Bua de los Tsachilas

We did a cultural exchange at Bua de los Tsachilas through Yanapuma. It´s a community 4 hours south west of Quito located near Santo Domingo. Tsachilas are immediately identifiable by the women´s multicoloured hand woven skirts and the men´s cropped hair, dyed red with paste from the ´achiote´ tree. Nowadays not all Tsachilas are in the traditional clothing or hair style. The community of Bua is the largest population of the 7 remaining Tsachila communities and is working hard to preserve their rich culture. They have for instance an ethnographic museum, trails through the jungle and a medicinal and botanical garden. They try to promote tourism to tell other people about their culture and as an additional source of income.

Day 1: Went to the Yanapuma office and took a 3+ hour bus ride to Santo Domingo. The bus ride scenery quickly changed into a lush rainforest about 1 hour outside of Quito. Santo Domingo turned out to be a lot bigger than we expected. We were met by a Tsachila named Freddy (easily identifiable by red hair). It was a 20+ minute taxi ride down a road that was paved 3 years ago, but already full of potholes. Everybody in the community we talked to spoke spanish, so we were finally able to practice a bit and we didn´t have to play sherades all the time (we still did sometimes, since our spanish isn´t that good). We were surprised about some of the luxuries such as TV and dvd player, which we found out weren´t in the house last year. It seemed that almost everybody had a mobile phone as well. Although, other luxuries such as fridge, stove and running water were missing. We were introduced to the ecological toilet and the river we would be bathing in. After lunch and a short rest we went to the local school on the bus. There was a group of high school volunteers from London working on speed bumps for the school. The played a soccer game against Ecuadorian kids that were generally younger and a lot smaller... Ecuador won! There were 2 volunteers from the US staying with our host family that spoke excellent spanish, so that made things easier for us. It was t-shirt weather, so it was a lot warmer than we were used to. Because of all the mosquitos and biting flies we often wore pants and long sleaves. At night the bats got out to work on controlling the insect population and we met the sloth that sometimes visits the house at night. It had long curved claws and when we fed the sloth rice we had to watch out a bit, although the sloth was very slow. We watched a dvd of the tribe showing their cultural practices. Our night was really peaceful because we could hear the river and some strange animal noises and in the morning we were woken up by the birds.

Our host Germania and Alfonso have 2 daughters. Additionally, Freddy and his son Richard were often there as well. Everybody was so cheery, friendly, kind and polite that it made our stay very pleasant and enjoyable.

Day 2: We found out about the handshake - more important people have a firmer handshake and in general a handshake is done by extending a limp hand and making hand contact. We did a bit of work today clearing plants. When we saw Alfonso working with a machete we had an urge to join in. The machetes worked their magic again and produced some nice blisters. Machetes are carried around everywhere (even on the bus) by many people from young boys to old ladies. Afterwards we took a well deserved bath in the river. There were little fish nibbling on our toes and butterflies and birds of all sizes flying around. The river is also used to do laundry by hand. Alfonso collected a bunch of Achiote plant and we helped him to get the little red balls out of the fruit. Removing the red bits stained our hands for a few days and works well as lipstick too. Apparently Achiote can also be used with cooking. The red bits are rubbed together to create a paste that is rubbed into the hair. Vasoline is added to the hair to prevent the colours from running when it´s raining. The hair is combed into a shape like a hat. The process of adding Achiote and combing is repeated many times and takes quite a while. It can stay in the hair for 8 days. Then we went on a guided rainforest walk with the volunteers from London. The trail was filled with different plants, trees, berries and flowers. Many plants had really big leaves and some at least a meter long. At the end of the rainforest walk we found a colony of ants carrying leaves. We later found these leaf carrying ants in other locations as well. After dinner we went to the goodbye ceremony for the volunteers from London. It started with a ritual from the shaman of the tribe which was against bad spirits and for good energy, which we participated in as well. That was followed by traditional dancing and music from Tsachilas. The Tsachilas have won dance awards for 1st and 2nd place at dance competitions involving groups from Ecuador and some from surrounding countries. Afterwards everybody was invited join in the dancing. Unfortunately the photos didn´t really work out from the ceremony. We returned in the back of a pickup truck lit by a full moon. There weren´t many clouds and the walk through the rainforest path was made possible by the moon - it was amazing to look up at the silhouettes of the trees and plants with reflecting moonlight.

