The Mouth, Open Wide

A small fan beneath the table is directed at my already cruelly afflicted ankles creating such a breeze that no zancudos can get a foothold to take a bite. At least that is my hope. One of the meaty miscreations is hovering around the laptop screen as I type, no doubt searching for a pitted cave from which to launch its carnivorous attack. In a fit of passion I just moved a large fan directly behind my head. There is no hope for the beasts now.

Our time in Bogota for me began with an early morning game of Monopoly with James (8), my cousin Louise’s son. He won the game by placing the dice favourably when I wasn’t looking. Most of the spare time living with Louise & Diego was spent playing games. As soon as I momentarily looked like I could perhaps not be currently doing anything, James would appear with a hopeful, “Want to play a game?” Games were even found at the DIY store – “Which is your favourite dishwasher/hammer/toilet seat/light fixture…”

Later that day, as we were driving back from a supermercado where I’d found Froot Loops, we joined a highway at 50kmph or so alongside a galloping white horse pulling a cart. Its bulging eyes were level with my window.

The evening was spent at another cousin Steve’s house where he lives with his wife Helena and his daughters Ashley, Amy and Grace. It was Ashley’s birthday. Happy Birthday was sung in Spanish and English and we ate cake con tres leches – a moist cake with meringue topping. Steve was frying up some arepas (corn flour and cheese patties) which were amazing. We only managed to grab a couple before we had to go and collect my long lost father from the airport. Great to see him after 7 months, he was excited to join in the adventure. He arrived with another cousin Phil and his wife Maria, who live in Bogota with their kids Elsy and Daniel. They also have another daughter Heidi but she is currently in England engaged to an old friend of mine.

On Thursday 3rd June Phil took us to see Steve teaching at the Bible school. As it was in Spanish Phil was whispering a translation into our ears. He then took us into central Bogota where Hannah found a navy scarf just like the one she left on a plane in South Africa and has been pining after ever since. We visited the gold museum which was brimming with intricately fashioned South American golden artefacts. One room was pitch black when you entered and as the door was closed behind you strange chants began and then lights turned on sporadically to reveal a circular room of gold. The colours of light changed and throbbed as the chants wavered and grew in intensity. Strange. Arty! We next visited old Bogota with colourful walls and terracotta roofing. Lots of old cathedrals and Dad wanted to enter every one. We saw the government buildings and the President’s palace. These buildings were around a square packed with pigeons. Unsurprisiongly we turned around to find Dad lying on his belly photographing the birds. I think the locals were surprised. The corn selling lady hobbled over thinking she had a sure sale with Dad but he just got annoyed as she scared away the pigeons. We then went down a dead-end street to find lunch and were accosted by men shoving menus in our faces or carrying plastic sharks on fishing rods. Phil picked a restaurant and we took refuge inside it. The menu was discarded as Phil ordered the daily dish – much more food and much cheaper than anything on the menu. Chicken and mushroom soup came first followed by a dish of pork steak, chips, rice, tomato and fried yucca root. There was fresh lemonade and fruit salad on the side, all for a couple of pounds. Phil took us down to the poorer end of Bogota where souveniry type things could be bought but we didn’t find anything except a leather pouch for my penknife which I’ve been searching for the entire 8 months!! We tried a fruit called guama which came in a 30cm long seed pod an inch or two wide. Inside were a dozen large brown seeds wearing white furry coats. These coats were the fruit. It has a refreshing banana-ish flavour and is surprisingly juicy for something so furry. Later we tried palm fruits coated in salt which were yellow and tasted like a fibrous potato and finally a 10cm brown marshmallow 3cm thick which tasted of licorice and was made of cow hoof. Dad did not enjoy that, I think he almost cried. At a cafe a bit later on I was served a bag of water. Phil gave no guidance as I attempted to get it from the bag into the disposable cup I’d been given. I bit a hole in the corner and knocked the cup over with the force of the jet I squeezed out. I decided to suck it from the bag which is probably the expected course of action and I reckon the cup was placed there to make me look a fool.

