A DAY IN THE JUNGLE (PART 1)

“Spring Rain” by Lynne McDonald.

The artwork on this webpage is the sole property of artist Lynne McDonald and is held under copyright. Her images, artwork, and content in this website and her website may not be copied, collected, or used for personal or professional gain without written permission from Lynne McDonald.

As the sun beamed through the window and instantly warmed my face, and the morning sounds of the jungle came to life, I slowly opened my eyes. What I saw through the mass of long blonde hair covering my face were large black insects. I immediately jumped up from my pallet bed, shook my head of hair, pried the insects from my hair and started screaming.

My bedroom door crashed open and the family I was staying with looked at me with a mixture of disgust from the rude awakening and awe at what was causing the outburst.

“Los insectos, tan grandes y ellos están en mi pelo!” I shouted.

The children started laughing. The dad turned around and stomped away. And the mother explained that they are just cockroaches and are harmless. I looked again at the insects and my brain did not compute. They were at least 4 inches long and had wings. They looked NOTHING like the cockroaches I had seen before.

“Estos no son cucarachas,” I exclaimed.

“Todos los insectos en la selva son más grandes,” she said, calmly explaining that the insects in the jungle are much larger. She walked away to start making breakfast.

After a quick breakfast of rice, beans, and a fried egg, it was time to head out for the day. I was amazed that breakfast was not much different than dinner, which was rice, beans, and a piece of overcooked brown mystery meat. I was told during my training that I would be offered a variety of meats, and they would all be called “carne” without any knowledge about what animal had provided it, hence the name mystery meat.

I dressed in long pants, a short-sleeved shirt, and my newly acquired black rubber boots. I had arrived with nicely broken-in hiking boots but quickly learned they wouldn’t work, as the jungle’s heavy moisture would soak through and keep my feet wet all day. The new boots were ugly and uncomfortable, but hey, “when in Rome.” I grabbed my backpack and headed to the “office”. The office was one room, outfitted with one table in a concrete building that looked more like a storage facility.

It was the summer of 1984 and at the age of 17, I was a volunteer administering yellow fever immunizations in the Ecuadorian jungle. I heard about the project in school and trained all year. I thought the volunteer work would be a good addition to my college applications, and I wanted to improve my Spanish. The American volunteers came from all over the U.S., and I was paired up with another volunteer, Jenny, who was from Georgia. She had similar goals.

The other member of our motley crew was a local healthcare worker, Eduardo. He was a trained nurse and had helped us learn how to administer the vaccines by injecting saline solution into oranges the week prior. He was glad to have the help albeit from fairly untrained volunteers.

We packed a small cooler with ice and the vials of vaccines that we would be administering that day. We grabbed needles, syringes, alcohol, and the yellow booklets for recording administered immunizations. The three of us piled into the back of a pick-up and set off on the dusty dirt road. We drove along the roadway pitted with potholes. The thickly forested jungle came right to the side of the road. Long fibrous vines tried to snake their way across the road attempting to reclaim that part of the jungle.

We stopped at the side of the road where a short dark-skinned, deeply wrinkled man was standing with a large machete in his hand. I thought he needed a ride and we were stopping to help. But no, we were instructed to get out of the truck and were introduced to Juan, our guide. I didn’t see any houses, buildings, streets, or people. Who were we going to vaccinate and why did we need a guide?

Juan immediately started walking down a narrow path that I hadn’t noticed. He was a man on a mission hacking away at the plants with the machete that covered the trail. Eduardo explained that he was angry since we should have started earlier. We walked in relative silence, listening to the foreign sounds of the jungle. The smell of decaying plants invaded my nose and mouth with each breath.

Bugs of every shape and size seemed to dive-bomb my face and arms seeking any place they could land on bare skin. The insect repellent that I slathered on my body was worthless against their merciless strikes. Each yelp, screech, or the sound of a hand slapping bare skin grated on Juan’s nerves. He had no patience for a couple of young gringos. He explained that the insects wouldn’t hurt us and that we had bigger issues to face. I innocently asked, “What issues?”

“Culebras.”