My Huaorani Obsession Continues


I am living, eating and breathing Huaorani these days it seems. 


The following are bits and pieces that I came across today on the net while researching the question of  whether Missionaries do more harm than good.


I know which side I fall on but if I decide to speak to a church group as I was asked to do I should review and weigh all sides of this complex story.


This article in Wikipedia "Operation Auca" deals with the killing of five missionaries by the  Huaorani in 1956.


"The deaths of the men galvanized the missionary effort in the United States, sparking an outpouring of funding for evangelization efforts around the world. Their work is still frequently remembered in evangelical publications, and in 2006 was the subject of the film production End of the Spear. Several years after the death of the men, the widow of Jim Elliot, Elisabeth, and the sister of Nate Saint, Rachel, returned to Ecuador as missionaries with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International) to live among the Huaorani. This eventually led to the conversion of many, including some of those involved in the killing. While largely eliminating tribal violence, their efforts exposed the tribe to exploitation and increased influence from the outside. This has caused Huaorani culture to begin to disappear, but anthropologists argue over the ultimate effect—some view the missionary work as cultural imperialism, while others contend that the influence has been beneficial for the tribe."


"The Huaorani, also known by the pejorative Aucas (a modification of awqa, the Quechua word for "enemies"), were an isolated tribe known for their violence, against both their own people and outsiders who entered their territory.

Huaorani

The Huaorani around the time of Operation Auca were a small tribe occupying the jungle of Eastern Ecuador between the Napo and Curaray Rivers, an area of approximately 20,000 square kilometers (7,700 mi²). They numbered approximately 600 people, and were split into three groups, all mutually hostile—the Geketaidi, the Baïidi, and the Wepeidi. They lived on the gathering and cultivation of plant foods like manioc and plantains, as well as fishing and hunting with spear and blowgun. Family units consisted of a man and his wife or wives, their unmarried sons, their married daughters and sons-in-law, and their grandchildren. All of them would reside in a longhouse, which was separated by several miles from another longhouse in which close relatives lived. Marriage was always endogamous and typically between cousins, and arranged by the parents of the young people.^[1]
Before their first peaceful contact with outsiders (cowodi) in 1958, the Huaorani fiercely defended their territory. Viewing all cowodi as cannibalistic predators, they killed rubber tappers around the turn of the 20th century and Shell Oil Company employees during the 1940s, in addition to any lowland Quechua or other outsiders who encroached on their land.^[2] Furthermore, they were prone to internal violence, often engaging in vengeance killing of other Huaorani. Raids were carried out in extreme anger by groups of men who attacked their victims' longhouse by night and then fled. Attempts to build truces through gifts and exchange of spouses became more frequent as their numbers decreased and the tribes fragmented, but the cycle of violence continued.^[3]

Aftermath

Life magazine covered the deaths of the men with a photo essay, including photographs by Cornell Capa and some taken by the five men before their deaths. The ensuing worldwide publicity gave several missionary organizations significant political power, especially in the United States and Latin America. Most notable among these was the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), the organization for which both Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint worked. Because of the martyrdom of her brother, Saint considered herself spiritually bonded to the Huaorani, believing that what she saw as his sacrifice for the Huaorani was symbolic of Christ's death for the salvation of humanity. In 1957, Saint and her Huaorani companion Dayuma toured across the United States and appeared on the television show This Is Your Life. The two also appeared in a Billy Graham crusade in New York City, contributing to Saint's increasing popularity among evangelical Christians and generating significant monetary donations for SIL.^[26]

Saint and Elliot returned to Ecuador to work among the Huaorani, establishing a camp called Tihueno near a former Huaorani settlement. Rachel Saint and Dayuma became bonded in Huaorani eyes through their shared mourning and Rachel's adoption as a sister of the Dayuma, taking the name Nemo from the latter's deceased youngest sister. The first Huaorani to settle there were primarily women and children from a Huaorani group called the Guiquetairi, but in 1968 an enemy Huaorani band known as the Baihuari joined them. Elliot had returned to the United States in the early 1960s, so Saint and Dayuma worked to alleviate the resulting conflict. They succeeded in securing cohabitation of the two groups by overseeing numerous cross-band weddings, leading to an end of inter-clan warfare but obscuring the cultural identity of each group.^[27]

Saint and Dayuma, in conjunction with SIL, negotiated the creation of an official Huaorani reservation in 1969, consolidating the Huaorani and consequently opening up the area to commerce and oil exploration. By 1973, over 500 people lived in Tihueno, of which more than half had arrived in the previous six years. The settlement relied on missions aid from SIL, and as a Christian community set up by missionaries, all those living there were obliged to follow specific rules completely foreign to traditional Huaorani culture, most notably the prohibitions of killing and polygamy. By the early 1970s, SIL began to question whether their impact on the Huaorani was positive, so they sent James Yost, a staff anthropologist, to assess the situation. He found extensive economic dependence and increasing cultural assimilation, and as a result, SIL ended its support of the settlement in 1976, leading to its disintegration and the dispersion of the Huaorani into the surrounding area. SIL had hoped that the Huaorani would return to the isolation in which they had lived twenty years prior, but instead they sought out contact with the outside world, forming villages of which many have been recognized by the Ecuadorian government.^[28][29]

