Skyler Carrell
Prepping for the Amazon
I had a couple of ways to prepare for the Amazon trip, one was creating a logistics plan for materials with a financial budget and the other was getting ready for the mental-emotional aspect.
Luckily we, the RARE team, didn't just wait for the date to travel to Peru and just go. We had a preparation semester before the trip. One to two times a month we would meet at Selu Conservatory in Radford Va. At each meeting we would either discuss topics that were pertinent to the trip; such as the culture of Peru and the city we were staying at, Puerto Malanando, before we went into the Amazon. In addition, though we all had our individual projects we still worked together to help refine and better perfect our projects. With this in mind, another goal to the meetings were to build a bond and strengthen communication skills between each member. You don’t want through a bunch random young adults that barely know each other into isolation of the Amazon. These meetings to me served as mainly as a mental and emotional grounding for the trip. It allowed me better and more smoothly adjust to the events that were imminent.
The materialistic and financial preparation was probably the most stressful. The total cost of the trip was round about $5,200.00 (That doesn’t include the cost of materials). Though this was relatively cheap compared to other study abroad opportunities it was still a lot for an undergraduate student that did not hold a large sum of money. However, thanks to Radford University there were an incredible amount of opportunities for funding. Some of those include Scholar citizen helping me to attain the scientific equipment I need and other scholarships such as the McGlothlin Award helping to bring down the cost of the trip itself. The material aspect was covered in the Selu meetings mentioned above. We a couple of days dedicated strictly to helping us figure out what exactly we needed to go. Then the third last meeting we had we had to have all of our stuff that were bringing to determine whether we missing anything or if we had too much. Due to the amount of traveling we did you didn’t want to have too much to slow you down and you definitely did not want to be missing something you needed due to isolation and lack of a supermarket nearby. In Puerto there was a Market and 30 minutes up the river from our camp there was a small settlement with a “store”. And I use the word “store” lightly.
Where Did I Go?
Puerto Malonando
Before actually venturing into the Amazon we took a pit stop in Puerto Maldonado for a couple of days. This is a small developing city on the south eastern part of Peru on the edge of the Amazon. Coming here alone was a rather impacting experience. This was my first time to truly be in a third world area constant development is around every corner along with immense poverty. I feel most people’s instinct in our culture would immediately go “aw these poor people” or “oh they seem to have it so rough”. However, this was an approach I tried very hard to avoid. I felt by trying to take a neutral approach I could better appreciate and learn more about this new culture I was surrounded by.
What I did in theAmazon
One of the main reasons going to Amazon rainforest was to perform my own project that I designed. This was the goals of every RARE team member that went on the trip. Each one of us had our own individual projects yet we each in four different groups. Those groups were the vertebrate, Invertebrate, Microbiology, and Botany. I was in the Invertebrate group with my two other team members, Jessie Basham and Diego Kendall. I am deeply appreciative for their help because wouldn’t have been able to do my project without them. With that in mind, my particular project was studying the social behavior in Social Spiders and how they relate to each other. First off, what is a Social Spider? These particular species of spiders are a community of thousands of spiders the size of your finger nail. Though they seem like a community of bees or termites they behave more like a LARGE pack of wolves. They sleep together. They hunt together. And eat together. To learn more in depth about my research check out my research page here.
hough this trip was not a vacation and research was a big focus we were still able to have fun and relax. We had access to a nice common area where we all hung out at and usually laid around in our hammocks. In addition, we would take trip out further into the jungle, climb trees, venture the river, or simply just go for a swim. There was definitely a healthy balance of work and fun.
Tamandua
The Camp we stayed at was called the Madre de Dios Biodiversity station. The people that ran it were the Tamandua Expeditions group. The main people in charge it seemed while we were there was Paul Rosalie, his wife “G” or Gowri Varanashi and Moshin Kazmi. These individuals were also our guides to the jungle. Much credit also needs to go to rest of the staff as well because the station could not run without them. To learn more about them check out their site here.
Now with the actual station, this was a very valuable part of the experience as well. Before coming back home it seemed everyone expected that we were out tent and had to scrounge around for our own food. In reality, we were way more privileged than that. No, it was not a 5 star hotel but we did walls (sort of), a roof above our hood, running water, a bed, and even our cook. Not to mention since we there wasn’t any light pollution there was almost always an amazing view at night. So in a way we had a billion star hotel.
Finding home and clarity in the Amzon
Being in the Amazon, the world of mass diversity, I was able to experience and discover amazing oddities. However, with this external discoveries aside I revealed two other lessons. The first was how everything is connected. Though thousands of miles away we in the States have a huge impact on the Rainforest. We can help protect by being more green and buying Brazil nuts because to grow they need pristine rainforest. However, we can impact it by buying certain types of lumber giving funding to illegal logging. The impacts we have on an area thousands of miles away only continues. In a way feel discovering that makes my project even more meaningful. Reason being is that if you clip a single strand in the spider the rest of the structure is altered. Lastly, my Main take home message was that I had finally found the people I belonged with. Every day was thrill and so was the company. We were a family. Not a day goes by where I still miss that. It seemed everyone had their role to play to keep the structure stable. With the family setting, raw beauty in the environment, and the feeling of peace I feel I had finally found home. I found home in the Amazon.