Newsletter from the
Rainforest No 7
3:22 am. I’ve been awake for an hour and a half trying
to go back to sleep. The usual method of reading the monolingual Spanish
dictionary didn’t help; it only reinforced my impression that English and
Spanish are the same languages, you only pronounce the words differently. Not
true, of course, these days I am painfully aware that my knowledge of verb
conjugations is still rudimentary at best. (How many Spanish words in the above
paragraph, you may ask. I counted 21 including the word “counted”.)
Being up in this ungodly hour reminds me of a similar
spell of sleeplessness in Ethiopia. It lasted for about six months in my first
placement and then repeated itself in Aksum. Over here in the rain forest, it
is the fact that I will be leaving soon that makes me restless. I have about
six weeks at best to give the programme a big push and hand over to Geraldine,
who is arriving at the end of March.
I am lucky there is power at night. The head of our
maintenance unit decided that he would not turn off the light in my cabin at
9:30 pm. “Elizabeth needs electricity at night. I know she gets up early and
she is doing things for us”, he declared and our resident manager left it at
that. Even though I got used to the unpredictable power cuts in Ethiopia and
reach for the head torch or light the candles almost without thinking, it is a
bliss to be able to turn on the computer and listen to the printer as it goes
through the motions before it switches to standby mode.
And then I count my blessings: the radio cassette
recorder that I got from the programme organizers so that we can listen to the
audio recordings I make during the classes and the printer (only installed
yesterday) that came as a donation and allows me to print, scan and photocopy
without having to beg in the office or pray that the batteries at the high
school have enough power in them to print when I go there in the morning and it
is still overcast.
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| School assembly - grave faces, I think they were told off |
“It’s got worse these past weeks”, says Ines. “There
is no sun to feed the solar panels and the old batteries don’t store much
energy any more even when the sun is out.” I know what a terrible bottleneck
that is. The students cannot use the computer room, because even though there
are a good number of new computers, there is no power. We would need to replace
all fourteen batteries at the same time, each costing about 350 dollars. Other
people count sheep when they are sleepless, I count money. My friends and
family raised enough for one unit, Alan said he might be able to pay for one,
Geraldine started fundraising and may have the money for another, that’s three.
Out of fourteen.
But miracles do happen. One of the tourists who came
to visit the college sends me great photos of me and my students and asks me to
let her know if she could be of help. “Well, actually…” and there goes the
story about the batteries. “You know what, I have just heard from my landlord
in Germany. It looks like he will return my deposit after all. This is windfall
money. I decided to give it to your school”, comes the reply and I can’t
believe my eyes when I look at the figure: 1500 euros. I look for the currency
converter on the Internet and there it is: about 2000 dollars. We may have
enough money for ten units.
“Who produces or imports these blessed batteries?” I
am asking the deputy head, Wilmer, who is also the ICT specialist. “I think
they come from Spain, the importers are in Quito.” “Could you get in touch with
them and explain that we have the money for ten batteries and would they be
prepared to give us a discount or sell us the batteries at factory prices?”
Ines and Wilmer agree it’s worth a try. They have become good at asking for
things over the years. Only recently one of the major telecommunications
companies has been persuaded to install satellite internet at the high school.
“When exactly?” “Looks like the end of April. But we need the batteries for our
ordinary, daily operations.”
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| This is a parasite growing on a tree trunk |
Classes at the high school won’t start before next
week, so I have more time to spend with my students at the Lodge and follow up
an Achuar myth so that someone could include it in her forthcoming book on the
Achuar. (The proceeds from the sales will be going to the 64 tribal
communities. I think I argued convincingly when I said that channelling half of
that money to the high school would, in a roundabout way, help all the
communities by investing in their children’s education. Think batteries.)
JoAnne wanted to learn if there was a story about why
Achuar women cannot have more than one husband while Achuar men are free to
marry two or three women even today.
And the story goes like this.
In ancient times there were no people living on Earth.
The Sun (Etsaa) and the Moon (Nantu) were brothers who lived together like good
brothers do: they cared for and looked after each other. There were no people,
but there was one single woman and both brothers fell in love with her. They
could not decide who should marry her, so in the end both of them became her
husbands. However, their peace of mind was gone and they were fighting with
each other over the woman all the time. At last one of them said, “This won’t
do. We cannot be fighting endlessly over a woman. We will have to go our
separate ways.” So they both left the woman and decided that the Sun will work
during the day (providing daylight for the world) and the Moon will be shining
at night. In this way, they won’t ever meet again and will have no reason or
occasion to fight. However, Nantu, the Moon put a curse on the woman for the
loss of their brotherly love saying that in the future no woman shall have more
than one husband.
The myth reflects the fact that in the close-knit
Achuar communities men are very often brothers. Widows often marry their dead
husband’s brother, who will then look after the children as well.
As in many traditional societies, extramarital affairs
are not tolerated among the Achuar either. Starting such a relationship is an
absolute taboo and should a woman violate it, both her and her lover will be
killed by the husband or his friends or anyone the husband hires to do the job.
“About twelve years ago a woman and her lover were killed in our province and
five years ago another couple died in the neighbouring province, Morona
Santiago”, says one of my students. “Even today, if two men are in love with
the same woman, they will agree between themselves which one of them should
leave in order to keep the peace and avoid temptation.”
The taboo is powerful even after an Achuar couple is
separated (this does happen at times). Should the woman find another partner,
her ex-husband may come back and demand money in order to let her get on with
her life claiming that unless she pays for her freedom, she and her new partner
will be killed.
There appears to be no myth regarding why men can take
several wives. However, only few middle-aged Achuar men have more than one wife
these days, even though it was quite customary in their grandparents’
generation. “The first wife needs to agree if I want to bring a second woman to
the house and my wife is not keen on the idea at all”, says one of my students.
A myth would be helpful, though.
Good night.
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| Christmas Show about The Good and the Bad Shaman - another living story |