Christian views

Among evangelical Christians, the five men are commonly considered martyrs and missionary heroes. Books have been written about them by numerous biographers, most notably Elisabeth Elliot. Anniversaries of their deaths have been accompanied by stories in major Christian publications,^[30] and their story, as well as the subsequent acceptance of Christianity among the Huaorani, has been turned into several motion pictures. These include the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor (featuring interviews with some of the Huaorani and surviving family members of the missionaries) and the 2006 dramatic production End of the Spear, which grossed over $12 million.^[31] Even so, Christians have noted with concern the disintegration of traditional Huaorani culture and westernization of the tribe, beginning with Nate Saint's own journal entry in 1955 and continuing through today. However, many continue to view as positive both Operation Auca and the subsequent missionary efforts of Rachel Saint, mission organizations such as Mission Aviation Fellowship, Wycliffe Bible Translators, HCJB World Radio, Avant Ministries (formerly Gospel Missionary Union), and others. Specifically, they note the decline in violence among tribe members, numerous conversions to Christianity, and growth of the local church

Anthropologist views

Anthropologists generally have less favorable views of the missionary work begun by Operation Auca, viewing the intervention as the cause for the recent and widely recognized decline of Huaorani culture. Leading Huaorani researcher Laura Rival says that the work of the SIL "pacified" the Huaorani during the 1960s, and argues that missionary intervention caused significant changes in fundamental components of Huaorani society. Prohibitions of polygamy, violence, chanting, and dancing were directly contrary to cultural norms, and the relocation of Huaorani and subsequent intermarrying of previously hostile groups eroded cultural identity.^[27] Others are somewhat less negative—Brysk, after noting that the work of the missionaries opened the area to outside intervention and led to the deterioration of the culture, says that the SIL also informed the Huaorani of their legal rights and taught them how to protect their interests from developers.^[34] Boster goes even further, suggesting that the "pacification" of the Huaorani was a result of "active effort" by the Huaorani themselves, not the result of missionary imposition. He argues that Christianity served as a way for the Huaorani to escape the cycle of violence in their community, since it provided a motivation to abstain from killing.^[35]






The following is an excerpt from the web site Icarus Films 
http://icarusfilms.com/cat97/t-z/trinkets.html


( My notes: The man called Moi who is trying to unite the tribe against  the oil company Maxus is the man who I visited with in the late 1990's. The following f

ilm deals with encroaching oil company influence in Huaorani lands.

I was going to order the DVD until I saw the price $390.00!!!)

Trinkets and Beads  

A Film by Christopher Walker   

After twenty years of devastating pollution produced by oil companies in the Amazon basin of Ecuador, a new kind of oil company - Dallas based MAXUS - promises to be the first company to protect the rainforest, and respect the people who live there.

TRINKETS & BEADS tells the story of how MAXUS set out to convince the Huaorani - known as the fiercest tribe in the Amazon - to allow drilling on their land. It is a story that starts in 1957 with the Huaorani massacre of five American missionaries, moving through the evangelization efforts of Rachel Saint, to the pollution of Huaorani lands by Texaco and Shell, and then the manipulation of Huaorani leaders by MAXUS.

Now the Huaorani leader, Moi, is trying to unite the tribe in opposition to MAXUS. "It's not just about exploiting oil," says Moi, "it's about who controls the rainforest... it's everyone's concern because this is the heart of the world..."

Filmed over two years, TRINKETS & BEADS reveals the funny, heartbreaking and thrilling story of the battle waged by indigenous people to preserve their way of life. The story of how the Huaorani are attempting to survive the Petroleum Age on their own terms exposes hidden consequences of our relentless drive to "develop" the world.

"[The Huaorani] have developed considerable skepticism and sophistication about outsiders' intentions. This forceful documentary leaves the impression that accommodation will not prove easy."—The New York Times

"Upsetting and finally, infuriating... a fine work."—Peter Matthiessen, author of At Play In The Fields Of The Lord

"A heartbreaking tale, laden with harrowing images of waste and ruin, that shows how the rampant greed of oil companies has managed to destroy a once peaceful and pristine village in Ecuador."—Chicago Metromix

"An important film that should be seen by anyone concerned about the environment, first-third world relations, globalization, ethnology, and the role of missionaires. This film...helps us move closer to understanding how the common good [the entire earth and all its peoples] is to be incorporated into our decision-making. Unfortunately, it also makes you want to weep."—Bridges, An Interdisciplinary Journal

Best Documentary, 1998 Paris International Environmental Film Festival

1998 Award of Merit in Film, Latin American Studies Association

Best Cultural Survival Film, 1998 Telluride Mountainfilm Festival

Special Mention, 1997 Panorama of Ethnographic Film (Paris)

