i am in quito right now... and let me tell you... it´s really sad that mcdonalds is the confort food that reminds me of my home country... but that´s how it is...
so i ate mcdonalds!
don´t tell anyone in berkeley... i will be banned forever from the kingdom of hippieland.
i am very much in culture shock after my two months in the jungle zone... and right now i am even with some old acquaintances... who speak english!!! it´s so weird to communicate in english. the only english i´ve had for two months was writing in this blog.
i am just in quito to visit the migration office and the hospital. i went to the doctor today at the hospital because i have had horrible abdominal and stomach pain for the past week. i probably have some crazy parasite things and so i am taking anti-parasitic drugs... hope the bugs get out!!! so much pain...
today i went to the mitad del mundo... the equator! and i stood in two hemispheres at once... very cool... tomorrow, it´s to the immigration office...
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Invisible Jaguars
This is a completely true story...
The tsenkú-tsenkú, invisible jaguar, black in color, is a mix of reality and legend. It is difficult to come upon him, because he knows how to be quiet, at a close distance, invisible the Shuar say, and he can follow his prey for kilometers, capable of attacking livestock and, in a few seconds, leaving it lifeless, then, the following day, appearing more than 20 kilometers away. He is very feared; the simple discovery of his footprints leaves a man perplexed and on his guard. (translated from a Shuar text)
MY STORY
The sound of rain continues long after the heavens have emptied all their tears for the day. Water collects in leaves, in branches, wavers for minutes or hours, then finally falls to the ground. A night of soft drip-drops follows each afternoon shower.
I sat on a large banana leaf, surrounded by the black night and the watery echoes of the day. The drip-drop from the trees mixed with the omnipresent buzz of insects and with the snores of the uwishin, who was slumped against my back, limp in his deep sleep.
We had hiked out to this place to meditate to the night sounds of the rainforest, so I tried to think of something profound or important, but the trivial details of life clouded over my thoughts. Should I go back to Baños in seven days or eight, I asked myself. God, I miss Coke, I thought, more than once.
Before sinking into slumber, he had warned me.
"Tell me if you hear loud sounds," he had advised.
The insects were loud but not troubling. I did not want to awaken him because of the normal drone of a living forest. I did not reflect much on his words, lulled into security by his presence. He will wake up if there are sounds, I thought.
To reassure myself, I cleared my throat softly, expecting him to jump up, awake. No response.
"Ahem," louder this time.
Nothing. Snores.
I wriggled my back against his, but he was firmly in the world of dreams.
So I must be his ears, I concluded, calmly. Perhaps large rodents will come by, and I will rouse him so he can teach me about them.
With the realization that I was truly alone, the unimportant distractions of my mind fled. I no longer thought; I listened, listened with all my being.
Drip. Drop. Hum. Buzz. Drip. Drop...
Twenty minutes of drip-drop-hum, then my companion woke suddenly.
"Shall we go on?" he asked, turning to me.
"Where shall we go?"
"Past the great tree."
"We shall go on," I decided.
The great tree. We had spent the afternoon helping the great tree, his favorite tree in the forest. We had arrived at the tree earlier, in the daylight hours when the clouds were thick and the rainstorm threatening. He had stopped, eyes filled with admiration at this caoba, with its solid trunk and lofty height, but it was covered in vines and half-obscured by brush.
"We will clean this tree," he had told me. We had hacked vines and small trees to pieces with a machete. We had dragged the waste far from the path. Even after I was attacked and stung by angry wasps, I continued to help the tree. When we had finallay finished, I beheld a beauty unblemished by strangling flora. We could now walk directly between the giant wings of its base and place our hands against the living trunk.
The narrow beam of my light illuminated the bottom of the caoba as we walked slowly past it in the night. We reached it, then continued on. On and on. The path ended.
He tore off more large leaves, placed them on the ground, and offered me a seat, cordially, as though we were at a tea party and would soon be eating crumpets. Imagine it´s a plush Victorian sofa, I encouraged myself, but the hard ground was unforgiving.
He settled against me, back to back, again, and repeated his warning.
"It is very important that you tell me if there are loud sounds."
His emphatic tone this time made me realize, suddenly, that perhaps I was not supposed to be listening for rodents.
"Why? What could there be?" I knew the answer. But they are so rare, I thought.
"Jaguars. And sometimes black jaguars."
My stomach began to flip-flop in time with the drip-drop of the forest.
"Do not be afraid," he whispered. "The jaguar knows when you are afraid; it attacks, and it kills. But if you are not afraid, he respects you, and he does not attack. As long as you are not afraid, you have nothing to fear."
I don´t want to see a jaguar, I don´t want to see a jaguar, a voice in my head chanted, half-praying. We should go back, I thought. But at least they are very rare, we will be fine, I reasoned. I breathed normally, recovering from my original shock.
Then...
"Did you hear??!!"
"What?" I whispered back. I had been lost inside myself, listening to my thoughts, not my surroundings.
"Sounds," he responded, barely moving his lips.
"What kind of sounds?"
