Rafael Venegas Deza

I was born near the Orinoco River in Venezuela, in the middle of the Amazon jungle. Just a day before my first birthday, my parents moved back to their motherland: Peru. Of course I adopted Peruvian culture, since I knew so little about Venezuela - a place that had only seen me come to life. Although, who knows, maybe the fact that I was born in the Amazonian jungle was what unconsciously motivated me, years later, to become a forest engineer. I consider myself to be a nature lover, a protector of the Earth and I’m addicted to traveling without a planned destination. I adore learning from kids and teaching them all the little I know.

It is thanks to this that I appear here in this space.

Chance led to my encounter with our dear Lisa, who, while documenting other aspects of the native community of the SHIPIBO-CONIBO ethnic group in which I lived and worked on environmental education with kids, invited me to take part in her work. I was delighted to accept and you will now be able to enjoy a brief explanation, in not extremely good English, about what my work and life there was like.

I must mention that this experience taught me a lot. To live with a human group that does not share our “Western” world view, under conditions of extreme poverty and where life is nothing but the enjoyment of each moment it offers you, made me think and look at life from a different perspective. I invite everyone to find out more about the world view of the native communities of the Amazonian jungle: you won’t be disappointed!!!

The solution to all the world’s problems is in the heart: with love, with a lot of love, problems within humans would be over; within this fraternal race in which we are still unaware of the true reality that surrounds us.

Do enjoy life, share this enjoyment, and love to share.