Jungle Love life in Iquitos.

When I walk out of my front door, I love to see the kids out playing. It’s a sign of a healthy neighborhood ecology. The boys play soccer and the girls play volleyball in the streets. The doors and windows are all open and everyone can see into everyone else’s business. The storekeepers watch from windows and the women sit in the shade in rocking chairs. The abuelitas set up chairs and a table in front of their houses and sell grilled meat skewers and fish and soup and other staples. During the heat of the day, men come home for lunch and a siesta, and perhaps the door closes for a little while… later when the older kids come home from school, they gather around parked motorcars and hang out until it starts to get dark. Not a whole lot of ethnic diversity–a gringo walking by on foot is still enough to attract attention, in this neighborhood. But it’s all tranquilo here in this down-home village atmosphere.

Where I live is a funny mix of every socio-economic class, all living on the same block. The street from the main road passes the gated compound of the Mormon church, then a row of very nice, modern houses peeking out from behind high walls with electric fences. The carved wooden doors and ornate tiling look across the street to the brick and mortar row houses, some unpainted and others adorned with graffiti or political propaganda. Most of these have fenced front gardens with carefully maintained shrubbery and tropical flowers. Walk a bit further down the street and the paved walkway turns to dirt, and the houses become wooden clapboard affairs with open interior spaces and only a few rooms. Some have rotting thresholds or the entire frame is leaning to the side, or the wood has fallen away in places and has been patched over with bricks or rags or whatever is at hand. The poor, the middle class and the wealthy all share the same neighborhood, with hardly a discernible border, as the concept of zoning just does not exist. To me it seems very strange to see such high-end real estate on adjacent streets with shacks and hovels, but here it seems to be considered normal.

Most storefronts in the neighborhood, and throughout Iquitos in fact, are just the front room of someone’s house converted to a business, and you walk in and can look right through to where the family is cooking in the kitchen or sitting around in their living room. The boundary between public and private space dissolves completely. Peruvians are so used to living in this shared space, I don’t think they even it bothers them at all. They seem to embrace it. As an American, who moved here from my own little crackerbox of a house, on a hill away from the street, where I could seal myself in whenever I wished, this is quite a change. Privacy is really in the mind. I have learned to create that for myself, rather than looking for it in literal solitude and physical separation, which does not exist here unless you go to the jungle.

The good thing about this style of urbanization is that it’s pretty safe. There are eyes on the street all the time. When they say it takes a village to raise a child, this is what it literally looks like. It’s a social structure from earlier times, before wealth disparity gave people the luxury of isolation. There are still crimes of opportunity of course—don’t leave your house unlocked when you go out, or leave your shoes too close to the door, or someone might try to snag them through the gate with a coathanger–that sort of thing.

The downside of living here, in this gringo’s opinion, is the noise pollution. Peruvians love noise. I don’t know why. But it’s like no one can stand being in silence. Silence doesn’t exist here, it’s been forced into hiding and I don’t know where it lives now. I am personally unlucky to live downstairs from a woman who I could charitably describe as a crazy bitch. She yells at her kids constantly and browbeats her husband in between. I don’t know why she is unhappy, but she projects it onto her entire family and it’s something I wish I didn’t have to listen to every day. I usually put on some music, which makes her play her music, even louder, so she can be heard over it… bummer, man.

If it’s not the radio or TV, it’s the block parties that happen here frequently. They go on for hours. Then early in the morning and late at night, dogs and roosters help fill in the gaps. And then there’s the doorbell ringers. Someone rings at the door on a daily basis—sometimes it is neighborhood kids wanting to take your trash out or do some odd job for a tip. Other times it is people selling watches or sunglasses or religion. The Adventists rang the bell the other day, and I ignored it. The group of women sat out in front my door for ten minutes, just chatting, waiting for me to come out! They were in no hurry, they had all day to wait. They’ve been waiting for the world to end for more than 150 years, after all. I guess you get used to it.

Then there are the street vendors. Calling out your product as you walk through the neighborhood is one thing. But palta guy, come on, give me a break. Palta guy sells avocados from a pushcart, which he has rigged up to a freaking megaphone and amplifier, and when he comes around it sounds like a police raid, like he’s trying to scare you into buying avocadoes. Not cool. I’m never buying palta from you, palta guy. I think if a moment of silence ever graced this charming little neighborhood, people would think the world was ending. Which is why I am headed out to the store now, to buy myself some earplugs.