Hannah's Blog

Cool Earth Artist in Peru

Hannah Woodman's blog.

In March of this year I visited the Amazon rainforest in Peru with the charity Cool Earth. This was an opportunity to meet the Ashaninka tribe, the largest indigenous group of the Peruvian Amazon, with whom Cool Earth had established a relationship in order to support their fight against deforestation. The trip included 12 travellers from a variety of backgrounds; journalists, educationalists, charity workers, photographers & US business representatives who were involved with sponsoring & promoting Cool Earth's work. With an interest in arts education, I was hoping to visit the communities' schools with a view to establishing a link in the UK. I was also documenting aspects of the trip on paper in the form of sketches and drawings.

From Lima we flew to the frontier town of Satipo in the Junin province. I marvelled at the small military style plane that we had all squeezed into, until we arrived at the airbase and I saw what we were taking for the next leg of the journey. By rights it should only have been operated by remote control, but Alessendro the pilot assured us that, with 3 trips taking 4 passengers at a time, he could get us safely to the Ashaninka village of Cutivireni. Within the hour we were flying over the Amazon rainforest, the chunks of deforestation and illegal inroads clearly visible below. It was a spectacular reminder of why charities such as Cool Earth play such a vital role today.

We soon arrived at a small grass landing strip cut by hand from the dense vegetation by the locals in order to keep open a vital path of communication and delivery. When I got out of the aircraft, silently finishing a prayer that had started back at take-off, I was struck not only by a wall of intense heat, but the extraordinary vision of masses of black-haired children emerging from the surrounding grasses. They instantly sprung forward to help carry goods crammed on board & we followed them along the small path up to the village. Our guides, Carlos Montenegro & Dilwyn Jenkins from Ecotribal, a charity that helps the Ashaninka eco brand their products & promote fair trading, were waiting to introduce us to the elders of the tribe and their families. We were camping in tents in the village alongside their dwellings & the potential disruption our visit would cause was immediately apparent on arrival. The Ashsaninka way of life is based on community values, working collectively and dividing the products amongst the families. Sharing is instinctual not learned and their material culture is minimal. Everywhere you look you see the tradition of operating in company, with family and social groups working, cooking, cleaning and child caring in a communal space. For 12 strangers from an entirely different culture to enter the centre of this activity, speaking a different language, towering above them by a foot or more and periodically disappearing into their own private spaces pitched amidst their home must have felt invasive. However, with quiet hospitality, the Ashaninka  cooked for us and cleared up after us throughout our stay. Such generosity can't really be captured on film or on paper.

Cutivireni is the largest of the Ashaninka village communities in the region we were visiting & here I was able to see the high school and hear from Dilwyn how the education system works in the area. 2 classrooms served a fluctuating population of children of mixed ages who sat in pairs at desks facing a blackboard in the traditional style. The sight of a computer powered along limply by a solar battery was a poignant one in comparison with the rise of technology in UK schools. There was some faded, dated visual material up on the walls but the overriding sense was that new resources would be a huge boost to learning. The sea of distracted grinning faces and the efforts of the teacher to keep them attentive prompted me to leave, but not without the comforting observation that kids will do anything to get out of lessons, no matter where in the world they are.

 Earlier that morning some members of the group had met with the Cutivireni Bio-Climatic Association and discussed the most pressing needs of a community constantly fighting the threat of illegal deforestation and the challenges of constructing a sustainable regime from the land that they farm. The Ashaninka attendees wore the traditional robes or cushma, woven locally and with a distinctive stripe. These coupled with the feathered headdresses were an interesting study & I wondered whether being sketched or photographed constantly was at all irritating. Maybe it depended on the quality of output. The muffled giggles of 2 women carrying children as they passed by me were slightly alarming. As I worked I found a natural aesthetic in the tribe and their demeanour. Perhaps it was the fact that most action had purpose rather than pose behind it and there was certainly a tolerance of being observed that made it easier for me to draw.

After our stay in Cutivireni, we hiked through the rainforest for 2 hours to reach the smaller settlement of Tinkareni where we were to camp for a further 3 nights. The Ashaninka are dispersed over a considerable radius throughout the Amazon that crosses the border into Brazil. Many satellite villages lie across the mountains and the distances that children travel daily on foot to their schools are humbling. The hike was also a chance to experience the rainforest canopy from a different perspective and it's hard to describe the density of vegetation. One of the themes I'm pursuing in my own work currently is that of gardens and amidst the acres of forest the Ashaninka have cleared small designated areas for growing produce such as beans, peppers, limes and cocoa. Suddenly encountering a clearing with a structure to its growth patterns and a series of clear boundaries amidst the rampant excesses of jungle undergrowth was a stark moment of impact on the imagination. The tribe are currently trying to get organic status for their cocoa beans, which would enable them to strike up direct trading deals with larger international importers. These small patches of production, sometimes romantically referred to as chocolate gardens, conjured the imagination in all of us and represent a quiet but forceful nod in the direction of change for the Ashaninka's trading future. Of all the gardens I have painted these hung with the most symbolism.

Once in Tinkareni we had a remarkable welcoming committee, where gifts were bestowed and children came out of their classrooms carrying banners and delivering speeches etc. The school here is the equivalent of our primary stage so I was able to see children aged up to 12yrs being taught. Although  Ashaninka is their native language the children are taught in Spanish by peripatetic mountain Indian staff (rotated every 6 months or so). Reference to their own culture is limited, though the proportion of children who will leave the community permanently is relatively small. The teacher I met stated that they were in need of a wide range of resources & the idea of twinning the school with another small, rural, mixed age range school here in the UK was greeted positively. Exchanging work through an arts based project, building a relationship with the primary age range internationally & encouraging fundraising & education on rainforest communities in partnership with Cool Earth are all planned for 2009 as a result of this trip.

My visit to Peru was an unforgettable privilege. Travelling with such an informed and engaging group was enormous fun, visiting the most important natural resource on the planet was educating beyond expectation and experiencing the lives of those who inhabit it was truly inspiring. As an enrichment to my own work this was a golden opportunity, but as an enrichment to life it was unsurpassable.

With thanks to all those involved, but especially to Matthew Owen (Director of Cool Earth)

Hannah Woodman