(Note: This Update was mailed the old fashioned way to our supporters in September of 2000; the text is posted here in full.)
Dear Friends,
We have recently returned from this yearıs fieldwork, and we are writing to bring you up-to-date on Cabeceras Aid Projectıs accomplishments and ongoing work in the Peruvian rainforest. Please read on to find summaries of our two 2000 fieldwork projects, the first with the Nanti on the Camisea River and the second with the Matsigenka on the Paquiria River. You will also read about two projects that we have begun with local partners, which will continue while we are here in the US. As always, thank you for your ongoing interest in and support of Cabeceras Aid Project!
Lev Michael Chris Beier, Fieldworkers for Cabeceras Aid Project
2000 Fieldwork: The Camisea Nanti
The single most important goal for our work with the Camisea Nanti this year was to continue the training of a Nanti healthcare worker, so as to give the Nanti much greater control over their own health needs and to diminish their dependence on outsiders. We began this training last year, starting with anti-malarial medicines, which the two young men chosen by the community leaders mastered thoroughly. They and the other Nanti were deeply impressed by the ability of these two young men to learn what they had previously been told by outsiders was ³too difficult² for them to learn. This led the community to tell us in 1999 that during our visit this year, we were to teach them about ³all the rest of the medicines².
Bisarota, one of the young men who learned to use anti-malarial medicines last year, was very enthusiastic about expanding his knowledge this year to include other medicines as well. We spent many hours every week teaching him to use four new medicines: a broad-spectrum antibiotic to combat bacterial infection, particularly the respiratory infections that attack the community; paracetamol, to combat high fever and headache; an anti-parisitical medicine to combat intestinal parasites; and an antibiotic for eye infections. By the end of our intensive training program, he had mastered the use of all of these medicines, and had the treatment regimens completely memorized. As we did last year for the anti-malarial medicines, we designed for him a set of pictographic instruction sheets for each medicine, to give him a usable reference concerning dosage, time of dosage, and length of treatment. We were very impressed with his seriousness and commitment to learning these new treatment regimens, and both he and the entire community are very proud of his increasing skill as a local healthcare provider.
When we arrived in the Nanti communities of Montetoni and Maranxejá on the Camisea River this June, we were distressed to find that many people were still sick or just recovering from a very severe outbreak of respiratory illness. As always, the sickness was brought into the communities through contact with people who live downriver. Sadly, this outbreak took the lives of two senior men, one in each community, and one infant. As several people in Montetoni told us, this frightening outbreak of illness reinforced the communityıs interest in having Bisarota trained in the use of medicines to combat these devastating introduced illnesses. Since we received approval to train Bisarota from the Ministry of Health doctor responsible for the region, it is now possible for Bisarota to obtain medicine from the health post at the mouth of the Camisea River. This means that Bisarota will be able to obtain free medicines from that health post without any involvement by Cabeceras Aid Project. While this will probably not happen right away, we are beginning to see the outline of a structure that will enable the Nanti to handle their healthcare needs independently. This is important, because it is essential that we not foster a dependent relationship between the Nanti communities and Cabeceras Aid Project, since this would not promote the autonomy of these communities.
As we have done every year, we divided our time between the two communities on the Camisea, in order to maintain our relationship with both. Due to our work with Bisarota, though, we spent the majority of our time in Montetoni. In both communities, we gathered quite a bit of exciting language data and fascinating stories about Nanti life, both past and present. We look forward to using our now quite substantial language data to produce a basic pedagogical grammar of the Nanti language during this academic year. This will be a great challenge, but will also be a very valuable tool in further convincing Peruvian education officials of the status of Nanti as a language in its own right. This is important for increasing the control the Nanti have over the teachers in their communities, and also for enabling the teachers to use educational materials specifically written in Nanti.
We had the pleasure this year of presenting to the Nanti the first book written in the Nanti language. Using the extensive data we gathered last summer, here at home we created a picture book of bird species and labeled each bird with its name in Nanti. Then we delivered three laminated books to each community, for their use and enjoyment. We hope this simple and colorful book will reinforce the value of both the Nanti language and the wealth of knowledge the Nanti have about their environment, as well as illustrate the connection between objects they know well and the printed word. We owe a huge thanks to Nathaniel Gerhart, the ornithologist who worked with us during our 1999 fieldwork trip to gather the bird species identification data.
2000 Fieldwork: The Paquiria Matsigenka
Our second project this summer was follow up on last yearıs investigations on the Paquiria River. As you may remember, our visit last year to the Paquiria showed us that the health and well-being of the remote Matsigenka settlements of the Paquiria was seriously threatened by their intermittent contact with woodcuttters from Nueva Luz, the mainriver Matsigenka community at the mouth of the Paquiria River. In considering the situation, we decided that it was most effective to consider the health issues and needs of the people on the Paquiria and those of the people in Nueva Luz as a single, unified issue. By increasing the healthcare resources available to the Matsigenka in Nueva Luz, and thereby decreasing the spread of disease from Nueva Luz to the Paquiria settlements, we can substantially diminish the health problems that have been plaguing the people of the headwaters region. To this end, in early June, we delivered a substantial supply of basic medicines to Samuel Osega, the Matsigenka health worker in Nueva Luz, for him to use in treating illness both in Nueva Luz and the Paquiria settlements. In addition, because Cabeceras Aid Project donated these medicines to the communities, Matsigenka families will not have the burden of having to pay for medicine while this supply lasts.
