Hi Again!

Dear friends,

What is happening now?

We are strong women sitting in the jungle, laughing and building a makeshift shelter from the rain to sit and write you under. June is weaving the roof out of palm leaves and her inkis girlfriends are passing her the leaves. Today we are singing, “Jubilation!”

Why are we happy today?

“Today I have a river of joy inside because I look around and where before I found students, now I see teachers. I have watched beautiful young women and men growing up and finding new and creative ways to live in their world. I have lived in this jungle for a year and a half, and soon I am leaving. I have dared to develop something new here. As a direct result of the generosity and support of countless kind souls, classrooms will be home to new methods, new ideas, and new energy in my wake. I am happy because together with my brothers and sisters we’ve created conditions conducive to life and learning. More than happy, though, I am honored. Swollen with pride to be passing my work into such strong hands, and filled with peace at knowing I shall return, and be always finding new paths to come home by.
Thank you, eternally!”
-Lily

“I am happy because I look at my students, and I see myself in them, like I was years ago. But yet not much time has passed. I have completed only five months of work, but I am with children like me, helping them through the same journey that I made, that I started five years ago. Now I have worked without money, out of love for my people, love for my jungle, wanting to share what I know. And I am excited to keep helping, sharing, teaching and learning together with them. I have accomplished something, and I have something to show for it, as an Achuar woman.

Those five months have ended and my brother and sister, Kayu and Lily, are leaving for their country, but they are going back after having shared their wisdom with my people, with me in my jungle. It is very sad to know they are leaving, and the fact that they’re leaving me on my own demands a great responsibility to take this program to my people, but I accept it gladly. I am thankful from the bottom of my heart. Now they are not only friends, they are my family. Even my mom says “uchir” to Kyle and “nawanchir” to Lily- son and daughter. And they say mom-“nukuchir.”

But now two new friends are coming from North America, Stephanie and Pablo, to support me and support my community, and they will be part of my family, too. All the people here are waiting for them with open arms, just like me, to exchange our knowledge in the heart of the jungle.

Support these people to arrive in my sacred forest so that together we can transform our dreams into reality:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1157786407/empowering-the-achuar-of-the-amazon-wachirpas-engl?ref=email

Maketai. Thanks!”

-June Jiyunt Uyunkar

Welcome to Wachirpas!

Hello, friends!

I don’t know you, and you don’t know me… yet. My name is Jiyunt Uyunkar. I’m Ecuadorian and I’m from Wachirpas community. I’m twenty-two years old and I’m single. I am an Achuar woman.

I want to help the women in my community. My culture is strict. If a woman makes a mistake her father doesn’t let her study, so the women are not educated. Our elders think we are not capable of studying and that we can only work in the garden and serve the men. But we are capable of studying the same as men, so I want and I’m going to help the Achuar women. We can do the same things that men do, and lots more, because we are intelligent and strong.

I am a woman who has fought a lot to be able to study and work. I lost my father when I was six. I was in first grade and only my beloved mom helped us; she didn’t have money to buy school supplies or clothes, so she made sintas (headbands), pinink (Achuar pottery), and chicha (yuca beer) to sell at Kapawi Ecolodge.

I remember one time my mom said to me, “Daughter, you can’t study because there isn’t any money to buy school supplies.” I was in seventh grade. I said, “That can’t be.” I begged her to let me study and I promised to look for money, making handicrafts for her to sell. My mom accepted and I went to high school in Kapawi community. It’s two hours upriver from Wachirpas in kanu (Achuar for dugout canoe!). I was living in a Catholic mission with Mexican nuns, and my life was very sad because every day I needed something and I had to fight for everything, so that I could graduate.

In this high school, before, the nuns taught us English—but they didn’t know much either! Then when I was in eleventh grade, Wain Collen, a volunteer from South Africa, came to teach English with the Pachamama Foundation. He was my first real English teacher, and with him I started to learn. I learned to say, for example, “Good morning, teacher! How are you?”

Every three months the English teacher changed, and I had a lot of teachers from the United States and England. It was difficult to understand the ways that they taught and spoke, but I always liked learning English. And I still do.

In six years I graduated, and then I was living at home. I didn’t have my English classes for three years, and I forgot a lot. But then I met many new volunteers and they were very friendly people and good teachers and they helped me remember my English. I learned a lot.

Now I’m the volunteer English teacher in my community. I am teaching sixty-three boys and girls, from eight to fifteen years old. And I love teaching all day.

I want to be an example for Achuar women and girls, because I’m an Achuar woman too. That’s why I want to study Education at a university: to help my community. Especially the women. And I want to invite people who want to help the students of Wachirpas community to visit us!

Thanks for reading my story.

God bless,

Jiyunt Uyunkar