We publish quality short stories, poetry, extracts from forthcoming novels, and articles and essays on topics of social, environmental and cultural significance.ISSUE NO. 119
SUMMER 2009/2010
ESSAY
BELINDA CAMPBELL
In a Small Patch of Jungle
Sleep was an illusion. The long hours of night were reserved for scratching my bites until they bled and worrying about my throbbing finger. I was sure the mosquitoes would bring on mild insanity, the itch leaving me frenzied and obsessive. And I fretted about a possible infection from my wound. There was no hospital nearby and I couldn’t recall if I had had my tetanus shot.
Alex was coping better – at least the mosquitoes weren’t driving him mad – but his idealism had begun to cause him grief. He wanted uniform action, confirmation of progress, and while intentions were aligned, methods and concessions were occasionally at odds.
The logic seemed simple. Habitat was being destroyed then reincarnated as grazing pastures for meat production. While we couldn’t blame the farmers who likely had little choice in the matter, we could certainly choose not to support the industry. And yet a handful of volunteers, there to make a difference, were off in the nearest town buying locally produced steak. Had we not, then, become part of the problem?
Our bodies were battered, our emotions beaten every day by the sight of rampant deforestation. Suddenly the responsibility seemed too great, the cause too futile, and a picture of life outside the sanctuary, for a moment, became clear.
Ambue Ari is an animal sanctuary in the Bolivian Amazon. Situated between Santa Cruz and Trinidad, its 600 hectares of near pristine jungle serve as a last refuge for native animals that have lost their habitat to deforestation.
The sanctuary was founded in 2001 by Juan Carlos Antezana and is managed by wildlife rescue organisation ‘Inti Wara Yassi’. Its primary focus is to offer a life to animals sold on the black market, caged in concrete at city zoos, and hunted by farmers trying to protect ‘their land’. It is a mission that is not funded by the Bolivian government and that relies entirely upon local and foreign volunteers.
My husband and I pitched our tent and volunteered in March-April 2007. At that time some of the animals under our care included jaguars, pumas, ocelots, monkeys, birds, coatis, wild pigs and a baby tapir. There was no electricity, no means of communication with the outside world, and a devastating La Niña had flooded much of the grounds.
Coco followed us out to the street-side gazebo. We went there to wind down after working with the cats. Some smoked and I played the guitar while the air sat heavy on our shoulders, filling our bodies with the damp of the jungle. Every cell lay idle in wait for the evening cool.
A soft breeze splashed relief, then despair, as it chased the afternoon convoy of trucks lumbering past with full loads of severed logs. The skeletons of leaves stirred at our feet as we witnessed the fresh carnage, this log train burning through us like a cramp in the lungs.
I was tired from the day, from wading through jungle flood waters, enduring the persistent bites of hungry mosquitoes, keeping one eye on the ground for snakes and one eye in the mottled green for wild cats, the heat, the sweat, the ticks, the mould, and from giving my full attention to two ocelots whose habitat was now rolling down the highway.
But fatigue was no excuse for Coco. He was there in need of a cuddle. I sighed and passed the guitar to someone else, his spindly black fingers curling around my own, his padded foot cupping my knee as he levered himself onto my lap. Claiming this perch with quiet confidence, Coco asserted himself as a common member of the gazebo gathering, there to witness and to mourn, to fall helpless and to give hope.
The afternoon sun turned the resident red howlers into glowing statues of rust on our laps. Sick with anaemia, Coco, Faustino and young Junior owned their vulnerability like kids at home with the flu. Sympathy was in demand, and these bold young boys knew exactly where to find the most doting affection. They scouted out the female volunteers with decisive precision.
A willing hostage, I quickly became one of Faustino’s surrogate mates. Alex and other men were warned with a growl or a nip if they ventured too close.
Mutually curious, we would spend long afternoons studying each other in the dappled shade of banana fronds. I examined his dexterous hands, smaller and more slender than my own, with fingerprint swirls and moon crescent nails, while he found endless entertainment in my belly button. Tenderly lifting my shirt he explored the well in my belly, this mark of my mother, of our mothers. He circled his index finger around the rim then dipped it in and pulled at the edges as if trying to grasp the mystery of my birth. I wanted to tell him that he too had a bellybutton, and that this connected us, but he was content with making his own discoveries. He later found my underarm hair and set about grooming. Once aware of this familiar nook, he insisted upon a daily inspection, flinging my hands away with his own if I tried to distract him.
