Photo Session!

Hello everyone! A spur of the moment trip to Tena in order to rest in a soft bed and hope to overcome gripe (flu) has created time to share some new photos with you. I don't have much energy to write about my experiences this last week, but I can say they were all positive and that Campana and its families are growing on me. Other than this wave of the flu that has struck about every member of the community...

One of the first Campana homes you see driving into the community. Notice the clothes drying on a line: there are never not clothes drying at any home! We get too sweaty too fast....

Solange, my "little sister" who is obsessed with me...she is the only girl in a family with 6 boys.

They use these baskets to collect yuca and plantains from their chakra, which is an agricultural area a distance from their home where every family cultivates their own staple foods. There is a strap connected to the basket...you wear the basket on your back and the strap wraps in front of you and presses into your forehead to keep the basket steady. It is incredible how much weight they carry in this manner.

Solange, baby Angel, and P (no, I still don't know how to pronounce my host mom's name...ahk!)

Solange, me, and Jari (but I have discovered the third boy's name!! And know which name belongs with which boy! hehe)

Beans...but not green beans, frijoles, a brown legume.

Sun setting behind the kitchen and family finka, which is the garden area every family has on the same property as their home. Traditionally there was a third agriculture area even deeper into the jungle where a lot of family hunting occurred, but due to deforestation most animals they would hunt have moved elsewhere. (this is why I will most likely not see any monkeys here...)

The sunsets are incredible. I wish my little snapshot camera captured them better...

I can't get over the crazy shape and vivid color of these plants in contrast to a land that is essentially just endless shades of green.

This flower as well...

View of the Napo from a canoe ride I took to Campo Cocha, a nearby community where my friend Bonnie lives that hosted a FENAKIN asemblea last weekend. FENAKIN is the regional indigenous federation, interestingly also evangelical. 

Well, that's about it. May this be the last time I have to come to Tena due to sickness...