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Published: July 24th 2010
Hello civilization! I´m temporarily back to life from the jungle. We have weekends off, so most of the volunteers headed to Baños for the weekend. Baños is a bit touristy, both with foreigners and Ecuadorians, but it´s a beautiful little town at the foot of gorgeous mountains and a volcano. Tomorrow I think we will go rafting, assuming tonight doesn´t knock us all out.
I arrived in the Shuar village of Atutam on Monday afternoon and was greeted by Ernesto who is essentially the father of the village. He has 25 children from 2 wives. Poor women! I think there are about 40 people in total in this village, but there may be less who live on site where we do. There are 10 volunteers from all over the world and half of us stay in the volunteer house, aka the Tree House while the other half stay with some family members across the street. I am in the Tree House complete with funky lizards and scary spiders. I like the place a lot, though.
A typical day consists of a 7:30 breakfast, typically fried bread, eggs if we´re lucky, fruit, or regular bread. At about 8:30 Henrique, one
of the brothers and quite the ladies man comes down with some of his younger brothers to tell us our task for the morning. We have been doing a lot of hard, physical work, usually cutting paths or fields with machetes, hauling rock and bamboo, or various other community development projects. I don´t mind the work, but I don´t think many of the people here are used to physical work because a lot of whining usually takes place. When it´s tough work, we are usually done in about 2 hrs with a nice break before lunch, then a 2 hour break after lunch. I could get used to that work schedule. Lunch is usually some sort of rice or pasta with a few morsels of veggies or meat if we´re really lucky and yucca or potatoes. Afternoon work is similar to the morning, but we are done by 4 if not before. Half the days we would play soccer or volleyball in the afternoon, too. Not a bad life.
Henrique has taken us on a few hikes so far and pointed out some medicinal plants, fruit trees, and Tarzan swinging vines (me favorite). I actually had to use some
of the Dragon´s Blood, a red saplike substance that comes from a tree and is supposedly good for upset stomachs, and I have to admit that though I was very skeptical, it actually got rid of my nausea within an hour! If you know me well, you know that even prescription meds don´t do that for me, so I was thrilled! It did taste a bit like butt but it´s worth it!!
On Thursday night 5 of us went to the sacred waterfall which was quite nice. The hike was an easy 1.5 hrs, stopping many times along the way to try plants or swing on vines. We tried a lemon plant, that turned out to be full of ants, which give it the lemon flavor. A couple girls were grossed out, but I found them delightful and would happily munch a few more! I also got to play Tarzan for a while on a vine which was good fun. Henrique and his brother painted our faces with some traditional Shuar designs so the gods would know it was us when we approached the waterfall. Our paint only lasted a day,but they do have some that lasts a week
that I will probably try before I leave, just not on my face. The paints are all derived from fruits and plants from the jungle.
When we got to camp, we were thrilled with the view. It was situated on a cliff looking over the forest and there was a nice little house that had been built to sleep in. We hiked/rapelled down to the waterfall which was fun in itself and had a nice little bath after Henrique put on a little show. He´s an odd one. We then did a bit of canyoning down the river, but apparently Hen. stumbled upon an anaconda´s house (not exactly sure what that means) and we had to turn back. The trip up was much easier than down, and we were back for a nice dinner of yucca stirfry by sunset.
That night we sat around the fire and Henrique told us a lot about Shuar culture. A really cool bug flew by that looked like a firefly but was actually some sort of beetle or similar. Its eyes glowed green when it was looking and its back lit up orange as it flew. If you lick its back and
it tastes salty it will be sunny the next day and if it is sweet it will rain. He said it tasted salty and Friday was the sunniest day we have had! The beetle also can predict the sex of your babies and Henrique will supposedly have 2 girls. It flew away before any of us could try.
Yesterday was the last day of school for the summer, so they had a little presentation for the kids. There were 8 kids in school and one of them graduated for secondary school, so he was a dressed up in the native attire and did a little show. Everyone got photos of him and his parents and siblings were very proud. The whole day was a lazy day, playing soccer with the kids so it was really nice! This morning we headed to Banos and will probably do the hot springs for a bit this evening before we go out. I will try to post photos when I get a better internet connection. Hope all is well!
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