Last day at school

Cries and whispers

By Thursday afternoon I lost my voice completely. The viral infection that I tend to get once a year started with the familiar symptoms of a sore throat, runny nose and eyes, aching joints and a lethargic feeling. I had no fever (I can be close to death and not have a fever) and felt I had to go to school on the last day, especially as I had prepared some small presents for the kids and had some printouts of their photos in plastic sleeves to protect them from the humidity.

Olger and his classmates

“I am ill,” I wrote on the whiteboard when the students entered. “Look up the word ‘ill’ in your dictionaries,” I gestured. They dutifully did and decided that I was “enferma”. Then the second sample sentence: “I have no voice.” Olger’s younger brother, Pablo, who is just as bright as Olger, only fidgety, guessed it straight away: “You cannot speak, teacher.” “So this is what we are going to do: test papers, photos, Xmas cards and a surprise” – I wrote the last four as a list of activities I planned for them. Feedback on the test papers did not take long: once again, I could see that we needed to practise more. Whatever they produce in speaking, they do not recognize in writing.

They enjoyed the photos, though. I printed them on coloured A4 paper back in Cuenca and although the images were fuzzy when enlarged, they could still identify themselves and we could make up decent sentences like: “Maria is making maito” (the traditional indigenous food when fish is wrapped in maito leaves and is slowly cooked in the fire).

I can't hear you - speak up

We then made Christmas cards with “Merry Christmas” on top and a drawing of a bird or plant or tree under it. I am always surprised at how fine and meticulous their drawings are. Once done, we practised “Who is it for?” and, of course, there were shy glances and chuckles when I suggested the cards might be for “my boyfriend” or “my girlfriend”. Two groups, however, decided they wanted Oliver to have them. The Hamburg policeman definitely made a deep impression.

I was pleased with myself for having prepared their presents at the beginning of the week: I couldn’t have done it with my full blown tonsillitis. Nothing much: notebooks I made from coloured paper, coloured felt pens or pencils, rubbers and sharpeners I brought back from Cuenca, each present wrapped in freezer bags that I got from the kitchen at the Lodge, with numbers in the box where you tick off “meat”.

They all had to draw numbers but I would only give the presents to them if they said the number in English correctly. Fidel, who drew “19” almost lost his, but a classmate was allowed to help out and practised saying the number with him a couple of times.

“Bye, guys, see you on Tuesday at the Lodge,” I whispered. “Good bye, teacher, see you on Tuesday,” they whispered back as they left. 

 I looked around the riverside classroom to figure out which would be the best place to hang Alan’s laminated maps. He promised to send two large world maps and two more of Latin-America when he got back to Seattle. Right now there is nowhere to hang mine, because the classroom is open, it would just dangle and would not be safe either. Ines promised mosquito netting (I gave her some money for it), a door and a lock.

I looked at the new plastic furniture: four neon blue tables (not matching in colour) and the twelve white chairs. The kids seemed to be comfortable using them on the last day, moving them together or creating islands for group work was no problem at all. The cedar wood desks we had before were monstrously heavy.

Our future clients at the school

I went to see the lady doctor in the community walking past the traditional Achuar huts in the pouring rain, the mud sticking to my trainers and soiling my trousers. The health centre is basic with efficient, no-nonsense staff in a small, bare building that has been neglected for decades. It reminded me more of Ethiopia than modern day Ecuador.

Once back at the Lodge, I checked my e-mails and Facebook messages. And there it was: Agi’s new, state-of-the-art London school with a brand new sports hall, theatre, art studio and a forum space that looked like the debating chamber of the UN.

And it was only then that I started to cry.

Indiana Jones and the Lost Temple of the Metal Library

“Have you ever heard of the Hungarian archaeologist who claimed that he had seen the mysterious Metal Library when he met the Indian tribe of the Shuar?” asks Omar, one of the most knowledgeable naturalist guides from Quito who regularly escorts tourists to the Lodge and takes them on various excursions with the local Achuar guides.

In fact, I have. Our chef, Joffre (famed for his Hungarian wife, Boglarka) was the first to mention Juan Moricz, an aristocratic Argentinian-Hungarian entrepreneur straight from an Indiana Jones film, who befriended members of the Shuar tribe closely related to the Achuar. “He said he was able to talk to them in Hungarian and the tribal leaders were so shocked that someone could speak their ancient language that they decided to take him to a cave system and showed him the Metal Library.”

