Erkenci Kuş is a rom-com-drama from Turkey. It surely packs a punch with the main leads & supporting cast, music & literature references, eccentric characters & great plot lines!
Turkey is where east meets west and there's that appeal & something fo...
Dad & I are having drinks with an acquaintance of ours, an investment banker. He went on and on..... and on about how successful he was in investing in gold in the early 2010's. "I made a killing" he says arrogantly... as gold prices skyrocketed 360%! Dad was helping along the conversation.... I was physically present and mentally absent but suddenly, something he said caught my attention. They were mining gold in the rain forests of the Amazon... and apparently, the indigenous locals were giving them a hard time!
A quick Google search, after I get home.... I become a rebel with a cause!?!
...
It took three flights (Istanbul-Madrid-Lima-Iquitos) and two days on a boat to reach the landlocked village of Isla Payorote. The indigenous Yagua tribes live deep in the rain forests and on the banks of the Marañón which merges with the Ucayali to become the mighty Amazon river.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The gold mining industry wasn't regulated in Peru. Therefore, gold mining is rapidly deforesting the Amazonian rain forests. The 30000 miners in the area brought diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, influenza and malaria and the tribes are not exposed to them. So along with the rain forest, the people are also dying at a rapid rate!
There is a small contingent of foreigners living among the tribesmen in makeshift huts and boathouses: a doctor, a couple of nurses, a Spanish translator/teacher, an environmental activist and a documentary film maker.
I've been living here for about a week and the Yagua tribesman have been cautiously welcoming of strangers like me. With the help of the translator, I tried to explain the idea I had to help them.
Along with my camera kit & Mac, I had bought with me 10 digital cameras with extra batteries, thank God! The plan was to teach them to take photos of their everyday lives, things that make them them, and build human interest stories around them, through them, for them and by them.
...
They're indigenousfor a reason - they don't have plumbing, electricity or any motorized equipment. They grow vegetables and harvest grains, hunt in the forest and fish in the river. Their approach to dinner is communal i.e. bring grains, vegetables and meats to a common kitchen, prepare the meal and everyone shares it equally!
In the truest sense, they're disconnected from the modern world! Only a few men have ventured to the nearby town of Iquitos; they couldn't survive because they knew onlyQuechua and not Spanish.
They have no currency only a bartering system, no phone, Internet, alcohol, soda or bread.... and the food is wild caught, organic and fresh as it can be..... so tasty and delightful!
Imagine this : most of them haven't even seen a bicycle, a digital camera is witchcraft to them. So it takes a few days to convince them that it's safe to use. Interestingly, the children and young adults took to the technology immediately and wanted to play with it. Within a few days, the myth wore off and the elders started to adopt the technology!
