Last spring I made a promise.
A promise to a remote village in the Amazon rain forest of Ecuador who made a specific request for some support.
Last April the Achuar village of Tiinkias teacher handed me a hand written note of materials the school needed. I shook has hand and promised to do my best to share their story with schools that trusted me.
It was only one of the 70 villages across the 2 million acres of pristine rain forest in the Achuar territory, but we must start somewhere.
All great ideas have a place where they are born.
Empowering the Achuar with school materials, so they can in turn stand powerful for the Amazon rain forest feels to me to be a honorable way to support a cause important to the world.
I also knew it would be a powerful way to connect and education students to the Amazon rain forest.
So the Achuar Education Project was created.
Several schools and individuals responded to the call for help and support by making signs and collecting money. ( A huge thank you to those who participated! )
So with the money collected, I purchased a stack of school materials and medical supplies outlined on the list the teacher had given me.
With the help of my guide and friend Cristina Serrano, we transported the materials into the Amazon rain forest.
For one hour we flew over the Amazon rain forest of Ecuador.
We had some many materials, we were required to fly in a larger plane. To get to the village of Tiinkias, we first land in the village of Chichirat. This is the location of the airport. From here we travel for an hour by canoe to get to Tiinkias.
We had collected enough money to bring some school materials to the village of Chichirat. And I brought with me laminated photos from a previous visit to give to them.
After a brief visit, it was time to say good bye to the villagers at Chichirat.
Now it was time to get into the canoe and make our way to the Achuar village of Tiinkias.
Dear Dean Jacobs,
I am in 4th grad at Highland Elementary. I am in the after school class learning about the Achuar
people and animals in the rain forest. You went to Quito. How did you get there? The Achuar children know the thumbs up sign. Did you teach them? What kind of animals do they have as pets? Have you hunted in the rain forest? The indigenous people use slash and burn farming. They farm for two seasons and then move on.Tapers have not changed for 20,000,000 years. Did the Achuar children have pet tapers? Did you know that tapers use there noses as snorkels? Have you seen any social spiders? They make one of the bigest webs in the world. They are 50 times smaller than their prey. Have you seen any kinkachews? Was it an adult or baby?
Your friend,
Quinten.
Posted by: Quinten | January 31, 2013 at 06:31 PM
Dean, so beautiful! Love, Ana
Posted by: Ana Pacheco | January 26, 2013 at 07:25 PM