Juan Moricz in ANOTHER cave

This was far-fetched enough, but another naturalist guide also asked me if I had heard about the Hungarian ethnographer who was shown books made of metal that he could read with ease because surprise, surprise – the inscriptions were in Hungarian. Omar also offered an explanation: “He believed that the Earth is like a big, round cheese with caves and caverns that are all connected and the Indians were actually Hungarians who had come to this side of the globe by walking thousands of miles through these tunnels from the other side of the world.” Apparently, Móricz János firmly believed that Hungarian people had been at the root of each and every civilization on earth.

It seems that by now all the protagonists of this fascinating story have either died or been murdered or have given up on finding the entrance to the caves which, according to Moricz’ source, was under a river, although the very same source claimed it did not mean that whoever entered it would get wet. He spoke of a bend in the river that meets a fault line which in turn opens up into a cave system. This is where the Metal Library is supposed to be hidden. The treasure consists of thousands of large, metal books of 20 kilos each with geometric designs and written inscriptions as well as translucent, crystal tablets stacked on sloping shelves covered in gold leaf with sealed doors leading to tombs.

Which river, you ask? The Pastaza, of course - the slow and wide Amazonian river with its mud banks and islets; the one I cross twice a week when I go to teach at my jungle school.

 Good night.

Returning to the Rain Forest

I am back. The lagoon is still here, the cacique birds are just as noisy as before, the people are all familiar and by now I know whose children at the Lodge I am teaching at the High School. 

Cacique bird

I dragged back 30 small size dictionaries and some bigger ones hoping that staff at the Lodge will fall in love with the phonetic transcription system: some of them are already getting hooked.

Jungle classroom

Can I have some more?

”This is like breast feeding on demand,” I am muttering to myself with the secret pride of a mother watching her baby grow by the day when yet another staff member declares that the only time he can make it for English is at 12:30, that is right after lunch and before the resident manager wants his at 13:00 to be followed by the barman at 14:00 (by when I have done 3-4 other sessions in the morning). All this under the blazing rain forest sun where my skin feels like the inside of a freshly washed and never drying plastic bag.

So I teach whenever and wherever: in the hammock house, by the river, in the hut for English classes (when they are not watching DVDs there) the one for the wayusa tea ceremony (when they are), the staff canteen and the bar as well as while walking back to my cabin on the raised boardwalk to consolidate greetings and saying thanks. Am I complaining? Not really.

The language program has actually entered its second phase. I have started recording some of the dialogues I wrote up before, my favourite handyman, Julio is listening to his cassette with me every evening. I am hoping to get a new radio cassette player from the Quito office and it might just happen that I will have my own printer. I have spent Oliver’s money but got some more from my Masters students after they have seen the images from the jungle and spent a whole session comparing my classroom in the rain forest and theirs at the university as an observation exercise. Some of them actually decided that they preferred mine overlooking the river with only three students...

I even managed to get all of Daniela’s donations down here courtesy of the Quito office: loads of coloured paper, plasticine and sheets of coloured foam for artwork. I hope to use them to brighten up the classrooms with the posters and pictures we might create. I printed the photos of my students and will put them in plastic pockets before they go up on the wall.

A day out

This week has been quiet, the staff of the high school are away on training, so there are no classes. On Sunday people from the Lodge went over to Kusutkau for a minga*: they were joining forces to clear a jungle trail and repair the boat landing. It was the ideal time to get away for a day as there were only two guests around: a San Francisco based Indian couple, Rucha and Sai. And, of course, the world is small. Sai is originally from the state of Kerala that we know very well thanks to Arundhati Roy, the Goddess of Small Things. And Rucha is from Pune (Poona), where Alem went to school, in fact they might have even known each other as they belong to the same generation.

We went to the clay lick, a mud wall on the riverbank: birds and macaws eat a lot of fruits, seeds and flowers that contain natural toxins. The clay that the birds consume at the colpa contains chemicals that neutralize these harmful materials. I have no binoculars, but I could still spot the birds with their bright green and red feathers among the leaves. We were watching them from the motor boat for quite some time before starting on our walk to a lagoon.