Day 3: So far we didn´t mind that much getting bit by insects because they weren´t itchy... until now. Richard gave us a tour of their museum and afterwards we got a lesson in Tsa´fiki (the Tsachila language), which is totally different from any language we know. At the same time we taught Richard some English, which continued for the remainder of our stay. Some interesting words are ´Ju´ (hi), ´layan joo´ (thank you very much), ´shushu´ (dog), ´shushu-na´ (puppy) and ´a´ (hair). They don´t have a word for good-bye; there was only ´inale´ (see you later). Then it was time again to relax on the hammocks, which we did a lot this week (a nice but awkward change from the 2 weeks at Santa Martha). We used these opportunites to study spanish as well. Then we went out with the 2 US volunteers, Freddy (in traditional clothing), Richard, Elizabeth and Guilermo (a long term Yanapuma employee helping the Tsachila with amongst others their agricultural practices). In Santo Domingo we watched the movie Hancock in spanish which we sort of understood, but we didn´t get most of the jokes. After dinner (shortly after 8) we went out dancing in an empty night club playing latin music. We went back at 12, which is way after our normal bed time of 9:30 or 10.

Day 4:
We went to a funeral ceremony at the school for a woman from the UK who had been living with the Tsachilas for over 60 years. Since she meant a lot to the tribe members she was the first non-Tsachila to be buried in the traditional Tsachila way. There was singing during the ceremony and also 2 dance performances (from girls she taught to dance) and of course people talking about her. After that the official part of the ceremony took place (we didn´t go to that part). We were going to take the bus back to where we were staying, but got out after a couple minutes because the bus was so full (we were standing in the doorway of the bus). It was an hour walk back. The rest of the day was just relaxing.

At this point we started to notice a pattern to the food, which was different every day if you don´t include the rice, beans and plantains. Breakfast was the most different often with eggs and for instance crushed corn boiled and shaped. Lunch was different kinds of soups and a plate with rice and some vegetables (eg: beans, beets or tomatoes), sweet banana or plantain chips. Dinner was similar to lunch, but without the soup. All meals were accompanied by a drink: often sweet tasting coffee in the morning and for lunch and dinner a warm cinammon drink or juice from lemons or mandarins, for instance. We got extra fruit and sugarcane for snacks too.

Day 5:
In the morning Alfonso told stories about the Tsachila culture. He explained how traditional funerals were carried out and how the Tsachila culture has changed to adapt to modern times. Alfonso is head of the cultural group that is trying to revive the culture along with Yanapuma. Richard took us on a walk to 2 villages in the opposite direction of Santo Domingo. The first village was 4 km. Along the way we saw many different kinds of plants and trees (cacao, papaya, maracuya, bamboo, achiote, coffee, etc.). We could later identify some of these plans on Alfonso´s land. Tsachila´s are renting out a big part of their land, but that is getting less partly because they want the rainforest to grow back, but also because they want to stop the bad agricultural practices (like using chemicals that are banned in other countries).

The women spend part of their day cleaning. Mainly sweeping up leaves with twig brooms. The leaves reappear the next day, since leaves are constantly falling. We were really surprised that they spent so much time keeping everything neat and tidy, because it is a contrast to the rest of Ecuador. In the afternoon 16 volunteers from the same school in London arrived for 4 days to work on a bridge for the jungle trail. This group stayed in tents nearby making Shinopi (where we were staying) much more lively and loud. Since they brought a lot of movies we ended up watching 3 of them at night with them.

Day 6:
It rained a lot this time at night. When it was raining really hard small amounts of rain came through the roof made of leaves. Paulien didn´t notice since she was on the bottom bunk. We helped with the bridge a bit by carrying leaves, rocks and also digging. Richard took us on a tour of the medicinal garden and through Alfonso´s fields (mainly maracuya, corn and yuca, but also caracas, pan de fruita, etc.). It was a big farm with more than 10 people working there.

Day 7:
In the morning the women did some arts and crafts, which is a traditional practice. Paulien had already bought a necklace, bag and bracelet. Germania made a bracelet for each of us and Paulien made a necklace (with some help from Brian). As a good-bye from one of the 3 dogs both of Brian´s bags were peed on! Shortly before lunch it was time for us to go. It was a nice week and we would have liked to stay longer, but we had to be in Quito to prepare for our next volunteer place on the coast.