1997 International Festival of Ethnographic Film (Rio de Janeiro)

Gold Apple, 1997 National Educational Media Network

*****************************************************************************
Here is a LINK to TED.   There is a video and a transcript by Phil Borges.  His pronunciation lacks something but his heart is in the right place.
http://www.ted.com/talks/phil_borges_on_endangered_cultures.html

Hanging on to the Past


Once in awhile I have something so serendipitous happen to me that I just know I have a guardian angel.  My poor angel used to be very overworked trying to either keep me out of trouble or to rescue me if I got away while he was on  his lunch break. Yes, I know it is a him. And I once knew him very well.


Now that he is flapping around where ever angels flap he has devoted more attention to me than he did while he was earthbound. But that is the subject of another posting.


This time it was not a life-threatening situation but it was something that will make me very happy. I hope. That is where the finger crossing thing comes in.


It started out like this. I ran into a friend who began talking about a book that she had just read, "End of The Spear" written by Steven Saint I believe.   Steven is the son of the missionary Nathan Saint who was killed in the Amazon basin of Ecuador many years ago.  


As she spoke it seemed that she could be talking about the Huaorani tribe that I knew and wrote about in a previous posting way back in October 2009 under the title "Poems and Stories from Another Life Part II - Moi."


That chance meeting started off a chain of events that has me so excited that I had to write about it.  I went home and went on the net to see if I could purchase the book. It was then that I discovered that it had been made into a movie so I ordered the DVD. 


There were other treasures that dealt with the most fascinating people I have ever met.  I ordered another movie "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" and a few books. The movies and one of the books arrived the other day.  What gorgeous photos of the tribe...some of whom I had met in 1996 when I travelled to the Shiripuno River to visit them.


Today I watched both movies, Gates was more of a documentary than the End of the Spear one.  I became totally engrossed in both of them even though they are a different branch of the Huaorani than the ones I knew. I also saw a different (slanted?) side of missionaries than I previously had been introduced to.


I am no fan of the kind of missionaries or other people who go in to "convert" (meaning tell them that everything they have been doing and believing for the past thousand years or so is wrong) people who are living in peace and harmony with nature. Especially when the word they are bringing crushes the beautiful innocence of these people, shames them into wearing clothing and seeks to obliterate their own rich and wondrous belief system.  I have heard too many stories first hand from various tribes regarding their treatment at the hands of various missionaries to be anything but sad when I hear of these encounters.


If these movies are true then, yes, the missionaries persuaded the tribes people not to kill each other and other tribes people, and brought them medicine. They also brought them diseases previously unknown to them which wiped them out quicker than the killing did!


In fact I just came across an entry in Wikipedia today regarding this missionary/tribal encounter.
"The deaths of the men galvanized the missionary effort in the United States, sparking an outpouring of funding for evangelization efforts around the world. Their work is still frequently remembered in evangelical publications, and in 2006 was the subject of the film production End of the Spear. Several years after the death of the men, the widow of Jim Elliot, Elisabeth, and the sister of Nate Saint, Rachel, returned to Ecuador as missionaries with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International) to live among the Huaorani. This eventually led to the conversion of many, including some of those involved in the killing. While largely eliminating tribal violence, their efforts exposed the tribe to exploitation and increased influence from the outside. This has caused Huaorani culture to begin to disappear, but anthropologists argue over the ultimate effect—some view the missionary work as cultural imperialism, while others contend that the influence has been beneficial for the tribe."


In the book, "Spirit of the Huaorani" one of the tribe is quoted as saying of the missionaries something like this, " When  you came here I had my land and you had your bible. You taught me to close my eyes and pray. When I opened my eyes you had my land and I had your bible."


The next thing I knew I was rooting through a box of old VHS tapes wanting to immerse myself in the videos of my trip.  About 4 or 5 years ago, when my movie camera died,  I had them transferred from the original camera tapes to VHS. At the time I  was told that because I had not stored the movie camera tapes properly and the sound and date portion had been destroyed.  I said, go ahead anyway as at least I can see the places I visited.


I got the two VHS tapes out, put one in the machine and began watching.  Shock and sorrow were my only reaction. the tapes had deteriorated to the point where there were only tiny fragments of movie and the rest was blue or grey patches.


Something spurred me on to see if I could either buy a machine to transfer them - bad as they were - to disk.  I have a "thing" about preserving the past. Sometimes to my detriment since I tend to get stuck back there in often painful moments.


The software and instructions to hook up my VHS machine to my computer and thence to my DVD burner cost $80.00  Would I ever need it again? Was there another way to do this?  More calls and many price comparisons later I found what sounded like the right person for me and made an appointment to bring my tapes in.


I gathered up the tiny movie camera tapes (8 of them) and the bad VHS tapes they have been copied to. Plus about 3 that were 18 years old but still in better shape than the newer ones I had had copied "professionally". 