Hoatzins

Wildlife is amazing around this remote spot in the rain forest. We saw loads of hoatzins (my favourites, because they are so peculiar with their prehistoric shape and the crown on their heads), as well as birds whose name I cannot care to remember, a family of capivaris, the biggest rodents in the world (they are like overgrown hamsters) and at least three caimans that looked exactly like pieces of logs thrown in the pond except they had eyes.

Capivari family

In the afternoon we visited one of the Achuar communities and stayed at the house of the village chief, who happens to be our resident manager’s father. As is the custom, we entered the oval, palm-thatched house and sat down in silence at a distance from Guido, who used to be a guide at Kapawi Lodge. The Achuar guide who was with us for the day is married to one of Guido’s daughters. They started chatting while Guido’s wife brought chicha for us to drink. This was the second or third time I tried the fermented manioc beer, and even though it’s an acquired taste, I am beginning to like the milky beverage that resembles yoghurt on the brink of going off. I presume in time I will miss it just as I have been missing injera, the Ethiopian sour pancake.

We all introduced ourselves to the head of the family. I said I have a special connection with his family since his son is my boss and his daughter, Maria is my student. Rucha and Sai talked about their work in San Francisco and then it was Guido’s turn. He said he was the community chief, but he was also the pastor holding mass on Saturdays and Sundays for those converted to the Catholic faith. Sai spotted some small crosses dug in the dirt floor of the house. ”We bury our dead in the house,” explained Guido, ”these are the children we lost.” I counted four. Altogether they had eleven.

One of our Achuar guides, Celestino

We were encouraged to ask questions and Sai wanted to know how life changed after the arrival of the missionaries. What is it that he misses from the old way of life? ”I can’t remember too well,” said Guido,”my father was killed when I was four, so he couldn’t teach me a lot of things that children learn from their fathers. But the missionaries told us to cultivate our language and treasure our traditions.”

Guido also asked us questions and they were by far not trivial. How do I see the future of my Achuar students? ”I am not British and I am not a native speaker of English, but all I can say is that education is a matter of life and death for the Achuar children,” I responded. ”I don’t know what will happen in twenty years’ time, but I want to prepare them for the best and the worst. Whether they manage to preserve their way of life or not, English will be useful for them.”

”How did your grandfather die?” I asked Angel the following day. ”He was a shaman and word got around that he was a bad shaman who harmed people. One day when he was alone in the jungle, someone followed him and shot him dead.”

People in the Achuar communities are still in awe of their shamans and believe that they are able to kill someone without physical contact. However, once a shaman is held responsible for an otherwise unexplained death, his own life will be in danger and killing him will be seen as justified.

I am walking down the raised boardwalk to look for our boat driver, Mauro. ”Teacher, I am sorry. I just heard that my wife is unwell. I need to go and tell her that tomorrow afternoon we are going to see the shaman.”

Over my forty years of teaching I have been given numerous reasons for cancelling a class. Having to go to the shaman is a first.

Good night.

*kaláka 

At the Lodge outside the bar

 

Back in town

I am experiencing a reverse culture shock. I'm dazed by the traffic, the shops, the variety of goods on offer, the sophistication of city life including a perfect perm by an American hair stylist who lives here and uses American hair products.

Cuenca is noisy during the day and quiet at night (except for the cockerel next door that I hoped the neighbours would have eaten by now). The jungle is the opposite: it is at night that nature comes alive. At first, I couldn't sleep much at all. The wooden cabin felt exposed. Although it is covered by wooden planks behind the bed, more than half of the oval shaped structure would be completely open if it wasn't for the mosquito nets. 

As a result, you can hear everything: the rats, the bats, the frogs, the night birds and the howler monkeys that sound like a wind machine at five in the morning. The bats can get quite fierce. I remember how one night two of them started not just swishing around the room (which was scary enough), but actually fighting, so that drops of blood landed on top of the canopy of my bed. I am quite sure that a whole family of bats lives right on the other side of the cabin behind the headboard. 

It could be mice or rats, but I am happier assuming they aren't. Getting into the cabin is a challenge as well, as wild bees are buzzing around: it looks like some of them are nestling in the door frame. In the evening, when I turn on the light, I find tiny lizards and small frogs hanging onto the mosquito netting, moths and butterflies are flapping around. I hate cockroaches but I have become resigned to their presence and routinely check my slippers for the odd scorpion.

