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...