Asakiyume mita

I spent two days together with my friend and Tikuna tutor this past June. I'm going to post about those days in reverse order.

On the second day, we rented bikes and rode past the airport (the airport in Leticia is adorably small and you can walk from it into town if you want) to the Leticia campus of the National University of Colombia. Wakanomori and I had tried to do that when we were there together two years ago, but the former president of the country had been speaking there and no one was allowed to even bike along the road to campus, let alone visit.

There's a fence around campus, and a gate.

"We can't go in, not without having made an appointment," my friend said. "But we can look at it from out here."

This surprised me, because Wakanomori and I certainly had planned to go on in, and we hadn't seen any indication that we needed to make an appointment ahead of time. But I figured she would know.

"Have you ever been on campus?" I asked.

"Once," she said, "for a school trip. You know, students come from all over Colombia to learn about Amazonas here, to learn about the ecosystem and plants and animals, and to learn about indigenous culture. But people here can hardly ever get accepted."

"That's terrible," I said.

"Yeah."

We admired the grounds through the fence.

A young man was walking by, and seeing us looking, he said, "Do you want to go in? You can, you know."

"Are you sure?" my friend asked.

"Of course--just speak to that man over there."

And the man in question said yes, we could look around campus, walk on the trails, and see the exhibits. "Just don't go into any classes in session," he said.

My assumptions versus my friend's. A brutal reminder of the difference growing up thinking that any and everything is open to you, that you can ask and you'll receive, and growing up thinking that everything is off limits, that nothing (at least in certain spheres) is for you.

But in the end we did get to go in, and it was a delight. There was a display on fishing:

The drawing shows people fishing. In the background is a maloca, a traditional communal house.


How a fishing pole is made


My friend in front of a canoe--the water-ripple-like forms supporting the canoe are actually fish shaped! Water and fish are one.


Then we walked along the trails, and we saw an agouti! (The link below is to a 16-second video that keeps looping, so if you don't spot him right away, you'll have an infinite number of chances, heh.) We saw him trotting through the underbrush, we saw him playing in the water, and one time, after we thought he'd gone away, he crossed the path in front of us!

Agouti!

My friend pointed out his footprints.



It's wonderful to see wildlife so at home on campus. Now if only **people** could be equally at home there.