donde estoy...

2 de oct 2014

 

i go to the river, or one of the dos ríos, everyday, todos los días. sometimes miss a day when i am in other local territorios... but for the most part, everyday i go down to las peñas or sometimes san jose or el peñon, las bovedas is more low key and once in a while el parche will take a trek to la junta or even as far as aguacaliente. and on really special days visitamos cascadas, waterfalls. everyday i walk these paths, caminos i walked as a child following my abuelo or mi tío. swimming in the river, tubing, jumping off trees and peñas of various heights into the río, fishing with caña or atarraya. everyday we are surronded by all of our people, pueblo. gente fishing, los guambitos playing in the sand, artisanal mineros on the shores, and many that come to consultar their thoughts de corazón o cabeza with the río whose capacidad of absorbiendo what you put into it is as delicado as it is impresionante. siempre tenemos las cámaras in hand we try are best of creating a audiovisual memory of all the inabitants here.... the chachalacas or guacharacas, the jacamaras, colibri, caricara, loros y loritos, all sorts of parrots, zarigueya-opossums, otters, ibis, tortugas, snakes, frogs, peces, lizards and other crawlers and hoppers... most of these are rare now and in super special moments, totally unexpected we´ve seen the rare monkeys, anteater, armadillo, deer, kinkajou, jaguarandi and ocelote. not to mentoin the arboles and forests, flores, fruit, fungi and other plantas. its not easy to see estas relaciones when the landscape is dominated by cows, horses, gallinas y perros (no tienen la culpa) and monocultivos of tabaco and not to mention the Emgesa construction sites that are consolidated the destrucción of our territorio in away agro-industria had´nt. to go to sacred areas like las cuchas we have to time our entries as to keep the security guards unaware of our presence so they don´t keep tabs on us and scare away all the other animals. apparently unearthing over 250 of our ancestros resting places dating between 1000-3000 years of antiguity is not enough for them and they have to destroy what little ecosystems are left in la jagua like what is las cuchas. and to see anything being unearthed you have to go through Emgesa, and no pictures, video or drawings allowed of our own ancestors physical remains and their belongings. the whole situacción and burocracia leaves such a horrible taste in your mouth, perdemos esperanza with ideas like el museo.... long exhale.... we are doing lo que podemos, what we can under not easy circunstancias. there are places folks from the outside, even most folks here, no conocen, and as we continue to traverse our surrondings as has been our existance forever and more and more areas become privatized que ya ni podemos pasar, and a libertad of movimiento that we one knew, ya no es. we are trying to figure out what to do, and the only thing that is clear is that we need land. land in our territory that we can heal, nurture, recuperate and take care of so that it can take care of us, give life and strength.... hopefully we can do it here, even though cada día este territorio is more overrun con destrucción and so much from our local realities son estatisticas globales that académicos study about young people having to leave their comunidades rurales to find economic opportunity. i keep telling myself, that todas partes is or will be the same, so just stick to where you are from and defiende de donde eres. we know donde queremos, but we trying to find the help to put it into action. allí vamos.... poco a poco, lil by lil....