"There are two animals. Very close."
I listened and heard nothing. I swallowed and swallowed again, unable to ask my one-word question. I breathed deeply.
"Jaguars?"
He did not respond. And then, I heard. No breaking branches or animal calls but something changed. I heard them. The sound was muffled and indistinct in the cacophony of nature; it was like trying to hear someone tip-toeing on a pillow in the middle of a dance club. Slowly, slowly, the almost silent footsteps retreated.
"Farther away now," he finally spoke. "Perhaps twenty meters. If they go away, they are not jaguar; if they come back, they are jaguar."
"Why? Why would they come back?" We were whispering very quietly in each other´s ears, a Shuar man and an American woman, our Spanish murmurs dropping into the night like the rainwater dropping from the encircling trees.
"They would want to scare us, so if they come back, do not have any fear!"
Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop.
Only the sounds of water remained. They were gone. They must not have been jaguars.
"¿Escuchaste?" A frightening word. It means, "Did you hear?"
I did. The soft sounds of giant animals, two of them, moving slowly toward us through th inky blackness. Coming back. I knew it, and he said it.
"They are jaguars."
Though he could not see me, I nodded, not wanting to speak. He sensed that I understood. I nodded, and then I was paralyzed, afraid.
"Listen to me very well. It´s very important. If they attack us, you must stay seated! When you are on the ground, I can protect you. If you stand up, I will not be able to protect you. Most importantly, tranquila, tranquila, stay calm, and have no fear!! or they certainly will attack us!"
He had a walking stick. I carried nothing. In a fight between us and two jaguars, we could not win by physical strength. He was relying on our will and our fearlessness to ward off the predatory cats.
"To the left. And to the right. Now in the front." The jaguars were circling us, moving closer. Their sounds seemed to come from all directions. I began to understand why these animals seemed like spirits to Amazonian people.
"These do not live here," he explained. "They are hungry. They come searching for food." He listened. "A mother. With a son. But the son is no baby; he is almost full-grown. They are waiting for us to move."
I was crouching on the ground with him crouching behind me. His arm crossed in front of me. With his left arm, he held his pointed walking stick like a spear, balancing it on my shoulder.
"We cannot leave," he whispered, explaining our status as prey like a middle-school teacher explaining a particularly nasty algebra problem. "The second we begin walking, they attack. Right now, when we do not run, they see we are not afraid. If we move, we are dinner. Do not be afraid."
And at some indistinct moment, crouching in the rainforest night, circled by hungry jaguars, fear left me. Time passed. The cats watched their prey, moving threateningly back and forth. And I was no longer afraid. My thoughts were clear, my mind alert. I was prepared. If they attack, we fight, I thought. If not, we wait. This is how it is, and fear will not change it.
"I think they are aggressive," he said after much time. "We must get to the caoba tree. There I can protect us better. Here, we are dinner if they attack, and they are not leaving. I see you have no fear. You are not like any other woman. Other women cry and tremble, even when there is no danger like this. But you make no sound."
We must get to the caoba tree, I knew.
He quickly explained his plan. He would move first, before they attacked. He would run straight for them. While they recovered from the shock of such aggressive prey, he and I might have time to retreat.
Suddenly, he stood and ran into the brush, toward the sounds, leaving me alone and defenseless. I knew if he chased one, the other could easily turn and attack me. I was prepared. I would stand and fight.
I could not see anything, but I heard him thundering toward the animals, grunting and growling at them. Then he came back to my side, minutes later.
"Give me your hand." Instinct said to run. Instinct would have killed me. "We walk slowly, then stop, slowly, then stop, so they do not think we run like scared prey. They are very intelligent, the jaguars."
We advanced slowly, then stopped to listen. Slowly. Stop and listen.
I knew the great caoba was close, when, suddenly he stopped, too abruptly this time.
"I forgot my bag!"
I opened my mouth in utter disbelief. Surely, he was not going to retrieve his bag! "Can´t you come back for it tomorrow?" I questioned hopefully.
"Come," he said, ignoring my suggestion.
He placed me deep in the base of the caoba, where I was protected on three sides. I thought about karma. If we had not toiled away to protect that tree earlier that same day, the brush would have been too thick for us to create a makeshift fortress. Cradled by the caoba, the jaguars could only attack us from one direction. I had reached the tree but I would be alone. He was going back for the bag!
He handed me his staff. "Trust in me; have no fear." And he was gone!
I held the staff in both hands, thinking quickly. Protect your neck; stand your ground, I thought. If they came, I would use the staff to throw them away from my neck. I listened, alert and prepared.
The crashing I heard five minutes later, though, was my companion.
"Señorita," he said gravely, "we have a problem. They are aggressive. Very aggressive. When I went for the bag, they were there, where we had been sitting. Now they come for us. More aggressive than most jaguars, these ones are. They will not leave."
I sank down behing him, and he stood over me, staff ready. And they come.
"One. Right in front of us. And two behing the tree."
The math clicked in an instant. One plus two... then...
