Santo Domingo

On Saturday I went to a small indigenous village close to the Ecuadorian city of Santo Domingo. The tribe was called Tsachila. There are only about 2500 of them left and they're trying to preserve their culture. The village leader gave us a tour of the main sights there. He was dressed in a blue skirt and had black stripes painted all over him. He also had his hair partially dyed red. The plant they use to do this is the same plant that we gave ourselves war paint with in the jungle. Anyway, the village was pretty interesting. They gave us a musical demonstration where they had a xylophone and drums and rain sticks. Then they danced for us too. We then got a spear throwing demonstration where we were allowed to throw it as well. Then another villager gave us a talk on the politics of the community and cultural customs such as weddings and funerals. After all that, we got to be "healed" by the village leader. The healing consisted of us going down five at a time in a dug out hole with a thatched roof. There was some kind of incense burning that smelled really good. Then the shaman guy started whistling this tune and shaking leaves over us. He then rubbed wet rocks on our faces and necks all while whistling this tune. I thought it was hilarious. I didn't want to be disrespectful, but I was struggling not to laugh. I nearly lost it when he started spitting water all over us. I managed to hold my laughter in, but it was hard. Anyway, after being healed we left the town to go have lunch.

Lunch was in a property that was started 60 years ago by some rich crazy Russian woman who wanted to live in the jungle. She built a hostel and golf course in the middle of Ecuador. The place is still owned by her son, Sergei. After eating, he gave us a tour of the area. Apparently its a mecca for bird watchers. The grounds were pretty cool, and Sergei was pretty passionate about his work there. He was a pretty cool guy who was in the Ecuadorian special forces for a while. Apparently part of his training was being able to survive in the jungle for several months with minimal equipment. He had a pet dog, Rodolfo who absolutely loved me. He would follow me around the whole time and whine every time I didn't pet him. In the tour of the grounds we got to eat fresh tangerines which were very good as well.

We then went back to Quito. The bus rides we take to and from these places are really amazing. The views are awesome, I really didn't realize what a beautiful country Ecuador was before I came. We took the bus through mountains and there were picturesquely placed houses really in the middle of nowhere along the roads. There were also tons of waterfalls along the road. The one thing that bothered me though, is that outside of Quito it seems that everyone is living in poverty. The little that I saw of Santo Domingo was poor and rundown. Going to Tiputini, the city of Coca was the same way. Most of these other cities seem to be slumtowns. When I went to Mindo, I had talked to a guy from Santo Domingo and when I mentioned I went to USFQ, he made some remark about me being a rich kid. That really struck home when I was looking at the surrounding areas. I feel like the university is really way too decadent comparatively to the poverty in Ecuador. Having a lagoon and waterfall that goes off every 30 minutes is really unnecessary when the rest of the country is full of poverty.

Rodolfo

Lizard chilling in the bathroom

Monkey in the village

Tsachila performing