To make a long story short the movie camera tapes were intact! There was nothing wrong with the sound at all, nor the dates.  These will be copied once again but to a disk.


Obviously I had been lied to and cheated the first time around.  Now I am not the kind of person to take this lightly.  I will track down the SOB who almost made me lose a part of not just my history but the history of the disappearing Huaorani tribe.


I for one never can understand why a person will lie to you for the sake of a few bucks.  All he had to say was I am sorry I do not have the equipment to copy these properly. 


Perhaps I am not the only dissatisfied customer for his shop is closed  and he now operates out of his home.  I can't find it in the phone book now.  Lucky him because  I was thinking to give him a piece of my mind.  Lucky me too as I have so little left to spare!


He would probably like to tell you that he lost his business because Wal-Mart came to town. I wonder.


Hanging on to the past, even when some people think it is damaged can be a good thing sometimes.

Down to earth - for real

Yep. It's that time of year.  The garden is screaming for attention. And I have been down to earth and wallowing for real.

In early spring I hired a young neighbour to dig up some sod for me to enlarge two of the vegetable gardens.

After he extended the East garden by the several foot wide strip you can see here (the long strip at the right side that is not yet covered with straw) he moved on to enlarge another garden on the South side.

After finishing this job the six foot tall 250 pound 21 year old neighbour boy laid down his shovel, proclaiming the work was too hard.

Then  MY hard work began. I had to take out the rocks he left in the soil and replace the good top soil that he took away with the sod. 

But I caught a break when I discovered that the old sod from a couple of seasons ago was now nice new crumbly composted soil. So that was a bonus as I did not need to purchase any.

I ended up shovelling thirty wheelbarrows full and distributing it between the newly enlarged gardens. Once that was mixed with dozens of bags of peat moss, black earth and manure I felt it was ready. And just in the nick of time -  as it was now the beginning of June. It had been dry and very hot. But as soon as I got all the veggies in the rains came like a wonderful gift from the heavens. They have continued for several weeks on and off.

Here is the South garden with a view of the tomato plants.  I went nuts this year and bought thirty two of them!  But you never know. The first year I had eight plants and had just about enough tomatoes frozen to get me through the winter.  The second year I had 15 plants but because of blight I got hardly enough for half the winter. So far this year things are looking good - weather-wise.

In addition I put in about 50 potatoes, planting them in shallow holes with dead leaves and pine needles added, then piling straw on top.

If this works you end up with easily harvested potatoes with no loss due to cutting with the shovel when you harvest. You can just move the straw aside and pull a few out! And very little digging at all as you just keep pulling the straw up with your hands and tucking it around the leaves as they emerge.  I am excited to see if this works. Here are a couple of potato sprouts pushing through.

In this East garden are also hundreds of onions and garlic, leaf lettuce, radish, spinach and Giant Red Asian mustard. And peas!

Here they are clinging to an old farm gate that I found behind the barn.  Forms a little privacy fence too.  You can see the difference a month makes.

If Peter C Tail allows it I will share the wealth with neighbours, friends and maybe even the food bank.  The little darling had already mown down a third of my peas before I put up chicken wire.

I did an experiment in January with Winter Sowing of a number of seeds.  I cant sow seeds inside my house as I have not enough room or the proper light. So I chose wintersowing.  Out of 40 different types about 15 came up.  Of those about 12 survived till I got them planted. Originally I had them against the west fence where they would not be blown over and would get plenty of sun.  But when spring arrived I didnt want to impede the growth of the other plants that they were sitting on top of so I moved them to a little greenhouse which I placed on the back porch.  Up came a big wind and down went the greenhouse spewing the seeds all over the sidewalk. I scooped them up as best I could and miraculously most survived. I see that they should have been transplanted to a larger container and fertilized as they are very tiny.  Next year I will try again.

If you are interested in learning about Winter Sowing check out the original website. It is very informative. Try keying in Wintersown.org

Happy Gardening to all.

Bokashi Cycle for food and pet waste

We don't have garbage pickup where I live. This has encouraged me to flex my already well-developed recycling muscle. I want to make as few trips to the dump with smelly garbage in the back of my car as I possibly can.

As I mentioned earlier red wiggler worms compost my vegetable scraps and newspapers. Some bulkier things like avocado pits and melon rinds I put in the outside compost bin and wait years for them to degrade to the point where I can use them. I have actually had better luck just leaving a very informal pile on the ground.  Perhaps it is because the naturally occurring soil microbes have easier access to the material. I have tried wrapping food waste in newspapers to add the "brown" or carbon element. I add a few shovels of earth but still it is maddeningly slow. Plastic, heavy cardboard and metal go to the dump along with non-compostable meat and bones.

