Urban England

Alan Lee With Peru a distant memory after 2 months back in gloomy Manchester, England, the echoes of macaws and monkeys now only haunt me in foggy dreams. The dreams are more often starting to feature telephone calls and the call centre environment I now find myself in. With university during the day, I have to find some way of paying the bills, and so find myself working on a part-time basis for the Cooperative Bank. A bank environment in northern or middle England could hardly be more different from the one I have lived in the last few years amongst the humidity and tranquillity of the rainforest in south eastern Peru. And the people are really different too. They are good folk, and I get on with them all, but sometimes on those rare occasions when we have time to talk to each other as opposed to debt laden customers who have not made monthly payments on their credit cards, I am surprised by their perspectives of the rainforest. The jungle. Images of flesheating piranhas and man-eating jaguars (Panthera onca) abound. Most people here have never been to South America, never mind Peru. I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues, Francis, the other night. Francis lives in Moss Side, a suburb of Manchester notorious for its gangs and for gun crime. He, like myself, have a Zimbabwean heritage, although admittedly from opposite ends of the color spectrum. For some reason I mention that I have a couple of spiders living near a tomato plant I am growing in my kitchen. "Urgh spiders" he exclaims "if I see a spider I just kill it!" I am slightly surprised at the outburst "but they don't do anything, just eat bugs" "I don't care! Too many legs. If I see a spider I squash it." "um..." I am lost for how further to defend the usefulness of these innocent creatures. "Sometimes if I am feeling scared of them and don't want to get close I just get the Hoover, you know, the vacuum machine, and suck it up" A call comes in to deflect the path of our conversation, which leaves me feeling bemused. A little later, Andy, a young lad who until recently had never left Britain asks me if I had ever encountered any big cats or dangerous snakes. He is in awe when I say I have. "Aren't you afraid out there?" he asked "I am more afraid walking down these city streets! I see every group of people as a potential threat! Only the other night I was cycling home and some kids that could not have been older than 12, threatened to throw a bottle at me. A few nights later and a kid somewhere else actually did throw a stone at me. When I stopped to ask them what that was all about he said he was just messing about. Personally I would rather be in the jungle where everything runs away from me!" I responded. And its true. With at least 1 well publicised shooting a month from these parts, the jungle really seems to me like a lot safer place to be. Another girl here is called Tahira. I tell her that there is there is animal in South America with a name pronounced the same way - a Tayra. She has never heard of it. So Manchester, its a million miles away not just in distance, but in culture too. And as for me, I can’t wait to get back to Peru.