service, and as historically focused as they are with the End Times, I guess that lady really did have the courage of her convictions, that there’s no hurry, as she had plenty of time for a petty quarrel with a stranger outside in the street though the Rapture cometh soon!