The only thing that is problematic for me is the kitty litter and cat waste. Some people flush that down the toilet but I am on a septic system and that was not an alternative for me. Trekking the heavy bags of excrement to the dump was a decidedly unpleasant job. Adding it to my outdoor compost pile was smelly and meant that I could not use the compost on food crops. But today I think I may have stumbled upon an acceptable solution in the Bokashi system of fermentation.

The link to the Bokashi site is
http://www.bokashicycle.com/howitworks.html

Don't let the particularly amateurish videos put you off. There is some interesting information contained therein if you give it a chance.

I was so convinced that I was almost ready to order the special packets of culture. But then I got to thinking. What are they really selling?  I had already pretty much decided that I didn't need their fancy plastic storage items, dispensers or buckets - all stuff that is readily available at the dollar store for a lot less money.

So I got to thinking what is the magic ingredient and how can I "DIM" (Do it Myself)?  As you may have gathered  I am a person who likes to beat the system.  So I did some more looking and found this fascinating site.
http://www.wildlifegardeners.org/forum/fertilizing-soil-amendments/1292-extreme-bokashi-make-your-own-innoculant.html

It seems making your own involves messing about with newspaper, rice water and skim milk. All readily available items.

I guess what it all boils down to is this. How much work am I (or you) willing to do?  Would I prefer to fool around making my own innoculant or would I prefer to haul bags of poop to the dump. Of course I could always order the innoculant but my Scots blood balks at that. Hmmm.

I will let you know what I decide.

It has been awhile since I have updated my page.  But recently I saw a picture on the net that struck me like a lightning bolt.

Perhaps even as far back as the Garden Of  Eden man has been waging a battle to protect his precious bulbs from squirrels.

I personally have had a modicum of success by burying cat hair, or even my own hair, just over the bulb.

Members of the on line garden club I belong to have been sharing suggestions which included a motion sensitive device that you attach to a hose.

But this picture I saw poses an ecologically safe method as well.  I call it the Marie Antoinette Solution. You may remember that Marie was famous for her expression, "Let Them Eat Cake"!

And hey this might even keep them away from the bird feeders.

Since this picture was circulating freely as part of one of those "cute pictures of animals" emails and the photographers name was not included I am unable to give credit.

Protest

THOUSANDS GATHER TO PROTEST GLOBAL WARMING

I recently received this clever photo in my inbox.  Now I wonder if each of us spent as much time on making some small changes in our life that would alleviate global warming as we do on sending jokes making fun of it perhaps we could find a way to slow it down.

I guess there are still some who do not believe that there is a crisis. Those would be the people who also don't believe that keeping things out of land fill by trying to recycle where possible and composting food wastes will help the cause.

And they would rather allow a tap to drip for years wasting tons (yes tons)* of water instead of going out and buying a 20 cent washer to install.  Or using a clothes dryer rather than hanging their clothes in the fresh air and sunshine. Leaving lights and appliances such as TV's, computers, printers, radios on in rooms where there are no human inhabitants. I don't know but I guess these would be the same people who protest about the high cost of their hydro bills.

They might even be the same ones who still water their lawns. That would be to soak in the weed killing poisons they just applied.  The sooner to reach all our water supplies.

But ask the people in Bolivia who have seen a mountain top glacier shrink from miles wide and  hundreds of feet deep to a small patch of slush in only a few decades.  Boo hoo where will the tourists ski now?  In addition to causing the loss of tourist dollars this inconsiderate glacier is now threatening the water supply of many villages below.

My aunt used to say, "Nothing lasts forever"  and I guess that is what is happening here. We thought we would always have plenty of fresh water and whales and elephants and rhubarb without any thought as to our role as stewards.

Creationists believe we were given dominion over the animals. I won't get into a debate here about who or what may have been responsible for this gross error in judgment  but rather say, for those who believe that man is superior to the beasts of the field then with superiority comes responsibility for their welfare. 

Like spoiled children who are handed everything without having to lift a finger we have used it all up and looked for more. But what if one day the larder was bare?

Evolutionists could say that it is the natural order of things just ticking along.

I am not going to argue with either one. Because no matter who is right we have been far too casual about our natural resources for far too long. If we expected that someone else would come along and fix the mess we "stewards" made that someone must be busy because they have not appeared.

Now when the resources are almost gone we are still denying there is a problem.

If you care about this sort of thing check out this link for all kinds of information http://www.treehugger.com/

Wake up people!

Author's Note:

A reader has commented (see full text in comments below) that he does not believe that MAN (his emphasis) created this crisis. He seems to believe it to be a natural phenomenon.  Whoa! Is he blaming it on a WOMAN; Mother Nature perhaps? 

Unlike him arguing with mine, I will not argue with his position since being a woman I am naturally biased.

I do however stand firmly by my assertions that we are shirking our responsibility to use our resources with care.

Like Pete Seeger said:

One man's hands can't tear a prison down,

Two men's hands can't tear a prison down,

But if one and two and fifty make a million,

We'll see that day come round,

We'll see that day come round.