It was a good sign when Coco and Faustino began to howl again. Excited by this improvement in their health, we would stand around like monkeys ourselves coaxing them into a chant. ‘Cocoooooooo,’ we’d yell. ‘Faustiiiinoooooooo.’ And they would answer enthusiastically, swinging their heads in song. When a wild troop was near they slipped back into tune with the jungle, sending out a deep harmony that stirred the core of all living things – a sound felt in the gut more than heard.
Junior also showed signs of improvement, but the fragility of his youth and the limitations of the vet’s basic equipment would thwart a steady recovery. He became frail, a hunched skeleton with dark knowing eyes. Pulling our hands around him, wrapping himself in our sympathy, he depended on us for life, but all we could offer was compassion. Our fingers slipped into the hollows of his ribs, over pebbles of knees, more fragile than a baby’s. Pain pierced his organs while he sat on our laps, and we couldn’t stop it, couldn’t simply remove it like a splinter.
One morning I woke and asked Junior’s primary caretaker of his condition.
‘Como está Junior?’
‘No más,’ he replied. I must have looked unsure, so he repeated, ‘No más’ and bowed his head to hide his swelling eyes. Junior had died in his arms the night before.
Mourning time was passionate but brief. Juan Carlos, usually on rescue missions around the country, appeared to remind us of the importance of our work. The death of one animal could not hinder our care of the others. Yes, Junior had died, but Faustino and Coco were still alive, now more in need of our affection than ever before. There were birds to feed and cats to walk. He rallied our enthusiasm with emotive vigour yelling ‘Inti Wara Yassi’ until we all joined in.
It was easy to believe we were making a difference.
We woke most mornings to snout scratchings and the tickle of bristles against our tent. Panchita the pig seemed convinced we
were harbouring some delectable treat in our sleeping bags, and
this was an all too common mistake.
Camp surrounds were typically peaceful, with the strumming of Bob Dylan and Jeff Buckley faintly spicing the stillness. However, one morning the rising growls of an angry German interrupted this lulling noise.
Shouts of ‘Du Scchhhheeeeeeiiiiisss!’ trailed Panchita as she scuttled out from a tattered tent, back bristles erect, crumbs incriminating her snout. She had devoured a secret supply of biscuit rations brought in to enhance the culinary limitations of camp food.
This inelegant theft resulted in the swift destruction of a highly valued possession – the tent. The German would now join the others in tightly packed dorm huts bunked up on straw mattresses that varied in degree of bedbug infestation – a hardship that made its way around the common room in proud exhibition. The prize for the tastiest volunteer went to an English girl, whose ashen skin became pockmarked in pinstripes and paisley. The mosquitoes were equally fond of her and she contracted dengue fever as an unwelcome trophy.
Our days began with allocated duties that rotated each week to share the responsibility. We were each assigned an animal of the house, typically the smaller creatures, some enclosed and some roaming free in the immediate surrounds, followed by a task.
Morning feed was first on the agenda. However, this was rarely a straightforward procedure. Bench space and knives were scarce, sleepy volunteers were moody, and the animals were hungry. While we muscled our way into the animal kitchen competing for the earliest start and the best fruit, the animals of the house behaved like toddlers on sugar-highs.
If Mimi the coati, pregnant and presumptuous, wasn’t sitting upright on her hind legs showing off her barrel belly, she was on a stealth mission to steal the monkeys’ food. Meanwhile, Panchita and Panchi, partners in pig crime, were making tag-team attempts at breaking into the animal kitchen, the toucans were mistaking our toes for worms and our heads for melons, Coco was letting himself into the common room to sabotage our breakfast, and Faustino was making off with the last of our rubber gloves (later someone would clean the toilets with bare hands).
Relieved to be done with chores, we sat down to our own less exciting morning meal – white bread and paw-paw (if there was enough to go around). But we enjoyed this time, crammed on wooden pews splitting bread, sharing the weight of the day’s growing humidity, anticipating something new from this jungle and its creatures.
After the last bites of breakfast, our days would split into different stories – cat tales. My own would take me to OB and Engine, two ocelots, a female and a male in separate enclosures at the edge of sanctuary grounds. Others would spend their days with pumas or jaguars, following their cue, reading their moods, answering their volatility with ‘tranquilo’.
Strong and sturdy on his feet, Alex was welcomed into a group of four young men responsible for feeding and walking Yaguarrupi, a 140 kg male jaguar with a playful temperament. On his first day I watched him go, trailing behind the others, turning to blow me a kiss, disappearing into the dense flora. Wave goodbye, I thought; your husband is about to be jumped by a jaguar.
