New Year's eve

Cricket is ready for the fiesta...
La Princesa (Sarah) and Mauricio
First group photo
Play time...
After four days we've seen and done about all the tourist oriented things we can manage. These four days have been interesting and insightful and the activities have given us at least a broad understanding of Yachana, the lodge activities and what constitutes "geo-tourism" ("Geotourism is defined as tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place—its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents.") as defined and promoted by the National Geographic Society (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/sustainable/about_geotourism.html). Equally, our participant-observation has raised a host of questions about tourism in general, about what constitutes sustainability in tourism, about the role of tourism in a community like this, and our role as researchers. Above are a few pictures from the last few days.

The lodge is full to bursting so we'll not doing the usual cookout on an island up the river as we've done in the past because it's logistically too complex to cook for and transport that many people. Instead, we'll have a buffet dinner, take a couple of canoes upriver for a bonfire and a toast to the outgoing and incoming year after which our group is going to the community to chase out the old new year and welcome in the new. In addition to the usual activity of drinking chicha ("corn beer") and regular beer and dancing, we'll participate in an excellent tradition: The burning of the old year (el viejo). A straw effigy of an old man is propped up in a place of honor in the community surrounded by palm leaves and flowers. Anyone who wishes writes about the negative things of the past year and puts them in the pockets, inside the shirt or anywhere else in his clothes. At midnight, he is burned, sending all the misfortune of the past year up in smoke, ready to start the new year afresh and hopeful.

Tomorrow is a day to get caught up with field notes, organizing photographs and all the little details of ethnographic research. Before leaving Denver, we defined some preliminary research questions that contribute to the long term research goals of the project while giving students opportunities to explore interests of their own within the broader framework. Now that we've been here a while, we'll refine those questions and clarify our methodological approach now that we've had a chance to learn a bit about the "lay of the land" from our peregrinations through the area, our many hours of discussion with Mauricio (a recent graduate of the Yachana high school who will be working with us over the next couple of weeks, helping us coordinate our various activities, arranging interviews, etc.), and our discussions with Douglas McMeekin (the founder of the Yachana foundation). We'll have one more round of refinement when we meet with the Yachana school director on Sunday. The two research teams are the "health team" interested in the broad question of health transition in this area, and the "agriculture team" focusing on the sustainable agriculture program being developed at the school and how that fits into the larger agricultural economy.

Saturday, we'll head across the river to the weekly market in the town of Agua Santa ('holy water'). Each research team will be looking at different aspects of the market: the health team will be looking at the medical/medicinal options available in this one place where many people who ordinarily live in relative isolation gather every week while the agricultural team will be inventorying the range of agriculture products for sale and some of the economic activities around buying and selling of products (coffee, cacao, corn, plantains, bananas, rice).

More soon, John