"Yes," he read my silence. "Now, there are three. Perhaps mama, papa, and son."
I heard them clearly then, coughing and grunting feet from the tree. A standstill. The hunted were trapped as an escape would encourage an attack. The hunters were wary of their aggressive prey.
"They hesitate because they do not know why we have no fear."
Minutes passed. Hours. I felt dozens of mosquitoes sucking my blood but could not move to swat them away. Even the mortal danger became tedious. I was exhausted but had to remain prepared at every instant.
We began to talk, so softly, in scratchy whispers, passing the time.
"You cannot hear the footsteps of the jaguar," he tells me. "But listen, you hear how the drops of water fall more quickly just ahead? There is the jaguar. It makes no sound, but if brushes the branches ever so lightly, making the water fall faster from the leaves. In this way, you can hear the jaguar."
I heard it. The indescribable change in the sounds of the forest. Faster drip-drop there. Faster there. Moving back and forth. The mother jaguar.
"I do no understand something," he confided. "The first sound I heard, it was a sound I had never heard before." He made the sound, a low gravelly cough. "I have never heard a jaguar do this. Perhaps these are black jaguars, and those cats never leave."
"Well, have you heard a black jaguar make that sound?" I asked, logically.
"No, him neither," he admitted.
"Well, maybe this jaguar has a cold," I joked optimistically. Yes, I joked!
He stifled his surprised laughter. Though I could not see, I knew he was looking at me.
"There is always danger in the world," he said. "Living in the rainforest is like living anywhere else. There are dangers. But you must have no fear. I am sorry to have brought you out this night. I have not encountered jaguars such as these in many years. But perhaps this is the first lesson for your new life. You must never be afraid..." he broke off...
"¡Mierda!" A very bad word.
He saw increasing danger; the jaguars suddenly had become very restless.
"We definitely have a problem!" his voice was more serious than I had ever heard. "How strong is your heart?"
"What?" I asked, confused.
He grasped me firmly by the shoulders, shaking me. "How strong is your heart? We must try to escape. They are preparing to attack."
I was prepared. And there would be no caoba tree between us and the hut on the mountain.
"Wooooo," a far off sound, a human cry. The Shuar use it to locate each other. They were calling us back at the village. They were worried.
"Wooooo," from the distant hill.
"We cannot call back. It will draw more dangerous animals," he warned.
We had to make it to those voices, I knew. The noises were so far away. Then I heard a discouraging sound, a young jaguar cry up the path. The son was lying in wait for us.
Suddenly, my friend charged the two other jaguars, leaving me alone once more. Do not have fear, I told myself. He came back and pulled me out of the tree.
We scrambled briskly, sliding through deep mud and over tree roots in our rubber boot. We stopped. Listened. The fast drip-drops. We were being followed. On and on. Scrambling. Stopping. Listening.
And finally, finally, there were no sounds. We waited. Nothing
I felt his hand fall upon my shoulder. "I like your valor," he stated.
We panted in exhaustion as we climbed the final hill. He was deep in thought.
"They were very strange, very rare. They were invisible. We never saw them. Only sounds. Invisible jaguars."
His wife called out to us. We had been gone for over four hours! Stalked for four hours!
They tell me the invisible jaguars let me live because I had no fear.
The tsenkú-tsenkú, invisible jaguar, black in color, is a mix of reality and legend. It is difficult to come upon him, because he knows how to be quiet, at a close distance, invisible the Shuar say, and he can follow his prey for kilometers, capable of attacking livestock and, in a few seconds, leaving it lifeless, then, the following day, appearing more than 20 kilometers away. He is very feared; the simple discovery of his footprints leaves a man perplexed and on his guard. (translated from a Shuar text)
MY STORY
The sound of rain continues long after the heavens have emptied all their tears for the day. Water collects in leaves, in branches, wavers for minutes or hours, then finally falls to the ground. A night of soft drip-drops follows each afternoon shower.
I sat on a large banana leaf, surrounded by the black night and the watery echoes of the day. The drip-drop from the trees mixed with the omnipresent buzz of insects and with the snores of the uwishin, who was slumped against my back, limp in his deep sleep.
We had hiked out to this place to meditate to the night sounds of the rainforest, so I tried to think of something profound or important, but the trivial details of life clouded over my thoughts. Should I go back to Baños in seven days or eight, I asked myself. God, I miss Coke, I thought, more than once.
Before sinking into slumber, he had warned me.
"Tell me if you hear loud sounds," he had advised.
The insects were loud but not troubling. I did not want to awaken him because of the normal drone of a living forest. I did not reflect much on his words, lulled into security by his presence. He will wake up if there are sounds, I thought.
To reassure myself, I cleared my throat softly, expecting him to jump up, awake. No response.
"Ahem," louder this time.
Nothing. Snores.
I wriggled my back against his, but he was firmly in the world of dreams.
So I must be his ears, I concluded, calmly. Perhaps large rodents will come by, and I will rouse him so he can teach me about them.
