An Important Lesson Learned

I’ve been in Ecuador for three weeks now, and in that time I have learned a very important lesson: nothing in Ecuador is simple, even the smallest things can be an adventure. Proof of this is that as I was attempting to write this notably late post, all the power in the entire town went out, leaving me in a very, very dark rainforest (note to self: buy candles). The day before, the water went out. Apparently, both of these are relatively normal occurrences.

While you could say I had a slight idea of this lesson before, things became even clearer when I left Quito for the second time and went to Puyo, one of the provinces we work in, on Wednesday, October 14. We had an intellectual property conference on Thursday and Friday, and we wanted to get work done beforehand. Wednesday was a relatively normal workday, aside from the torrential downpours.

Adventure #1: My boss and I were planning on sleeping at the office (there are bedrooms above the office) so we had to buy mattresses. Buying a mattress in a torrential downpour is not the best of ideas. We quick ran into the store, picked out some mattresses, and then had to run to the truck and quickly shove the mattresses in.

Adventure #2: After the mattress adventure, we were meeting someone to get dinner. We were driving the company’s old, rundown truck through the flooded streets, unable to see because the rain was coming down in sheets.

Adventure #3: After dinner, we returned to the house/office to find that the roof leaked, and there were puddles as well as ruined documents everywhere.

Adventure #4: In an attempt to have a semi-normal end to my day, I tried to take a shower. I turned on the shower, knowing it would be cold, stepped in, got wet, and the shower died. I stood there trying to figure out what to do, then tried the shower again, and it turned on long enough for me to soap up before dying again. I stood there another 5 minutes, turned on the shower again, and it worked for another minute before dying. The following morning there was no water at all.

Adventure #5: Throughout the night I could hear the telltale fluttering of bats above me, but I kept telling myself, “They are not bats, they are not bats, they are not bats.” I have an irrational fear of bats, and they absolutely terrify me. The following morning when the locals from the team found out that we stayed there, they exclaimed, “You slept the night here?! Did the bats bother you?” Needless to say, I was not happy and totally freaked out.

Adventure #6: Talking with the kichwa members of the team, I was told I needed to learn kichwa, and that the only way to do so was to date a kichwa man. Many jokes ensued. Throughout the weekend many advances were made such as, “Why don’t you just come and live with us in our community”.

Adventure #7: After our night in the bathouse, we decide to stay in the free hostel provided from the conference. It was a step up from the bathouse in that there were no bats. They actually charge a cheaper rate as you go up each flight, as the rooms get trashier. I was 2^nd from the top.

Adventure #8: After a long day at the conference, and many hours spent after doing team planning, the key members of the Napo and Pastaza teams went to the karaoke bar right next to our office. When we found this out, we decided to join them for a beer. A beer turned into round after round after round of beers. I kept up quite well at first, downing my glass every time someone raised their glass and yelled “Laurita, Salud.”, and watching as it was refilled over and over again. After a couple of rounds however, I realized we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and thus started pacing myself. Luckily, the other team members were to drunk to realize that when they yelled “Laurita, Salud” I was only lifting my glass to my lips. I will just say that Spanish becomes even more difficult to understand when the speakers are slurring and karaoke is blasting in the background. I will also say that I determined it was going to be difficult to be the one of the few girls on the team, and the only American girl.

Adventure #9: The big event of the weekend was an ayahuasca ceremony (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca). Ayahuasca is an indigenous hallucinogenic, and by drinking just a little bit of it it is believed that you can sort out your life and future. My boss has been doing ayahuasca for years, and so was really excited about it. I had decided I would go to the ceremony, but did not want to drink ayahuasca as I didn’t want to be seeing things for 8 hours, and didn’t want to spend the night vomiting and with diarrhea (this is a normal occurrence, as part of the drug’s power is to clean your body). So around 8:00 we ventured out to the house of a shaman (a healer) for the ceremony. I didn’t really know what to expect, but was surprised when we arrived at a French man’s house just outside of the city, in the middle of the jungle, and walked to a dirt floor, palm thatch roof hut with waist-high sides of bamboo and a fire in the center. This is where we would be spending the night. Thanks to Steven, I immediately had fears of getting Chagas, as the one thing they tell you to avoid is staying in a “traditional” or palm-thatch hut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagas). We (6 of us including the shaman) got settled on our thin mattresses on top of a wood platform, and then the shaman told those taking ayahuasca what to expect. All but 2 were on the fence about taking it, and I can’t believe that everyone that was wary about doing it ended up doing it after the shaman described what would happen. A couple minutes later, everyone (but me) was drinking the ayahuasca, and the shaman was going around with a palm rattle, shaking it over our heads, and carrying ash and smoke from the fire around to each one of us. He then asked us to be silent for the rest of the night, as it was a time to reflect and let the plant guide you. Soon, people were throwing up and hustling to the pit toilet set up nearby. Early into the night, an all-out thunderstorm began, with thunder, rain (coming into the hut) and flashes of lightning momentarily lighting up the jungle. Eventually, I let the storm lull me to sleep, and woke up to the sound of chanting and a woman staring into the fire while the shaman performed a healing. It was pitch black, so I couldn’t really see anything, but it was certainly a surreal experience to hear thunder and rain in the background, while a shaman danced and chanted by a now dying fire. Not for the first time that night I thought ‘What the heck am I doing here”. A little while later, I was asked if I wanted a healing. I thought that no harm could come of it, and so I sat down on a small stool in front of the fire with the shaman behind me. Soon, he is telling me to lift up my shirt, and then I feel the palm thatch rattle on me as he is chanting, and I questioned once again what I was doing there. Then came the oil, which he smothered all over my back and hair before he made sucking noises (I assume sucking the bad spirit out of me). Then he turned me around and smothered the oil all over my chest before putting some in his mouth and SPITTING it all over my face. He followed that up by asking me if I was okay, that I seemed tense, and I wanted to say, “Of course I am tense, I was just spit all over, not knowing what was going to happen next, while in the middle of the jungle in the middle of a thunderstorm.” Instead, I nodded, thanked him for the healing, and then laid back down wishing I had a shower. The healings continued throughout the night, and I was in and out of sleep, hearing the rustling of those dealing with their hallucinations and the rumbling of now distant thunder. In the morning, those that had the ayahuasca shared their experiences; one girl went through all the pain and discomfort and didn’t actually see anything, while others had quite profound realizations. After a breakfast with the shaman and his wife, we headed back to the office to do some more work. Unfortunately, the shower still wasn’t functioning, so I was stuck with dunking my face and hair in the sink until I could take a proper shower later that evening.

Adventure #10: As if all that adventure wasn’t enough, we couldn’t go the easy way out and take a bus back from Puyo directly to Quito. Instead, we took a bus to a town called Latacunga, where we waited at a roundabout from some friend of a friend to pick us up and take us to his moto store. We bought 6 Enduras (motos made with Japanese parts but constructed in China) from this guy, and then piled back into his car. We assumed he was taking us to the bus stop, but when we passed the bus station and left town I became slightly nervous. He ended up taking us to the town over and dropping us off on a road where buses drive by frequently. Soon, we were loading onto the bus before it stopped completely, and were being thrown about the bus trying to find a seat as the bus jerked up a hill. I can tell you that more than one person laughed at the “gringita” (slang for white girl) tried to get down the aisle with her large backpack, bashing her head against the TV. It was quite the end to quite the weekend.

And now, a little something to keep you excited for my next post: the view outside my new bedroom window: