The following is a post from Karen, who, with her husband Ben, are the FIRST interns in Iquitos.
Our very first week in Iquitos, my husband and I were wandering around, trying to familiarize ourselves with the area. We came across some little souvenir shops over the river, and as we were glancing around at all of the products for sale, our eyes fell on this painting at the exact same time. It drew us in immediately and we couldn’t look away. We decided we wouldn’t buy it right then, but maybe another day we’d come back.
Not even a week later, we were wandering around again, conducting interviews for our economic report. Our feet carried us right back to the little shops over the river and again, we found ourselves face to face with the painting we had fallen in love with. We finally agreed that we just needed to buy it, and while the artist/shop owner was wrapping it up for us, we decided to interview him.
His name was Bily, and his story amazed me. He hand painted so many beautiful Amazon masterpieces, each one taking close to a week to complete, but by the time his profits were averaged out, he was only making roughly 10 soles a day. As we asked more questions about his business, we found out that he sleeps on the floor of his tiny shop each night, and that his family lives 4 hours away down the river. He would only return home every 2 or 3 months to see his family, and bring them any extra money he’d made.
It was humbling to me, to see how someone with such incredible talent, was living on basically nothing. It made me take a good long look at myself, at all of the things I have, at all of the things I don’t need. It opened up my eyes, and as I remember all of the things I used to complain about back home (the internet isn’t working! There’s nothing good on TV! Gas is so expensive! I don’t have any cute clothes! Etc. etc.) seem so silly.
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