With the realization that I was truly alone, the unimportant distractions of my mind fled. I no longer thought; I listened, listened with all my being.
Drip. Drop. Hum. Buzz. Drip. Drop...
Twenty minutes of drip-drop-hum, then my companion woke suddenly.
"Shall we go on?" he asked, turning to me.
"Where shall we go?"
"Past the great tree."
"We shall go on," I decided.
The great tree. We had spent the afternoon helping the great tree, his favorite tree in the forest. We had arrived at the tree earlier, in the daylight hours when the clouds were thick and the rainstorm threatening. He had stopped, eyes filled with admiration at this caoba, with its solid trunk and lofty height, but it was covered in vines and half-obscured by brush.
"We will clean this tree," he had told me. We had hacked vines and small trees to pieces with a machete. We had dragged the waste far from the path. Even after I was attacked and stung by angry wasps, I continued to help the tree. When we had finallay finished, I beheld a beauty unblemished by strangling flora. We could now walk directly between the giant wings of its base and place our hands against the living trunk.
The narrow beam of my light illuminated the bottom of the caoba as we walked slowly past it in the night. We reached it, then continued on. On and on. The path ended.
He tore off more large leaves, placed them on the ground, and offered me a seat, cordially, as though we were at a tea party and would soon be eating crumpets. Imagine it´s a plush Victorian sofa, I encouraged myself, but the hard ground was unforgiving.
He settled against me, back to back, again, and repeated his warning.
"It is very important that you tell me if there are loud sounds."
His emphatic tone this time made me realize, suddenly, that perhaps I was not supposed to be listening for rodents.
"Why? What could there be?" I knew the answer. But they are so rare, I thought.
"Jaguars. And sometimes black jaguars."
My stomach began to flip-flop in time with the drip-drop of the forest.
"Do not be afraid," he whispered. "The jaguar knows when you are afraid; it attacks, and it kills. But if you are not afraid, he respects you, and he does not attack. As long as you are not afraid, you have nothing to fear."
I don´t want to see a jaguar, I don´t want to see a jaguar, a voice in my head chanted, half-praying. We should go back, I thought. But at least they are very rare, we will be fine, I reasoned. I breathed normally, recovering from my original shock.
Then...
"Did you hear??!!"
"What?" I whispered back. I had been lost inside myself, listening to my thoughts, not my surroundings.
"Sounds," he responded, barely moving his lips.
"What kind of sounds?"
"There are two animals. Very close."
I listened and heard nothing. I swallowed and swallowed again, unable to ask my one-word question. I breathed deeply.
"Jaguars?"
He did not respond. And then, I heard. No breaking branches or animal calls but something changed. I heard them. The sound was muffled and indistinct in the cacophony of nature; it was like trying to hear someone tip-toeing on a pillow in the middle of a dance club. Slowly, slowly, the almost silent footsteps retreated.
"Farther away now," he finally spoke. "Perhaps twenty meters. If they go away, they are not jaguar; if they come back, they are jaguar."
"Why? Why would they come back?" We were whispering very quietly in each other´s ears, a Shuar man and an American woman, our Spanish murmurs dropping into the night like the rainwater dropping from the encircling trees.
"They would want to scare us, so if they come back, do not have any fear!"
Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop.
Only the sounds of water remained. They were gone. They must not have been jaguars.
"¿Escuchaste?" A frightening word. It means, "Did you hear?"
I did. The soft sounds of giant animals, two of them, moving slowly toward us through th inky blackness. Coming back. I knew it, and he said it.
"They are jaguars."
Though he could not see me, I nodded, not wanting to speak. He sensed that I understood. I nodded, and then I was paralyzed, afraid.
"Listen to me very well. It´s very important. If they attack us, you must stay seated! When you are on the ground, I can protect you. If you stand up, I will not be able to protect you. Most importantly, tranquila, tranquila, stay calm, and have no fear!! or they certainly will attack us!"
He had a walking stick. I carried nothing. In a fight between us and two jaguars, we could not win by physical strength. He was relying on our will and our fearlessness to ward off the predatory cats.
"To the left. And to the right. Now in the front." The jaguars were circling us, moving closer. Their sounds seemed to come from all directions. I began to understand why these animals seemed like spirits to Amazonian people.
"These do not live here," he explained. "They are hungry. They come searching for food." He listened. "A mother. With a son. But the son is no baby; he is almost full-grown. They are waiting for us to move."
I was crouching on the ground with him crouching behind me. His arm crossed in front of me. With his left arm, he held his pointed walking stick like a spear, balancing it on my shoulder.
"We cannot leave," he whispered, explaining our status as prey like a middle-school teacher explaining a particularly nasty algebra problem. "The second we begin walking, they attack. Right now, when we do not run, they see we are not afraid. If we move, we are dinner. Do not be afraid."
And at some indistinct moment, crouching in the rainforest night, circled by hungry jaguars, fear left me. Time passed. The cats watched their prey, moving threateningly back and forth. And I was no longer afraid. My thoughts were clear, my mind alert. I was prepared. If they attack, we fight, I thought. If not, we wait. This is how it is, and fear will not change it.
