Hello everyone! It’s been so long since I last posted….and I have so many things to tell you. The past month has been one of the most impacting months of this trip—and of my life. God has been so merciful to me lately. He has shown me some precious things about himself and shown me the beauty of forming relationships with brethren in Christ. I also have been learning a lot of Spanish which I delight in every day. It has been so busy that I barely had time to do things like write emails or blog. I thank you al for your support and prayers, and of course, for requesting that I take up blogging after this rather long siesta.
First I really must tell you a little bit the trip to the Amazon that my class took. We went to visit the same people group that Nate Saint and Jim Elliot visited: the Aucas. I could speak for weeks about this 3 days adventure we had in the Haorauni territory. We had to take a bus that left at 00:00 hours from our university. We arrived at a small town called, Tena, at about 6 in the morning and we had out last “normal” breakfast. From there we left in bus—straight into the jungle. It took us four hours of traveling in this bus to arrive to place which seemed like nowhere. It was amazing to pass the house in the bus just looking at dense foliage. Trees. Plants. Mud. And a lot of green. I never felt so far from civilization. There were no towns. No cell phone service. No bathrooms. And no cars. When the bus dropped us off it was pouring ran and we had to scramble to get all of stuff out of the bus and put our ponchos on. Some people had forgotten theirs!
From there we had to transport all of our luggage and ourselves in these 50 foot long canoes that were just wider than my hips. I thought for sure that they were going to capsize. The Haorauni men stood on the ends of these canoes and steered with long poles. Thankfully, they did have a motor too other wise it would have taken hours to arrive to there little settlement. The Haorauni live in groups or family of 8 to 10 people and we stayed with one of these groups. At first, I was very timid because I didn’t know if they spoke any Spanish or what. They kind of stayed over to there side of the hut and the United States people stayed on the other side. Their language was so different—melodious and abrupt. After about two hours of looking around the settlement (which was basically just cleared jungle) I went over to the log and sat with the Haorauni. They didn’t seem to mind, and soon on of my Ecuadoian friends, Mateo, came over too and began talking to one of the men. I found out that the men spoke Spanish, so after that I talked with them whenever I could.
I became friends with them by learning their names, and asking them questions about plants and flowers and stuff. Some of their names in Spanish are: Jose, Fernando, Lizette, Elizabet, and Carina. I also learned that the little girl, Lizette, had a name in Haorauni which was Yeco. There was also a baby boy named, Arau. He was sooo precious. She loved having us call her by this name. There were also three other women who didn’t speak Spanish at all. One of them was the “nene” or grandma in Haorauni. There were also two other men whose names are, Calla and Ingyg. I talked a lot with Fernando and Ingyg.
Ingyg used to be a drug lord in Ecuador and Colombia. He took cocaine to the USA, Guatemala, Honduras, and Colombia. He also was in the massive war between Peru and Ecuador. He told me about this one battle where suddenly 300 Peruvians died. He actually ran away from the war and he was sent to jail and sentenced for 6 years in prison for being a traitor. But for some reason they let him out in 6 months, and now I guess he is hiding in the jungle with his family. He told me that when he was in the USA taking cocaine over there, the authorities caught him, but I Chinese lawyer got him out free. He also told me about several near death experiences he had walking around the border between Colombia and Ecuador. Apparently, the witch doctor or, shaman, is really bad too, because the local one tried to kill Ingyg by putting a nail in his side when he was under the influence of the drug they use for spirituality, Ingyg told me that because of that he no longer believes in the shaman’s power and he stays away from them.
The last night I was there was magical. All the Haorauni knew my name, Kiki, which apparently means a yellow bird in the language. They loved calling my name. And I played with the three little girls for hours on the table-like hut that was their only structure. The girls loved to tickle us and play peek-a-boo. It was kind of painful rolling around in laughter on this crude board table thing. But we had a blast. Heather I them some Spanish words, and they taught us some Haorauni.
Huaponi means good/well/thank you
Huaponi meneke means Good morning
Hemo miro imi means What is your name?
Hemo mopa means My name is
I actually got a proposal for marriage by one of the unmarried Haorauni guys. It was coincidental that I was learning how to say “I love you: at the moment—which by the way, I have forgotten by now. Oh well.
It is really late now so I had better go to bed. I am really excited for church tomorrow. I have many more things that I would love to tell you ahout the Haorauni people. Those three days were so influential in my outlook and philosophy and current practice. IT has changed me forever in various ways.
Until the next post. Love you guys,
Kiki