This "many hands" theory can apply to anything so take some action no matter how small or insignificant it may seem.  You may not save the world from global warming but you will save some resources and save yourself a few bucks in the bargain on those hydro bills.

*Let's take one tap that drips at a rate of 1 liter in 1 hour, that's 24 liters a day, 720 liters a month, and 8,760 liters a year, almost 9 tons of water.  And that is just ONE tap.

Poems and Stories from another life - Part V - Pase del Nino

CHRISTMAS BELOW THE EQUATOR
By E. J. Brunton

In Cuenca, Ecuador, on December 24th we always celebrated with an afternoon parade of the “Nino Viajero”, or, literally, the traveling Christ child. Children are adorned in expensive, hand-embroidered, faux pearl and jewel-encrusted costumes. For several hours the streets overflow with these mini-Madonnas and Christ child replicas.

Horses, mules and burros are decked out with silver and leather bridles, strings of cookies, candies, fruits, vegetables, bottles of sugar cane liquor, and packs of cigarettes. Often the patient animals are ridden by whole roasted pigs or turkeys with paper money stuffed in their mouths. More often the rider is a local roasted delicacy known in Quichua as “cuye”. We Canadians know it as that cuddly household pet, the guinea pig, Recent entries to the scene are imported canned or bottled goods which are also strung on the
animals as a sign of significant wealth.

Each year a family will elect to decorate their horse for the event. The following year an uncle or cousin will take on the challenge and must always try to double or outdo what his predecessor has done. I imagine that explains why 16 wheeler trucks are beginning to replace the noble horse in recent years. Horses would stagger under the burden of such wealth.

Indigenous children in native costume perform a dance not unlike the English maypole dance. Each dancer, holding a colorful ribbon, weaves his way through intricate steps while winding and then unwinding the ribbons as he retraces his steps. Accompanying the dancers are groups playing the “rondador” (pan flute) cow hide drums, strings of shells, “bocina” (a several yards long instrument made partially from cow horn), and tiny ukulele-like instruments formed from entire armadillo hides called “charangos”.

Village bands from outlying areas playing tubas, drums and trumpets consume quantities of contraband cane liquor as they compete with ghetto blasters clutched by the little Christ Child and Virgin Mary look-a-likes. Ironically the song was often Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.” No one seems to mind the cacophony.

Thirsty watchers quaff from a smeary communal glass, some dubious home-made liquids, carried in grimy pails by the vendors. The lone glass is carefully swished out after each use in the one bucket of murky water which will have to last throughout the entire parade.

Snow cones are made by shaving a huge block of ice with hand operated contraptions painted in gaudy hues. This device, accompanied by the ice and the bottles of sugary, brightly colored syrup flavorings, ambulates atop a three-wheeled bicycle. Others hawk tempting slices of pineapple, papaya, mango, sticks of sugar cane or refreshing coconut water served right in the shell.

The mingled aromas of shish-ka-bob like “chusos”, fried “llapingachos”(potato cakes), deep-fried, thinly sliced “chifles” of plantain and mouth watering slices from a whole roasted pig with its eyes, ears, hooves and tail intact, mingle to tickle your palate. You can have these on a take out basis, wrapped up in an environmentally friendly leaf, or you can eat at the stand from another communal dish. May I recommend the leaf?

At the end of the parade rides the long anticipated guest of honor; the tiny wooden Christ child. He is dressed in a silken robe encrusted with jewels. Accompanying him is a marching military band and some cavalry. This little statue was taken to Italy over 60 years ago to be blessed by the Pope, thus gaining Him the name of the traveling Christ Child.

Making your way home you catch sight of some of the participants straggling away from the parade followed by bands of  laughing children who try to steal the candies and cookies which
adorn the exhausted horses. I hear that the food is handed out to the needy after the parade.

After all Christmas is for sharing in any part of the world.

Poems and Stories from another life - Part V - The Bridge

The Bridge
by E. J. Brunton originally published in the Napanee Guide and Helium


On Christmas Eve 1999 I sought some solace in the blue- domed Cathedral on the main square in Cuenca. Monsignor Luna Tobar was in fine form. His voice echoed off the gold-encrusted walls and sorrowful plaster saints. This would be the last mass I would attend here as I knew I must leave Ecuador.

Outside, the poor and the disenfranchised crowded the darkened square. A cold wind wrapped itself around the portals of the ancient Cathedral. During mass shabby old women and barefoot youngsters plucked at our sleeves for a handout. Many of the well-dressed pious shooed them away with looks of disgust. I was incensed. Then and there I vowed I would do something to help them.

Next morning I hauled out Grandma’s big kettle and threw in lots of vegetables and meat for a hearty soup. While this bubbled away I made a pile of sandwiches and then struck off with the fragrant feast in the trunk of my car.

I headed for the bridge where a friend who worked with street kids told me I would find plenty of homeless people to feed. She warned me that they sniffed glue and might get a bit rowdy.