"I think they are aggressive," he said after much time. "We must get to the caoba tree. There I can protect us better. Here, we are dinner if they attack, and they are not leaving. I see you have no fear. You are not like any other woman. Other women cry and tremble, even when there is no danger like this. But you make no sound."
We must get to the caoba tree, I knew.
He quickly explained his plan. He would move first, before they attacked. He would run straight for them. While they recovered from the shock of such aggressive prey, he and I might have time to retreat.
Suddenly, he stood and ran into the brush, toward the sounds, leaving me alone and defenseless. I knew if he chased one, the other could easily turn and attack me. I was prepared. I would stand and fight.
I could not see anything, but I heard him thundering toward the animals, grunting and growling at them. Then he came back to my side, minutes later.
"Give me your hand." Instinct said to run. Instinct would have killed me. "We walk slowly, then stop, slowly, then stop, so they do not think we run like scared prey. They are very intelligent, the jaguars."
We advanced slowly, then stopped to listen. Slowly. Stop and listen.
I knew the great caoba was close, when, suddenly he stopped, too abruptly this time.
"I forgot my bag!"
I opened my mouth in utter disbelief. Surely, he was not going to retrieve his bag! "Can´t you come back for it tomorrow?" I questioned hopefully.
"Come," he said, ignoring my suggestion.
He placed me deep in the base of the caoba, where I was protected on three sides. I thought about karma. If we had not toiled away to protect that tree earlier that same day, the brush would have been too thick for us to create a makeshift fortress. Cradled by the caoba, the jaguars could only attack us from one direction. I had reached the tree but I would be alone. He was going back for the bag!
He handed me his staff. "Trust in me; have no fear." And he was gone!
I held the staff in both hands, thinking quickly. Protect your neck; stand your ground, I thought. If they came, I would use the staff to throw them away from my neck. I listened, alert and prepared.
The crashing I heard five minutes later, though, was my companion.
"Señorita," he said gravely, "we have a problem. They are aggressive. Very aggressive. When I went for the bag, they were there, where we had been sitting. Now they come for us. More aggressive than most jaguars, these ones are. They will not leave."
I sank down behing him, and he stood over me, staff ready. And they come.
"One. Right in front of us. And two behing the tree."
The math clicked in an instant. One plus two... then...
"Yes," he read my silence. "Now, there are three. Perhaps mama, papa, and son."
I heard them clearly then, coughing and grunting feet from the tree. A standstill. The hunted were trapped as an escape would encourage an attack. The hunters were wary of their aggressive prey.
"They hesitate because they do not know why we have no fear."
Minutes passed. Hours. I felt dozens of mosquitoes sucking my blood but could not move to swat them away. Even the mortal danger became tedious. I was exhausted but had to remain prepared at every instant.
We began to talk, so softly, in scratchy whispers, passing the time.
"You cannot hear the footsteps of the jaguar," he tells me. "But listen, you hear how the drops of water fall more quickly just ahead? There is the jaguar. It makes no sound, but if brushes the branches ever so lightly, making the water fall faster from the leaves. In this way, you can hear the jaguar."
I heard it. The indescribable change in the sounds of the forest. Faster drip-drop there. Faster there. Moving back and forth. The mother jaguar.
"I do no understand something," he confided. "The first sound I heard, it was a sound I had never heard before." He made the sound, a low gravelly cough. "I have never heard a jaguar do this. Perhaps these are black jaguars, and those cats never leave."
"Well, have you heard a black jaguar make that sound?" I asked, logically.
"No, him neither," he admitted.
"Well, maybe this jaguar has a cold," I joked optimistically. Yes, I joked!
He stifled his surprised laughter. Though I could not see, I knew he was looking at me.
"There is always danger in the world," he said. "Living in the rainforest is like living anywhere else. There are dangers. But you must have no fear. I am sorry to have brought you out this night. I have not encountered jaguars such as these in many years. But perhaps this is the first lesson for your new life. You must never be afraid..." he broke off...
"¡Mierda!" A very bad word.
He saw increasing danger; the jaguars suddenly had become very restless.
"We definitely have a problem!" his voice was more serious than I had ever heard. "How strong is your heart?"
"What?" I asked, confused.
He grasped me firmly by the shoulders, shaking me. "How strong is your heart? We must try to escape. They are preparing to attack."
I was prepared. And there would be no caoba tree between us and the hut on the mountain.
"Wooooo," a far off sound, a human cry. The Shuar use it to locate each other. They were calling us back at the village. They were worried.
"Wooooo," from the distant hill.
"We cannot call back. It will draw more dangerous animals," he warned.
We had to make it to those voices, I knew. The noises were so far away. Then I heard a discouraging sound, a young jaguar cry up the path. The son was lying in wait for us.
Suddenly, my friend charged the two other jaguars, leaving me alone once more. Do not have fear, I told myself. He came back and pulled me out of the tree.
