A new wave of gentrification is occurring in deteriorating urban areas around the world utilizing art. Leading the effort is a new type of urban art, called street art. A group of ingenious urban developers has utilized a unique plan to gentrify neighborhoods. Using local artists painting large colorful murals on the walls of deteriorating …
My last day in Iquitos and my friend William floated the idea of going to see a fortune teller. Like always I love diving into the culture and particularly something that might shed some light on my future. So William, Anita (William’s wife) and I headed towards the seer. We entered what look like a …
We stepped out of the motokar right in front of the steel door with a giant padlock on it. Beside it stood a guard with really big gun. Alex, my translator, stepped up to the guard talked for a few minutes, a call over the radio and the key came out. All cell phones, cameras …
As the plane landed in my jungle home away from home the familiar images flashed beneath the plane. A lush green canopy that looks like a dark green Berber carpet that stretched as far as the eye can see, rusted tin roofs with satellite dishes pointing at the sky on the shacks below. A sense …
Sometimes I sit back in awe, the people, the landscape, the smells, the tastes, the unexpected, the paradoxical. It never ends. In America we have our nice little lives with our perfect kids, where a tough day is getting to work by 9am, dropping the kids by soccer practice after school and getting home with …
It started out as a normal day, Camila and Nitsy stopped by and said they found a family that I may want to sponsor so Brad and I jumped in a motorcar and followed them to a small neighborhood down a dirt street in town. We stepped into a room with a dirt floor and …
Last night Brad and I stopped in a local restaurant that I have eaten in many times before. Ordered a burger and had what we thought was a nice meal, until about 1am. That was when the burger started talking back to me. Obviously some bad meat as I sat hugging the porcelain throne the …
It’s been a year since I have been to my home away from home but I am back in Iquitos. The trip here is always tough because you get into Lima at 11am and the first plane for Iquitos leaves at 6am. By the time you clear customs and get your bags it doesn’t make …
Change and personal truth. I have learned a lot during the six months I have spent in Iquitos over the last two years, lessons around personal truth and change. Everybody has a personal truth. Your personal truth are the things only you and the Father above know about you; things you say and do when nobody is …
As she left I looked down and noticed she had grabbed my camera and left her own. An honest mistake but I panicked, jumping up I started in the direction she had gone. I didn’t even know her name, we had just sat and talked for a few minutes. Frantically I searched each cross street …
As the morning sun peaked through my blinds I wiped the sleep from my eyes and started to plan my day. I realized there was one tourist site I had not seen in all my visits to Iquitos, the Butterfly Farm. Sunday is a slow easy day on the boulevard so this seemed like a …
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Today I stopped by to see Rita, Ruth and Maria while they were parking motorcars. The kids are out of school because the teachers are on strike. After a few minutes of idle chatter Rita said that Ruth needed a bra. “Oh No my little Ruth is growing up!” I hate to admit it but …
There are few places in the world that I have been where there were more ingenious crooks, pickpockets and flim flam men then Iquitos. Everyone is working some sort of scam. I have a friend who was on his way home one night when he heard an argument ensue behind him. He turned around just …
As we loaded into a rapido (fast boat) to head up the Amazon, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect for my first jungle beauty contest, actually my first beauty contest of any kind. We were headed towards Tamshiyacu, a town of about 6000 people that was established 129 years ago. A river outpost and …
Today I became a business owner in Iquitos, La Comida de Rita. Rita, Camilla and I struck out early today to start our new business venture. They knew what they were doing, I was just tagging along and being the banker. As we ventured into the market in Belen I had forgotten how much I …
Today, after two days of the Iquitos runs and weight loss program, I got to sit down with Rita and some of the people from People of Peru to try to lay out a plan to lift my little family out of the slums of Belen. We talked about three options. Lou and I …
Today I walked down to see Ruth and her family; I had seen Ruth and Rita but not Maria. I was with a couple of friends, one who was a nurse. Rita, Ruth or Maria were not there but Anali (the 16 year old) was there with her baby (Ruth), no pun intended. My friend …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6CAZVAcAKc&context=C3ba6df5ADOEgsToPDskLv2pu4xIWdhHCbIGQjE1mH
I spent a good part of my last day with Maria and Ruth my sweet little amigas. I remember when I first met these two little girls begging on the boulevard, I knew there was something special about them. I could tell that Ruth was a very special little girl but she had a shield up. …
“Pelea!” (Fight!) “Pelea!” (Fight!) reverberated around the coliseo, a small ring surrounded by rudimentary bleachers. I looked beside me and a small child was blowing bubbles. The intensity grew as the match went on, the careadores (owners) yelling and cheering on their contestant. Another little boy proudly showed us his favorite fighter, Fernando. Each fighter …