{"id":18660,"date":"2019-02-27T15:00:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T23:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=18660"},"modified":"2019-02-27T15:51:44","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T23:51:44","slug":"the-women-behind-still-river-silent-jungle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2019\/02\/27\/the-women-behind-still-river-silent-jungle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Women Behind Still River, Silent Jungle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Huddled under a tarp in the near-deafening rain on the banks of the Tuichi River gorge in the Bolivian Amazon, the international team of kayakers and rafters listened intently to the graceful, yet potent voice of the one woman on the expedition who calls the Tuichi home. With an air of otherworldliness in her sense of humility and responsibility to this place, the hazy view of the precipitously rising river sparked a catalyst for her story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI owe many things to my grandfather,\u201d she began. \u201cGrowing up in San Jos\u00e9 de Uchupiamonas, I always wanted to do what the men were doing, like go out into the jungle to hunt for our food; my grandfather always let me come and didn\u2019t allow the traditional jobs of women, like keeping the house, to hold me back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time in my community, if you were a girl, after finishing elementary school, your path was typically to get married,\u201d she continues. \u201cWhen I finished elementary school, my grandfather told me, \u2018If you stay in this place, you will suffer, and I can\u2019t help you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ruth Alipaz Cuqui<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ruth Alipaz Cuqui was born to the indigenous river community of San Jos\u00e9 de Uchupiamonas in the Bolivian Amazon in 1967. After elementary school, at the age of 12, Ruth traveled by herself to La Paz and worked as a nanny for one year. She returned to San Jos\u00e9 but soon left to become the first woman to attend and graduate high school. Ruth then became the first person from her community to attend and graduate university, all while juggling life as a single mother and working to support her extended family, her young child, and herself.<\/p>\n

There are pieces of Ruth\u2019s experiences that prove that life is not fair, and sometimes it can be immensely unjust and cruel; but to Ruth, life is life. Her smile beams genuinely, and now, she’s married and a proud mother of two children, the founder and owner of the ecotourism business Bird Bolivia<\/a>, a founding leader of women\u2019s training at the world famous indigenous community-owned Chalalan Ecolodge, and an unwavering advocate for free-flowing rivers and their integral role in the health of local communities throughout the Amazon and the world.<\/p>\n

Invited to speak multiple times at the UN, most recently Ruth participated in the United Nations Inclusive Social Development Division for Indigenous Peoples, where she denounced Bolivia\u2019s president and government for putting the very existence of Bolivian indigenous communities at risk. She is selfless and fearless, and for the first time in her 51 years, in late May 2018, Ruth Alipaz Cuqui embarked on her first multi-day raft and kayak trip down the telltale rapids of her and her people\u2019s river, the Tuichi.<\/p>\n

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Sorting gear at the put-in for the Tuichi River.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This all has something to do with 24-year old Hayley Stuart. Hayley is a Spanish teacher for the international traveling whitewater kayak high school World Class Academy<\/a>, who has stepped into the roles of filmmaker, film producer, international expedition planner, and river advocate. Similar to Ruth, she runs on working for what she believes is right, and therefore, Hayley, like Ruth, is very busy.<\/p>\n

After studying abroad in Bolivia her junior year, Hayley vowed to return to the country to, in some way, tell a piece of the rapidly regressing story of its rivers. Even years after leaving Bolivia, Hayley couldn\u2019t let the country\u2019s contradictions rest. Between the proposed hydropower projects and the regional demand, the appropriateness of the projects didn\u2019t add up. The extremely high-sediment nature of the rivers, the effective flooding of biodiversity-rich areas, and the repercussive displacement of many Amazonian indigenous groups (some of which, to this day, remain in the jungle never having made contact with the modern world) created an obvious void in the numbers and allocations of costs and benefits.<\/p>\n

Hayley originally envisioned the river conservation film expedition on the Tuichi as a self-support kayak trip. But as expeditions sometimes go, one thing led to another, and there she was orchestrating the Still River, Silent Jungle<\/em> project which came to include the Director of Madidi National Park, Madidi National Park Guards, representatives from two local mining communities along the river, an adventure ecotourism guide, the owner of Sergio Ballivian Photo Tours<\/a>, three international whitewater kayakers, and… Ruth Alipaz Cuqui.<\/p>\n