We scrambled briskly, sliding through deep mud and over tree roots in our rubber boot. We stopped. Listened. The fast drip-drops. We were being followed. On and on. Scrambling. Stopping. Listening.
And finally, finally, there were no sounds. We waited. Nothing
I felt his hand fall upon my shoulder. "I like your valor," he stated.
We panted in exhaustion as we climbed the final hill. He was deep in thought.
"They were very strange, very rare. They were invisible. We never saw them. Only sounds. Invisible jaguars."
His wife called out to us. We had been gone for over four hours! Stalked for four hours!
They tell me the invisible jaguars let me live because I had no fear.
Friday, November 10, 2006
See you in February
so it´s done... plane ticket changed, insurance extended, and i am off to hang out with the shuar for a few weeks...
i will be in touch by december 1... please do not worry if i don´t contact anyone until december 1... after that... yeah... worry... but i´ll be fine...
i will fly back to the states on january 30, 2007... it´s official
i will be in touch by december 1... please do not worry if i don´t contact anyone until december 1... after that... yeah... worry... but i´ll be fine...
i will fly back to the states on january 30, 2007... it´s official
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Back to the rainforest...
i talked to tzamarend today, and i am going back to yawints´
i am writing to let you know i will be completely and utterly unreachable for two weeks as i will be with the shuar in the rainforest... no phone, no internet, no stores, no plumbing, no electricity... so i love you all and don´t worry unless you don´t hear from me in about two and a half weeks... i will make phone calls tomorrow if i have time as i have to buy rubber boots for the sloppy trekking through knee deep mud... that´s why they call it a RAINforest... it sure rains enough...
i am writing to let you know i will be completely and utterly unreachable for two weeks as i will be with the shuar in the rainforest... no phone, no internet, no stores, no plumbing, no electricity... so i love you all and don´t worry unless you don´t hear from me in about two and a half weeks... i will make phone calls tomorrow if i have time as i have to buy rubber boots for the sloppy trekking through knee deep mud... that´s why they call it a RAINforest... it sure rains enough...
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Reserva Hola Vida
Sunday thru Tuesday I went with a friend to the Hola Vida Reserve. He was guiding four tourists from Italy and the States, and I tagged along (for free, of course...)
Sunday we arrived and began an all-afternoon hike to the Cascada Escondida (Hidden Waterfall). We had to swim through a canyon to arrive at the base of the waterfall! (I guess that´s why it is "hidden").
Monday we woke up and set off for the Cascada Hola Vida waterfall (see picture). I was here, and do you see Internet? Neither do I... so sorry for the lack of updates. We swam in the (cold!) pools at the base of the waterfall, and the six of us were all alone during these treks.
We then canoed down the Puyo River to where it flows into the Pastaza River, getting quite wet along the way, as dugout canoes aren´t nearly as stable as rafting rafts!
We stayed in cabañas built up on stilts, kind of like the Shuar village, Yawints´, except these were a lot nicer (i.e. they had walls) because they were for visitors. And we even had mattresses (granted they were an inch thick, but I´ve slept on platforms here.)
And snakesssss!!! They found a poisonous coral snake outside of our room. It was bright yellow, red, and black. The family that lived there killed the snake, which is understandable as they have small children that run around barefoot. And snakebites kills so many people! Then, my friend and his friends found a rainbow boa that was as long as me! Although he insists it´s nothing, as he tells stories of the 20 foot anaconda that almost ate him one time. Then later, a chonta snake in the trail. The poor Italian lady was quite distraught.
She was even more upset when my friend cut open a felled chonta trunk, picked out the grubs and began eating. He offered the wriggly fat things to us. I ate them. The Italians didn´t. You just have to bite it fast, then it´s like candy. Otherwise, it feels weird as it writhes in your mouth! We also ate lemon ants, and those are downright tasty!! Not to mention all the fruit we eat fresh from the tree, fruit I´ve never heard of before.
My friend started scraping a tree and adding water to the peelings and he said to me, "You´ve had good experiences with this, no?" And I knew. "Is that tsank??" It was. Well, I don´t have to pretend to be polite with a friend, so I downright refused! He then turned to the Italians, but I warned them, and they adamantly refused, too. Then he was upset that I had convinced the Italians not to try it... but they thanked me.
I am covered in weird bites and bumps... which is certain to get worse as I am heading back to the jungle in two days...
For those of you wondering... yes, I am in the process of extending my stay here in Ecuador. There are many reasons, which I will list briefly. If you want to know more, email me. If you don´t care, stop reading:
1. My invitation to study with a Shuar uwishin. This is a rare opportunity, not a tourist vacation. And I want to learn more. However, if I went back to Yawints´ for a few weeks, then it would be time to leave Ecuador, and I wouldn´t get to travel in the highlands at all.
2. The internet situation. The deciding factor on my return was applying to grad school, because I was not aware how available Internet and phones could be in some towns here. I have also contacted schools, and no school seems to care if I am in the States when I apply.
3. The money situation. I didn´t plan on working until at least February, and even with flight changes and a visa, it will cost me less to live and travel in Ecuador than to barely get by in San Francisco.
