Polluted Currents
- 18 Jan 08, 02:57 PM
Posted from: Andoas
All the long days on the river and the ever-changing logistics and rainclouds above seem worth it today. What a perverse claim to make as we look out on the oil-spilt banks of a stream. Black snakes through the muddy water and clings to all it touches. Rain runs down our faces and over the polluted ground towards the Corrientes River. Words are inaudible in the downpour but the scene speaks for itself.
The aftermath of the oil spill
Guevara, an environmental monitor from the nearby village of Jose Oliya, walks downstream. This spill happened some two weeks ago but the impact will be felt for much longer. No more fishing on this stream, no more collection of medicinal plants, no more using this water. Armed with his GPS, hard-hat and a jacket that announces his position proudly, he works surveying the environmental impact of the oil company that works in this area known as lot 1AB.
The presence of the oil company is inescapable in this changed landscape and its influence in the surrounding communities is equally noticeable. Large oil drums are scattered around the village of Jose Oliya and the uniform orange of company workers hangs from its houses. At night, televisions compete with sound systems under electric light, above the concrete pathways that cross the village. There is something soulless or absent in the community. There is none of the reticence that we found along the Huitoyacu River.
The Achuar here have long given up their land to the oil companies and with it, they have lost the security of a way of life that depends on the forest and a culture that is fed by that relationship, just as the people themselves are fed. The traditional drinking of wayus in the morning still wakes Bruce from his hammock in the morning as the rest of us lie on the assorted beds found in the health post – it resembles a Turner prize exhibit from the outside as it is sculpturally surrounded by rows of urinals.
The oil spill in jose Oliya
The village, like the culture, seems lost - scattered with remnants and rubbish. The benefits of advances such as electricity only seem to make starker a communal poverty. The streams of oil we saw running towards the Corrientes illustrate the polluted currents that run through this village and its people. We leave, all squashed into the back of the community car and head to Andoas, to the banks of the Pastaza once more.
Comments
Such a scene or story is so easily forgotten by our wester culture and everyday bustle of life, for these people I am sure this story will be at the forefront on their lifes for a long time to come. In today's society people should not have to endure such debilitating living circumstances.
Keep up the good work guys, without you out there documenting the lifes of so many of these people I am sure their stories would be left to remain in the bacground of life.