Tsachilas visit to Vilcabamba

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a friend of mine who lives with an indigenous tribe named the Tsachilas (Pronounced Sachilas) who reside outside of the city of Santo Domingo, Ecuador. My friend, Clay, had come to visit me a couple of months ago and I took him to my women’s group to see the artesenia they made. One their products, baskets hand-made from banana leaves, seemed like they might be a good thing for the Tsachilas to make as well seeing as they have an abundance of bananas where they live.
So Clay and I arranged for what is called a “Tech Trip” through the Peace Corps. A tech trip is basically where the Peace Corps pays for one volunteer and a member of their community to travel to another volunteer’s site to learn a specific skill. In our case, Clay was going to bring the mother from his host family to San Pedro de Vilcabamba in order to learn how to make these baskets and sell them with the jewelry they sell in fairs. Tagging along with Clay and his host mother was his host father who is also a Shaman medicine man. Unfortunately the Peace Corps would only pay for two people’s trips so we decided that Alejandro, Clay’s host father, would do some “cleansings” with the some of the local Peace Corps volunteers in order to pay for his trip. Also the goal of this trip wasn’t just for Clay’s host parents to come and learn how to make the baskets and to do the cleansings, but to experience the people and places of a part of Ecuador which they have never seen before due to the fact that they can rarely afford a trip like this.
So a week ago Clay and his host parents came into San Pedro de Vilcabamba at about 8am following a long 14 hr bus ride. After a brief rest and a change into their native dress, we all went over to my women’s group to get his host Mom started with her class. While she was in training, Clay, myself and his host Dad walked around my town to introduce him to the people in my community. I was fascinated how intrigued they all were to meet him and how they all were very interested in his culture and in being cleansed. We also were able to meet with the people of my organization, Colinas Verdes, to give Alejandro a tour of our nursery and the work we do there. He was very interested in all the coffee we had planted and so as a gift we decided to give him some coffee plants to take back to his farm and plant.
After Rosa, Clay’s host Mom, was finished with her class we all headed back to my house to prepare for the cleansings. That night we had about 15 people show up who all participated in an individual spiritual cleansing which he used different rock statues and some grain alcohol to basically tell us about our past, present and our future. Then he used an egg to cleanse our spirits and rid us of all the evil surrounding us. (The entire process is very hard to explain, you will just have to visit and experience it for yourself!)
After the cleansing it was time for our herbal sauna. This involved boiling a number of different herbal plants in a large pot as well as digging a deep hole for a sauna. What they do is fill the hole with the water and herbal plants, then drop a super hot rock in the hole to create steam. Then they put a stick over the hole for you to place your feet as you sit in a chair with a blanket wrapped around your body and the hole, thus creating a “mini” sauna for your body.
The entire cleansing and sauna experience was very soothing and relaxing (even though it felt like my feet were burning off in the sauna at one point). I literally almost fell asleep while he was doing my cleansing and the sauna felt amazing!
The next day we decided to head to the nearby tourism town of Vilcabamba and hike to the top of Mount Mandango to give them a view of the Valley of Longevity. Both Alejandro and Rosa really enjoyed the view from up there even though they hard time understanding why we would do a hike like that for pleasure. After treating them to a spaghetti lunch, the Tsachilas unfortunately had to head back to their town, but not before buying some souvenirs in the local artesenia shops.
The Tsachilas visit was a great experience for everyone involved and even though it was brief they really enjoyed being somewhat celebrities in my site and seeing a new part of the country. The cultural exchange for both the Tsachilas and the people of my site was really something special and both Clay and I were very happy we organized the tech trip. Their visit also got me super excited to go and visit Clay to experience their culture first hand in his site (and maybe get another cleansing/sauna).