4. The Elizabeth-just-be-crazy-like-that reason. I feel like staying, so why not?
I have already talked to the migration office, and I will soon change my flight. Love you all, and I will probably see you in 2007!!
Friday, November 03, 2006
Nothing new...
nothing new to report... but since i have internet and my guide friends are alternately hunting down tourist clients/sleeping... which seems to be the usual work day... sleep, oye, rafting? al volcán esta noche? to the volano?, sleep some more...
thought i´d say hi while i have high speed internet
sticking around baños for a little...
thought i´d say hi while i have high speed internet
sticking around baños for a little...
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Yawints´
First, read below about my adventures up a volcano (two entries today)...
For all of you extremely worried people, I have been with the Shuar in the rainforest since Monday.
Monday, I went to the house of a traditional healer, a curandera, in Puyo. Her son, Tzamarenda Yaychapi Estalin, an uwishin (beneficent shaman), was supposed to pick me up to take me to his community.
Silvia, the curandera, decided to give me some tea. It was piripri. She told me it would "clean" me. Then, we did something strange. She had a preparation of tsank, another traditional plant, which she showed me how to snort up my nose to clean the sinuses.
About ten minutes later, I was one very sick girl. I said "I feel like puking!" And she said "ah yes, it´s working." Turns out "cleaning" = vomiting. And I did. I puked and puked.
Then I started feeling super dizzy and began sweating. "Ah yes, you´re not used to the tsank, you´re going to feel messed up." Well, I ended up passing out on the wood floor of her hut, and I woke up an hour later, perfectly healthy, but discovering I had drooled all over my own arm! Moral: Be careful when indigenous people offer to cure you!!
The first adventure over, her son arrived. But we couldn´t get a bus because the entire transportation system was on strike! So we paid a neighbor to take us the two hours down the bumpy jungle road to 16 de agosto (a tiny hamlet).
From there, we hiked an hour to Yawints´, the Tsamarenda family community.
While there, I ate plaintains and yucca, complemented with fish caught from the river. I learned so much! We went on walks to learn about traditional plants.
At night, the uwishin and his wife told me to take off all my clothes! What?? I asked the wife again, as she and I had become friends. She reassured me. I stripped naked and was wrapped in blankets and thrown on top of a steaming plant concoction. I sweated and sweated and sweated, supposedly purifying my body of toxins. After this purification, I crouched on the floor of the Shuar meeting house, sans clothes, and was covered in medicinal plants. Later, I received a massage with oils to help my muscles, which actually did seem to help a lot as I was understandably a little tense from culture shock and jungle trekking.
The only bad thing was everyone speaking Shuar, which I obviously don´t understand. But they would translate everything for me... into Spanish.
Well, I have news for everyone. They have invited me to come back and learn from them. I can stay as long as I like. They plan on taking me to a sacred waterfall. They do not accept tourists, only people they know. And the elders must give permission for any outsider to participate in their activities. Because of my respect and interest, I have been invited to come observe sacred rituals. So next week, I am going back to Yawints´, probably for two weeks. I only left in order to email some schools.
Yesterday, while catching a bus to Puyo, I noticed all the people staring at me. I am used to stares and catcalls because of my light hair and skin, but this was more extreme. Then I realized I was still wearing Shuar makeup!! Their makeup is a bright red paint straight from a little red fruit. I was covered in traditional makeup for my presentation to the community, as such makeup is a sign of respect. Lines and squigglies and triangles of indigenous natural paint all over my face. And I was wearing several Shuar necklaces they had made for me as a sign of our new friendship. I must have been quite a sight! A white foreign girl in khakis covered in Shuar jewelry and makeup!
A few more quick stories:
We were sitting talking by the fire, when people began screaming "snake! snake!" There it was in the middle of the open-walled meeting house. One of the teenagers grabbed a flaming log and beat it to death. Close call! Snakebites kill a lot of people.
We pee wherever we want! I have become a very talented outdoor pee-er.
They offered me tsank again. In order not to offend them, I pretended to snort it and let it trickle out of my fingers discreetly! I didn´t want to be high as a kite again!
The wife and I made chicha, an alcoholic drink where we mashed yucca and fermented it in our own spit!! At least this way, I thought, I was drinking my own spit and not just someone else´s, but whenever they pass me the chicha I try to throw it out when no one is looking! It´s gross... spit and yucca... who thought of that...
Well, I am off to Baños for a few days to visit a friend, then hopefully it´s back to the Shuar...
For all of you extremely worried people, I have been with the Shuar in the rainforest since Monday.
Monday, I went to the house of a traditional healer, a curandera, in Puyo. Her son, Tzamarenda Yaychapi Estalin, an uwishin (beneficent shaman), was supposed to pick me up to take me to his community.
Silvia, the curandera, decided to give me some tea. It was piripri. She told me it would "clean" me. Then, we did something strange. She had a preparation of tsank, another traditional plant, which she showed me how to snort up my nose to clean the sinuses.
