Muddy River

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For the rest of my life, one image will stay in my mind. Sadness and joy swirl like paint to create that picture. It’s the first and last image I saw of the Waorani village, deep in the Ecuadorian jungle, where I lived for four days.

We have no idea what we are getting ourselves into. The banks are thick with trees and jungle plants. Some reach the sky. We search for birds or monkeys above our heads. Sometimes we let our hands dangle in the spray of cool river water. The water so muddy the tree branches disappear as soon as they reach it. Every time we round another bend, I think we might be there. I look eagerly, only to see more jungle.

Then the river turns again. We can see the clearing. Then we see the people. Mostly children with dirty clothes and smooth brown skin. They stand side by side along the edge of the small cliffs. They’re as curious about us as we are of them. Missionary men help us out of our canoe onto the slippery mud banks.

I made friends with a girl named Adabella. That’s the only word I ever heard her say. She didn’t push for attention the way some of the other kids did. She would suddenly appear by my side and grab hold of my hand or sit herself on my lap during evening chapel.

Just as we settled into a routine, it was time to leave. We woke up early to roosters crowing, had breakfast, spent time in the palpable silence reading our Bibles and listening to God’s voice; the air was clearer there. We worked until lunch, played with the children, taught them Bible stories, did crafts. We ate supper, had chapel, where a five minute long story took at least half an hour after being translated to both Spanish and Waorani. We sang songs, bathed in the river, and slept in our sleeping bags under mosquito nets to keep out the vampire bats; some lived in our roof.

After only four days in the jungle, we reluctantly climb back down that slippery mud path. We tell the children we love them with our eyes. They reply with their smiles and hugs. Words have become useless. They are the barrier between us. Love communicates with the heart, not tongue.

I look for Adabella as I carry my bags to the canoes, but I can’t find her. I get more anxious every trip; I don’t want to leave without saying good-bye to her.

The image we see as we leave is the same. The jungle is just as thick; the river is just as muddy. The people are the same and the children just as dirty. But it was different. To the far right, we see the wooden canoes we held onto as we played in the current. We can see the place we bathed, and where the young children stripped and jumped off the cliff into the water to play and swim with us. On the other side, we see the bank where we washed our dishes, and laughed and wondered how clean we could possibly get them in that dirty river water. The people who looked back at us were no longer strangers, but family. That small village deep in the jungle had become home. Now we had to leave it.

My heart broke, realizing I might not ever see this family again. Tears of joy and sadness filled my eyes as I watched that clearing, with the Waorani and their dirty children standing side by side, the thick jungle surrounding, floating in the muddy river, until the river turned.



I continued to look for her in the canoe, thinking she might be riding with us, but still didn’t see her. So I gave up and laughed at the boys playing with the spears and blowguns they bought from the Waorani. After a couple hours we arrived at the bridge at a small village. The bus was there waiting for us. That’s when she reappeared. She ran up to me and hugged me. Then she held onto my hands and jumped and twisted in a little-girl dance, smiling up at me with her big toothy grin. Then she hugged me one last time and I boarded the bus. I waved at her through the window, thinking how God had given me one last jungle miracle.

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