The air is humid, and even though the sun shines fiercely during the day, come morning and all your clothes are damp. It feels exactly like when you didn't have time to dry your stuff and still have to put them on after a good spin. However, your clothes are soon dry and you actually wish they were still wet. I take a shower two or three times a day. The water in the bathroom is not even lukewarm (the solar panels need replacing, but the new ones are stuck with the customs authorities in Guayaquil), so I often hang up one of the solar showers when I want to wash my hair. 

So, back in Cuenca, it is a treat that I can have a hot shower anytime I like. I am also enjoying my bread. In the jungle there was none, or only for the guests and I didn't want to be treated differently from the staff with whom I had the meals in the staff dining room. I have just had a cholesterol test and I think the diet without bread, butter, milk and cheese, a lot less potatoes and sugar will probably prolong my life if I can stick with it when I return.

Still, it was a bit of a challenge at the beginning to have a cooked breakfast of rice and chicken or plantain and beef at 6 in the morning. But I get up early, often before 5 am as my cabin is next to the one that houses the kitchen. I can hear the chef on duty prepare our meal and the food for the guests who might be taking a picnic lunch on one of their outings. So by the time I wander over to the staff canteen, I'm quite hungry.

"Jó reggelt. Hogy aludtál?" says the chef, Joffre. In Hungarian. Right in the middle of the jungle. He is from Quito (not an Achuar), but he used to work in London where he got to know his Hungarian wife, Boglarka, who now teaches English in the capital city. When we set up the English classes, Joffre decided he didn't need any, but could he have some Hungarian classes with me? I didn't mind at all, so we had good fun when, as a role play exercise, he went shopping for rétes (Hungarian strudel) in Tatabánya where his in-laws live and chose ten of the "meggyes-mákos" (the ones with sour cherry and poppy seed filling). 

All of us are trying to improve our language skills. Joffre often corrects my Spanish (he is the only one who has the confidence to do so), while I'm relentlessly flexible when holding English classes at 7 in the morning or at 8 in the evening to go through grammar structures that are surely very different from Quichua and Achuar. I already know that in Achuar, just like in Hungarian, you don't use the plural form once you have mentioned the number. What's the point, when "two" or "three" already marks that it's more than one...

At the high school too, we did a bit of revision before I left and I gave all my students enough homework to do for the three weeks while I'm away. Among others, I compiled a vocabulary of all the words we learnt asking the students to translate them into Spanish and Achuar. In one of my classes we actually started filling in the columns together. "I'm going to ask you to be my Achuar teachers when I come back", I told them and suddenly everybody got very excited about the prospect. So we started practising some Achuar straight away.

The words "boat" and "community" were both long and tricky to pronounce. Raul pinched his ear between his thumb and index finger and leaned forward saying: "Otra vez, teacher". "Once again, teacher." The gesture and the intonation was exactly like mine.

Sure enough, they have learnt something from me already.

Five o'clock tea with a twist

I dream a lot in the jungle. The Achuar shaman would be proud of me. Even before I got here I thought that the Achuar life style fits me perfectly. They get up around 3:30 a.m. for a Wayusa drinking ceremony. This caffeinated tea is made from the leaves of the Wayus plant and is full of antioxidants. The women either make it the night before or brew it in the morning. Members of the community – often no more than an extended family - sit together by the fire drinking vast amounts of the tea which has a cleansing effect, especially since the Achuar purge themselves by vomiting.* It is done as a matter of course and the foreigners who come to visit the community can choose to follow their example or not.

Wayusa tea

This overnight experience is one of the activities offered by Kapawi Eco-Lodge to give the guests a glimpse of the communal life of the Achuar. The Japanese lady and the young German couple who I met when I arrived here four weeks ago visited one of the communities and took part in the ceremony. I was dying to learn if they tried the full works. They all did. “Years ago I couldn’t throw up, however hard I tried,” said Etsuko, “but now I do it quite easily.”

During the ceremony the community members discuss the dreams of the night before to discover what they might mean for the individual and the whole community. I wonder what they would have made of my dream last night: I met Jannat and her little boy of impossibly long eye-lashes, a sweet late child. I haven’t seen Jannat for about twenty-five years, but her presence and her smile was very vivid in the dream.

Male members of the Achuar community often drink ayahuasca tea which is made from a hallucinogenic plant to induce dreams. Apparently, in the 1980s Achuar elders and shamans started having visions about an imminent threat coming from the outside world. (This was roughly the time when the international oil companies caused a lot of damage to the Achuar communities living across the border in Peru.) They decided that they would take charge and set the rules of engagement with the outside world. They founded the National Federation of Indigenous People and were looking for opportunities to start sustainable economic enterprises.

