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Coach Predator

| Sophie

You sit next to me with other seats spare,

On the back of my head I feel your stare.

I grit my teeth and peer out the window,

The coach starts moving, grumbling, slow.

 

You spread out your knees, I pull away mine,

You’re in my space, I pretend it’s fine,

Then your elbow is, for some reason, resting

On my hip. My whole body’s protesting.

 

For a while I think, am I being unkind?

Why do I care when he doesn’t mind?

So I move out your way but you follow me,

Spreading out further not letting me free.

 

I adjust my position to give myself space,

I turn and see the look on your face

As you move your arm over, pressing,

Touching my body, almost caressing.

 

Get off me. You’re disgusting. And intimidating.

Your intentional touch is violating.

My whole focus centred on how much I’m hating

Your presence, your dominance is suffocating.

 

I muster my bravery and push you away,

I regret touching you as the skin memory stays,

I take a deep breath and I start to relax,

But it’s not long before your arm is back.

 

I’m ignoring, I’m ignoring, I’m ignoring you.

I’ve tried everything, what else can I do?

And just when I think to myself, I can’t take it,

You speak to me, flirtily, sleezily, I feel naked.

 

Passively, English-ly, I reply to your questions,

I try to be nice, I keep my expression

Courteous and cool, it’s not in my nature

To be mean to a stranger.

 

You ask for my headphone, I hand one over,

I give you my phone too, like a pushover.

You play songs I don’t like whilst smiling at me,

You ask if I like them. Do I have a choice but to agree?

 

You steal my attention for the rest of the trip,

Still pushing your elbow into my hip.

We, finally, arrive at our destination,

Relieved, but angry and hurt by your predation.

 

I try to escape but I find that you’re following,

Glancing at me, you hold out your hand offering

Help or assistance, can you ride in my taxi?

No, you can’t, I’m sorry. Why the fuck am I saying sorry!?

 

You ask for my number, to see me again!?

Do you really, can’t seriously!? think that we’re friends!?

I smile apologetically, a meek shake of the head,

“No and fuck off”, I should have said.

 

I get in my uber, I’m finally alone,

So thankful and grateful I’m almost home.

But the anger remains, at my own passivity,

I berate myself and my sensitivity.

 

 

 

Imprint

| Sophie

A romance blossoms

In early stages where

A gust of wind

Could change the direction of

A wondering mind.

 

The only certainty in love

That is beginning

Is the imprint

Of your current footprint

Upon the ground.

 

For you don’t know

If the next step will be solid,

Or if you will leap

Forward in faith

And find yourself falling.

A snapshot moment

| Sophie

I’ll set the scene:

Me (purple, floaty trousers, black and green Hawaiian shirt, slightly tanned, curly hair tied back), lying in my hammock in the “porch” of our “mansion”. It is HOT today, so hot in fact that I got in the “shower” earlier fully clothed just to cool down a bit. The sun is shining and the river flows idly, the grass is quite overgrown and bright, little seeds cling to my socks and trousers whenever I walk anywhere. Insects are constantly buzzing about, jumping up from the grass and circling through the air which hangs heavy and still with humidity. Frogs and mice occasionally peep out from their homes and the geckos in our “mansion” crawl silently across the walls and the ceiling. The crickets are buzzing and the birds chirping and every so often the rumbling of a motor crawls past as members of the community travel up and down the river. The giant leaves on the banana trees rustle slightly in a gentle breeze, and the sound of the shallow water dancing over the rocks in the river floats up from the bank. I can smell the rich scent of tropical nature, almost cloying and almost sweet. And I feel calm. The heat has soaked into my bones and it is bliss to lie here, embraced in the warmth of the air and the peace and serenity of the trees.

I have spent the morning working on my project. Hours and hours and hours of data collection and analysis, with hours and hours and hours to go. My ears are ringing from listening to my music too loudly, my mind is buzzing with thoughts of work, and my fingers are sore from clicking and dragging and typing. I’m taking a break. Whether it’s well-deserved I’m not so sure, but the heat and limitless time we have make it hard to concentrate.

Heather and I have been at the station for 9 days now. Just us. Here. Alone. In our paradise-like prison, or prison-like paradise; depending which mood we’re in. We’ve been on rations for a few days now because our food supply is dwindling so meals have been delightfully creative or completely boring. The flies are out in full force so we’re both covered in bites, but I think we’re more used to them now so they don’t bother us as much. Evening is settling in, the air is cooling slightly and the sun getting lower.

 

 

I’ll get back to work now. The tab of my spreadsheet is staring at me disparagingly from the bottom of my laptop screen and, as much as I wish they would, the photos won’t start sorting themselves.

