Atalaya, Smiling

I am in a Cessna grazing maybe 6,500 feet above the Amazon basin. An hour has passed. We've left Pucallpa for Atalaya. Our plane is steadily skimming over closely clumped broccoli through which muddy rivers snake. My mind sees Nate Saint's canary yellow plane and Palm beach where he landed (Through Gates of Splendor, Elisabeth Elliott). Everything beneath me feels deeply familiar: brown rivers which meet, then go their own ways separated by silky sandbars... Along the bank, civilizations come into view, and Marty is detailing places He and Michael were following on a giant wall-sized map stretched across his dining room table last night. My eyes start to burn with hot tears.

Michael sits beside our missionary pilot, dialoguing between headsets about aeronautical charts, which he previously created in his past-career. He is brimming with all the fervor one will ever see from one such as Miguel, because he is using the tools he once created from a desktop. He is exhilarated.

We are nearing the landing strip, a crude asphalt patch welcoming us. From my view, Atalaya seems to be similar to what my mind has always imagined a small island to resemble. Stepping out of the plane to my right a hilled-pasture with grazing white, bony cattle grows into a bright blue sky. There are groups of close-knit trees interspersed among grassy green patches. Nestled atop the hill, sits the mayor's house. Atalaya has around 10,000 who make her home, none of whose faces are white. Where cement streets and even curbs have not yet been laid, the ground is silty brown laden with smooth river rock. In some ways, Atalaya is even more progressive than Pucallpa.

Pucallpa's markets and port are hard-packed with a colorful mosaic of trash wrappers, smashed banana peels and bottle caps. Broken glass, rotting jungle fruit and limp green lechuga line stalls beside stately bags of dirt-crusted sweet potatoes and plump tangerines. Giant holes in both the streets and the sidewalks require vigilance. One must always be scanning where his feet will step next, while holding tightly to whatever is in his hands. My eyes continually rove across curious onlookers and eager pickpockets while dodging drops in uneven ground and poles which reach unexpectedly out of the earth in the most unsuspecting places. Pucallpa's sky is deep azure and her earth is covered in green: almond and blossoming mango trees. There is continual tension between this raw,lush beauty and chaotic, soot-covered walls which host San Juan Cerveza advertisements and spray-painted political ideals. The streets are perpetually crowded with loud, weaving moto-taxis blasting purplish clouds of motor fuel. The port boasts a consuming bonfire, the size of a small building, sitting in the river rock with elderly, shirtless men missing both teeth and shoes. They generously carry heavy loads with broad smiles. Grandmothers in multi-colored halter tops smile, their arms dripping with beaded necklaces and bracelets for sale...

Atalaya is different--smaller. There are moto-taxis, but they travel along freshly laid cement streets. The market stalls sit tidily upon curbs. I marvel at neatly stacked piles of clothing and cheerful red and white striped hammocks hanging along store fronts. The people are timid and curious. Some are shouting greetings from their brick and mortar piles, as they momentarily stop their labor to observe outsiders, for Atalaya does not regularly host visitors. Accessible only by boat or plane, she sits alone, a neat and tidy grid in Asheninka territory.

When Nicanor, a Spanish-speaking brother in Christ arrives alongside the way to lump us into his moto-taxi, we figure one of us may sit backwards and the other three will have enough space to sit comfortably, while searching the community. Where will we live after language school? What will be home base from which we will set out into the jungle to be with the Asheninka? We are looking for a home to rent; searching, searching... a dark, narrow corridor squeezed between a tall, mostly finished brick wall and hotel-like structure is available--each family member having a separate room and bathing quarters but no kitchen area, no gathering place. One could be built outside, we reason. Then there is a tall, hot warehouse with a roll down garage front: Peeling-painted, cement walls without windows--no light. Another home is resting on a shaken cement foundation; tin roof lifted above cement walls...we peek in the window to see darkness, and a hastily clad clothesline strung between the two walls. Someone is living there while the owner searches for a new resident. Their empty yogurt bottles litter the grass and dirt...

"A house must be built on a strong foundation," Dena decidedly announces.
"I'd rather start from ground zero," agrees Marty.
"You will need a peaceful haven to come to when you are weary from your work in the communities," Dena insists. She asks to see land for sale. Nicanor pulls alongside a curb and stops the moto-taxi beside a brick divide walling off mature, ripening fruit and cocoa bean trees. We walk in through the backside of the property. It is shaded and glorious under the hot sun. We stumble upon two massive graves as we wander through the thick, muddiness, glad to be wearing rubber boots. I have the notebook and pen, and Marty insists that I write "WOW!" next to the number I copy beside the lot's specifications. Both Dena and Marty start musing how our children will love the trees and the fruit and the space...but it will need some structure. We will need to build. In the jungle, this is just a matter of weeks...enough musing for now. We are all hungry. I pocket the information and we taxi to Shao-Ling: Peruvian food Chinese style. Our waitress is a young girl my Julia's age, and I am hungry to talk to her, but I cannot. My Spanish is so poor. I resolve that my time in language training will be spent prudently. During lunch, Marty, Dena and Nicanor are speaking Spanish. My mind wanders as I begin processing what I have seen and sip cold, yellow Inka Cola.

Lunch is over. Soon, We are making our way back to the airport, where an anxious, Atalayan mother, newborn held close, is waiting to board our chartered flight. She must get to the hospital in Pucallpa where her seven year old daughter is ill. The pilot assigns her and I to the back of the plane. First she boards. Then it is my turn. The pilot tightens my seat belt, and shuts the door. I look away from the woman and pray, "Show me what to do. I cannot yet speak her language. Help me." I look into my lap and my camera is there. I have been holding it this whole time. My camera! I can show her my own children! Excitedly, I push the play button, and fumble through scenery pictures scrolling back, back, back...there! "Mis ninas y nino" I smile, "Ocho, seis, cinco, y tres!" I can talk! She studies my face, then the picture. She is not impressed. I keep scrolling, nervously searching for a family picture. "Mi familia," I am smiling. She studies the picture, then studies Michael. She studies the picture again, and our eyes meet...

This time we are both smiling.