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