 

 

*”quotation marks” used to indicate the metaphorical nature of these descriptive nouns. We don’t actually live in a mansion, but a 4 roomed, open, wooden building built on stilts. The porch refers to the area at the front of said building. We have a structure which does a very good imitation of a shower, but in reality is 3 small concrete walls and a shower curtain with a barrel that we pump full of river water when it gets low, and a tap coming out of it.

 

22-02-2018 Menstruation Magic

| Sophie

This morning, a guide, Javier and myself set out into the forest to set up my project. I need 12 transects (straight lines that I use to mark where I will collect my data) in both primary and secondary forest. We found suitable areas with plenty of space and started to set these up, however, we happened upon an unusual obstacle. The community believe that when a woman is on her period, she has witchcraft that destroys their land and crops. So as we were walking through the forest with our string and measuring tape, we kept accidentally finding ourselves in bits of farmland that were completely off limits to me, a woman with magic crop-destroying periods. Not a problem I thought I’d have to deal with, frankly.

17-02-2018 The ups and the downs

| Sophie

It’s a quiet day at the station today. Only Heather and I are here so we have complete freedom to do what we like when we like. This freedom only really extends to when we eat, usually with more people at the station mealtimes are regular and we take it in turns to cook each meal, but with only the two of us here, I ate breakfast at midday and Heather ate lunch at 3: we’ve descended into madness. Apart from that, we are still at the mercy of the weather and can’t leave the station as we have work to do here. It’s been raining the last couple of days so wifi and power have been a little dodgy, and until recently the station has been relatively full! So it’s back to our quiet little life.

Life has taken a few turns recently, ebbing and flowing like the tides of El Rio Payamino. It’s easy to see a surface view of someone’s life and assume that all’s fine and dandy, but actually there’s usually something going on there which doesn’t breach social media or light conversation.

My life has been a bit up and down recently. I think being ill always gets you down and it takes a little while to regain the swing of things; I’m still not better after my ear infection which is making me a little lethargic and foggy. Another thing – this one took me a while to figure out on all my travels – but it turns out you’re not immune to insecurities / down days / mad panics about life just because you live somewhere cool: had a few of them recently. Also, the direction of my project has changed once again. It’s been a real challenge figuring out what kind of research is available in the field, balancing my highly-optimistic research aims, and evaluating my own limitations in order to find the middle ground of what’s actually doable here.

It was quite disheartening at first, but I am a fan of silver linings and have started to appreciate the benefits of my new plan. It will be a lot simpler and easier, I will have more control over every aspect, and the write-up will be more straight forward. All boring things, I’ve lost interest over ease, but at least I can actually make a start.

Field work is surprisingly slow. There are a lot of social, political, meteorological and ecological hoops to jump through that you just don’t expect to meet when you set out on your journey, hoping to uncover some valuable resource or hidden knowledge. And field work is clumsy. Of course we adhere to ‘the scientific method’, and keep all our data as valid and reliable as possible, but at the end of the day, research is limited by the people doing it and the amount of money and time they have. We’ve recently been collecting data for an arachnid biodiversity study which sounds to me awfully professional and serious, but the actual field work/data collection side of things juxtaposes this scientific vision of serious, intelligent people doing serious, intelligent things, and replaces it with a group of people, some scientists, some undergrads, and some indigenous community members, literally catching spiders in the jungle. There’s more to it than that, years and years of research that has cultivated the perfect method and most accurate data analysis, however the literal translation from the methods section in a scientific paper to people working in the field is not what you expect. It’s been fascinating to learn this and experience some real life science in the field.

All in all life at the station has been great. The company has been wonderful, and it’s nice to be back home in our idyllic, little corner of the world. But I’d be lying if I said life has been perfect: life has been normal, I guess, but still full of discovery, new experiences, learning and getting shit done, which are the main things, I think.

10-02-2018 An ear update

| Sophie

I am deliriously happy right now. I woke up this morning in a state of bliss and contentment. You see, for the first time in a week, I woke up because I was ready to wake up, rather than because I was in excrutiating pain. I’ve had a fungal ear infection which has been just horrific. I would unabashadley use the word agony to describe my pain even though it may sound dramatic. It was absolutely unbearable at times; I felt nauseous, was in too much pain to sleep, and painkillers didn’t really work. By the end of the week, I was taking paracetamol, ibuprofen, diclofenac and codeine, and it still wasn’t enough. As the days went on, the pain didn’t get worse or better, but spread to the back of my head, my throat, my neck, my right eye and my right cheek. I am half deaf in my right ear, and its been leaking puss and mucous. So basically not very fun, river fungi 1, sophie 0.