The founder of an Ecuadorian tour company shared their vision. Carlos Perez Perasso was also a dreamer. He was prepared to invest a huge amount of money into building the eco-lodge and running it for about a decade before the Achuar took over full management of the jungle hotel in 2008. 

The cabins at the lodge were built following the construction principles of the Achuar, which meant that the builders used no nails and only very few metal parts. Palm fronds were used for the roof, wooden pegs and vines** keep the floor boards in place.

However, since everything is made of natural materials, the cabins and communal buildings are aging fast. The palm-thatched houses of the Achuar usually last about ten years. In the oval-shaped Achuar house the fire is always on: they push a couple of tree trunks together and light them. There are no big flames and the fire is quietly smouldering all day. 

 Logs arranged in star shape

There are no holes in the roof that is about 4 metres above so the smoke stays inside longer and impregnates the palm leaves. Even so, the thatched roof will start leaking and the houses may collapse after a decade.

When this happens, the community often leaves the village and starts a new settlement. The rain forest quickly takes over and in a few months’ time the man made structures rot away and decompose: there will be no trace left of the community apart from the memories they take with them. Since there are no rocks or stones in the rain forest, they cannot, and do not really wish to, erect monuments that will stand for hundreds of years.

In his book on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi mentions that tribal chiefs and shamans sometimes decide that it is time for the community to move on, usually when they feel that its members have become apathetic and ran out of steam. The elders want to re-create the state of flow that is part of starting a new life and re-energize the community in the process.

Shamans are still very powerful. They are both respected and feared members of the community and their knowledge is often passed down from father to son. Last Friday, while I was teaching at the high school, a staff member at the lodge had a call from “outside” that his little girl was very sick. Fortunately, there was a flight that day and although passengers were coming in, no one was going out and he was able to fly to Shell. He took the long bus ride to the town where his wife lives with their three children. The whole family then went to Puyo to see a shaman friend there.

“What did he do?” I ask him. “He drank some ayahuasca***, and five minutes later he said that my daughter had a problem with her stomach. He started fanning her with a leaf to drive away the evil spirits. A little while later, he sucked the illness out of her stomach.” “Did she get better?” “Almost at once. The fever went down and the diarrhoea was gone.” 

What can I say? It looked like my earlier textbook question “And what happened at the hospital?” was completely out of place as well as totally inappropriate.

Good night.

*To tell the truth, I did not need any Wayus leaves the day I arrived. It was probably something I ate in a restaurant in Shell. The purging effect was drastic and lingered on for about a week until I decided taking an Immodium type medication left behind by some kind Austrian tourists. One pill and the diarrhoea was gone. Who can tell whether the stomach upset had just run its course or it was the Immodium that helped?

**lián

*** tea made from a hallucinogenic plant

We arrived in a tiny Cessna 182 that takes 3 passengers and the pilot. 
This plane is somewhat bigger.
 

Deep in the Amazonian Jungle

(In my last blog from Ethiopia, I said I was going to set up a community radio for street kids in Cuenca, Ecuador. It didn't quite turn out that way. It turned out better.) 

For those of you who might be interested in the Ethiopian story: 

http://ebekes.vso-stories.net

Kapawi Lodge

“I’ve found the perfect job for you,” says Agi in her e-mail. When I click on the link for Kapawi Ecolodge, I have a vague, familiar feeling. I have seen this place before when surfing the net and looking for voluntary placements in Ecuador. I remember being fascinated by the job: teaching English in a remote Amazonian village to members of the Achuar tribe and being able to spend every second weekend at their ecologically sustainable jungle lodge. The snag was that the organizers of the programme expected the volunteers to cover their air fares as well as make a contribution to the cost of their board and lodgings. A lot less favourable arrangement than what I had in Ethiopia with VSO… I looked longingly at the mysterious lagoon surrounded by the traditional, oval lodges covered by palm fronds and then forgot about it all.

