Hello everyone!

I am finishing up my time here in Cusco and in Peru and thought it was about time for another update...

The past few weeks have been fun, eventful, and very good for me. My independent research project has started since the last time I updated on here and I have really been enjoying working on my project which is about bilingual education in the Peruvian Amazon region (mostly the southern Amazon). The first week or so of the project, I was mostly reading articles and that sort of thing while I figured out exactly what I wanted to do the project on (where did I want to focus within that broad theme?).

Emiliano came and visited for almost two weeks, and he got to travel to Puerto Maldonado with me, where I carried out most of my first-hand research for my project. I interviewed folks who work in bilingual education and are creating educational materials in two languages specific to that region - Harakbut and Ese Eja, I was able to visit a community where some bilingual education is being implemented, etc.

It was a totally different reality both for bilingual students and teachers near Puerto than it was in the north near Iquitos. In the north, indigenous peoples have received much more government support (both in their programs and financially) and have gotten much more freedom in what kind of bilingual education they are allowed to implement. In the south, much of the process of being a teacher or a creator of bilingual materials is restricted to processes of bureaucracy and frustration. The teachers and creators of materials for Harakbut and Ese Eja that I was able to interview (they work with RESSOP in Puerto) were very frustrated with the Ministry of Education in delaying the publication of the materials they have been working on. Teachers in Infierno (the community I visited which was once an Ese Eja-speaking community but has since lost its language status as Ese Eja-speaking as a result of ethnic diversification and language loss for a number of other reasons) are frustrated with the lack of bilingual materials for them to use, and a cycle of frustration and anger perpetuates itself and isn't helped by the Ministry of Education (who creates an environment where all the teachers seem to be frustrated with each other and not always with the root of their frustration).

I observed one conversation between a man who worked for the Ministry and two bilingual educators who were working on bilingual education materials for Harakbut-speaking 1st and 2nd graders. These teachers asked the man from the Ministry many questions, none of which did he answer. They asked how he saw bilingual education working. He claimed to also be a bilingual teacher, and to have taught in his community. They asked his advice for communities where they don't want bilingual education, but only Spanish to be taught, and he didn't answer them. I later interviewed the two teachers who told me that they felt that he had never actually taught in his community, and even if he had, that he had no understanding of the difficulties of bilingual education. They were frustrated with him delaying the publication of the materials they have worked so hard on - saying continually that the materials needed to be revised and revisited in order to avoid publishing them.

This sounded to me exactly how bilingual education in Peru had been explained to me - frustrating, stalling, and nothing really gets done. The teachers and developers of materials in and around Puerto reinforced my previous thought that there is quite a difference between bilingual education in the north and the south. Some of the reasons they gave me were that the indigenous peoples of the north, for the most part, have larger numbers, a louder political voice, etc. whereas Harakbut and Ese Eja make up the smallest number of speakers of another language besides Spanish as a mother tongue within Peru. The Ministry of Education has even gone as far as to try to implement Quechua in the Southern Amazonian region (a language spoken by people who live in the mountains of Peru, not in the Amazon, although some Quechua-speakers have moved to the Amazon to farm, etc). It surprised me that the Ministry of Education would even try such a thing. Unlike Amazonian peoples in Peru, Quechua-speakers have a much more recognized political voice (it helps, probably, that many of Peru's main tourist-draws are in Quechua-speaking areas of the country).

In any case, I learned a lot and got to meet a lot of wonderful people both in Iquitos and Puerto and feel dedicated to making it back there at some point to help with a project the teachers in Iquitos stressed to me as important for the community, etc.... which is a whole other can of worms that I'll open for another post... I loved the way people were and lived in Puerto - warm places are like that and the only time I got eaten by bugs was when Emi and I went to the Reserva Nacional Tambopata (Tambopata National Reserve) on a day-long hike and animal-watching trip through our hostel. We saw a number of species of birds, including macaws, three species of monkey (squirrel, red howler, and capuchin monkeys), a huge tarantula and one of her babies, let ourselves get bitten by the Amazonian red fire ant ("it only burns for five seconds" - our guide forgot to mention not to let them bite you for very long), ate a termite ("tastes like mint!" - to us it just tasted like wood), saw the giant otters of Lago Sandoval (endangered species), swam in a jungle lake, got very muddy and got asked to take the picture of the other person who was with us only about half a million times!

I really liked being in Puerto, there was a good italian ice and ice cream place that we went nearly every day which is run by dominican priests, and the proceeds of which help to fund an orphanage they run. The italian ice was AMAZING, as well as the juices and deserts there... we had lots of good food but the fact that nearly everything was FRIED was a bit difficult for both our stomachs.

We weren't allowed on our return flight (very long story) and so we had one extra night and found a great little souvenir place... the hostel that we stayed at is one that i would highly recommend. Not only was it affordable, but the staff was incredibly nice and very helpful with everything that i can think of, and there was a good breakfast included in the price!

Once we got back to Cusco, Emi and I continued our tour of ruins near Cusco (we went to Tambomachay, Puka Pukara, Q'enqo and Sacsaywaman before we left and only made it to Moray after getting back - our Boleto Turistico was up the day we got back, unfortunately coming back a day late from Puerto meant missing that and a few other things) and the salt pans near Moray and hung around in Cusco.

Well, for now I think that's about it... I'm incredibly tired and have had a long day - started at 6am and it's 10 here now so I'm pretty darn wiped! I hope everyone is good stateside and I will be seeing you all sooner rather than later at this point! My journey is more than half-way through and I am enjoying myself more and more here in Peru.

I hope you are all well and I love you all very much!