So waking up without pain was a miracle. I’m honestly not sure how much longer I could have kept going for, especially considering I was averaging 3/4 restless hours of sleep a night, when I am very much an 8/9 kinda girl. Today was my 2nd follow-up doctors appointment to get my ear cleaned out. I was meant to have it cleaned on wednesday but it was still too swollen and inflamed at that point. So this morning when I woke up without pain I was really glad because that meant the inflammation had gone down and I could get my ear flushed out. So I set off on my journey to Coca this morning excited and ready to get my hearing back and hopefully say bye to all the puss and mucous.

It didn’t really turn out like that. The doctor did indeed clean out my ear, but this was not the pleasant and satisfying feeling I had hoped for, oh no. This was water being squirted alarmingly forcefully deep into my still sore and infected ear, then repeated 5 times. This was ear violation. Things are not meant to go into your ear, that is not what they are designed for. Bits of fungi came out which was both fascinating and gross, then the doctor had another look and told me that there was still a lot of fungi growth, I needed 10 more days of antifungal drugs, and 2 more ear cleaning sessions: one tomorrow and one in a week. Not the conclusion I was hoping for I must admit. This was all made more stressful by the fact that the doctor mumbled in thickly-accented spanish. Not only is my spanish not good, I am also half deaf right now, so I definitely feel like I missed half of the story.

But to 360 back to my original point, I am, surprisingly, quite happy. It’s really great to not be in constant pain. For everyone reading this who is not in pain, just take a quick stock of your body and truly appreciate that you are feeling fine right now. What a wonderful feeling. And for those who are in constant pain, my deepest sympathy, it is exhausting and frustrating and horrible.

I was talking to my mum earlier and she said “Sophie you don’t have to be so brave all the time”, but actually I do. When you’re in a different country/place to the people that really love you and you’re suffering, you kind of have no choice but to be brave! What else can you do? I’m not exactly going to jump on a plane home, so I’ve just got to tough this one out. No one can feel your pain for you. What does bring an amazing amount of relief is emotional support. When someone messages you asking if you’re okay, how you’re doing, how you’re feeling; it is so comforting to know there are people out there who worry about you and care for you. So if you do have a sick friend or relative, message them once in a while just to let them know you care.

08-02-2018 ill and abroad: a detailed account

| Sophie

Date
Saturday 3rd of February

Scene
Lying in bed in a hotel room on the 4th floor of our favourite Hotel in El Coca, the Rio Napo. 

8pm
And so occurred the last in a series of bad decisions: a massive bowl of pasta for dinner. Accompanied with soy sauce (beggars can’t be choosers) and sweetcorn, this was the final nail in my coffin. 

8:30pm
A slight stomach ache. Did I eat too much pasta? Perhaps the Asian / Italian combo wasn’t agreeing with me. I put it out of my mind and settled in for the night. 

11:30pm
Stomach ache reached fever pitch. Something was not right. Fear started to creep in that I’d caught the same 24 hour bug that wiped Heather out a few days ago. It looked nasty.

11:45pm
Denial. Pain, nausea, diarrhoea and denial. I was so tired 4 hours previously and at this point I was more awake than ever. Surely I hadn’t caught the bug, surely not.

Midnight.
Toilet blocked. In my haste and pain, I forgot you’re not meant to put tissues down the toilet. Contents of toilet filled to the brim, and absolutely nothing I could do about it.

12:15am
Vomit time. I ran to the loo and threw up only to have it splashed back in my face. Not ideal. Turned to the left and threw up my entire bowl of pasta into the shower. Now I’m in a pickle. 

12:30am
Toilet blocked, shower blocked and the vomit wouldn’t stop. 

1am
Messaged friends and family informing them that I had fallen victim to the stomach bug as well and would be accepting sympathy for the next couple of days.

1:45am
Tripped on the way to the bathroom and fell over, threw up on the floor. Brilliant.

2am
Earache getting worse and worse. My ear had been blocked for a few days but I had put it down to a cold and water in my ear, but the pain suggested something more sinister.

3:30am
My body now almost emptied, I decided it was time to do something about the mess. In my delirium, I thought it would be a good idea to try and rinse away the vomit in the shower. Turns out chunks of pasta won’t go down a plughole. Next bright idea, move vomit from shower to bin with tissues and hands. Mediocre success. 

4:30am
Parents were online on Skype. Finally, someone to care for me. Spoke to mum and dad for 45 minutes, threw up 3 times on the call, watched my cute little kitten bite the camera, and agreed to see a doctor in the morning about my ear. 

