I had sort of a pre-Thanksgiving while in the jungle...
I was thankful every time I walked the overgrown path to the outhouse (hole in the ground), and came back without getting mauled by a jaguar.
I was thankful for words--words to express feelings and ideas, words to comfort and encourage, words to sympathize, words to joke around and words to communicate with God and others.
But there is something to be said for the many times that words are lacking while living in close-knit community (i.e less than two feet between hammocks). Sometimes, we just don't have the words to express the depth of feeling. Anything we attempt might seem inadequate.
A few times, I felt God's nearness and couldn't form a single syllable, as if the peace that washed over me were too great to interrupt. Other times, I felt as if He were as remote as our tiny island in the vast Amazon, and I didn't know what to say or how to approach Him.
And then I spent a week around little children, which inspired me to a place of simplicity of faith and trust.
We were shown our village home, an abandoned government building that resembled the seven dwarves' dwelling before Snow White's arrival (below). We scrubbed and scrubbed at urine stains and cobwebs, and we dumped buckets of soapy water onto anthills and cockroaches. Trust me, we weren't singing the sweet tunes typical of Disney princesses. |
| Abandoned village house we lived in |
Today, we called the children together under the community hut to share a story from the Bible and to sing together. The kids' voices sped past the strums of the guitar, and their clapping was all over the place, which was just plain adorable. The most touching moment of the day was when Nathy told the story of Jesus calming the storm, and we acted the story out. When she narrated the part where Jesus called His disciples to the boat, a group of kids ran to the middle of the community hut to climb into our makeshift boat. To me, it was a beautiful picture, because Jesus is calling people all around the world to follow after Him and step into the boat so to speak. These kids rushed forward, probably just wanting to be a part of the mini-play. What they didn't realize is that their action spoke volumes to the adults in the crowd. |
| Crafting crowns, bracelets, rings and necklaces out of pinawa, or leaves |
Too chicken to kill a chicken?
So Nathy killed the turtle, and the next day Tchiwere showed up at the village, grabbed a chicken out of a bag and told me to fetch a kitchen knife. So it was my turn. At this point, I had only killed ants, mosquitos, centipedes and spiders. I begged God to give the chicken a heart attack. That didn't happen, so I knelt down over the chicken, securing its feet under my right foot, and holding its head firmly in my left hand. I tried to imagine its neck as a rope, but momentarily forgot that ropes don't bleed. Once I began inflicting a wound on its neck, its blood, still warm with life, began spilling over my hand. The creature fought back, jerking its neck in my palm. As this was unexpected, I screamed, jumped to my feet and let the blood-stained knife drop to the dirt. At my leader's orders to get back to it, I knelt back down and finished our lunch off as quickly as possible. Then the village children helped me pluck the feathers..it was surprisingly easy to eat even though I was the one who killed it...piranha gets old after awhile!
October 18th:
| Our leader traded and got us a wart hog, which we preserved in salt and vinegar and ate for four days (below). |
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Today (Sunday), I had a craving for fruit, so I traded some fishing materials for 8 bananas for our group. Fruit is pretty easy to come by, but vegetables are very difficult to find in the Amazon. In fact, since we've run out of tomatoes two weeks ago, we haven't had a single vegetable.
October 22nd:
We woke up early to take a canoe to the other side of the river to collect jenipapo fruit, which can be shredded and mixed with carbon to make a dye much like henna (right).In Prka tradition, this dye is used for special events, like festivals and athletic competitions between tribes.
Our hands were stained purple for a few days from shredding the fruit.
