The best thing about living in a floating house in Belen on the Amazon River is that if your neighbors are noisy, smelly or just plain irritating, you can float somewhere else. If only I had the same option! I live above the vet clinic next door to La Parranda* discoteca. Thursday, Friday & Saturday are party nights & my wall/bed/head vibrates with classic hits of the 80’s like Van Halen’s ‘California Girls’, Men at Work’s “Downunder”, & other ‘hits’ that I can’t name as I was never a huge fan of 80’s pop. Thank God for earplugs! They are shoved so far down into my ear canals that I almost need exploratory surgery to have them extracted. Somehow I usually sleep through the din but last night I was woken by a drunken Peruvian singing love songs at 4am. Tuneless but soulful…I pushed the earplugs in a little deeper.
Yesterday after releasing the post-op dogs at Belen market, we decided to do a reconnaissance mission DOWN into the depths of Belen. It really is DOWN….down the steps, allegedly DOWN into a world of depravity, where the poor people of Iquitos live in houses on stilts above the river or in floating bamboo huts on the river. I’d been warned about the dangers; gangs of robbers, prostitutes (that cost 30 cents & the customer is rowed out onto the river in a canoe where the deed is done), stench, mud (the river is starting to recede), disease (don’t breathe the air) & general filth.
And DOWN in Belen we found gangs of children that were incredibly excited that we were treating the dogs for mange. Dogs were dragged out from under couches & beds, & we were dragged into houses to inject dogs that live inside. American volunteer Dottie took some photos of the kids & she was mobbed by excited youngsters that wanted to see pictures of themselves. People said ‘THANKS’….wow, that’s polite!
The gravest danger was when we took a canoe out & some drunken man was demolishing his house & a pole came accidentally flying down towards the canoe. We all freaked & nearly flipped the boat over. Definitely don’t fancy swimming in the black soupy waters of Belen, or worse still swallowing a mouthful & being inoculated with cholera, typhoid, or hepatitis. May be good for the immune system to be assaulted by a few bugs but I think even my iron gut would be challenged.
The crazy thing is that the locals in Belen love swimming in the water. This is despite the fact that every house has a floating toilet out the front with the excrement going directly into the river. Kids proudly swam up to our boat to show us little fish that they had caught & would later eat. The market is also full of fish fresh from the river (mostly of the catfish variety…don’t they eat shit?). I’m very glad to be a vegetarian.
*La Parranda – in English means – revel, spree, orgy. Fine just keep the racket down!