But now I was already here in Ecuador and apart from the university module on Action Research that I was asked to run in November, I didn’t have much to do. Two hours after Agi’s e-mail hit my mailbox, my application form and my CV was on its way to the organizers. The following day I was sent some more information and on the third day I was offered the job. It possibly only happened, because the volunteer lined up for the job had to cancel in the last minute and the placement had to be re-advertised. My experience and the fact that I was available at short notice probably worked in my favour.

“Next you will be teaching English to Russian astronauts on the MIR space station,” said my brother when he heard about the new assignment. “Did you say your malaria pills had no side effects like nightmares and delusions when you took them in Ethiopia? I am not so sure…” says a friend jokingly when I tell him that I am going to the jungle and will need to start taking Lariam again.

And here I am. In a spacious bungalow with mosquito nets, a proper bathroom with shower and a flush toilet, a deck chair and other basic, but comfortable pieces of locally carved, wooden furniture. Drafting my first newsletter deep in the jungle from where it takes 10 days to walk back to civilization. Or a 50-minute flight in a tiny Cessna 182 that takes three passengers and the pilot.

That was Monday morning. The flights leave from Shell, a small frontier town that had its heyday in the 1970s when oil was discovered in the Amazon area and the oil companies scrambled for concessions. They are now gone but they left behind a civil aviation base, since most of the Amazonian communities can only be reached by plane. The Achuar community have their own airline with a fleet of 3 small planes, but this time round the young German couple and myself flew by another local company.

“Get in, sit down, shut up and hang on”, says the label stuck above the instruments next to the pilot. We were wearing earphones to block out the engine noise and did nothing but grin at each other with Liana and Daniel as the vast expanse of the Amazonian jungle and its slow, meandering rivers came into view. From above, the rainforest looks flat, but one of my students, an Achuar guide has already told me that when he takes his 24-day holiday entitlement after working without a break for 32 days, he walks for three days to get back home to his own community climbing mountains, crossing rivers and trudging swamps.

Arrival

We land in a community called Kusutkau. This is where the new community teacher, who is due to arrive soon from Britain, will live. And this is where I would be living had I… Right now I am glad that I will be the permanent fixture at the lodge, rather than the fortnightly visitor.

There is a breezy, palm covered hut next to the air strip; a group of Belgian tourists are sitting around drinking tropical fruit juice and water. Soon we are taken down to the motor-boat, a narrow canoe covered by plastic sheeting. It’s a 30-minute ride to the lodge where we are greeted by the Achuar manager. There is a wooden boardwalk that takes us from the river through the jungle to the cabins. We walk past the staff quarters; I have a quick, sideways look, because I was told that if the lodge gets very busy, I might be asked to move in there.

But right now it looks like low season. It’s just me, (and I am not considered to be a guest but a member of staff, anyway) the German couple and a Japanese lady whose status I cannot work out for days, because she is not staff, but neither is she a conventional guest, because she eats with us in the staff canteen and appears to be very much at home. “I’ve been coming to Ecuador for 20 years”, she tells me. I’ve known my guide for thirteen and I used to know the manager’s father as well. He was a guide before he retired, just like Angel.” Etsuko is fascinated by Ecuador. She is a pension fund manager back in Japan, but makes her escape from the treadmill of her life to Ecuador at least three times a year. It’s hard to judge how old she might be, but when I ask her if she would consider living here permanently after she retired, the look on her face says that it might not be imminent.

Yesterday

My three-month cycle starts exactly on 1st October. After lunch I have a meeting with the manager, Angel, who tells me about the staff and their daily schedule. It looks like I will be teaching either small groups of two or three people or have individual sessions. We decide that I will come to the staff meeting every morning and confirm my classes for the day. “And tomorrow we can go to Kapawi community,” says Angel, “so that you can get to know the school where you will be teaching on Mondays and Fridays.” “Can we go on Wednesday? I think it’s important to get started with the classes over here tomorrow. People have seen me today, so they expect me to start the lessons soonish.” He considers then nods.

“Teacher, when are we starting our lessons?” asks someone at dinnertime. “Yesterday”,* I reply without giving it a thought if this makes any sense to them. And there could be at least one person in the canteen who may think: “Good God, they’ve sent us an English teacher who doesn’t know the difference between “yesterday” and “tomorrow”.

And when it comes to getting started, I probably don’t.

*Implies urgency: “I need it yesterday.” = Mar tegnap is keso lett volna.

All images by courtesy of the Achuar language teaching programme 

Typical Achuar house - ovel shaped, no walls, covered by palm fronds