Iquitos, Peru

NAME: Samantha
LOCATION: Starbucks, Lakeview

Well, I got it at, um, in Peru when we went on a cruise down the Amazon River. We stopped at this village and, um, it was - they didn't take money so we bartered our stuff. My mom brought a bunch of things and I traded one of my old dolls for this beautiful shirt.

You traded a doll for this shirt.

Yeah. Isn't it cool? It has like cool little birds on it. And we went down this river right here - well, the Amazon - and then this is like ... [Samantha is pointing out the geography of Peru's rivers on the map on her shirt] ... other little rivers and then we went to Peru. Iquitos, Peru.

And it was in Iquitos where you bartered-

It's not in this actual town. It was in a little village. I don't know what it was called but it was tiny.

What kind of doll was it?

It was like a barbie and then I also gave them one of my old Mickey Mouse shirts.

And do you feel now that it was a fair trade?

Yeah, because my Mickey Mouse shirt had a hole in it.

How old were you?

Eleven? Twelve? Eleven, probably. I also got to touch this really cool frog that's poisonous. It's red, and if you boil its skin that's when it gets poisonous and people would put 'em on their arrows in the old time to shoot stuff with.