Scenario+4


 * [[image:banner.jpg]]

Amazon Rainforest Women: Una (Antonia De Avila)**

It is 6:00 a.m. the macaws and baby monkeys are already awake and filling the rainforest with orchestral sound. Una wakes up with anticipation her day will be long and humid. All the women in the tribe have already started the journey to collect fresh spring water to bring back to the village. Una knows she needs to hurry before the sun gets hotter and the forest is damped with humidity. She collects her belongs and straps her baby Shinka onto her back. Before she leaves her village she makes sure her foot is soaked in mud to harden the soles of her foot.

It is now 10:00am and Una has another hour to endure the rainforest’s hot floor. The mud has already worn off and the weight of her baby is causing her foot to sink into the ground’s dry leaves and broken branches. She has to pace herself to reach the top of the mountain; she knows she needs all the energy to carry herself and her baby. On her way up to the springs she has to be careful her toenails don’t get stuck or scrap against the scarp and rigid stone wall. She knows if she tears her toenail she wouldn’t be able to travel back home and her baby will have to sit through the afternoon’s worst heat wave. She needs to bring her baby back and can’t afford to keep her baby under the sun longer than 10 hours. She notices on the way up to the springs, a mother already bandaging her daughters foot. Una fears the terrain is getting harsher and decides today will not be the day she collects spring water for her family.

She weighs the possibilities and turns back to her hut, where she will have to wait for a rainy day. Una anticipates the clouds are heavy and it should rain overnight, the rain will wash the mountain’s terrain of broken branches, and chipped stone.