The next day we planned to visit a Catholic cathedral underground inside a salt mine in La Paz. Phil was driving Steve’s car and forgot that it could not go into 2nd gear. It got stuck and Dad and I had to get out and rock the car back and forth. Shortly after we ran out of petrol. Having only traveled a few hundred metres we got out and took the bus. La Paz is a pretty town of old houses and yellow clock towers. We wandered the winding streets until we reached the working salt minewhich housed the cathedral 180m down. On the way to the main cathedral chamber you pass by the 14 stations of the cross and at each station a large cross and four or so kneeling stations were carved out of the rock. The big hall itself features some enormous pillars about 10m thick and the chamber is used for Sunday services and weddings. We got onto the wrong bus home and were forcibly injected into the confusion of the Bogota bus-metro. The 1.5 hour journey on one bus took 3 hours on 3 buses. We ended up being late for Samuel’s 4th birthday but they waited for us to arrive before singing and blowing out the candles on the Volkswagen Beetle birthday cake he’d requested Louise make him.

It was the next day we were due to go to the Amazonian jungle in Brazil. We were going to visit a tribe where Diego and Louise have missionary friends and had no idea what to expect. After a breakfast of waffles we finished packing our bags and made sure we had everything we’d need for our adventure. We bought loads of sweets for the village children as we’d been told it was a good way to make friends! Martha who normally lives & works with the tribe gave us a load of stuff to take with us and we were off. We got to Bogota airport with 45 minutes until our plane left but it didn’t register with us. Sitting in a chicken restaurant we waited patiently for our food. After 25 minutes it hadn’t come and Diego went to hurry them up. We ended up running to security carrying doggy bags (I was humming the Home Alone airport-scene music to myself). With less than 15 minutes until the flight left the bag scanner predictably broke. Thankfully the guards manually searched our bags instead of waiting for the mechanic! We ran onto the plane as the last passengers. The fried chicken somehow made it through security, along with the plastic cups of iced tea. It was a 2 hour flight over jungle to Leticia, right in the most Southerly part of Colombia. It is a strange part of the country near the equator – a nubbin of land squeezed between Brazil and Peru.

At Leticia’s tiny airport very strange things were coming off the plane onto the conveyor belt – cool boxes, plants, a live rabbit…! Diego’s friend John met us outside and squeezed us into a taxi which took us to a nearby hotel where Dad, Hannah and I waited as Diego and John went to a supermarket. We finally ate the fried chicken sat in a hotel packed with potted jungle vegetation. The walls and ceiling were covered in trailing tendrils of bright green exotic life and madly coloured flowers. Diego returned after an hour or two and we said goodbye to the kind lady who’d given us juice and outrageously sweet shots of black coffee. Taking another taxi across the border into Brazil we reached a small boat dock on the Amazon River where loaded onto a powerboat along with our luggage we arrived in Benjamin 30 minutes later. The five of us then waited as a long canoe was loaded with all our luggage and sank lower and lower into the water. We all climbed in and it got even lower. Hannah says there was 5cm of the side left above water but I think that is a generous estimate… Once in the boat we were too scared to move, even to look behind us incase us and all our stuff rolled into the possibly piranha filled waters! There was a 9hp ex-lawnmower motor in place at the back of the vessel which John used to take us an hour or so downriver through a glorious golden sunset against a jungle canopy skyline to our village destination. As we arrived the Brazilian sun had set and lightning sparked sporadically in the blooming clouds above. The zancudos were swarming in the darkness. With the engine cut the jungle noises reached our ears – the screeches of the crickets, bellowing of the frogs, squeaking of the bats and flapping wings of startled birds. We could dimly see a few boys washing in the river who after establishing who we were ran to tell people to come and help us unload. One man and a few young girls answered the call. In the Ticuna (the tribe we were with) it is the women that do all the heavy lifting (big baskets of food, etc). A dark and slippery 5 minutes following the speedy locals brought us to a large building on 4 metre stilts. Hannah slipped over into the mud at the last moment before we went inside. The houses must be built high above the river as there is a 30 metre difference between low and high tide.

