paparazzi and blowguns

Well, I know many of you are anxious to hear more about my adventures in the Waorani community of Tiwino... Yes, I made it back in one piece, and I have lots of good stories...but you´ll have to hold that thought because I have even more tales to tell from today. As I type, there is a huge parade passing the internet cafe. This town loves a parade! Not sure what the occasion is...but what the heck.

So, the U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador made her much-anticipated trip to Puyo today. I´m told she is the highest ranking U.S. official ever to visit the entire Province of Pastaza (the largest in Ecuador). A pretty big deal. Jeremy and I were invited to meet her at the airport and travel with her delegation, so we met the Embassy reps, a USAID contact, the Waorani Nation president and several other random, but evidentally important people. We rode in the monster SUV with embassy plates to the airport in Shell to await her arrival. Although we didn´t get the opportunity to talk with her at any length, she remembered us from our Swearing-In and her previous speach to the trainees (where Jer and I were 2 of the 5 who asked questions) and greeted us warmly, which, among all the paparazzi made us look almost important. From there, we piled back into the monster SUV and went to the Military Hospital, which is a stones throw from our apartment, where she was touring the hospital and thanking a brigade of doctors and nurses from the U.S. (many of which had U.S. Navy scrubs on) who were providing free medical care for 10 days. For the last few days we had witnessed the throngs of people lined up outside the hospital and had heard that people were camping out to save a place in line to get medical care for their kids. We talked to one of the nurses who was part of the group. She was in Ecuador for the first time---and this was her first medical volunteer experience, too--and she was really moved by the whole experience---it does change your life. She was describing some of the ailments they were treating and that there was just no way they could see everyone. She described a 12 year boy who has a tumor on his nose that has likely entered his brain, as it appears to have been growing a while. He needs extensive neurological attention by a specialist that he likely will not find in country. She was hoping to help him find a sponsor to take him to the states. Anyway, it was pretty cool what these doctors were doing and made me feel sort of patriotic (and that´s a rare commodity for me, as I´m more often annoyed by the our country´s foreign policy of late). I ended up traveling with the delegation most of the rest of the day. It mostly involved gladhanding and speaches from local officials thanking the Ambassador for this and that. It also involved the exchange of gifts. I have to say that the Ambassador made out!!! She got so many cool things, from beautiful orchids, to intricate indigenous art and feather crowns, incredible pottery, a hand-carved wooden key to the city, etc. The embassy gave hard cover "coffee table" books of random places in the U.S. --wine country, yellowstone, etc...all in English. There were three body guards stationed around the room that I could see. One had sunglasses on and his hand on his gun the entire time.
Ambassador Jewell´s final stop was at the Waorani Nation office--the only indigenous group in Pastaza that was included in the days events. I had spent the last two days assisting the Waorani Women´s Association and the Waorani Nation prepare for the event, which was pretty cool. I helped write and edit the Waorani Women´s Association VP´s speech (although it got edited about 6 more times after that so I can´t claim much of the final speech), set up the room where the event and press conference would be held, picked out the tablecloth material, decorated the room with Waorani artisania, made table tent name tags for all the dignitaries (there were a lot!) and otherwise helped with random other preparations and details. Of course things were running late, so I ended up having a number of fascinating conversations...including one with Enqueri (one of the main characters in Savages) who had just returned from his trip to the jungle with our friend Fabio. FABIO UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, it turns out that they survived their trip....barely (and mind you, this iteration of the story is likely exaggerated, as all good aventure stories are). Evidentally they saw extensive illegal logging on Waorani lands by Colombian and Ecuadorian outfits. They had to do some hiding out for a while, because they also saw some of the Taegari, one of the Waorani spin-off tribes that live in the no-contact intangible zone (as in, if they see you, they might kill you!) and feared that they would be mistaken as loggers, so they stripped down naked and slinked off into the forest. I can´t wait to get Fabio´s version. I sent him an e-mail asking for details...or at least his version of the story. Evidentally, it had been some time since Enqueri had been deep into Waorani Territory. He has pretty much become an urban-ite here in Puyo and still may be involved in some shady deals on the side with the oil companies, as he had done in the past (this is well documented, I am not making wild accusations against my peeps). I also had a fascinating conversation with a guy who is working with the Waorani on a community tourism project, which sounds super interesting. He seemed pretty knowledgeable and helped fill in the blanks of some of the politics of the Waorani in the intervening years since Savages was written---the type of account I had been trying to peice together for weeks now.

So, the event with the Waorani and the Ambassador went off without any major hitches (although there were certainly some minor ones...including a couple late additions to the speeches that were not previewed to USAID, much to their chagrin...and candidly, were not appropriate!). The Waorani showered the Ambassador with more gifts, including a hammock that was hand woven...and probably took a good 3 months to make. The Waorani President presented her with a blowgun and darts and then proceeded to demonstrate how to use it (which sent many people ducking for fear that he was going to actually use it). He didn´t, of course, but, he brought the house down by saying that she could aim it at the President.

Oh, and if U.S. foreign relations couldn´t get any more complicated, there was almost an international incident outside the office when two people from the Venezuelan media were asked to leave by a Waorani employee, fearing that it would exacerbate U.S. - Venezuela relations or something. Realizing the act of censoring them would have been worse yet, they were eventually let back in.

By this point it was almost 4:00 and I hadn´t eaten anything all day (I was hoping to be invited to lunch with the Ambassador, but no dice) so my friend and co-worker Noemi and I went to split a beer and chow down on pizza and celebrate the event being over. She and I had done a lot of work in prep (which includes another funny story about keys and being locked out...a different story than that of the fair sciencking).

Well, Jer is ready to roll. Hope to have more time to write this week. Many more stories to tell. Ciao.