I dreamt about motion without vision. I was moving through the world with only half of myself was visible. Or it was as if my vision was stuck in one place, the same image penetrating the dreamscape, while I was moving about, getting out of bed, walking downstairs, doing things; all the while I could only see, for example, my left arm. I called out to a friend, asking for help, trying to explain that my vision was stuck. That half my body was invisible. Â That I could feel my body move, but my vision remained stagnant. Then I woke from the dreamtime to the sound of children pounding on our door.
 Isabelle and I were recovering from a long night at the discotech when three of the little ones came to our room wanting to see the newborn kittens. (A few days ago I came home and was sitting on my bed when I heard the mewing. I started looking all around the room, outside the window, behind the bed -- knowing that the pregnant mama cat finally gave birth. I followed the sound up and saw a spot in the black ceiling fabric that was hanging heavy and low. I put my hand up to it and it was all warm and wiggly. Kittens.)
 When I let them in, the boys crawled up in the roof to see the kittens. They found four tiny creatures, none of which had opened their eyes yet. Their mewing has been officially and wholeheartedly incorporated into the soundscape of our bedroom.
 Thus awoken, I went downstairs to see what was going on. I found one of our brothers in the sink/bathroom/water area, washing one of the dogs. He was washing the small old white dog with the curly hairs. Apparently it had fleas. They were washing it with Clorox. Poor thing was shaking (only cold water here), all soaking wet and ugly like. While they were washing it, I began noticing ticks in the dog’s skin. I pointed them out to the older brother and he started plucking them out.  We ended up pulling out some ten or so ticks. Some were huge, like as big as my pinky nail. It was nasty. All the while we were dousing the poor thing in Clorox water. Once we finished cutting out the dreds and extracting the ticks, the pup ran off to the courtyard where he started rubbing his neck against the dirt to take away the burn, I assume. Two of the puppies started chasing him around and barking. Within minutes the dog was fully covered in dirt from the courtyard, which is a pleasant mix of dog, chicken and possibly human feces and urine. It’s sort of a miracle that we don’t all have fleas and giardia. Knock on wood.
 After lunch Isabelle and I went to buy a watermelon for the family. We are leaving here for Quito in a few days and the love vibe among the family has reached a new level. Someone’s cousin came over today with her newborn baby, a little girl, who has yet to be named. She’s not quite a month old. They asked us if we wanted to be the godmothers. They were talking about naming the little girl Lela Isabella or Isabella Lela (they haven’t yet figured out how to pronounce my name). It was sweet. The baby was all fresh and heavy eyed, with thick black hair and tiny hands.
 ~ As we were finishing up the watermelon, our homestay dad started telling us stories about his childhood. His dad used to deliver mail from Tena to Loreto and then Coca. This involved a month or so of travel by foot and canoe, through the jungle. As a point of reference, the now-existent bus ride from Tena to Coca is some four or five hours, up and down a few mountains along very windy roads. (Puking is not uncommon on this route, and plastic bags are made readily available at every row.) You know you’ve reached Coca when the earth turns bright orange and the air feels thick and fermented.
 He said he used to accompany his dad on this long trek, and started telling us about the time they were stranded on an island for 15 days without food. They were walking through the jungle, with the mail and maybe chicha and some other provisions, when they came across a deep canal in the mud. It curved in the shape of an anaconda and they found residues of anaconda skin stuck in the muddy canal. They knew it was the trail of an anaconda. A very, very large anaconda. He made a gesture with his hands opening in the shape of a jaw and consuming my face. That big. So, becoming frightened, they quickly ran away from this place, crossed a river (maybe? Still unclear) and stranded themselves on an island for safety. Apparently anacondas are equally as dangerous on land as they are in water.
 While he was stranded on this island, hiding from the anaconda, they hunted birds. They cooked the birds over a fire. That was their only food and it sounded like it wasn’t much. On the 15th day there, a motorized canoe came up the river and saw them. They boarded the canoe and returned safely to civilization. I think his dad retired shortly after that.
 (A friend once told me the story of how his uncle was eaten by an anaconda in the river. His uncle was a shaman. He was in the canoe with his son when suddenly the canoe started rocking and tipped over. The son swam to shore but the uncle was unable to move. The son called for help and my friend, who at the time was 12, ran to the river. He saw his uncle there floating downstream with only his chest and head above water. He was unable to move. My friend said his body was sort of pulsing inward as he floated downstream. He yelled to his uncle to swim. But he kept floating downriver like this, unable to move, with his head slowly sinking deeper into the water. Finally he went under. A moment later, my friend says, his uncle’s hand came out of the water and waved to them on shore, back and forth, slowly, before sinking back into the river. They found his body some two weeks later, regurgitated on a rock...
 They say that every time someone dies in the river, the river rises.)
 Our homestay dad told us another story about the time when he and his dad were nearly killed by a giant anteater with her baby. They climbed a tree to escape the angry mama anteater, who was walking on her hind legs with arms outstretched, some five feet tall, when it climbed up after them. She swatted at them with her three-inch claws. Finally his dad was able to shoot it. It took a few shots. He said something about if you kill an animal with fear, the soul of the animal won’t leave. So you have to kill the animal with confidence and conviction, so that the soul will leave the body and the animal will die. Note to self.
 We have heard some amazing stories about the jungle during our stay here. Isabelle is collecting animal stories for her research and we had a particularly juicy story session while in Serena; hunting, shape-shifting, living rocks, spirit people, possession. There is talk about doing a multi-day deep jungle trek when I come back to Ecuador. Bound to encounter the strange and unusual. The land out here is very much alive. The deep jungle, from what I have heard, seems to be a real-life fairy tale, complete with witchcraft, talking trees and demons. It is awfully and impenetrably intriguing.Â
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