We stood in a dark wooden room as a small girl chattered excitedly in Spanish. I got out my torch to have some idea of our surroundings just as an unexpected light was turned on – powered by solar panels! The house we were in was made entirely from hardwood. It was very neat and featured a kitchen complete with cupboards, sink & tap and a gas powered oven with hobs. Not at all what we were expecting! The house belonged to John and Danny and their 5 year old Sarita. They were missionaries learning the culture of the Ticuna and shared their house with Estella and Martha (who was at that moment in Bogota). We gave Sara a couple of balloons we’d brought and she immediately ran to a tap, filled one of them with water and began to laugh at her own hilarity. John then showed us our room – a double bed complete with a mosquito net – and en-suite with shower!! We were expecting to all be sharing a room and sleeping in hammocks. I was secretly disappointed, Hannah was not. The toilet/taps/shower were fed by a water tank on stilts outside the balcony which ran along the back of the building outside the bedrooms. The water tank was filled by rainwater and was the only source of clean water. If it didn’t rain for a few days the pressure would be too low for showers and taps. If it didn’t rain for longer then long trips in canoes to the towns upriver would have to be made for large and expensive bottles of water. When the solar panels empty a generator is available but is more costly and would not normally be used. Two litres of petrol sold in wooden huts on the riverbank in recycled Coke bottles lasts two hours. We ate the remaining box of fried chicken for dinner along with some fried plantain Danny whipped up. John and Danny are a great couple. Although they spoke no English, John was capable of communicating practically anything through his Jim Carrey-rivaling facial expressions, impressive array of sound effects and magic circle-quality hand flourishes. Life with him was an endless game of charades. Estella had a bubbly personality, she didn’t posess extensive acting qualities but was equally desperate to communicate with us. She would talk ceaselessly and excitedly, laughing away to herself and urge us to understand her stream of Spanish. One word in fifty we maybe would. Such a shame we didn’t know more!

A cockerel blast awoke us 3 mintues before the 7am alarm which was set to get us up in time for the 3 hour church service the following morning. Hannah hadn’t had much sleep and felt ill. She missed a breakfast of cheese, bread and eggs and stayed in bed when we went to the church. We arrived an hour late, halfway through the two hour worship session. There was a lot of singing and clapping and high-pitched ‘Hallelujah’s. A young guy with a blank expression was sitting to one side of the stage playing a red bass guitar attached to an amp on the stage. When the pastor came up we were called forward to introduce ourselves and Diego translated as most of the tribe understand a little Spanish.

After church I helped John harvest some fruits from a tree behind the house. He used a 5m bit of 2×2 to knock the hard orange-sized balls from the tree. They have a tough shiny yellow skin which opens to reveal a wet, sticky, translucent jelly-like flesh with the unmistakable taste of very fruity Brie. With a bit of perseverance and assuming you can stop thinking about French cheese, they are actually quite pleasant. After we’d collected a bagful we wandered through the village looking for someone with some fish to sell. On the way we passed a family drying an enormous fillet close to a metre long on a tall wooden rack. They had a wild monkey which they brought out for us to hold and have sit on our shoulders. When Dad’s turn came, he grabbed it from my shoulder and gave it a fright so that it struggled to get away and instead of letting it Dad grabbed for it again and got a little scratch (luckily nothing more). If you see him with white foam dripping from the corners of his mouth, keep well clear.