As I drove slowly up I saw a few kids on the grass near the Tomebamba River. With a little apprehension, I hailed them and opened the trunk. The rich aroma of the hot soup drew about a dozen ragged dirty boys. They had battle scars that they had sewn up with needle and thread as they couldn’t afford a doctor.

“Feliz Navidad! Who’s hungry?” I asked unnecessarily.

The boys crowded round, looking at me with curiosity, as I began to ladle the soup into plastic cups and hand out sandwiches. They wolfed this down and politely asked,

“Please Senora. May I have another sandwich? More soup Please?”

After their small brown puppy was fed, the leader of the boys asked if he could invite some nearby street cleaners and a family of 5 who were begging up at the corner.

“Of course!” I said, as I laded out more of the thick rich soup.

Another car drew up and the boys ran over. The window was rolled down just enough for the driver to thrust out a round loaf of the traditional fruity Christmas bread before the car sped off.

We sat on the curb for awhile talking about their life under the bridge. They slept in cardboard boxes with more flattened boxes and newspapers as a cover. They slept close together for comfort and warmth. They sniffed glue to forget the cold and hunger, and the pain of being alone on the streets.
When we parted, one by one the ragged boys hugged me. One said, “Senora. I asked myself today who will ever think of us on Christmas? Then you came along. How can we ever repay you?”

“Dios se lo pague,” said another; God will pay you.

Crossing the bridge to reach those boys had made my problems seem so insignificant. Their grateful smiles as they waved goodbye were all the payment I would ever need.

Poems and Stories from another life - Part V Loaves and Fishes

LOAVES AND FISHES

by E. J Brunton, originally published in the Napanee Guide



“Do you think you could take more than two little girls?” Sister Maria Jose asked hopefully.

I looked at Julio and he shrugged, “I don’t see why not."

“Wonderful!” cried the nun and she flew out of the cold drafty room of the Orphanage before we could change our minds.


That was Christmas Eve, 1992 in Cuenca, Ecuador. But the story began a month earlier when I was seized by an urge to make sock dolls. After I had about thirty done I wondered what to do with them. I called my sister-in-law and asked her advice.

“Why don’t you give them to an orphanage?” was her practical reply.

So that was how it started. I called the Orphanage and offered the dolls. The nun said they would be greatly appreciated but could I bring them a few days before Christmas as most of the little girls were going home for the holidays?

“They go home for the holidays? I thought they were orphans,” I exclaimed.

The Sister continued by way of explanation, “Yes, their families are poor and so they give them to us to feed and clothe and educate until they are 12. Of course there are some that don’t have families and they will be staying here. You couldn’t take a couple of them for Christmas could you?”

I was staggered at the rapidity of what was happening here. How had a few innocent sock dolls suddenly morphed into real little dolls coming to spend the holidays with us?

At the agreed upon time we went to the orphanage to leave the dolls and to meet the little girls who would come home with us on Christmas Eve.

All of these Spanish Colonial buildings began to blur into one after awhile. They sullenly sat at the very edge of the narrow sidewalks, bordering the marble-cobbled streets.

Hermano Miguel, as the orphanage was called, was typical of these fortress like structures. Its four foot thick adobe walls had stood the test of tempests and earthquakes. The large wooden doors were studded with brass nails and deeply carved. A hole cut into the door at eye level was covered in a sturdy mesh screen so that you could communicate with the concierge. The whole was locked up with an ancient wrought iron lock accessible only with a 3 pound key.

The concierge let us in and showed us to a drafty room overlooking the pleasant courtyard. There were roses and trees and benches. Nestled carelessly amongst the flowers were ancient pre Colombian pots.

We sat for a few minutes as a cool breeze blew stiffly in the open windows chilling us to the bone. The room was dimly lit with a single naked bulb suspended from the 18 foot ceiling.

Soon Sister Maria Jose arrived. She was starched and sharply defined but she had a mischievous look that I liked immediately. She greeted us briskly and then rushed off to gather the children.

After meeting the children we went shopping in the open air markets for warm sweaters, underpants, socks, candy and toys. My generous neighbours and my sister-in-law donated their children’s outgrown clothes for the rest of the kids at the orphanage.

On Christmas Eve afternoon we returned to the orphanage to pick up our two little charges. I had been thinking how strange it was that no forms had been filled out and the nun had not even asked our names, where we lived, what we did, or come to inspect where the little girls would be staying.

How different it was from our paranoid, bubble-wrapped society and how dangerous it could have been. Never were we asked any of these questions in the months that ensued. It is easy to see why Latin America is one of the favorite spots to pick up street children for use and abuse in various horrible enterprises such as snuff films, in the organ trade, or smuggling drugs in their lifeless bodies.

Sister Maria Jose asked apologetically, “Do you think you could take more than two little girls?”

Before we had time to ask how many, she was gone and back in a flash with 6 little girls ranging in age from 4 years to 12 years old. They were freshly scrubbed and ready to go. Well, it would be crowded in our two guest beds but how could you choose which ones were to stay at the orphanage?

