I wake around 3 am as I do every single night, with the urge to pee. I am so reluctant, because this is not the time to be walking around - this is cucaracha time. Their speed and twitching antennae are enough to make me want to wet the bed instead (I don't, but I seriously consider it... Classy adult move). After breakfast we head into the forest for a mystery tour on flora and the medicinal properties of. Elvis shows us a plant combination guaranteed to cure bronchitis and I'm left wondering why no one has given this to me. My cough has been the same for the past 3 days and I can't seem to clear my lungs. Maybe I will try to whip up a little something before bed tonight.
We spend the rest of the morning with Diego in a doodling workshop. Anyone who knows how to draw understands that doodling is a fine art, but you haven't seen anything until you see his creations. Working with graphite sticks, he creates these extraordinary meandering compositions that can be anything and nothing at the same time. They are absolutely consuming.
I try to mimic his style of doodling but I can't seem to get it right so I am left creating more organic, curving shapes. Diego walks through the workshop and gives pointers and makes comments about our work. He points to one of my circular orbs and says "this is beautiful". Coming from him, it is one of the greatest compliments I have received.
Back in the dining area, my weaving project has taken on a life of its own and the only difficulty I have is stopping other people from conforming each other's ideas. I keep saying "just do whatever comes to mind" and the composition is as eclectic and random as our cohort.
After lunch, we put on ponchos and head out into the canoes to visit a small town nearby. The Amazon River is like an incredible highway. Human traffic, plant traffic, animal traffic, the water moving towards the ocean is in itself traffic. It is astounding. El Vergel village offers docking in the center of the town as it appears to be drowning. Our boat operator cuts the engine and we float past the soccer field which is half underwater in a sort of marshy dream.
We head straight to the maloka, a beautiful structure (and the first one I've seen since I arrived in Amazonia) similar to our dining structure designed and built by Diego - but less decorated, less detailed. The ground is a burnt orange color, hard packed and uneven. It is beautiful in its raw state. But even more beautiful are the young girls who come out wearing traditional costumes with their caramel tinted skin, black hair, and big eyes. The Amazon women are strikingly gorgeous and it is easy to understand these endless stories of dolphins and creatures who transform themselves to seduce and abduct girls from tribes. A man named José introduces himself and welcomes us to the village. He emphasizes how glad they are to have us there and that for the next hour, we will be treated like their family. It is a generous speech. Then one by one, the group of girls and two boys introduce themselves and state which clan their family is part of. Some are so young and sweet, and the teenage girls are shy and awkward. A woman around my age comes out and hands Marlene her tiny baby boy who can't be more than 3 weeks old. She cuddles him and sits next to me. He seems so tiny and fragile that he looks out of place next to these strong, hearty women. We all stand up and introduce ourselves one by one in turn and I surprise myself with my Spanish: "me amo Morgan. Yo soy de Canada". Things you didn't know you knew! José explains that we will be witnessing a replication of a girl's transformation into a woman determined by her first menstrual cycle. She spends a week in seclusion and at the end is presented to the community in a feathered crown and participates in many dances, including one in which her mother and other elders rip her hair from her head (we are told that this is now done by cutting the hair with scissors as a symbolic gesture of the traditional ceremony, which must be horribly painful). The music is started with a beating drum and chanting voices repeating songs in the traditional Ticuna language: beautiful and strange. A toddler in pink Crocs runs out into the mix and steals the show for a moment. The youngest girls are giggling and mimicking the adults while the oldest look profanely bored as only teenage girls can. With their arms linked, they move 8 steps forward, 8 steps back to the beat of the drum. We are told these ceremonies last for 3 days, and they drink CHICHA!!! Ahhhh!! But none for us. The dancers go into a trance state and I imagine there might be a bit of a coca involved as well.
Their dresses are beautiful, made from tree bark, with strings of beads hanging off them. They wear anklets over their bare feet and hold maracas made of seed pods. For the second dance, they pull us one by one to join them. We look gangly and ridiculous in our hiking clothes and rubber boots, standing a head taller. We are all laughing and smiling as we try to keep rhythm in their ancient dance.
At the end of the ceremony, José thanks us for joining them and we have an opportunity to purchase crafts which they have made for us. I buy a small woven basket and a coconut ring for my Steed. A woman gives me a bracelet and fish scale nail file as a thank you gift but I feel guilty accepting because their generosity in sharing their traditions has been greater than anything. We return to Calanoa, slowing to watch capuchin monkeys running through the canopy of the trees along the river edge. And even after arriving, I spot the small black tamarin monkeys in the palms along the creek. They are so cute, they look like leaping kittens! We all head to our cabins for some free time and have an interior design pow wow about good things and challenges to come in future years. Allyson and I are so lucky to have Leanna and Keziah (recently graduated from KPU with a bachelor of Interior Design) with us to share some wisdom, as well as an opportunity to get to know Jun better. After dinner, on my way back to the cabin, I see a group of people standing with flashlights pointing into the trees. There is a beautiful snake in green and brown stripes and I immediately break all my own rules and ask to hold it. Elvis drapes it over my hand and I almost shriek with delight, but the key is to remain calm. It is so small and thin, and it twists and turns through my hand before I gently pass it to Leanna. Now all that is left to see is a caiman and I am set. We all opt for an early night, so even though it's not even 10 pm, it is time to sleep. Things are getting more comfortable, more routine, and more lonely. I miss Steed and our comfortable life. I miss friends, being healthy and having clean hair. But it has been good - very good - to be without luxury, without Internet, without responsibilities and obligations, without makeup, or vanity... or sanity. This past week has been a wild adventure.
