The Hemline

“And what exactly is your method when teaching English?” asks the lady from the States as we are waiting in Kusutkau for the flight to arrive from Shell. “I don’t have a special method, we just talk about things that they want to say in English. If they want to say ‘I am dying of love’, I help them say it.” The lady and her friends, as well as Omar laugh. Omar, the naturalist guide from Quito, has seen me in action when at 6 am in the morning I round up everybody in the staff canteen to sign up for the day’s English classes. “I can’t believe what I am seeing”, he says to our resident manager. “Elizabeth has just arranged for English classes for everyone. It took her about a minute and a half.”

Our English Classroom

Lessons usually start at 7 am in the dedicated English palm fronded hut that has a small whiteboard as well. When the young men from maintenance turn up, I can see that they are so sleepy they can hardly keep their eyes open. “I am very sleepy”, I write on the whiteboard. Silvio and Freddy repeat it without much thinking and a lot of yawning. “Why?” Shrugs. “Because I didn’t sleep well” I suggest. They dutifully copy it in their exercise books, although Freddy needs a bit of nudging with this. “Why?” I pursue. “Because my girlfriend left me”, says Freddy without missing a beat. I am astonished: this is something we learnt months ago. 

Deserted by girlfriends

At that time we were talking about being “happy” and “unhappy”. On that occasion they decided they were “unhappy” because their girlfriends had left them. Eduardo, Olger and Pablo’s father (as well as of seven more kids) is always in for a laugh and decides he is “happy” because his girlfriend has left him. (In fact, he has a delightfully intelligent wife in Wayusentsa, the community I decided to visit before I left for Cuenca to see if I could survive there later this year. I had to acknowledge that I couldn’t.)

But back to the dialogue about girlfriends deserting. “Why?” They shrug. Let’s try this, I suggest: “I don’t know. I have no idea.” And we end up with a meaningful, fun dialogue, parts of which they can use in other situations as well. Of course, we do a lot of work on “more useful” things like what to say to tourists who need a bigger pair of rubber boots or how to describe a bird of astonishing colours. But usually it is the “hemline” (the one that connects the heart and the mind) that guides my teaching practice.

This girlfriend issue confused me initially. Early on we were constructing short presentations about my adult students’ personal life including their marital status. When they said they were single, I did not go on to ask about any children. But soon it turned out that a lot of young men were single and still had children. What shall we call the children’s mother: girlfriend, partner or wife? Sometimes they were living together, sometimes not.

Another baby on its way

Then came the question of being married. Is someone with 9 children but without a civil marriage considered to be married? Obviously, that person is married in the eyes of the Achuar community and Arutam, the spirit of the jungle. Sometimes it turned out that someone had a family both in and out of the jungle. The number of children accordingly oscillated between four and eight.

Getting married according to Achuar traditions is very simple. The prospective husband’s parents visit the girl’s family and ask for her hand. If the parents agree, the couple is considered to be married. There is a festive meal, a lot of dancing combined with the consumption of a considerable amount of manioc beer (chicha) and the young people can start their life together as a married couple either staying in the girl’s or the boy’s community.

I say boys and girls, because they marry young. I remember one of my students telling me how his young sister of sixteen died in childbirth. She started bleeding and by the time they got her in a boat to take her to the health centre, it was too late. “And you had no idea that this was a complicated pregnancy?” I asked him. “She had no trouble with the previous three babies.” I could feel my heartbeat stop for a second and I bit my lip. “We buried her in the river and look after the child now.”

Offering chicha

The visit to Wayusentsa made me realize (not that I did not know it before) how hard everyday life must be for all members of the community, and especially the women. They have to look after large families without clean water and electricity. They do the washing in the river and boil water to drink, but the staple drink is chicha (made by the women every 3-4 days). The fermented and therefore mildly alcoholic drink is given to small children as young as two years old. It is considered to be safer and healthier than drinking water. When there is no food around, because the hunting or fishing was unsuccessful, the whole community drinks only chicha for days.

Achuar women keep the fire burning all day inside the huts that are very high (about six metres), but there are no holes or chimneys, so the smoke lingers close to the roof conserving the palm fronds and driving away mosquitoes and other insects. This is essential, as I found out during my weekend stay in the volunteers’ hut in Wayusentsa. Without this constant fumigation insects bite you viciously and you only notice afterwards.

Sai's image of hoatzins (many claim it's an award winning photo)

Perhaps it is only through Western eyes that life appears to be so hard. True enough, members of the Achuar communities are surrounded by an environment that takes your breath away. On the way up to Wayusentsa, we saw some of my favourite hoatzin birds and a pink river dolphin came up for air so close to the dugout canoe that Olger, Pablo and me could have stroked its head. Most of the time, the jungle supplies everything: fruits, vegetables, wild and grown, fish and animals to eat, medicinal plants and all the construction materials needed for the Achuar lifestyle.

Olger and Pablo - the smiley ones

When we arrived the meeting that takes place every three months was under way. The chief of the community, a young man and several elders were sitting at a desk under the huge, hangar-like common building with rows of benches arranged along the open sides and in the middle. The men were seated all around while the women were sitting at the back with buckets of chicha. Every now and then a lady would come round offering the manioc beer to their husband and others including myself. They had young babies tied to their backs in a multifunctional scarf and when they were not serving chicha they were breastfeeding, combing each other’s hair and looking for nits, chattering away as well as standing up and contributing to the debate in a rather forceful manner.

Doing the chicha rounds

The debate on issues concerning the community started hours before I got there. At some point I introduced myself and said that I came from Kapawi to find out more about their need for an English teacher. This happened in Spanish with the village chief translating my words for the benefit of the women who tend to speak little Spanish or none at all.

The discussion then continued and although I could not understand what was said, it was quite obvious that the debate on any topic lasted until everyone had a say and until they found a satisfactory solution that appeared to be acceptable to everyone. In a community of more than two hundred people it just wouldn’t work if there was a sizeable minority that could not go along with the decisions taken.

The Wayusentsa shaman

No wonder the meeting lasted all day. And restarted the next morning. I said goodbye around 10 am and we left with the community’s shaman who was to take me back to the Lodge. Another family came with us including six young children, a couple of relatives, pots and pans, a bucket of chicha, fishing lines and hooks, school books and clothing as well as the family pet, a small puppy.

Omar

We got back by lunchtime; Olger and Pablo had another hour’s walk through the jungle to get back to Kapawi community. As I waved them goodbye I remembered our conversation the evening before about what Olger wants to do with his life. “I want to be a naturalist guide like Omar” said Olger and I thought: if I could make this happen, my life would have been worth living.

I will keep you posted.

Good night.