Bean separating in Satipo

Pineapples ripen and fall before human hands can find them. Dozens of bird species don vibrant costumes and shriek their theme songs to rattle eardrums on adjacent mountains. It takes only a downwards glance to see ants the size of big toes forming a thick line, a moving conveyor belt over the moist soil, collectively hauling fifty times their weight in gathered treasure. The region of Satipo, Peru, is the labyrinth of sound and movement in which I was lucky to be immersed for seven days. I sat on the ground next to a Peruvian woman and her three sons. We formed a circle around an Everest-rivalling mound of dried beans. “Separate the white beans from the black beans”, I was told in Spanish. As my hands worked, I shifted and squirmed in my allotment of shade, the feeling drifting in and out of my lower limbs. I glanced around at my bean-separating companions fixed in frog-like squats, muscles stabilised, almost meditative. The youngest son nodded towards a cinnamon-brown cow tied to their fence. This was Angelica, his best friend. On my asking why exactly this cow was his favourite being, his expression left me thinking I should have rather asked why the hell not. Angelica provided not only milk and fertiliser, he explained, but unconditional companionship. She never yelled at him, ate his candy or took his belongings. She would eventually be turned into delicious meals for his family, but not before leaving behind a miniature version of herself to repeat all of this. I was left to ponder why indeed I had spent my whole life with humans for company. Scanning their garden, I spotted eucalyptus and ferns. The remaining greenery looked a tangled, foreign mess. “This is for pain”, the eldest son explained, scrunching some furry leaves inside his hand. We moved to the next plant, visibly indistinguishable to me from the previous one. “This here is a potato plant. That one with the flowers is for head sickness and that over there – that is for a pleasant sleep”.
Within a half-acre of land, this family had managed to compress their home, their workplace, a supermarket and a pharmacy. The elderly woman peered at me from under her wide-brimmed hat and growled "where are you from?" Perplexed by my response, she asked; "Italy? How far is that village from here?" I decided to run with it – I envisaged the world through this woman’s eyes. And like a balloon slowly deflating, the world began to shrink until it extended no further than the borders of the province.