John then spotted someone standing under an open thatched gazebo-type structure stirring a huge pan a couple of metres in diameter filled with bits of once-poisonous yucca root. The pan was sitting on a circular wall of mud 3 feet high and open at one point into which wood was tossed to fuel the fire inside. He used a paddle to stir the coco-pop sized yellow balls. Employed in the previous stage of the process, his wife was next to him squeezing the poison from yucca which had been dug up, peeled and soaked for a few days. She used a press with a large, thick wooden lever a few metres long and pieces of wood and rock as the pressing weight. As we were watching these two work five small children appeared proudly gripping puppies only a few days old. The helpless beasts hadn’t even opened their eyes yet and were being carried around dangling by just one leg or by the neck in the loving crook of a bony elbow. The children looked very pleased with themselves as they struggled to keep hold of their squirming, squeaking packages and pose for photos. The man stirring the yucca bits said (in Ticuna) that he was going to go and collect some more roots (the ready to eat kind) if we were interested in joining him. We were.

We climbed into a nearby canoe and he paddled us across a small tributary of the Amazon. He maneuvered us up a small inlet, dodging logs and vegetation and even Diego looked like he thought we were going to turn over. After a bit of a struggle it was clear the boat was too heavy with all of us in to go further so we had to take off our shoes and socks and wade the last 10 metres trying not to think about flesh-eating swamp insects laying larvae eggs between our toes. On dry land we had a 15 minute walk through the jungle with our yucca guide hacking at the bushes to scare off snakes. John was pointing out interesting things like the tiny poisonous caterpillar I hadn’t noticed next to my face and some huge flowers growing on a palm tree (they were about 4 metres tall!!) We collected some Brazilian nuts which are large cannonball type things that once you get through the incredibly hard shell contain a dozen or so Brazil nuts as we know them. When we reached the man’s ‘garden’ of yucca plants he set to work chopping the 2m high spindly, woody plants down to 50cm from the ground before tugging at the remaining plant to pull up the edible root. We all had a go pulling some up until we had filled the basket we’d brought. We then set back the way we’d come, taking turns to carry the basket via a reed strap which went over the head and across the chest. We were expecting to pay for some of the roots but he kindly gave them all to us for free! We were eating yucca fried or boiled for the rest of the week. On the way home we passed a hut where someone had caught a terrapin and a turtle (both under 8cm). Diego bought the terrapin and planned to take it back to Bogota in his sock…

After a Sunday lunch of Amazonian fish wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in a fire which had flesh like chicken and was muy deliciosa, we discussed our plans to build an en-suite in Martha’s room, ready for her return. This involved buying lots of wood from Peru, bringing it back on a canoe and then using it to build a wall inside her bedroom and a high bed with space for a desk underneath. Cement would also be bought for the bathroom floor and all the porcelain (toilet, sink, etc). It was to be a grand undertaking.

Somehow that afternoon Dad and I were roped into playing football on the village pitch of mud. Not only was the pitch entirely mud, it also sloped downhill. I was on a team with Diego and John but Dad was on his own with locals. I think they’d assumed we would be good… It wasn’t even purely for fun – everyone had to put in 1000 pesos and the winning team took the lot – the pressure was on. Each game was blessedly short – 3 mins a side. There were 4 teams which rotated so that we all played 7 or 8 games. Unfortunately Dad scored two own goals and his teammates replaced him after 4 games. During his first game, the heavens opened big time and he was soaked to the skin. I laughed heartily but it was still raining when I went out for my next game. The rain turned the muddy pitch into a stage for a ridiculous slapstick comedy about something close to football. People were sliding in every direction, our feet were underwater in most places. Eventually it ended as the sun began to set. In the constant humidity my trainers didn’t dry out until they were back in Bogota for a couple of days. When we got back to the house Hannah had been throwing up and was still in bed feeling ill.

