World Ecuador Cuenca

Karen teaching ESL in Cuenca Ecuador

Indigenous Stitches May 20, 2009

I joined three other teachers (Ruth, Scottie and Helen) on a trip to the indigenous town of Saraguro for the weekend. One would think they are experiencing a taste of the “real Ecuador”, but the Saraguro people originally lived in the Lake Titicaca region of Peru and were forced to relocate through the empire’s system of colonization.

Saraguro is only a three hour bus ride through the mountains, south of Cuenca. Ruth and Scottie had been there twice before…and couldn’t wait to get back there again. I quickly learned why.

However, before we got to experience much of the small community we were staying in, which is a couple of miles up from the town proper, our first visit was to the local clinic and then directly in one of the two taxis in town to the Saraguro “hospital” …all because I had to use the bathroom on the bus.

It’s always recommended to drink as few liquids as possible so that you won’t have to use one of these cozy and pungent bus buckets…but hey, when ya gotta go…ya gotta go. So I made my way past the staring glares and half smirks (I could just hear them laughing…thinking, of course in Spanish…ha! Another typical, stupid tourist…only they are dumb enough to use the BUS BUCKET!) But with head held high, I pushed the door open, the way a celebrity would push past a crowd of adoring fans, and I hastily slammed the door shut, and quickly plugged my nose…I wanted to close my eyes too, but that wouldn’t have served me well. Actually, it was not nearly as bad as the public restroom we went into in the town of Chordeleg, but that’s another crappy story…need I say more? Back to the bus bucket…with no place to stand, and the bus bouncing over rocks and potholes…I found myself abruptly throned and as I looked up at the door that had closed firmly behind me…I noticed there was no handle on the inside…that’s right, no way to open it. SHIT…this is not good, I thought calmly. I wasn’t going to knock or start yelling help, so, with all my might; I pushed the plastic latch to try to get it past the metal plate. Just one problem, I didn’t have to use all my might and my finger shot past the plastic latch into the edge of the metal plate. I thought, “Ow, that smarted, but at least I got out of the bus bucket.” And as I was walking back to my seat I felt a warm liquid pouring down my finger, yep, a nice big gash. I sat down calmly next to Helen…with my remaining toilet paper, red and wrapped around my finger and said I think I cut my finger. She took one look and said “Jesus Karen, why aren’t you freaking out…that looks pretty bad.” Fortunately she and Scottie had antiseptic cream and band aides and all was well…sort of.

Inti Samana Wasi ("House of the Resting Sun" in Quichiua)the place we were staying, is owned by Jose and Juana, Sargurans who have raised four children (three of whom are off and on there own) and now they run the hostel where they grow organic herbs and vegetables and raise cuy (remember, guinea pigs) in a small shed behind their home they built years ago. Jose was just coming down the road from their house toward the hostel and of course greeted each of us as though we were long lost relatives finally returned home. After we dropped our things in two of only three rooms that surrounded a small courtyard which overlooked the garden, Scottie and Ruth lead us up the road to the “point” at the end of the small community where our eyes could either fall down upon the valley or gaze up upon the never-ending mountain ranges. I wish I was the person who first came up with the expression, “it was a sight to behold”…because, “it was a sight to behold!” As we walked back to the hostel, we passed a small…very small….medical clinic. Scottie suggested we stop in to have a doctor look at my finger. We asked two people sitting by the door where the “doctor” was…they pointed to the next room where the “doctor” was working on a patient, who sat, mouth wide open…in a dental chair. There was no doctor, only a dentist, but she immediately stopped what she was doing and offered to take a look at my finger. She took one look at it and said she would clean it out but I needed to go down to the town and get to the hospital to get stitches right away. She spent at least 15 minutes cleaning and bandaging my finger (her other patient came in to observe what was happening). I asked her what I owed before we left and she gave me a quizzical look and said, almost embarrassed, “nothing!”

Jose called the taxi on his cell phone (yes, it’s quite the oxymoron…seeing indigenous Saragurans, living sustainably… off the land, sporting cell phones.) Again, at the hospital, the one doctor there stopped what she was doing and started assisting me. The needle for the anesthesia hurt more than anything else…and we (Helen and Scottie came in with me) must have looked like a side show as the two of them stood there taking pictures and videotaping the entire episode. Bandaged, with a prescription in hand for antibiotics… I asked what I owed…that’s right…if you guessed nothing…you are correct. And the antibiotics that we picked up at the pharmacy across the street (that took longer than getting the stitches because the pharmacist was upstairs cooking dinner and didn’t come down right away)… cost $4.

Mind you, this is only six hours into our weekend, and the rest only gets better. Not because of any further mishaps, but because it is Saraguro. For the two days we were there, Juana prepared all of our meals…all vegetarian…all from the garden…even the cheese and the soya bread were local and fresh. While Juana cooked, we sat around the table in the tiny kitchen with a hearth and taught Jose how to play Uno…every word spoken was Spanish, except that Jose insisted on saying “ONE” when he got Uno! And while we ate, Jose became our “teacher” and described all of the nutrients and medicinal remedies that each vegetable and herb we were ingesting provide.

We hiked up the hill above the hostel to the waterfalls and caves nestled in the side of the mountain. Miguel Andres Arizaga Torres, a carpenter who makes bathroom cabinet folk art and carves peach pits to wear as pendants, owns the property and collects a $2 dollar fee…hoping for more money…trying to talk you into a cabinet or a pit.

Jose, rightfully proud, delighted in giving us a tour of the garden as Helen videotaped his explanation of every plant and which herb reduces anxiety and which can cure gastritis and indigestion.

I can really say there was no one particular “highlight” because truly every moment was magical, but the “highlight” boasted in all of the guide books is the Sunday market down the hill in the town proper. Indeed, it is an amazing spectacle. Saragurans are dressed in their Sunday best. Women with black skirts, colorful tops and necks adorned with beaded collars…hours upon hours of work…and the most expensive is only $25. Men with white cotton shirts and the typical black pants cropped at the calf. And both men and women don the traditional Saraguran brimmed hat. All of the town’s people and others coming from the countryside…as far as an hour away…come every Sunday to buy, trade and barter. Pigs, horses, goats, sheep…clothes, jewelry, pots and pans…fruit, vegetables, cheese, bread…beads, beads and more beads…the list does not end. I only wish my eyes were a video camera so that I could record and share every colorful moment. You see, it’s bad enough that with our blond hair, blue eyes and white skin….we stand out like a sore (finger)…but to pull out a camera and take photos…at least in an obvious fashion, is blatantly obtrusive and rude. There are ways to do it…and sometimes when you ask a person, they will oblige…as you will see from the photos posted, but these are only a very small glimpse into this wonderful world of an indigenous people who have chosen to maintain their culture and are considered the most successful of all of the Indigenous groups in Ecuador.