I first met OB and Engine under the instruction of their previous caretaker, Nelli. She provided my only training, passing on simple tricks like how to distract OB while fastening her lead, how to entice this petulant and stubborn homebody out of her enclosure, how to read her moods, and how to suspend her in mid-attack by grasping her lead at a ‘magic distance’. The procedure for Engine was simpler. Not tame enough for direct contact, nor wild enough for freedom, Engine was confined to his enclosure. Alone in his halfway house, he relied on us for food and company.
We started off with a bucket of meat and a bag of fresh hay for their beds. Panchita followed us out on our path. She had an insatiable curiosity for the jungle but an irrational fear haunted her if she found herself alone. It was a fear that descended upon me at times as well, when the sounds of the Amazon crawled on my mind like frenzied insects on skin. ‘Panchita! Go home!’ we implored before finally conceding defeat. I gave her a reassuring scratch behind the ears then escorted her back, swiftly disappearing while she was distracted by a tin of tomato paste. That afternoon she sported polka dots and a red snout.
Our gumboots slid into the muddy grooves of a well-trodden path. In the canopy above, monkeys wove their red limbs through a tangle of green, thickening the air with chants that swept through the trees as they swept through us.
We first passed the home of Lazycat, an aptly named ocelot, who considered herself a queen and her caretakers the jokers of her queendom. She was usually sprawled out on a high perch flipping up her tail at the suggestion of a walk.
Further we reached the partially flooded enclosure of Inti, Wara and Yassi, three pumas and the inspiration of the park. Their names came from three different Indian languages – Quechua, Aymara, and Guarani – meaning sun, moon and star. They were the colour of moon dust with moonstone eyes. And Naomi, their permanent caretaker, was their earth. She had the blood of the land in her and moved in rhythm with her celestial sisters, sometimes spending nights in their enclosure curled up in the soft fur of their underbellies. They purred and rubbed their whiskers against the gate as we passed.
Beyond their enclosure the floodwaters were still high. Our well-trodden path turned into a turbid swimming lane flanked with overhanging fronds. As apprentice, I trailed behind, watching for clever navigation, expecting a shin-deep wade. Why else had we worn gumboots?
‘The gumboots are just for the snakes,’ Nelli offered casually, as if reading my mind, then plunged in and let the murky water gush into her boots. Somehow this seemed like a perfectly reasonable explanation.
I first tried to glide gracefully on the slippery bottom, occasionally raising my gumboot levees on tiptoes. Enjoying the pressure of the water suctioning the boots to my skin, I was reluctant to let the flood in. But ahead, Nelli was already submerged to her upper thighs. There was no staying dry.
I lowered my heels and watched as my boots ballooned with the deluge. Somehow I felt mischievous. I was a child splashing in puddles, enjoying the squelch of sodden socks. Grasping the nearest frond or each other, waving windmill arms as we slipped down the sides of tree roots or potholes, we looked like novice ice-skaters.
I was exhausted and relieved when the water level dropped and filtered out in muddy fingers from the path. In a foot-pocked stretch of mud Nelli stopped and tipped her boots upside down from the knee. ‘That’s the last of it,’ she said, so I grabbed hold of the nearest tree, balanced myself and followed on cue. My feet felt waterlogged and wrinkled, and the urge to air them would not be satisfied until afternoon.
As the last of the flood dribbled from my shins, the tree lashed my arm with fire. It was boiling water on blistered sunburn, it was sun-scorched metal on tender skin, the bite of a venomous snake, the poison of a deadly spider. In any case, I was obviously doomed.
Snatching myself away from the tree I thrashed about violently. What was I doing out there with no knowledge of what could harm me? Nelli giggled and swatted me with her hat. ‘Fire ants,’ she explained. Yes, of course, I thought, behind the burn of crimson cheeks.
After thirty minutes we emerged from the twists and knots of jungle and reached OB’s enclosure. She was sitting expectantly at the fence but stood and circled her territory as we approached. I was immediately entranced by the dance of her spots, her camouflage so hopelessly incongruous in this space.
‘Apparently she doesn’t behave well with two people,’ Nelli warned. ‘That’s why you’ll be out here alone. She might surprise us, though.’ As Nelli fiddled with the lock, I felt giddy with fear.
It seemed unnatural to step into the home of a wild cat. I wondered if she would bound for the open gate, leap at us, or ambush our legs. Casually stepping in, Nelli seemed convinced that none of this would happen. I borrowed her assurance and followed.