The following morning she felt much better which was a relief. John and Diego were planning to go that morning to buy all the building supplies but the canoe was lacking a motor and they had to wait. After a lunch of tomatoey mince, smoked fish pre-boned by Hannah, beetroot & onion salad, rice, fried yucca root and tamarind juice we found out there would be no canoe until the next day. Hannah’s afternoon began by taking our extensive first aid kit under her arm to another hut to help a boy who had hurt himself badly. He had climbed a tall, thin palm tree without a rope between his feet to help him climb and had gotten tired at the top. With no strength left he slid all the way down, causing painful burns on the insides of his thighs and arms. Hannah had gone to dress his wound. Estella was telling us that the tribal belief is that becsause the boy got so scared, his soul left him at the top of the tree. A ritual would now have to be performed near the site to call his soul back. There is a huge culture of fear amongst the Tikuna. They believe that nothing happens to a person by accident – it is always because someone who doesn’t like them for some reason has cast a curse. They desperately need to understand the Love which drives out all fear.

Hannah, Dad, Sara and I then went for a wander around the village. Hannah had her pockets stuffed with brightly coloured sweets which she handed to any children we saw. Small faces began to appear in doorways and the supply quickly diminished. Four or so kids joined us on our exploration, eager to stand next to the sweet pocket. It was as we were turning back from watching people wash clothes by slapping them on a platform sitting on the Amazon that another of my life ambitions was fulfilled; we found a Mimosa pudica (or one of its close relatives) – the plant which closes its comb-like leaves when you touch them. A great achievement. After an eternity of ravenous dogs the night brought sleep.

The plan the next morning was for Diego and John to set off upriver for supplies at 7am and be back for us to begin work at lunchtime. They didn’t end up leaving until 9am and long after our lunch of tuna, rice and fried yucca we were still waiting. We set to work doing what we could, using a manual drill and my trusty penknife. The process for creating holes for pipes (the largest was 10cm in diameter) was to drill holes around a sketched circle as close together as possible. The wood-saw function on my penknife was employed to cut through the perforations until the circle of wood fell through. The remaining protruding bits had to filed away using the nail file or chiseled using a chisel. In a similar way we also cut holes in the ceiling for the wall supports to slot into. It was hot work. It rained intensly the entire afternoon, typically an hour on then half an hour off. Hannah and I retired to play Scrabble under the mosquito net for a bit of respite from their relentless assault.

It wasn’t until the sun was setting that Diego and John finally returned! I exclaim with a mark like that of excitement but the next 30 minutes developed into some of the worst of my life, which I later melodramatically declared gave me some brief insight as to what it must have meant to be in the trenches. I was already in a huff after being bitten several times in the back whilst reading and had retreated to our bed. A villager announced the canoe’s arrival and I slumped out of the room into the half-light of evening. As my shoes were still wet from football I had to wear my flip-flops. Please recall the abundant rain I spoke of earlier. It was a five minute walk to the river where the canoe was being unloaded and there were four stages to the journey. The first was pleasantly sloping grass and presented no trouble for a dry flip-flop. The second was the ‘football pitch’ which as I mentioned was a mud pool on Sunday when we’d played. After 5 hours of rain it very closely resembled the unforgiving excuse for ground found in the corner of an English field in Midwinter, near a gate frequented by beefy bovines. Think this – http://www.chaversfarm.com/images/Pics08/aug08-%20018.JPG – but without the smiling. One step on this terrain and the flip-flop was sucked under and a slippery obstacle to be discarded from that point onwards. Stage three was a short distance along a thin winding path through dense bush. Fine when there is still light and you are not carrying six planks of wood 5 metres long, trying to avoid hitting trees or stepping on snakes with your naked feet. The final stage was the river edge; a gentle slope of mud amongst reeds with wet muddy logs across waterways upon which to balance. This was prime mosquito territory – they had every right to attack a person ignorant enough to enter it at twilight. The sweat produced carrying inhuman weights and the wet ground washed away any repellent which had been pointlessly applied and there was no holding them back. As unwieldy planks and toilet cisterns were loaded onto bruised shoulders there was nothing to be done as the malodorous, droning soprano filled ears and heads and souls, taunting as much as tasting. Of course, truthfully, there were eight stages to the journey. Once the river had been reached you were only halfway. The treacherous journey must be repeated, only this time with a cumbersome load. I staggered the route three times, sliding up to my ankles in fetid jungle mud as I stuggled to keep the planks horizontal. The wood was a hardwood and insensibly heavy. My shoulders bled (slightly), my knees convulsed and my head swam. The entire experience was quite distressing. Out of the three trips I made, two and a half of them had the added complication of thick darkness. The third time I arrived at the house, my muscles spasming, my limbs screaming, I could not face going back a fourth time. It was too much to comprehend. Not wanting to wimp out to too great an extent, I dragged the wood which had been piled outside the house to a safer spot within the fence boundary. Here the zancudos were in clouds as dense as at the riverbank but I was now in an unconscious, automatic daze, focused on achieving whatever I could to avoid a return to the canoe. That job done, I slithered into the house, peeled the sweat-soaked clothes off my shivering body, showered and sheltered, without moving, once again beneath the security of the mosquito net.