We took the girls out to the house that we were building in the country on a 5 acre lot that ran down to the river. The children gamboled about, climbing trees, picking avocados, oranges, lemons and capuli and teasing the dogs while we settled up the business of the Christmas baskets for the workers.

We had about six full-time men building the house and two ladies who were clearing the fields with hoes and old-fashioned sickles with cow-horn handles. The custom was to prepare a basket with cooking oil, sugar, rice, a live chicken, salt, a can or two of tuna, some dry noodles, a bottle of cane liquor and whatever else you could fit in.

Once the baskets were handed out, a drink shared and Christmas wishes exchanged. We prepared to leave. One of the ladies who had been clearing the field came rushing up. “No basket for us Don Julio? Not even a fruit bread? Since the ladies had only been working there for a couple of days we had forgotten about them.

We felt terrible so Julio said,” Jump on. I’ll give you Christmas dinner.” One of the ladies protested that she couldn’t go so Julio gave her some money. The other lady, Luisa, begged us to wait a moment while she ran home to clean up.

After about 15 minutes she returned. Following behind her were 6 small children ranging in age from a few months to 15 years old. The turkey we were having roasted at one of the local bakeries seemed to shrink in my mind. Could we possibly feed all these people? I should have asked Sister Maria Jose about how you did the loaves and fishes thing.

Julio was his usual calm self while I tried to squelch my mounting hysteria. Once home he picked up the phone to call our friend, the resourceful Manuel. Manuel loved a challenge and readily agreed to get some more food somewhere and I set about to prepare the vegetables that would go along with the turkey which Julio had gone to retrieve. My kitchen was thronged with excited children and Luisa was peeling potatoes in quantity.

I retired to a quiet corner with my own personal recipe for hysteria - a tumbler of neat rum . I counted our guests as I wondered how in the world we could come up with gifts not only for the orphans but also for the unexpected multitude. There would now be 16 people at the table or perched on the sofas and chairs. Suddenly I thought of the used clothing in my office. I wrapped up some of it for the unexpected orphans and gave the rest of it to Luisa.

Pandemonium was in full swing when Julio and Manuel arrived. Julio’s natural leadership skills got everyone organized with various tasks. The kids would set the table, Manuel would carve the turkey, I would just continue to drink. “Relax, you don’t have to do a thing,” he said refilling my glass.

Somehow dinner was served and everyone had their fill. It wasn’t loaves and fishes but it filled the bill.

What used to be called cheap
by E J Brunton originally published in the Napanee Guide 



Sometimes I do things that make my more lavish friends smirk and shake their heads. For instance, I really have to think twice to throw away a nice clean bag, be it paper or plastic.

I keep all those plastic margarine and cottage cheese tubs; save string and aluminum foil, cardboard, twist-ties and elastic bands. Christmas cards and envelopes become my note paper; unusual bottles hold flowers; tin cans with the juicy tomato picture still on them keep my pencils handy. Mesh onion bags stuffed with too small bits of wool and string can be hung in a tree as a handy dispenser for birds to choose their nesting materials.

Where did I get these strange habits? Well, long before recycling became the vogue my mother was the subject of much derision amongst her friends. She kept everything; neat piles of butcher paper, huge balls of string and jars of elastic bands. Little bits of soap were saved in a curious metal basket and swished around in the dishwater. Wrapping paper was ironed and reused till it became quite a valuable antique. Tea bags were dried (on previously enjoyed aluminum pie plates) for fertilizing what she jokingly called her “tea roses”. She even saved waxed cardboard milk cartons for freezing the trout that my father brought home. No drawing paper for me when there were plenty of nice clean cardboard pieces from inside the shirts my father sent to the drycleaner.

When her friends would smirk and ask her why she was saving all that old garbage my mother would say, “Well, maybe it’s my Scottish blood or maybe it’s because I lived through war and depression. Those days left an impression on me and I just can’t waste. Why throw out perfectly useable items that you get free everyday and then go and buy those same items?

You send me pies in aluminum tins and I send mine back to you in the same tins. And that bacon grease and bread crusts in old tin cans in the freezer? I remove the tin and put that mixture into an onion bag that I hang out for the birds in winter. My husband is glad to get the kitchen waste for his compost pile and Lord knows he has a wonderful garden that I’ve heard you admire.”

Mother passed away in 1988 but the habits she instilled in me have lived on. What used to be considered cheap is now considered not only chic but indispensable with shrinking space into which to put our garbage.

I can still remember her telling me that those friends who laughed at her saving ways would sometimes ask her for a loan. I hope she didn’t rub it in, when they came with hat in hand. “I’m just like Liberace,” she would say. “I’m laughing all the way to the bank!”

Note : After posting this article I found this blog from Gaiam with some interesting green gift wrap ideas at this link

http://life.gaiam.com/gaiam/p/Top-10-Green-Gift-Wrap-Ideas.html