The Achuar do things a little differently as one might expect from a culture that developed from thousands of years in isolation in the rainforest. One thing the Achuar do each day is wake up between 2-4 to drink tea and have some family time. I have to admit I do prefer my family time at dinner but that’s just me, I’m not here to judge.
So they drink the tea and tell stories, talk about their problems and teach customs and culture to the younger ones. Everyday. Wuyusa is the name of the tea. Sounds like a great tradition right? Family time to start the day….yeah one catch. The Achuar use the tea to “cleanse” their system. Essentially you drink until you are full…beyond full. Then you go throw it up.
Yes you heard me correctly…group barf.
Now it’s not like there is a countdown but when you hit the tipping point you take yourself off to the woods purge and come back and finish chatting. Traditionally at some point you start drinking Chicha, which is the traditional fermented drink made by the women, kinda the strength of beer. Chicha is a whole other blog.
So in this culture its barf first then get drunk, not the other way around like Americans.
Anyone see where this is going?
I got the invite the other night to drink Wuyusa from one of the elders, Isaac (E-sock) who works here at the lodge who is famous for great stories. So I drug my ass out of bed at 2 am with my roommate Alex and my boss Amber. So the three of us go tromping off into the jungle, headlamp securely on my head and a backup flashlight trying not to get dive-bombed by a bat (honestly folks I cannot make this shit up). We make it to the meeting spot but our guide is not there, yet. The Wuyusa is in the gigantic pot warm and waiting for us. I’m not totally convinced this is going to work.
He shows and gives us each a hollowed out half of a gourd of some sort…kinda looks like a little boat. These special gourds are used to drink Wuyusa and that’s it. So he explains that you start drinking till you are full up and then excuse yourself to purge. If you don’t barf you will feel bad all day, have stomach problems, diarrhea and what not. I’m thinking, fantastic the only way out of this mess is to barf, my favorite thing (when are they inventing the sarcasm font).
About 3 troughs into this stuff, and it tastes really good, I ask Amber if she knows if there is caffeine in Wuyusa. She doesn’t know. So yesterday I googled it. Yes, yes there is caffeine in Wuyusa in fact it’s the most highly caffeinated drink in the world. Great. That would explain why one would be sick if they didn’t barf, also why you might need Chicha afterwards to balance yourself out again…and more importantly why I didn’t get back to sleep until 7:30 that morning.
Ok so we tuck in. While we’re drinking, Isaac is telling stories about his childhood. His father was a great warrior and had three wives. I’m not sure how many brothers and sisters he had but more than likely a lot. He told us he only had one wife, when asked why not more he responded, no one else loves me.
Isaac’s dad would disappear for weeks at a time. When it got close to him coming home the three wives would all have the same dream and wake up in the middle of the night and clean the house and everything…he usually came home that next day. His father and some of his brothers were killed when the rival to the Achuar the Shuar came one day and killed many people. His father’s brother married his mothers and continued to raise the family. Isaac was only 3 when his dad was killed so he doesn’t have many memories of him.
Isaac then started to tell the story of how he came to work for Kapawi. Mind you Kapawi was built 13 years ago. It is a 4 day walk and a 2 day raft ride down the river from Isaac’s village. So he had never been here. He knew about it because all of the Achuar knew about Kapawi but he had never seen it. Every day each of the villages get on an old crackly radio to talk to each other and get news across. Most of the 64 communities have these radios. On day Isaac heard that there was a position available at the Lodge for a helper in the kitchen. He thought that it would be a good idea to go work for the Lodge because he wanted to have money to send his children to school.
So with no promise that he would get the job or someone else would get to Kapawi first. He made a raft, like with his bare hands and headed down the river not knowing exactly where he was going. At this point, Amber gets up and high tails it to the woods totally loses her Wuyusa and we all fall out laughing. I’m a little jealous because I’m not anywhere near feeling like I’m going to yak but I really really have to pee. Which was good because I had been a little dehydrated.
Issac at this point takes his leave in a less dramatic fashion and I search for a good spot to squat in the woods. TMI? It gets better. So while I’m in the woods I decide that I would like to maybe try this barf thing to no avail. I return to the group slightly defeated and get on the tea again.
Mean while Alex asks if she can use my headlamp as she heads over to the bushes….forgets to turn the light off when she actually antes up so we get quite a show. Now I’m the only delinquent who can’t get it. I chug two more big bowls and that does the trick. Go team barf.
When we’ve all returned Isaac continues to tell his story about coming to Kapawi. On his first night down the river he arrived in a village he didn’t know and asked if he could stay somewhere for the night. Unfortunately everyone was gone hunting and only one woman and a few children were left. Achuar custom does not allow a strange man to stay at someone’s house if there are no men around. Isaac asked if it would be possible to sleep in the community house…essentially a roof and a bench with no protection, no fire (to keep out bugs). He said he only got about an hour of sleep because the bugs were after him so bad. Eventually a shaman showed up and he could go sleep in a house but to say the lease it wasn’t fun.
On his second night afloat he was in between villages, or so he though and was not able to find a place to stay. He tied his raft to a tree and eventually dug a hole in the sand lined in with leaves and laid down. Then he covered himself completely with sand except for his face! He slept like that the whole night, in the morning he could hear in the distance people preparing things. So he got up and went to say hello and see if anyone could give him some food because he was out. Finally by nightfall he arrived at Kapawi!!!!
I’m enthralled with this man. The way he speaks, his smile, his story. Everything. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around everything. His history, his family (13 children), his dreams and his life. Honestly I’m still working things out. I know I sound a little crazy but you had to be there to really understand what I’m talking about. I truly unexpected surprise and appreciation for a people and culture that I did not conceive could start to understand.
We left our little circle and headed home around 4:30am. I couldn’t sleep no doubt due to the bucket of caffeine I just had ingested. I read my book for a few hours and got up to eat breakfast at 6, I only nibbled really I wasn’t feeling that great, no sleep, caffeine overload, incredibly powerful experience in the woods. Isaac was working in the kitchen and we waved to each other.
Afterwards I went and sat on the deck overlooking the jungle. I sat for a long time, cried and breathed. That was all I could do.
After we get through customs-lite (international transfer) we scatter to our connecting gates and Beijing greets us with a spectacular sun rise. Watching the sun itself peak over the tree line reminds me of the sunsets in Guinea, it looks like something from the movies. A bright orangish-red orb creeping up over the horizon is slow motion demanding you remember that it has been there forever before you and forever after. I spent a good decade addicted to this feeling of disorientation and excitement, as if at any moment something could happen that will change your life, if you surrender that moment inevitably arrives. The anticipation is often the delicious part like smelling food being prepared for hours before you eat. 
