Keep callin’ Mr. Deridens

T’was the night before Tena and the sky was dark,
Down in the shadows Chris and Andy had a moral dilemma.
Close by, there called a frog sat upon high tucked in a log.

His call sent a chill and a bit of a thrill,

But to climb such a tree, a lesser man it would kill.

Chorus

One day true love will come,

For you and for me and the frog in that tree.

Then we will see how happy we’ll be.

Keep callin my froggy friend, never give up right till the end.

Using a ladder wrought from finest steel,

Chris and Andy were hot on his heels.

A saw made of gold, a twinkle in the black.

Chris soon had a hold, for the crowd to behold,

And up went a cheer as away crept the fear.

Chorus

Andy smiled like an enlightened child,

All became clear as he whispered in Chris’ ear.

‘It’s deridens, but my worry is that, he has no friends’.

‘He calls on his own, on an Island of stone, cold and alone’.

Chris released him at once and sang to the crowd,

‘Have faith and pray for a brighter, better day, all of this heartache will soon go away.’

Chorus

Whena Tena was done, along with the fun,

Chris and Andy sat having a chat.

Whilst in the tree, grew strong the sound of the sadness they had previously found.

When all at once, a female did pounce,

On the Comedor table, healthy and able.

Chorus

She was caught at once and helped on her way,

As the crowd left, in the tree she did stay, till the break of day.

From the Comedor close by there came the hum,

Of true love and some freaky froggy fun.

Chris smiled at Andy as he lay in his bed, both fuzzy inside at the work they had done.

Chorus

An Ecuadorian ballad written and performed by Rio Napo artists Andrew Whitworth and Christopher Beirne.

Keep callin’ Mr. Deridens

Full Moon in Bloom

After five weeks of jungle fun

Its hard to believe the first half of the phase is done

Time to return to the land where hot water flows and light bulbs glow

After weeks of science and community work

Rest and cervezas are what we deserve

With great anticipation of what was to come

We arrived in Tena ready for fun

The events began with a great nights meal

Food without beans or rice was the best deal

The days followed were filled with exciting recreation

Riding the whitewater and climbing through canyons

The mountainous landscape towered around us

Birds soared high and vegetation was lush

Lunch was served on a bamboo platter

With the locals we shared good food and laughter

As the day progressed we baked in the sun

Our pasty white skin was soon long gone

We took a break from the white water raft

Face painting with mud, we had a good laugh

As the afternoon commenced, the adventure continued

The landscape changed, with more beautiful views

It didn’t take long for the raft to capsize

We floated through the water with smiles, “we’re alive!”

At the end of the day we were greeted with a cold beverage

An exhilarating day, that was much more than average

The adventure was over, our break is done

But I can’t wait to get back to the jungle

Five more great weeks to come!

by Jill Robbie, GVI Amazon volunteer October - December 2009

Full Moon in Bloom

Parting thoughts from five-week volunteers.

Our last weekend with GVI was spent taking a well-deserved break at Hector's Island, (Sumak Allpa) on the Rio Napo, 30 minutes downstream from Coca, soaking up the sun and of course the sandflies! The weekend was jam-packed full of activities from helping with some trail maintenance to drinking traditional Kichwa tea at 4am in the morning and hearing all sorts of stories from our giude, Hector. Finally, as the sun was setting, we took a canoe across the river to a stretch of deserted beach, surrounded by serene jungle, for a wild and whacky game of beach football. At half-time we cooled our weary sand-burnt feet with a dip in the Napo River. All feeling like winners, we returned to Hector's camp to feast on his delicious freshly barbequed chicken - what a treat!

As the full moon rose over the Amazon rainforest we sat around a roaring camp fire sharing all sorts of stories and playing games. It was the perfect end to a rewarding five weeks of work and play in the rainforest with the GVI Amazon expedition. All that was left now was to return to base camp for a couple of last days back at base before packing up and heading out into life outside the beautiful backdrop of the Yachana Reserve.

Kristin Bianchini & Emma Steer, volunteers GVI Amazon, October - November 2009

Parting thoughts from five-week volunteers.

Minga at Puerto Rico

GVI Amazon base camp was quiet on Friday morning as the volunteers had left for Hectors Island ridiculously early. I’ll admit I smiled as I heard the rain at 4.15am when they’d have been waiting on the road for the bus to Coca. Me, Andy and Sam headed to Puerto Rico to help with a minga, a communal work session, at a slightly more reasonable 7am. We ended up in a field behind the community where an enclosure was going to be built for the school kids to grow some vegetables. First an area had to be cleared, most of it had been done but a small amount of brush remained. The border was marked out with large stakes then huge stretches of bamboo were cut, carted, then tied to the top of the stakes.