After our stay with the Nanti on the Camisea, Chris made a brief visit to Nueva Luz, and to Manyokiari and Kipatsiari, two small recently-formed settlements on the upper Paquiria River. The purpose of this trip was to assess the present relationship between these communities and the level of health their residents are presently experiencing. Happily, Samuel was again available to accompany Chris up the Paquiria River, and he was able to administer vaccinations to the children living in Manyokiari. It appears that our visit last year had a very important outcome for the Paquiria settlement of Manyokiari: Samuel told Chris that after our investigation last year, in which we discovered that the main threat to the Paquiria residents came from woodcutters from Nueva Luz, the directorship of Nueva Luz and other influential community residents put significant pressure on those woodcutters to cease their activities on the upper Paquiria. There is now much less woodcutting activity on the upper Paquiria River, according to the reports of the people at Manyokiari themselves; and there is no longer a woodcutting camp established near Manyokiari. Therefore, the amount of contact between the Paquiria settlements and mainriver Matsigenka has been greatly reduced, and their incidence of illness and problems more generally with the woodcutters has been reduced in turn.
We feel very pleased with the outcome of our involvement with the Paquiria residents in these last two years. Our strategy of bringing contact situations such as this one under the scrutiny of a large and interested audience has been extremely successful in this case, and very quickly so. Perhaps because of the actually illegal nature of the woodcutting activity that was causing so many problems for the people of the Paquiria, this activity dropped off sharply once we brought it to light. At this point, therefore, our strategy is to maintain a presence and an active interest in the situation through Samuel and the directorship of Nueva Luz, and to visit the Paquiria settlements again in a few years. We intend to provide further supplies of basic medicines each summer, and to rely on Samuelıs competence as a healthcare provider to deliver these supplies to the Matsigenka who need them, both in Nueva Luz and in the Paquiria communities.
New Projects
During our work in Peru this year, we established two exciting and important relationships which will form the basis of two collaborative projects, one of which is already beginning as this update is being sent off. We believe that these collaborative projects are an important way for Cabeceras Aid Project to increase both the scope and the efficacy of our work.
First, in the Matsigenka community of Nueva Luz we met a young man named Daniel Rios, who has just finished his university education in Lima quite an achievement, given the obstacles that indigenous people face both financially and socially in Peru. Daniel approached us about a research project he has already begun, to document the traditional medicinal plant knowledge of the Matsigenka in several communities in the lower Urubamba River valley. His goal is to produce a book written in both Matsigenka and Spanish about the use of plants in traditional Matsigenka medicinal practice, for use in Matsigenka schools and medical posts. He both wants to assure that this ancient knowledge is not lost and that it continues being valued by young Matsigenka like himself as an important part of Matsigenka cultural heritage. After lengthy discussions with him, both in person and via email, Cabeceras Aid Projectıs Executive Committee voted to provide him with the necessary funds to complete his research project. We are very excited to have met a young and enthusiastic Matsigenka interested in carrying out research in his own language, and for the benefit of his own people. Daniel will be in the field carrying out his research over the next three months.
Second, we have begun to collaborate with an organization based in Lima, called ASPRODE. This organization specializes in pisciculture projects in indigenous communities, and has carried out numerous successful projects in Matsigenka communities in the upper Urubamba River valley. One of the greatest challenges facing settled indigenous communities is maintaining an adequate supply of protein; as you can imagine, the longer a community is settled in one place, the scarcer hunting resources become especially when there are a number of communities in relatively close proximity, as one finds in the Urubamba River valley. Last year, the directors of the Matsigenka community of Nueva Luz asked for our help in finding a way to establish a pisciculture project in their community. It is our hope to be able to link ASPRODE, who are experts on pisciculture, with organizations in the US which might be able to fund the installation of pisciculture projects in Matsigenka communities in the lower Urubamba River valley. Although these communities are not isolated from larger Peruvian society in the way that the Nanti are, they are in many ways forgotten by the Peruvian government, and face serious challenges of resource management and economic development. Collaborating with ASPRODE and interested Matsigenka communities on pisciculture projects is very much in line with Cabeceras Aid Projectıs mission statement of promoting the health and self-sufficiency of indigenous communities in the Amazon Basin. This project is still in its initial stages, but we are very optimistic about it. We are funding a diagnostic study, to be carried out in Nueva Luz in October by an ASPRODE pisciculture technician, to assess the feasibility of a pisciculture project there and to formulate a project proposal for which we can seek foundation funding.
Fieldwork in 2001
Given the momentum and the ever-increasing base of financial support that Cabeceras Aid Project is enjoying, we will be able to carry out three projects next year: we will carry out further healthcare and language work with the Camisea Nanti; we will continue our support of the health post in Nueva Luz; and we will return to the upper Purus River region to continue our investigations of the complex intercultural situation there. As the time approaches, we will write to you again and tell you more about our plans for 2001.
Gratitude to Our Supporters
If you have been sent a copy of this Update, it is because you are an important link in the lifeline of Cabeceras Aid Project. So our sincerest thanks go to you for your support of our fieldwork. In addition, we wish to acknowledge the several individuals who made contributions to Cabeceras Aid Project whose employers provided a matching gift to our organization. Matching gifts are an excellent way to make a contribution double or triple in size! Thank you!