Jesus

Nickname: Diablo (“Devil”)
Age: 30s?
(Portrait brought to you by Gabe.)

Jesus is the operations manager of CICRA. He sets the boat schedule, orders the food, and oversees all the other myriad tasks that keep the station running smoothly. He’s also an extremely competitive volleyball player. If you’re on his team and you miss the ball (which I do frequently), he’ll give you a glare that could melt ice… but then he’ll break into a big grin, and no matter how bad a player you are, he still always wants you to come out and play.

Random fact: Diablo’s favorite drink is cachaca (a Brazilian liquor made from fermented sugarcane). Once, on the night before he left for a trip, I was walking back to my cabin and I found him, Marco and Pluma sitting in the dark on the bleachers next to the soccer field. They were throwing Jesus a mini-farewell. They invited me, Sarah and Adrian (who were also passing by) to join them. We shared a bottle of cachaca under the stars.

Pascual

Nickname: Sarah and I call him “Papa.”
Age: 53

Pascal is Sarah’s and my kindly, adoptive Peruvian father. He always has good advice and anecdotes to offer and constantly makes sure we’re eating enough. He’s the head chef and he cooks everyone delicious Peruvian food three times per day. Pascual has worked at the station since long before it was CICRA; he was the cook here when it was still a mining camp. (The skull devouring him in the photo, by the way, once belonged to a black caiman from our river.)

Random fact: Almost every morning after breakfast, Pascual loves to play Huayno—a type of traditional Quechua music from the Andes—on the guitar. On mornings when I get up a bit late, he serenades me while I eat his yummy scrambled eggs or empanadas.

Adrian

Age: 30s

The science director of CICRA. He’s an expert on bats, but he loves (and knows a ton about) everything that breathes or grows, and he is a fabulous nature artist as well. He’s also the science director of Wayquecha, ACA’s field station in the foothills of the Andes.

Random fact: Adrian likes yogurt as much as (possibly even more than) I do, so when he’s here at CICRA many of my breakfasts become a race for the yogurt. ;)

Marco

Nickname: Marco
Real name: Edson
Age: 23

Marco keeps the station up and running. He’s also in charge of turning off the generator (and thus the internet) every night; it’s the only one of his duties that doesn’t make our lives more comfortable. Marco builds and fixes everything from boats to plumbing to solar panels. He’s frequently seen hiking out to the stream to pump more water for us at whatever random, inconvenient hour it runs out—often in the middle of the night. Before coming to CICRA, he was an illegal miner. Before that, he worked on a coffee plantation.

Random fact: Marco plays a mean game of soccer. Not only does he run circles around almost everyone else on the field, but he’s known to pull off his shirt and throw it to get the ball. (We play by jungle rules here.)

Pluma

Nickname: Pluma (“Feather”)
Real name: Jorge
Age: as a friend described it, “38 going on 21”

Pluma worked in a hardware store in Puerto Maldonado before he came to CICRA, but now he’s our grounds-keeper, gardener, and jack-of-all-trades. He knows a lot about medicinal rainforest plants, all of which he learned while working at CICRA. Gabe gave him a harmonica and he’s learning to play it. For some reason he also really likes to sit in the dining room and strum random combinations of strings on our guitar. It’s a sound I can’t describe, and you probably wouldn’t want me to if I could. He and Marco are the loveable scoundrels of CICRA—you can always count on them for an inappropriate joke.

Random fact: Adrian says Pluma learned how to prepare floral baths from a Peruvian shaman who taught some classes at the station. ...We have yet to see him perform any shamanic rites.

Sarah

Nickname: Hechicera (“Enchantress”)
Age: 22

Sarah is my comarade in arms. We make “ice cream” together (read: yogurt frozen in my lab freezer), play with caterpillars together, and keep each other sane. She just graduated from Barnard and will be staying at CICRA as long as I am. She’s conducting research on both bats and butterflies, running the Science Saturday program for the kids of Boca Amigo, and she’s the assistant of our science director, Adrian.

Random fact: Sarah has done field work in Madagascar and did Harvard’s OEB field course in Borneo. I really wanted to take that course—we almost met before CICRA!

Mariposita

Hola a todos! Sorry I’ve been so remiss with the blog recently! To make it up to you, I’ll start with a very, very belated introduction to my CICRA family, complete with pictures and nicknames. Almost everyone who stays here long enough eventually gets a nickname. Mine is Mariposita—“Little Butterfly.” (The photo is after I got caught in a rainstorm.)