There are about 100 villages (42,000 indigenous people) within the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve in Peru. While we encountered some of the local people on many of our excursions, we also had the opportunity to visit one of their villages. The M/V Aqua, our cruise ship, makes a special effort to educate tourists about the lives of “the rainforest people.” Sadly, the Peruvian government has essentially forgotten about these people – they are extremely poor and have very little access to medical care and education. Fortunately, the people are able to harvest food and other abundant natural resources from the rainforest – they are actually very happy people with an amazing sense of community within their villages.
We encountered people from the local villages fishing from these small canoes.
This is a group of local people trading goods with one another.
The people in the village, especially the children, were very excited to see us – this village gets visited by M/V Aqua tourists maybe twice per year.
Since the Peruvian government has essentially forgotten about these rainforest people, they have very little access to medical care and education. Below is a picture of the paramedic from our cruise ship providing free medical care to an injured villager. Our visit is one of the rare opportunities these people have to receive care from trained medical professionals.
This is the kitchen of a typical village house.
None of the houses have walls – this helps people to stay cool in the extreme heat.
Though the rainforest people are extremely poor, they are also very happy.
The school and school teacher are resources that arrived just last year to this village. The school relies on donations to provide the children with pens, paper, and other supplies. In additional school supplies, our group also brought fishing supplies, toothpaste, soap, and small toys for the children – I can’t even really express in words the delight on their faces as these treasures were passed out. I wish we would have brought more.
(That’s our group in the back)
These children and happy, smart, and eager to learn – they just need the opportunity.
{ 0 comments }
