Work, work, work...
I am writing this as we pack up hurriedly to leave our hotel lodgings in Iquitos and head to San Joaquín de Omaguas tomorrow at 5:30AM. This will be my last entry until around July 18th, when we return from the village for two more weeks of work in Iquitos.
Unfortunately, the most elderly speaker of Omagua we had hoped to work with, a woman named Paula, is unable to work with us. Her niece, our consultant Amelia (herself 81) went to her cousin's house to locate her aunt on Friday, and was taken to another relative's house in the community of Santa Lucía, a very poor neighborhood beyond the relatively rich neighborhood of Pampachica, near the Nanay River, which runs into the Amazon just north of Iquitos. According to Amelia, her aunt does not hear anyone, lies in bed with her eyes closed, and does not speak. She is unable to walk, and must be carried from room to room as need arises. It is truly a shame that we are unable to work with her, as Amelia estimates that she is very close to if not over 100 years old. As Amelia recalls, when she was a little girl, this aunt already had children her own age. It seems as if this woman was in reasonable health until just a few years ago, and she belongs to a generation, some of whose members were more or less monolingual in Omagua, and as such represents a significant bridge to past generations, even more so than our other sickly consultant, Lazarina (91), who we hope will still recover. Missed opportunities such as this one are part of the job in the documentation of endangered languages.
Thursday evening, I had the opportunity to go with Lev (my advisor) and his wife Chris to visit a local Professor from the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana (UNAP) at his house, Gabel Sotil García. He is a very kind, educated man now in his seventies, with a very nice home and family in the neighborhood of Pampachica. He teaches in the Education department at UNAP and is strongly interested in the endangered indigenous languages spoken in this region of the Amazon. He is a good person to have as an acquaintance/friend, particularly during the times when I will be in Iquitos and other areas of Loreto alone in August and September.
In a humorous encounter Friday morning, I arrived at Amelia's house for elicitation work sneezing heavily with allergies and with puffy eyes. She commented continually throughout the session that I had la gripe, a catch-all term here encompassing allergies, colds, heat fatigue, etc. At the end of our work she went into her bedroom and pulled out a plastic soda bottle refilled with (what we think was) camphor dissolved in some sort of alcoholic solution. She instructed me to sniff fuerte (deeply) from the bottle, and then proceeded to cup her hands, pour the solution into them, and douse my head with it. Needless to say I wreaked of camphor the rest of the day, but was actually breathing more easily. She said it is her favorite remedio for a variety of maladies.
Yesterday Clare & I made a final shopping trip down to the Belén market, where we were able to roam around more for the first time since our arrival. Belén is a sprawling market of several blocks, and it is easy to not find the stall you are looking for, as blocks tend to be thematic in the distribution of the stalls within them. People are friendly enough down there, but particular areas such as where they sell meats can be quite revolting in the extreme heat and humidity. Most are amused to see gringos wandering around. That night, I had my first semi-adventurous culinary experience here for this summer -- cow utter. We often go to a restaurant around the block named Al Carbón, where I hinted I may try utter. Lev dared me to order it, so I of course had to oblige. It's actually fairly tasty, and extremely fatty, as one might expect.
We are entering the village with a renewed sense of urgency, as these four weeks will fly by extremely quickly, and some of the types of work we hope to accomplish rely heavily on working with individuals we are not certain will work with us, particularly a woman named Guillermina. We hope to return to Iquitos with much already written in the way of grammatical description, so our time with Amelia, and hopefully Lazarina, and be targeted in a productive way. During this time, I also have to write two abstracts to submit for the SSILA (The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas) conference held during the winter meeting of the LSA (Linguistics Society of America), held in Portland in January 2012. I also hope to make headway in beginning a paper I am co-authoring for a conference at UT Austin beginning October 6th, barely over two weeks after I will arrive back in Berkeley!
I will be sure to update you all when we return from San Joaquín, and hopefully with more photos, internet permitting.
Unfortunately, the most elderly speaker of Omagua we had hoped to work with, a woman named Paula, is unable to work with us. Her niece, our consultant Amelia (herself 81) went to her cousin's house to locate her aunt on Friday, and was taken to another relative's house in the community of Santa Lucía, a very poor neighborhood beyond the relatively rich neighborhood of Pampachica, near the Nanay River, which runs into the Amazon just north of Iquitos. According to Amelia, her aunt does not hear anyone, lies in bed with her eyes closed, and does not speak. She is unable to walk, and must be carried from room to room as need arises. It is truly a shame that we are unable to work with her, as Amelia estimates that she is very close to if not over 100 years old. As Amelia recalls, when she was a little girl, this aunt already had children her own age. It seems as if this woman was in reasonable health until just a few years ago, and she belongs to a generation, some of whose members were more or less monolingual in Omagua, and as such represents a significant bridge to past generations, even more so than our other sickly consultant, Lazarina (91), who we hope will still recover. Missed opportunities such as this one are part of the job in the documentation of endangered languages.
Thursday evening, I had the opportunity to go with Lev (my advisor) and his wife Chris to visit a local Professor from the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana (UNAP) at his house, Gabel Sotil García. He is a very kind, educated man now in his seventies, with a very nice home and family in the neighborhood of Pampachica. He teaches in the Education department at UNAP and is strongly interested in the endangered indigenous languages spoken in this region of the Amazon. He is a good person to have as an acquaintance/friend, particularly during the times when I will be in Iquitos and other areas of Loreto alone in August and September.
In a humorous encounter Friday morning, I arrived at Amelia's house for elicitation work sneezing heavily with allergies and with puffy eyes. She commented continually throughout the session that I had la gripe, a catch-all term here encompassing allergies, colds, heat fatigue, etc. At the end of our work she went into her bedroom and pulled out a plastic soda bottle refilled with (what we think was) camphor dissolved in some sort of alcoholic solution. She instructed me to sniff fuerte (deeply) from the bottle, and then proceeded to cup her hands, pour the solution into them, and douse my head with it. Needless to say I wreaked of camphor the rest of the day, but was actually breathing more easily. She said it is her favorite remedio for a variety of maladies.
Yesterday Clare & I made a final shopping trip down to the Belén market, where we were able to roam around more for the first time since our arrival. Belén is a sprawling market of several blocks, and it is easy to not find the stall you are looking for, as blocks tend to be thematic in the distribution of the stalls within them. People are friendly enough down there, but particular areas such as where they sell meats can be quite revolting in the extreme heat and humidity. Most are amused to see gringos wandering around. That night, I had my first semi-adventurous culinary experience here for this summer -- cow utter. We often go to a restaurant around the block named Al Carbón, where I hinted I may try utter. Lev dared me to order it, so I of course had to oblige. It's actually fairly tasty, and extremely fatty, as one might expect.
We are entering the village with a renewed sense of urgency, as these four weeks will fly by extremely quickly, and some of the types of work we hope to accomplish rely heavily on working with individuals we are not certain will work with us, particularly a woman named Guillermina. We hope to return to Iquitos with much already written in the way of grammatical description, so our time with Amelia, and hopefully Lazarina, and be targeted in a productive way. During this time, I also have to write two abstracts to submit for the SSILA (The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas) conference held during the winter meeting of the LSA (Linguistics Society of America), held in Portland in January 2012. I also hope to make headway in beginning a paper I am co-authoring for a conference at UT Austin beginning October 6th, barely over two weeks after I will arrive back in Berkeley!
I will be sure to update you all when we return from San Joaquín, and hopefully with more photos, internet permitting.
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