Blog | Mark and Olly

Mark's Blog - Leave Now!

By Mark Anstice on March 29, 2009 10:00 PM | Permalink | 58 Comments

Ladies and Gentlemen, just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder, I present to you the mystery of the broken arrow! It's like something out of a Conan Doyle mystery: our two protagonists awaking to find their hosts gone and a sinister voodoo symbol outside their door to further alert them to the grave dangers they now face.

Continue Reading Mark's Blog - Leave Now!.

Olly's Blog - A Look Back

By Olly Steeds on March 29, 2009 10:00 PM | Permalink | 16 Comments

Luckily for Mark and I, our friends here believe, like all Machigenga, in destiny and patience. If you get impatient, the world gets out of order and the soul falls into a web of confusions. The soul is found inside the one that walks, in fact the name Machigenga means "those that walk." As Pascal said: "Our nature lies in movement, complete calm is death." Tomorrow we leave, and it fills me with sadness.

Continue Reading Olly's Blog - A Look Back.

Mark's Blog - Another Competition

By Mark Anstice on March 22, 2009 10:00 PM | Permalink | 12 Comments

Yet another competition is upon us. It seems we are always competing for something out here: who can catch the most fish, who can drink the most, eat the most, dance best, cut down a tree the quickest. Usually though, the prize to be won is something intangible, like the right to think of ourselves as Machigenga men rather than girls.

Continue Reading Mark's Blog - Another Competition.

Olly's Blog - Threats to the Machigenga

By Olly Steeds on March 22, 2009 10:00 PM | Permalink | 5 Comments

One would think that the Machigenga have to be one of the worst-treated indigenous groups in history. Sadly many other peoples, in other parts of the world, will also tell of similar horrors. Outsiders have always had a nasty habit of bringing death and destruction upon the Machigenga. The 1500s brought the Spanish conquistadors -- 184 soldiers led by Francisco Pizarro and his number two, Hernando De Soto. They completely annihilated the reigning Inca, raining hellfire down on them, killing all who stood in their way and stealing their gold. The Inca capital, Cuzco, where our journey began, has now been transformed into a monument to that genocide, carried out in the name of God and for the greed of gold.

Continue Reading Olly's Blog - Threats to the Machigenga.

Mark's Blog - Braving the Rapids

By Mark Anstice on March 15, 2009 10:00 PM | Permalink | 7 Comments

We could be really up the creek now. OK, so I've wanted to be skipper every time we've gone anywhere on the river -- I hate not driving -- but I never meant for me to be left in sole charge of the brand-new dugout on a river this powerful, with so many rapids still to go, all the villagers' produce for the year stowed amidships in bags that are not waterproof and Olly who, it has to be said, bless him, scarcely knows the difference between a paddle and a rudder, in the front.

Continue Reading Mark's Blog - Braving the Rapids.

« Previous Entries