Travel Day: 3
On Ground Day: 1
We woke up early again. Early for me anyway. 6:45. Breakfast was roughly at 7:30 and we were supposed to be there to help set up 15 minutes before the meal. Note to self: we need to wake up earlier tomorrow.
We were able to basically set the last of the tables. The “two” tables I saw last night are actually three on each side pushed together in a long line, Hogwarts style. The original kitchen crew (you’ll see why I say “original” in a little while) felt a little bit useless as our drinkable oatmeal and more of the lemon drop juice stuff was already cooked and ready to go. We put it out for the kids, and not long after we got there they all showed up. We filled probably four tables between Rey’s crew, the kids and the Gringos. We did get to clean up a little bit, collecting all the dishes.
After that the kids went to the program. I’m not sure what the building is usually used for, maybe storage, barn-style. It has a stage (although that may not be its purpose all the time), but I assume that the church (which is at the other end of the runway… see this semi-accurate map) is the usual meeting place. At any rate, Reynaldo and company went all-out decorating this building to be the main gathering place for the camp/VBS. While everyone was headed that way, Chet talked to Rey and came to the conclusion that we needed to redistribute the jobs.
It was just about the same as before, except we only needed two floaters and plus two on generator duty (moving it across from the meeting building to storage and making sure both that one and the one at the kitchen were running and full of gas). Teddy and Lane got that job, with Chet now with Sarah as floaters, Dana and Fabian with the remaining kitchen crew and sports left the same. We were also informed that the gringos needed to be at the kitchen no later than 30 minutes before each meal.
We split up to go to our designated places, meaning Jerry, Necia, Dana, Danielle, Fabian and I headed back to the kitchen. Turns out that Roberto, one of Rey’s crew is a chef and will be doing all the food. We basically get to facilitate that, which is a lot harder than it initially seemed. We finished cleaning up from breakfast, which meant washing all the dishes outside with two sponges, a little bit of soap and cold river water. We really didn’t feel this was sanitary at first, but Dana pointed out that this is so different from how it is normally done (maybe a river-water rinse) that it should be fantastic. That didn’t really ease my worries about level of sanitation for gringos.
While we were inside setting up for the next meal, Roberto determined that the floor needed to be evened out. So with a shovel for the dirt floor and a machete and a hammer for the benches, work began. As Necia put it, “You can remodel a dirt floor.” It was tough going, and Necia used those Montana farm girl skills to totally show me up and shoveling the very hard floor, chopping it up where it was high and moving and packing dirt to where it was low, along with using more, slightly damper ground from outside to fill in the holes made by the bench legs in the ground.
Fabian and a Huaorani man who I never saw again (probably because we got progressively busier and less attentive to my surroundings as the day went on rather than because he disappeared) began hacking away at the legs of the benches, flipped over on the table. I thought they were just going to even them out be making all of the battered legs the same length again. I even attempted to help for a while, but the Huaorani carpenter figured out how useless I was pretty fast as I chopped away at the bench with the machete. He took it off in two hacks, Ken Jefferson masonry style, sending me back to Necia and the shovel.
About then Chet came in and asked if we wanted to go get some Yucca. Sure. Why not? So Toca took us back to his house. On the way there we discovered that he is the Vice President of Toñamparé and the quiet, unassuming young man walking with us was the President. They were really cool and took us in to Toca’s and told us all about the different plants and trees growing around his place and about his 7 kids. We tried a little bit of Chicha and sat in hammocks for a while and then finally went out. We trekked through a long, winding path through the jungle back to where the Yucca grows. We learned the difference between 1, 3, 5 and 8-month old Yucca just from the stalks and branches growing out the the ground. Each different age of Yucca is used for different things, cooking, making chicha, making stronger chicha, etc.
It’s a LOT of work to pull it out. They chop it with a machete, then clear out the ground around it. Rocking it back and forth loosens the roots from the ground and keeps you from pulling up the stalk with nothing on it. Finally, you yank it out. If you are a gringo, you are lucky to get about five average-sized Yucca with it. If you’re Huaorani, you can pull up a whole plant with maybe twenty of them hanging on and none in the ground.
Then you get to clean them. That means scraping the mud off with a semi-dry stick until it’s more slick than crumbly on the outside. All of it goes into a basket made of fibers that is placed on the back with a strap on your head, above the forehead and below the middle of your head. It is HEAVY. I really wondered at first who came up with this system of carrying Yucca and why they thought it was the best idea. I learned after they stuck it on me that at least this way you have two hands free for balance and you can see in front of you to walk over logs and through mud, mud and more mud. When we were about halfway back and had switched off Jerry to me to Necia, Chet said “Come on guys, one of them can take it all the way back without breaking a sweat. And the women do this.” He also semi-jokingly told Necia (who trekked the farthest with it) to be careful, that was a good way to find a husband. “She’s cute and she can carry Yucca!”
