Backstory: Janet joined WOW! on our adventure to Ecuador, where we stayed at well-known ecolodge, Kapawi. Her story is quite fascinating … it’s truly a small world!

 

Dear Marilyn,

I had to send you this story, which happened just a week ago practically on the anniversary of our visit to Kapawi. My husband and I were attending an Episcopal Church Conference here in the mountains of Western North Carolina. A man sat down beside us who spoke no English, but he did speak Spanish and we happily tried out the little Spanish we knew. He said he was an Episcopal priest from Ecuador. We were surprised, as we think of Ecuador as being mainly Roman Catholic. Was he from Quito? No, from a little town called Puyo –had we ever heard of it? In the Amazon Basin? Well yes, I said! I had visited a wonderful place not far from there called Kapawi. His eyes lighted up. He is an Achuar, he told us, and of course he and all Achuars are proud of Kapawi!

His Achuar name is Chumpi Tsamarin. When the conference ended, he came up to me with a beautiful necklace handmade from seeds for “the only person at the conference who had heard of Kapawi and the Achuar!” In the photo you can see his red and yellow crown of Toucan feathers – but you can’t see that under his suit coat he is wearing a Kapawi guide shirt! Actually he is not a guide, but he says his daughter is, and he actively promotes Kapawi. In fact, a New York Times travel reporter interviewed him in Puyo in October at the time of the opening of a new rainforest camp for tourists. Apparently it will expand the experience offered at Kapawi, which is now fully owned by the Achuar tribe.

According to the article, Luis Vargas is the Achuar’s first president and has also “led the political organization representing all nine of Ecuador’s Amazonian indigenous groups.” Given all this, we were quite surprised when we learned that he was not being hosted during his stay – and even more surprised when he accepted our invitation to show him around a bit after the conference ended. We took him to a beautiful trio of waterfalls at Dupont State Park. He told us that the Achuar believe there is great power in waterfalls and that the spirits of the ancestors dwell in the mist from the falls. People will hike to the waterfalls and sleep all night in the mist to absorb the strength of the Achuar spirits. He was interested that there were trout in the river and wanted to know if we used nets or spears to fish. He took great interest in a man who was fly-fishing, but I’m not sure he left very impressed as the poor man’s fly kept getting stuck in the rocks at the river bottom.

Then we drove into Asheville for a fast tour of Biltmore House, the local tourist attraction which is the largest private residence in the U.S. (it was a bit difficult to try to explain that this virtual castle was built just for one single family.). We went to downtown Asheville where we found a place that served us mountain trout, sweet potatoes, and squash. Over dinner he told us how he had come to be an Episcopalian priest. He is about 60 years old – with eight children and 17 grandchildren (currently just one wife as far as we can tell.) So we were trying to imagine what it was like in the 1950s when he was a little boy.

As we learned at Kapawi, the Achuar were so isolated that they weren’t even visited by anthropologists until the mid-1970s. Missionaries began to move in in the late 1950s and 1960s. He told us that the Achuar generally didn’t want to send their children to the mission schools, but they did send him off to a Catholic boarding school at age ten. That was because his father had died, his mother had married into another family, and he was essentially an orphan. He cried for days because he didn’t understand a word of Quechua or Spanish – the two languages spoken at the school. Because of the enormous distances and his lack of money, he wasn’t able to go home for eight years – but at the end he could read and write and was tri-lingual. (He doesn’t, however, know any English, so our minimal Spanish got a good workout).

The entire Achuar tribe has only about 5,700 people, and because he is one of the few in his age group who can read and write, he has often been called upon to help negotiate with outsiders. In that role he has traveled all over the world. But that’s getting ahead of the story. After finishing school, he served for two or three years in the military, then got married – but his wife died (possibly in childbirth.) He was young – still in his early twenties. He heard that he could get training at one of the trade schools being set up in Chile during the time of Salavador Allende, so he headed for Chile.

He was enrolled as a student in one of those schools at the time of the coup in 1973. The school was attacked and all but 30 of the 100 students there were killed. Luis escaped with a group of five other young men. They traveled on foot by night, not eating or sleeping, desperately trying to make it to the border. They encountered a sympathetic family who fed them but urged them to keep moving because of the danger. After traveling for miles in this way they came across a woman working in a field. She looked up and saw them.

At this point while telling his story, Luis broke into tears. For several minutes we were in suspense — just as he and his companions had been at the time — wondering what would happen. Would she be sympathetic? Would she summon family and neighbors to shoot them? They cried for joy when she welcomed them. She hurried them into her house, where she fed them and told them the news. That’s when they learned how lucky they were. Only 30 students from their school had survived, but virtually all 100 of the students at a second trade school had been slaughtered. The woman summoned her son, who was a farmer and who was going to be driving to the border with some farm products and asked him to hide them in his truck. They hid under layers of tarps, not daring to breathe as they passed through three checkpoints. The truck was inspected every time, but somehow they made it across the border.

Back home in Puyo, the only major town in the Amazon, Luis took a wife – just 15 years old at the time – and they had a child. As he reflected on his survival, he felt it was a miracle, and he gradually realized that he wanted to become a priest. The trouble was – Roman Catholic priests can’t marry. But a friend told him about another church where you could become a priest even if you were married. That’s how he heard about the Episcopalians. The Episcopalian ritual is really very similar to the Catholic. The Episcopalians were thrilled to have a convert and helped put him through seminary. He and his young wife agreed to have a formal Christian wedding ceremony. And that is how he became a fully ordained Episcopalian priest.

Over the years he has been a strong advocate for the Achuar in trying to develop tourism as an alternative to oil company development. He travels frequently, but also visits his relatives in “la silva” — the rainforest. His wife manages a restaurant in Puyo, and he lives with a large extended family surrounding him.

Had I not traveled with WOW! to Ecuador, I would never have had this experience! What a wonderful connection and treat to be able to share so much by this experience.

Sincerely,

Janet Riddell Bingham