Quehueri'ono part IV...the finale

So most of my blog stalkers have undoubtedly given up on me by now…I don’t blame you…I mean, the cruelty of it all. Making you wait weeks for one lousy story…the nerve! While I cannot promise it will be worth the drive to Richmond (sorry for oblique slogan known to few outside a 150 mile radius of Fort Wayne Indiana) I do promise to conclude my recollections of this trip so that I can eventually move on to tell the tale of other interesting misadventures.

Around mid-morning on the second day of the handicraft workshop, my compañero, Antonio and a small group of women from the stranded group walked into the classroom, totally drenched in sweat. It turns out that because of the perpetual shortage of canoes, they had ended up walking to the community. At some time around noon, the last of the group and the food supply showed up. The group looked hot, haggard, and hostile. And rightly so. Most of them had left Puyo on Tuesday morning…and were just now getting to the community on Friday afternoon. Quite a commute. Those that came by canoe loaded down with the food and supplies actually arrived after the walkers because the river was so low and the canoe advanced at a snails pace as it maneuvered around the many logs and tree limbs. Their trip was really quite ridiculous. It turns out they had spent the entire day Wednesday by the bridge waiting for canoes. When none came, they camped on the side of the road for a second consecutive night. On Thursday two canoes came and transported them only ¾ of the way to Quehueri’ono…(as far as the river level and the daylight hours would allow) and then they spent the night on a sand bar on the side of the river. Another half day of travel later, they finally arrived at their final destination. Only one of the two canoes made the final trip to the community; this displaced a subgroup of people who were then forced to walk. Incredibly, some of them had walked the entire way from the bridge to the community.

Meanwhile, back at camp, I had recruited a couple ladies to help me with lunch duty. We were at least an hour into the process when the food supply arrived. We incorporated lentils and the produce that hadn’t gone bad en route into the menu…but somehow this was unsatisfactory to my counterpart. After 2.5 hours around a wood fire in the hot, mid-day equatorial sun I was not in the mood to hear critiques about what we prepared. Everyone was edgy. I was annoyed. She was frustrated. But I guess I would be cranky, too, after such a ludicrously long trip. Nonetheless, the chemistry of the group changed from a happy-go-lucky small baby boat contingent …to a mass of hungry, tired, moody mujeres.

The final day of the workshop actually went fairly smoothly. I gave a presentation which included a report on the store’s sales, an explanation of my mini-census of the artisans (i.e. tracking who knows how to make each type of handicrafts sold), the importance of quality and the need to produce handicrafts pictured in our new catalog, and finally, a brief explanation of the webpage the Waorani Women’s Association will be launching. The latter topic required me to be extremely creative considering my audience was women who live in jungle communities largely without electricity.

In between sessions, talk turned to just how exactly we were going to get out of the community. There was only going to be one canoe available on the day we planned to leave. It would fit 12 people. There were over 40 of us. Uh…yeah…. THAT will be interesting…But we had received word that a group of tour operators from Great Britain would be coming in to check out the new Eco-Lodge. Smelling a potential sales opportunity, I helped the women prepare their handicrafts for sale to the tourists. It was somewhat improvised but in the end adequate effort. I had large sheets of butcher paper that we use to wrap up the handicrafts to transport back to Puyo. On each sheet I wrote the artisans name and then organized their wares on top of it. The papers stretched around the entire room. The women changed into their traditional dress, painted their faces, donned their feather crowns and continued weaving while we waited for the distinguished guests. Meanwhile, some of us had packed up our stuff in hopes that we could catch a ride on the plane that would be transporting the tourists in and otherwise flying back empty. But the sky was gray and a rain shower had passed through (and sent my stomach sinking with despair I wouldn’t make it out on the plane).

Somehow all our luck wasn’t bad. We soon heard “Evo, evo, evo” the Waorani word for airplane. The plane touched down on the grass landing strip. It happened to be a spacious 5 passenger plane AND it turned out that the plane would be returning with another load of passengers immediately after dropping of the first load. Score! Five women jumped into the plane and took off down the grass runway. This landing strip happened to have the skeleton of a plane that had crashed there years ago. Incidentally, it was the plane that my counterpart had been a passenger in. She and the others onboard miraculously escaped with minor injuries. Even with this knowledge, the sight of the wreckage was a little unsettling.

While the plane was shuttling the first load of passengers back to the Shell airport, I was helping to translate for the British women tour operators who were checking out the wares. I was able to explain to them the entire process of making the handicrafts, which added value to their experience and in the end I think it helped to encourage them to buy more items. They seemed like very hip, interesting people. I would have liked to have talked with them more…but our conversation was cut short by the sound of the plane returning.

As the second batch of tourists unloaded their backpacks we pushed past to quickly load ours onto the bright yellow plane. Because I was the tallest passenger by a good 8 inches, I got to sit in the co-pilot seat. In no time at all we were taxiing back down the runway and then were up, up and away. The view below was stunning. I was totally mesmerized by the sea of green below…until we flew into a very dark rain cloud. Water started bubbling around the area where the windshield meets the dashboard of the plane… hummm… that didn´t seem normal. Then all the sudden we hit a patch of turbulence and the plane suddenly and violently bumped downward. One of my compañeras screamed. I grabbed my seat out of sheer terror. We made it through the cloud and touched down in the rain at the airport in Shell without further problems. We chatted with the pilot afterwards and he admitted that he, too, was scared by the bump. Then he confesses, “but that´s mostly because I ´m still jittery from when I wrecked a plane two weeks ago. But I only got scratched.” Hum…that´s comforting. So, all of the sudden I was back in Puyo, just 35 minutes after being deep in the jungle. I think that stark transition is in some ways a more difficult dose of culture shock than going from Ecuador to the States.

Anyway, there you have it my friends, my final chapter of our trip to Quehueri’ono. My apologies again for dragging it out so long. I promise to try to post shorter, more timely posts in the future. The operative word being “try.” Chao for now.