We were hot, sweaty and exhausted by the time we began sweeping sawdust from the tables back in the kitchen (with the same broom used for the dirt floor) and then pouring water onto them from a pitcher and using our hands to wash them as best we could. Then we set the tables with cups and spoons and took bowls full of food similar to last night’s to each place as the kids came in. It was a form of organized chaos, and with kids coming in all morning from various other parts of the jungle and other Huaorani communities, we filled all six tables this time.
More dishes at the end were not what we wanted to see, and it felt like time for bed even though it was around 12:30. We had basically hiked for Yucca, set up lunch, had lunch and taken down and cleaned up lunch with nothing but a 15 minute break, and any one of those events was tiring in and of itself. Even Dana was not happy to know we’d be back there in just a couple hours and that Chet wanted to take the whole group on a hike (another hike for the kitchen crew) to “Palm Beach.”
Palm Beach is the place along the river where the five missionaries landed their plane and set up camp. It is also the place where they were killed by Huaorani from Toñamparé on January 8, 1956. It’s a long, muddy way through the jungle from Toñamparé to get there, but it was nice to kick off the boots and relax by the water. Most of the group even got in and swam in the river for a while. I decided to stay dry, which actually turned out to be a really good decision, not having anything to do with swimming, but because it gave me a chance to sit on a log and talk with Sarah for a while.
Ever since we found out we were parejas, we really haven’t had a chance to hang out, and this was a particularly good time for it since we would be leading debrief tonight. We talked about that, and about working together in general. Turns out that I love debrief and she’s really excited that it can be my thing. Translating also definitely falls to her, and we talked about sharing/designating certain other of our responsibilities with teams as well. We also discussed how to do debrief that night, both of us really wanting to stay away from the “one word” approach, feeling like we should save that for someone else who might not be as familiar with debriefs or for a day after we’d had more contact with the kids. It was Sarah who suggested and I who jumped all over the idea of “highs and lows,” one of my favorite activities personally to do as a debrief. It was an especially good one for today, I felt, because so many people had so many different experiences and sharing a range of events with emotions attached from such a range of the group felt perfect.
We took some pictures and then tromped back through the mud. I was also really glad to have a head’s-up on the debrief because I like getting to think about my answer a long time before I have to say it in front of everyone. I’ll be such a cheater this summer with my teams. Oh well, privilege of rank.
We had just enough time to put back on jeans rather than shorts and get back over to the kitchen to set up for dinner, which was spaghetti and rice with (though we didn’t know it at the time) sardines. It was good, and as Jerry remarked, it seems strange at first, but we’re going to be wanting rice with all kinds of food when we get home. Not a combination I would have planned on my own, but delicious nonetheless (though exhaustion may be a factor).
We started doing dishes outside as it began to drizzle. Bryan jumped in to help, which was awesome of him, and suddenly it was downpouring. I know we were all a little slap-happy at that point but we just laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And did dishes. And laughed. Doing dishes in the rain in the “middle of the stinking jungle!” was the most fun I’ve had since I’ve gotten here. It sounds strange, but we really just had a blast with it and talked and danced around and shivered and attempted to get everything clean and back inside to dry.
Debrief was outside under the covering in the dark. We had enough of a break in the rain that we could get over there without being soaked, but then it began to downpour again and we could barely hear each other. We went through the highs and lows and I was actually surprised at first that no one said washing dishes in the rain was their high (though I don’t think anything other than the six of us could ever understand it even with our theological discussions retold). I felt really good about it and would have been a lot happier if it hadn’t been interrupted for us to bold back to the guys’ room through another break in the rain, but was content with how it went anyway, and learned a lot from everyone else’s experiences.
We had our meeting and then split up knowing that we’d be going to a devotion with Rey’s crew at 6:30 in the morning and having to move all our stuff to the church down the runway so that the kids could use what had been our sleeping quarters. Thinking over this day, it’s amazing that that’s all it’s been. It feels longer even than days at band camp, and I’ve been having that same sensation where I go “Remember yesterday when…” only to be told that, actually, that was this morning.” I think that only my prayer during our fifteen minute break for energy and endurance has been keeping me functioning, and I hope that I can keep it up the rest of the week.
My Low: The 837th dish I washed, just before the rain.
My High: Seeing Roberto. This guy actually cooked all the food that we just set out, and during dinner, exhausted, hot, and sweaty, he took off his hat, fanned himself, looked at all the eating children… and grinned. To see that look of accomplishment on his face made me really think about what we had done today.
