Ethnic groups Wampis and Awajun in Peru

For fifteen days I lived among the Huambisa and Awajun peoples, in the remote Rio Santiago region of northern Peru, close to the Ecuadorian border.

The assignment, for UNICEF, was to document daily life — not only for outsiders and for communication porpuses, but also for the communities themselves, as an anthropological tool to support and improve their education and health.

Beyond the task, the assignment became an encounter: intense, beautiful, surprising and complex.

How can international organizations help improve life without erasing difference? That question remained with me long after I left this Peruvian part of Amazonia.