Stubbornly aloof, OB feigned a total lack of interest in our presence. She made laps of her home, flicking the tip of her tail rhythmically, her slender shoulders rising and falling like the inner workings of a machine. ‘So we’ll just wait,’ Nelli declared and plonked herself down against the fence. Timidly, I followed, but sitting felt like a provocation. I was an uninvited guest and it was this act of informality that succeeded in rousing OB from her routine. Suddenly curious, she slinked across the floor. Nelli made no indication of rising, so we remained, charmed as OB massaged her whiskers against our boots – how delightful, this concession! The fist in my chest relented and filled its palm with adoration.
Nelli too seemed pleased and reached for the nearest toy, a rope with a plastic bottle at the end. She flipped it up into OB’s gaze. A glint of interest. Standing, she whirled the bottle around herself dragging it along the ground then flicking it into the air. OB responded, nipping with her paws then leaping from the ground to capture it.
The shift in interest was unexpected. In a silent moment of realisation OB’s ears stretched back. Her pupils constricted, coiled tight like black rubber bands, as she swung her gaze from the bottle to Nelli’s arm. That was the warning, but we hadn’t yet clipped her to her lead.
Springing from the ground, she latched herself onto Nelli’s side, claws ripping through cotton, teeth slowly puncturing skin. With her back legs she pumped open-clawed kicks into Nelli’s stomach, while I watched, stunned. ‘Tranquila,’ Nelli whispered, ‘tranquila OB.’ Then a little louder, almost forcefully, ‘Abajo, OB. Tranquila.’
OB listened. The kicks abated and she dropped to the ground, turned in a fishhook curve and disappeared behind her hutch. ‘Does that happen often?’ I asked, not sure of what else to say. Nelli began to shake. ‘No. Never.’
OB sulked for two hours and declined the invitation of a walk. Exhausted, we left her in peace and followed an overgrown side path to the home of Engine. His growl sent flutters through my blood well before I caught sight of him. Appropriately named, he revved like a V8 as he became excited.
Engine rubbed his pelt along the fence then happily trotted to the gate. Nelli put her hand flat against the wire, and her palm was met with feverish licks. I did the same, enjoying the scratch of his tongue like sandpaper against my skin. ‘Just keep your hand flat. Don’t put your fingers in,’ Nelli reminded me. The last volunteer had nearly lost the top of her finger to Engine. I felt a pang of regret as I realised this was the closest I would ever get to him.
After three days with Nelli, I continued the routine alone, strapping my guitar on my back, sliding into soggy gumboots with a bucket of meat on my arm and disappearing into the jungle. It always felt treacherous crossing the flood. There was at least one anaconda known to live on sanctuary grounds and water-walking spiders spooked me with ripples that curled into my own.
My initial interactions with OB were restrained. I imagined her swiping my hand when I clipped the lead to her collar, or sinking teeth into my arm when I tentatively applied ointment to a patch of fungus on her neck. But she never did, and gradually we began to trust each other.
On our daily walks we ventured further into the jungle, trading the lead. If I raced ahead she would sprint from behind, eager to catch up. In the excitement of the chase she once pounced at the final stretch, leaping from the ground and attaching herself to the shoulders of my shirt. Here we go, I thought, she’s got me. My body cowered in anticipation of the attack. I squinted, waiting for a pain that never arrived. Instead, OB lowered her chin and rubbed her head in figure eights against my spine. She just wanted a cuddle.
At times she would stop for fifteen minutes or more, roll onto her back and flirt with me – her eyes two translucent amber gems. This recess for her meant warfare for me, the needles of famished mosquitoes penetrating my long-sleeved shirt and baggy pants, my only weapon a feathered banana frond. Then a noise or a smell would rouse her and I would follow her lead, climbing over logs, through palms, skirting puddles and low branches.
Some days she would refuse to walk, electing instead to turn the white fuzz of her underbelly up to the sun. She would purr and let out scratchy meows, rub against my legs and welcome a tickle beneath the chin. On these days she was just a pussycat flicking her tail, flexing back her ears, and burying her head in my body. It was much like the early stages of my first romantic relationship, timidly reading the signs and acting on cue, rarely chasing my own impulses. And through this play, I fell in love.
Engine and I had a less inhibited relationship from the start. He seemed unconcerned about the changeover of caretakers, so long as someone fed him and provided a bit of daily entertainment. We began our hours together with a game. Draping a tattered rope through the fenced ceiling of his enclosure, I waited until he sat poised, his back legs shifting his weight for the pounce. While his pupils focused on the target, I tugged abruptly, drawing the rope up in a sudden lurch. Engine leapt into the air in perfect time, the spots of his torso stretching, claws latching into the rope and bringing it down hard on the ground.
