The Last Weekend

Me and Mamajuanita

This weekend was super busy!  On Friday, instead of going to the clinic, I went to Otavalo to the Huamba Juasi clinic, which performs traditional medicine.  We watched two shamans, who were both female and very different from the shamans I met in Peru.  Their rituals were very interesting.  The first thing we watched was a woman who couldn’t straighten her ring finger, we thought maybe because of a snapped tendon or something.  So the shaman massaged it back into place, pretty normal.  Then we sat in on the other shaman, who was being visted by a toddler, probably about 8 – 12 months old.  The girls who brought him were young, I’d say the one who was his mom was maybe 16.  They also brought two eggs,  one of which the shaman threw out.  Then she took the second egg and began to rub it all over the little boy, who was laying on the table.  She rubbed his belly, his legs, his head and his back for maybe 10 minutes.  Then she took olive oil and sprinkled it all over him.  She also had a handful of stones, which she doused in olive oil as well and then rubbed those on the boy too.  I think the purpose of this procedure is to rid the boy of his sickness or evil spirits, by transferring them to the egg.  It was difficult for us to understand because they were speaking quinche, which is the language of the indigenous people.

Rubbing the guinea  pig on the patient.

But the most interesting procedure of all was the use of a guinea pig as a diagnostic technique.  We saw two patients who had this performed, each complaining of pain in a different p lace.  The first lady was 56 years old and was having pain in her lower abdomen/uterus.  She came with who I assume to be her daughters and granddaughter.  Both ladies were older and had their granddaughters with them to sign the papers, I assume because they are illiterate. 

Anyways, the patient brings their own live guinea pig, which can e  purchased from a shop just down the street.  They give it to the shaman, who hold it by the neck and then rubs it all over the patient’s skin (they have taken most of their clothes off).  And I am telling you, this was a very vigorous rub that mainly concentrated on the certain area of pain.  So the first lady had the live guinea pig rubbed all over her lower abdomen, her legs, her butt but also on her chest and neck and back.  Sometimes, the shaman also grabs the guinea pig by the legs and moves it in circles, like when you twist a towel, still while rubbing it on the woman’s bare skin.  During this process, which takes 15 – 20 minutes, the guinea pig dies.  At this point, the shaman grabs a knife and cuts into its chest, pulling off its coat in the same way you would take off a jacket.  Then she cut the next layer of skin, so that all of the intestines fall out.  She examines the rest of the guinea pig corpse because they believe that whatever ailments are present in the guinea pig represent the condition that the patient has.  Then she treats the patient, seemingly by massage and then tying a white sheet very tightly around their abdomen.  Very interesting.

In case you were wondering what the inside of a guinea pig
looks like...

Cutting the guinea pig open.

On Saturday, I travelled by myself to the Bella Vista Cloud Forest, which was very beautiful.  I was worried about getting there by myself, because I had to take two buses (one of which was the same that I got robbed on) and then a taxi-truck up the mountain.  But I got lucky and ended up running into other tourists who were going the same route.  The cloud forest really is like being in a cloud, it is cool and misty and all of the plants are wet.  The sky is white, and when looking into the distance, all you can see is white, too.  The people there gave me rubber boots, a poncho and a map, and gave me directions on which trails to hike during my time there.  After I finished hiking, I ate lunch in their café, and grabbed a ride back to Quito with a few older couples.

Today, we went  on an awesome 45 km (27 mi) bikeride through the mountains.  When we started at the top of the mountain, it was super super cold and almost rainy.  I definitely did not bring enough layers!  Also, we rode on quite bumpy roads, some of which were dirt and others were paved.  Our first big stop was at the hot springs.  We went in the pools and in the river (which was NOT warm), but the pools were really nice and there were a lot of people there.  After, we had lunch in the mountains by a lake, which was really beautiful.  Then we continued our trek down the mountain, and later drove to an old train track, which now serves as a bike/ jogging trail.  The views of the mountains and the canyons and the rivers were very beautiful but also hard to look at for too long because of how bumpy the road was!

This week I am working in the maternity hospital, so this should be a really great week to see if my life plans will still be my life plans!