I had a disturbed nights sleep and feared I had allowed the Hannah bug to attack my body but in the morning awoke refreshed. After a breakfast of arepas and eggs we set to work on Martha’s bathroom. Hannah, Dad and I were working upstairs on the walls and Diego and John were downstairs digging-in support posts to reinforce the floor which would soon be covered in concrete. Diego was cutting bits of 5×5 to length and we inserted them into the holes in the ceiling we’d made the day before. Dad nailed them to the floor and we nailed the ones by the existing wall which would support the bed into the wall from the other side…(!) Hannah and I then nailed the planks onto the supports to build the bathroom wall. Four hours and many blisters later, the wall was finished. At various points throughout the operation, small faces had appeared at the open back door, hoping for sweets. They became braver and ventured into the house to quietly watch us work and eye up the sweets on the table until John came up and shooed them away.

There is a rumour amongst the Ticuna that gringos only come into the jungle to cut their throats in the night. Apparently seeing us work will do something to help dispel the myth. I never saw fear on their faces, faint amusement maybe but not fear.

We managed to get the wall completed, the pipes in place (though not connected to the existing plumbing) and the bed frame up. Diego ended up extending his stay a few days to help John get the job finished.

On our last day Hannah visited the injured boy again and found him smiling and eating and healed wounds. When she returned we were ready to go but Dad was nowhere to be seen. I packed his bag for him and we left for the waiting canoe. He sheepishly caught up with us on the way – he’d been wandering the village taking last photographs. Now there was not all of Martha’s equipaje, the canoe sat a little higher in the water, which was a comfort. On the way we visited a village called Philadelphia and got caught in a rainstorm, sheltering under the awning of a small shop filled to the brim with colourful bits of food and essential items, where we drank some Dr Pepper-tasting Brazilian coke. The shop owner started showing us various fish he had, including a catfish over a metre long with enormous whiskers. Diego bought this and put it in the coolbox for us to take to Bogota. After 45 minutes of sheltering, the need to feel like we were near the airport overwhelmed us and we made a dash for the canoe, tarpaulins over our heads. The rain stopped ten minutes later.

After a momentary detour at the request of Dad to the opposite riverbank (which was Peru) we arrived in Benjamin and caught the fast boat to Leticia. On the way John spotted one of the pink dolphins the Amazon is famous for but we all missed it. We ate lunch at a Letician restaurant and watched on the TV the kick-off celebrations of the world cup in South Africa. Hoping to get a jungle souvenir, we went to the traditional craft shop next door but found it closed. Diego took us in a taxi to the airport as John disappeared on a taxi motorbike. His disappearance was explained 30 minutes later when he arrived at the airport bearing gifts of pink dolphins carved in the local bloodwood. He had bought them for us because we’d been unable to buy souvenirs ourselves! The flight was straightforward and we were collected by Steve upon arrival in a nice and cool mosquito-free Bogota.

And so… It is Tuesday, we will be home a week on Friday. Will I finish my extensive ponderings in time? I think not. I think …not.

Brownout.