About ten minutes later, I was one very sick girl. I said "I feel like puking!" And she said "ah yes, it´s working." Turns out "cleaning" = vomiting. And I did. I puked and puked.
Then I started feeling super dizzy and began sweating. "Ah yes, you´re not used to the tsank, you´re going to feel messed up." Well, I ended up passing out on the wood floor of her hut, and I woke up an hour later, perfectly healthy, but discovering I had drooled all over my own arm! Moral: Be careful when indigenous people offer to cure you!!
The first adventure over, her son arrived. But we couldn´t get a bus because the entire transportation system was on strike! So we paid a neighbor to take us the two hours down the bumpy jungle road to 16 de agosto (a tiny hamlet).
From there, we hiked an hour to Yawints´, the Tsamarenda family community.
While there, I ate plaintains and yucca, complemented with fish caught from the river. I learned so much! We went on walks to learn about traditional plants.
At night, the uwishin and his wife told me to take off all my clothes! What?? I asked the wife again, as she and I had become friends. She reassured me. I stripped naked and was wrapped in blankets and thrown on top of a steaming plant concoction. I sweated and sweated and sweated, supposedly purifying my body of toxins. After this purification, I crouched on the floor of the Shuar meeting house, sans clothes, and was covered in medicinal plants. Later, I received a massage with oils to help my muscles, which actually did seem to help a lot as I was understandably a little tense from culture shock and jungle trekking.
The only bad thing was everyone speaking Shuar, which I obviously don´t understand. But they would translate everything for me... into Spanish.
Well, I have news for everyone. They have invited me to come back and learn from them. I can stay as long as I like. They plan on taking me to a sacred waterfall. They do not accept tourists, only people they know. And the elders must give permission for any outsider to participate in their activities. Because of my respect and interest, I have been invited to come observe sacred rituals. So next week, I am going back to Yawints´, probably for two weeks. I only left in order to email some schools.
Yesterday, while catching a bus to Puyo, I noticed all the people staring at me. I am used to stares and catcalls because of my light hair and skin, but this was more extreme. Then I realized I was still wearing Shuar makeup!! Their makeup is a bright red paint straight from a little red fruit. I was covered in traditional makeup for my presentation to the community, as such makeup is a sign of respect. Lines and squigglies and triangles of indigenous natural paint all over my face. And I was wearing several Shuar necklaces they had made for me as a sign of our new friendship. I must have been quite a sight! A white foreign girl in khakis covered in Shuar jewelry and makeup!
A few more quick stories:
We were sitting talking by the fire, when people began screaming "snake! snake!" There it was in the middle of the open-walled meeting house. One of the teenagers grabbed a flaming log and beat it to death. Close call! Snakebites kill a lot of people.
We pee wherever we want! I have become a very talented outdoor pee-er.
They offered me tsank again. In order not to offend them, I pretended to snort it and let it trickle out of my fingers discreetly! I didn´t want to be high as a kite again!
The wife and I made chicha, an alcoholic drink where we mashed yucca and fermented it in our own spit!! At least this way, I thought, I was drinking my own spit and not just someone else´s, but whenever they pass me the chicha I try to throw it out when no one is looking! It´s gross... spit and yucca... who thought of that...
Well, I am off to Baños for a few days to visit a friend, then hopefully it´s back to the Shuar...
Baños
So I am writing two entries, since I have had two very distinct experiences since last I wrote.
I found myself trekking up the side of an active volcano for 7 hours, with a new guide friend and his two German clients. It was insane!!! I got altitude sickness of course, and my lungs started searing, and I couldn´t get oxygen. We were covered in ash. But the view was amazing! Finally, we started our descent. We crossed over almost-vertical fields filled with grazing cows. We raced across the steep Andean slopes down to where the tour company had bikes waiting for the four of us. Then we began what they called a "bike ride," and what I would call "careening out of control down the side of an Andean volcano on an unpaved rocky sandy road on that old bike that´s been rusting in the garage since 1985 without a helmet, praying you would die a horrible death."
Somehow, I made it alive back to Baños where I headed to the hot springs under the waterfall. I am going back to Baños this weekend to hang out.
Life is good. Tough. Dangerous. Exhausting. But good.
I found myself trekking up the side of an active volcano for 7 hours, with a new guide friend and his two German clients. It was insane!!! I got altitude sickness of course, and my lungs started searing, and I couldn´t get oxygen. We were covered in ash. But the view was amazing! Finally, we started our descent. We crossed over almost-vertical fields filled with grazing cows. We raced across the steep Andean slopes down to where the tour company had bikes waiting for the four of us. Then we began what they called a "bike ride," and what I would call "careening out of control down the side of an Andean volcano on an unpaved rocky sandy road on that old bike that´s been rusting in the garage since 1985 without a helmet, praying you would die a horrible death."
Somehow, I made it alive back to Baños where I headed to the hot springs under the waterfall. I am going back to Baños this weekend to hang out.
Life is good. Tough. Dangerous. Exhausting. But good.
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