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.