The temperature got higher but the work still continued and by midmorning we were inserting small stakes between the bamboo to make the fence – taking care to make sure it was chicken-proof of course. Standing back to look at them there were distinct sections with a slight lean but I’m sure it’ll do the job! By this point it was stupidly hot and we all collapsed in the shade of the school to recuperate with juice and biscuits. The kids, after investigating Sam and Andy’s tattoos, discovered my camera and crowded round for as many piccies as they could get in, piling on top of each other to get a look at themselves on the screen. We eventually escaped and returned to work to find that we only needed to empty sacks of soil onto the beds ready for the kids to start planting. All in all it was hard work but rewarding, we could definitely see what our hard work had achieved.

Amy Dutton, GVI Amazon Scholar October - December 2009

Minga at Puerto Rico

Bursting with Science and Fun, Fun, Fun!

Out and about in the reserve, there was a lot of action on the dung beetle front during the last few days. The miniature pitfall traps unexpectedly revealed a high yield of beetles from the secondary forest trap sites, with around 200 beetles being caught from one trap alone - that's a whole lot of beetles! This made identification arduous, but rewarding, as several new speies were identified.

In other planned work, there was a lot to be done in the form of preparing land for planting trees. However, the long awaited rain (it is currently the 'drier' season here in the Amazon and the river levels visibly drop on a daily basis), disrupted play. Further Management Plan work had to be postponed until a later date. Rain also disrupted the butterfly work, in it's final stages of trapping for this five weeks and the traps were closed until the start of the next five week phase in early November. From the few that were caught, a new species to add to the Yachana Reserve list, was still identified. One particular, rather aged, three month old butterfly seemed insistant on returning to the trap sites and has been recaptured and released multiple times - he just couldn't get enought of that tasty fermenting banana bait!

The reserch focus moved to the community development side and an uplifting and rewarding new English teaching session at another community nearby the GVI Amazon base camp, Puerto Salazar. A successful introduction between the community and GVI was had after what initially looked like a poor turn out. The day started with some English teaching and after a slow start to a football game, the whole day was concluded with some fantastic football action as other members of the community appeared in trickles and a great day of fun and education was enjoyed by all involved.

The following day, another trip, this time to our partners across the river, Yachana. A visit to the Lodge and High School was on the agenda. Volunteers and staff enjoyed a selection of cool refreshing milkshakes and a second football match in as many days. A suitable and well deserved spot of relaxation for all the efforts and hard work volunteers and staff have been putting in to the Ecuadorian Amazon Expedition during the preceeding weeks.

Bursting with Science and Fun, Fun, Fun!

Avian and Amphibian Antics

A busy week with GVI Amazon was jam-packed with all sorts of activities to keep the volunteers out of mischief! After closing the amphibian pitfalls, the project’s preliminary results showed a higher species richness within the primary forest compared to that of the secondary forest. There will of course be a lot more analysis of the statistics in coming months as there will still be more sessions of opening the traps throughout the course of the year, as just over six months of the planned one year study have been completed so far. Continuing on the amphibian theme, night transects began in earnest for the first time this phase with some successful results. In one transect, 16 separate individuals were found including Edalorhina perezi. That’s some good eagle-eyed spotting from the volunteers.

On the birding front, a surprise Piha project kicked off at the unsociable hour of 5.30am! It was however, an enjoyable introduction to a new project on Screaming Pihas (Lipaugus vociferans) and their calling behaviours. Sam Brimble was further surprised by the Western Striped Forest Pit Viper (Bothriopsis bilineata) centimetres from her head during this particular trip! That’s a couple of tricky snake encounters she’s had over the past couple of weeks.

For this particular phase, the first bird transects along the road (small gravel track, that cuts through the reserve) took place and teemed with a plethora of birds; these will be continuing throughout the following weeks to build on the data already collected last phase for this particular stretch of the reserve. Finally, initial work into a study about birds in relation to fruiting trees got underway, with promising prospects. Watch this space in the future to see how things progress.

Avian and Amphibian Antics

Easy as A, B, C....

This week has seen the closing of the amphibian pitfall traps for another few weeks and the start of the dung beetle collection. However, my personal highlight was teaching English at the local school in Puerto Rico. Hannah and I took the younger group of 11 children, whilst Leeron and Kristin took an elder group of children with Chris standing by to help.

We started with recapping their earlier lessons of numbers and the alphabet. Amid lots of running about to various letters spread across the room, I think they understood us. For the bulk of the lesson we introduced them to classroom objects. With another running session to various pictures (drawn the night before), spread across the room they eventually understood us. All this was followed by a colouring in session of pictures of the classroom objects, drawn by Hannah the night before (except one which Chris hurriedly drew for the extra student we had). In the last few minutes we got our cameras out at which point all the kids jumped on us to look at the photos and have some taken of themselves. So apart from the kids hiding behind the cupboard and an accidental game of tag it was a success. On the way back to camp we stopped at the local shop and discovered a new stock of chocolate bars – always exciting as GVI Amazon base camp is so far away from commercial shops. After a celebratory drink from a fresh coconut we continued on to camp to report on the good morning.

Ben Bagshaw GVI Amazon volunteer, Oct-Dec 2009

Easy as A, B, C....