When he tired of the game he slinked into his hutch, enabling me to enter and clean. He regularly left presents for me – often snake segments, diced and scattered, and a rodent once that had unwisely squeezed through the fence. I removed the remains with a closed-nose grimace.
After chopping up his lunchmeat, I left a trail of its scent on tree trunks or fence posts, placing each piece at each trail’s end. Engine delighted in the hunt, purring throughout the search and breaking into deep belly growls upon discovery. He devoured the finds with pulsating revs.
Once he was full and satisfied Engine would curl up against the fence and purr a soft rhythm while I strummed my guitar.
Returning to camp I freed my feet from their flooded chambers and waddled to the shower in sagging soggy pants. Checking for ticks, I often found them on my stomach or arms and marvelled at their cunning. Faustino and Coco were often perched in the open-cut window spying on the manner in which we groomed.
Emerging from the shower, a moment of rare cleanliness could be enjoyed, an instant of familiarity that would soon melt into the thick air. Within minutes my clothes would stick to my limbs, my fingers would bury into the coarse bristles of a cheeky pig, and my lap would provide a cosy bed for one or two monkeys and a pushy coati. As I sat with the monkeys, the hours passed unnoticed until the camp began to hum again with the chatter of returning volunteers.
As the jungle fell black and alive with night-creatures, we crowded into our common room and filled the space with stories. Once we had decanted the surprises of each day, we tackled politics or the environment, and week after week the scene changed. It brightened with the fresh faces of new volunteers and was left empty of those who had departed.
Departure, of course, was imminent but only spoken about in the abstract, as if stepping out of this routine were a notion too obscure to grasp. Returning to the cities, streets and buildings seemed unimaginable.
Breaking point, however, was inevitable, though unforeseen.
I was chopping up Engine’s meat. I was already faltering in my confidence, feeling spooked by the sounds of the jungle. I had never held the meat while swinging the machete. With the blade raised high above my head, I watched as my fingers remained still, aware of the risk but detached from the reality. I followed through with the chop, turning white when I saw the rusty blade wedged diagonally in my nail. Levering it out, I grasped my finger and ran sobbing back to camp. I could be bandaged up, but my nerves could not be soothed. I knew it was time to leave.
Departure was far more agonising for us than for the animals. There was plenty of love to replace our own but little understanding in the outside world of what exists in a small patch of jungle between Santa Cruz and Trinidad in the Bolivian Amazon.
OB, however, was not shy about her disappointment. Perhaps this is why she attacked Nelli, and why she later made swipes at my gumboots when I trained up the new volunteer. Was it fair that I was leaving? I had established a relationship with this creature, shared hours alone with her in the tangles of the jungle only to leave her now like every other volunteer before me.
How should I have felt? Warm and fuzzy that I had done my bit? Or guilty that I was now abandoning OB, Engine, the monkeys and this cause?
I wanted to tell them all that I had a plane to catch. I had plans, another year of travel ahead of me. I wanted to tell them, this is just the way life is. But such excuses bear no value in the silent communication between us and them. We choose to plunder their habitat. We choose to turn a blind eye. If we choose to look, we might also choose to look away.
Breathing is theft but we are human.
We rolled up our tent, scrubbed the mould off our belongings, kissed the monkeys and our friends goodbye and squeezed into an overcrowded night-bus bound for Santa Cruz.
Nothing could be said between us. I felt Alex’s consoling hand on my knee and a knot of grief in my throat. Next to us two farmers were sharing a bottle of scotch and rocking with the bus, swaying like two unruly empty swings. They smiled at us through browned and missing teeth, offered a swig from the bottle, then asked what we were doing on the side of the road in the middle of the night in the jungle. They’d seen ‘gringos’ there before and were curious to know why. Alex told them about Ambue Ari, about the people and about the animals. He spoke with such fondness, as if nostalgia had already crept in. ‘You work with jaguars?’ the farmer asked. Alex nodded, peering past the men and out into the thick black. ‘You know what I do to jaguars? They come onto my land and I shoot them.’
BELINDA CAMPBELL is a Sydney-based writer and musician. Having recently spent eighteen
months travelling, she is currently working on putting her adventures into story.
Island, PO Box 210, Sandy Bay, Tasmania 7006 Australia
Ph: (03) 6226 2325 Fax: (03) 6226 2172
E-mail: island.magazine@utas.edu.au