5am
Discovered that everything that had gone down the loo in the last 6 hours was now regurgitating back up into my shower. If you stood in the shower, it would have come up above your ankles. Felt really hard done by at this point.

5:30am
Vomiting and diarrhoea starting to subside, desperate nausea slowly fading away. Readying myself for some sleep. 

6:30am
Hadn’t expulsed any liquids in half an hour, good sign. Earache getting really painful, bad sign.

8am
In AGONY. Facebook messaged hotel owner asking for doctor to be sent to my room. Exhausted, empty, delirious, feverish and in excruciating pain. 

9am
No one had replied to my messages. Feeling lonely and isolated, as well as desperately ill.

10am
Confirmation that doctor would indeed be on his way in 20 minutes.

4:30pm
Doctor arrived.

4:45pm
Post examination, I learnt that I had a bacterial infection in my intestines, and both a fungal and bacterial infection in my right ear. Prescribed a bag of drugs including two diclofenac injections, a course of antibiotics for 12 days and antimycotics for 10 days. 

5pm
Injection administered into bottom by hotel manager in spare hotel room. (Not (too) dodgy, she used to own a pharmacy).

The next day
Ear leaking mucus and black stuff. Umm…

Present (8th of Feb, Midday, back at Station)
Little improvement. Decided to share my story in the hope that it would make a few people laugh (and count their blessings). Want to remind readers that we’re all human, and all of us shit, piss and vomit.

Thank you

25-01-2018 Back home

| Sophie

It’s a beautiful day in the jungle. I woke up this morning at 10am which never happens because I’m usually sweating by 8, but this morning it was cool which was delightful.

We arrived a couple of days ago with 2 volunteers who are living here for 2 weeks. They are a French/Colombian couple who are both Doctors, and they are here to experience life in the jungle and help with our research. Also at the station, we have Xaali (in the middle of her Ecology PhD) and Jagoba (Dr of Arachnids) who both have ongoing research projects in the jungle. Xaali is working with Bromeliads and comparing the genetic diversity between different bromeliads to the community of animals that live within them. Her project involves lots of climbing trees because typically bromeliads grow off of the trunks of other trees. They are Epiphytes which means a plant that grows on another plant. Jagoba is an arachnid specialist living in Barcelona and he is doing a spider biodiversity study here – the first of its kind! This will involve all 7 of us catching spiders using various techniques night and day for the next week or so!

So the pace of life in the station has picked up! We’ve talked a lot about projects and science, and generally the kitchen is filled with a Spanish babble of conversation which makes a nice change to the silence that normally hangs in the air throughout the day. Thankfully, my project is coming together. There might even be a way for me to combine my two projects, and instead look at how the community use fungi medicinally! Very interesting!! Jagoba and I are going to meet a Fungi specialist in Quito in February who may be coming to the station in March to do this research as well!

The visa sitch is looking a bit worrying. My mum sent out some documents which I need for my visa to be processed, but Royal Mail has royally fucked up and even though she sent them two months ago, it looks like they haven’t yet made it out of England. And sorting this mess out from the Rainforest is quite hard so not too sure what I can do about it apart from register a MASSIVE complaint about their incompetence and lack of communication.

I got thwacked in the eye by a tree branch on the way to the station a couple of days ago. Heather, the 2 Doctors and I were sat on the roof of the Rancherra (the lorry-thing which takes us from Loretto to the indigenous community in the Rainforest), and for the split second I was changing songs on my phone, a branch came out of nowhere and got my eye! Excuse the pout – I was feeling quite sorry for myself (and looking for sympathy).

So I am now going to go for a swim in the river!

And tonight we are having a FIESTA for Burns Night!!! Heathers family is Scottish so we are going to pay homage to Robert Burns all the way from the Jungle!

20-01-2018 Nice to be back, Quito

| Sophie

I have arrived in Ecuador safe and sound, sorry to say bye to England but excited to settle back into my Ecuadorian life! Goodbyes were quite hard this time, and it was tougher than usual to tear myself away from my family and friends, but the further from home I travelled, the more I started to look forward and the easier it became to leave my comfort zone behind. My journey to Ecuador was long and comprised of: a car, boat, bus, train, coach, bus, Travelodge, bus, plane, plane and finally taxi and took 35 hours. Definitely not the longest journey I’ve been on, but exhausting never-the-less!

Getting through Quito airport was a little tricky… they have 2 security checks, each one before and after baggage claim, and I got questioned a lot over my visa situation! I only have another 9 days left on my tourist visa: I’ve applied for a work visa but Ecuador is THE SLOWEST COUNTRY EVER and it’s taken months and I haven’t heard from the visa office at all. So I got a little warning upon entry and was told I must leave after 9 days. When we were applying for work visas, it wasn’t a case of just filling out a form online and sending a couple of emails, because in Ecuador, they don’t reply to emails. (What!??) So you have to SHOW UP everywhere. And these visa offices and universities aren’t near each other – on average they are probably about a 6 hour coach journey from each other. So ‘getting our visas’ translates into zig zagging up and down the country, having meetings and showing our faces so we can pressure them into moving forward in our applications (mine and Heathers). So anyway I got through security with a warning I have no intention of taking seriously, then we teamed up with another traveller to get a taxi to the old town in Quito where we’re staying.

One thing that struck me when I arrived was how familiar Quito feels to me now. It’s a joy to get to know a place and feel safe there, especially when it comes to logistical things; like knowing if a taxi is taking you in the wrong direction and if they are over-charging you! Also, it was an absolute joy to arrive in Ecuador and have enough of a grasp of Spanish that I can communicate with the locals – it makes life so much easier! And I think it’s such a special thing: being able to speak more than one language, it gives you such an insight into other cultures! I’m always so curious when I hear people speaking a different language, I would love to know what they’re saying! It seems so mysterious when you can’t understand, but I bet most of the time it’s just the usual mundane, boring stuff we talk about in English! Speaking all the languages in the world is in my top 3 most-wanted super powers. So being able to understand Spanish is so exciting for me. I’m no expert, but I get by and I am trying to get better all the time.

Another beautiful thing about being back in Ecuador is the music. I was surprised to learn that Spanish music has heavily infiltrated the UK charts when I was home over Christmas, and lots of the songs I cherished as being a part of my South American journey were actually quite well known in England! But I will always associate those songs with Ecuador: the places I’ve been here, the journeys I’ve done, the bars I’ve danced in, the hostels I’ve stayed in. And that is quite magical. Although, true South American music is quite different to Spanish chart music. It’s the more traditional salsa and flamenco that you’ll find playing in local, less touristy areas!

Last night Heather and I went out for a few drinks and we started the night at another Hostel called Minka. We were informed by the staff at our hostel who were also going that it is a bit of a party hostel. When we arrived, however, we weren’t particularly enthused because it was really quiet and there were even 2 guys asleep on the sofas! But we joined a little group outside eating, drinking and smoking and started to have fun and eventually, unsurprisingly, a guitar somehow made its way to the table! A quite accomplished Colombian guy and his girlfriend then proceeded to play a bunch of Latin American songs, harmonising and with a shaker might I add – definitely rehearsed for moments like these, and most of the table were singing along. Now, I know that travelling guitar players have a bit of a bad rep among the British, but I genuinely think it’s because we’re not as open to it, and also there are definitely a few douchebags who ruin it for the whole lot. Unsolicited guitar playing while everyone is quite happily chatting is definitely a dick move, but a group sing-song with a good player and a few beers is actually a really great thing. I actually fall into this group of travelling guitar players so I may be a little biased, but I’m just as happy to sit back and listen as I am to take centre stage. Last night was a bit of both, we spent the first couple of hours soaking in the culture of the passionate South Americans and their fiery music, and by the end of the evening I had a guitar in my hands and was serenading the whole group with I’m Yours and Somewhere over the Rainbow… and I unapologetically loved it.

One of my resolutions in Ecuador is to properly learn a Spanish song by the end of the year! Then I’ll be a real dick when I travel haha, not only playing the guitar and singing, but in another language too. Don’t hate me too much.

So right now I am in my hostel, hungover but feeling really satisfied and comfortable. We chose to stay in Hostel Revolution this time, which is more quiet, because it has a kitchen – a real must for travellers on a budget (which unfortunately is me). It’s nice enough, not as good as Secret Garden but the kitchen has been SO worth it!!

Side note: if anyone is thinking of going travelling, bring a towel dressing gown. It is one of my FAVOURITE things. You avoid the awkwardness of walking around in a towel and its really easy to get changed under – little travel tip. Also!! Second travel tip: Lush shampoo’s and conditioners are AMAZING. They are completely vegan and bio-degradable which is obviously fantastic, but they come in these little bars which sit neatly in a little tub, so super easy to transport and they last for ages!! I washed my hair for the first time with them today and my hair looks really great, so massive advocate for Lush right now! 

Today the weather in Quito is 15 degrees-ish which is pretty perfect for a life admin / movie day in bed. So that is exactly what I’m doing!