Welcome to the Jungle

To finish our trip Maya and I spent three nights and four days in the jungle of the Orient provence of Ecuador. We actually learned that orient, like 'oriental,' is short for orientation which all come from the fact that the sun rises in the East (see map below). We took the local route, bus to taxi to boat, to get to the lodge in about 6-7 hours or so from Quito. It was a perfect finish to our trip as we knew we were coming back to overly plugged-in America shortly. It's also strange though to go a couple of days now without Wifi, computers, and/or any other modern form of entertainment. It takes awhile for your mind to slow down and enjoy the type of tranquility you really have to search for these days if you want it (and put those distractions away)!

The true map of the world

Our stay at the jungle lodge was pleasant. The steady sound of the river always in the background could easily be confused for rain. At night you especially knew you were in the jungle with all of the noisy frogs, crickets, and other creatures coming out. We actually went for a great night hike as well as several other jungle treks. No large animal sightings sadly but we did see some monkeys, birds, and lots of interesting flora and got to put on huge boots all of the time (see picture from previous blog post).

Another activity we did was a visit to a local Quechua community. I've now been on several trips from Guatemala to Tanzania where there has been some component of "indigenous village visit" and it continues to seem like a very awkward form of tourism. I can try to imagine some foreigners coming into my community looking very different from me with a totally different set of customs, languages, and traditions, but it doesn't really put me in the shoes of the people I've visited. I can't imagine what it must really feel like to have tourists coming, paying you money (usually very little from our standpoint), and like they use to say in the Wild West: "Dance." Like "show us your culture" on command in 5 minute dance, 10 minute presentation/discussion, and maybe some display of a local craft or building skill. I don't know that paying more or less money would make it any better?

On the hand this seems like a good thing in that ignorant foreigners can gain access to new cultures that they might otherwise flip the National Geographic channel on if they were sitting comfortably back home in America. And maybe the people enjoy the visitors, although I've always had a tough time of gaging this. If I were to imagine people coming to my community and giving the "dance" command, maybe I'd enjoy it a few times, but over an over it would get tiring and potentially annoying. But they might not care if they are making money, especially in very remote villages where there aren't a whole lot of viable ways to make money. More likely I am projecting my Western bias with this.

On the other hand, it seems like this could at best be classified as an appropriation of culture and at worse as a weird form of neocolonialism. How could you possibly claim to get to know an entirely different group of people in a few hour visit (or even the overnight home stays I've done which can be even more awkward)? Is a little something better than nothing? Are the super generic (often older) Americans in their big tour groups giving a weird representation of who we are when they visit? Think of my parents with this sort of thing and imagining a very paternalistic type exchange with local people makes me cringe. But maybe I'm being self righteous?  Not all of us, in fact most of us, are not going to go overseas for 2.5 years with the Peace Corps to learn the indigenous language and "go native" as people say. I don't know if this activity feels as awkward to other people as it does to me when I am in another country.

Despite my hesitations I guess I usually do enjoy these visits and I learn something. But as a form of (eco) tourism it feels misplaced, like you are going to a zoo for human beings. I'd much rather be doing business, volunteering, or working on some sort of purposeful project when getting to learn about indigenous people.

Finally, while there are usually translators present with this sort of thing, it seems like most often neither side has any idea what the other is saying. And it's rare to see any sort of true exchange happen; it's not like the community people normally ask the foreigners about where they are coming from and what type of lives they have. I asked the people on our visit in Ecuador if they had any questions for us and they looked at me very strangely as if no one had asked this before and they didn't know what I was even asking. It would be interesting to go to a local community on one of these visits for example and do a hip hop dance (although of course I'm not Black) so maybe a line dance or something? For me it could be doing the Horah). That would at least elicit some sort of reaction and maybe start more of a dialogue.

Awkward dance with forced child labor dance during our community visit (or maybe they get some compensation?). Despite my sweet dance moves I could not elicit one single smile from these kids. Is smiling not part of their customs?

After a hard day of tourism with jungle treks, dirty, and poor local community visits, we thankfully made it back to the comfort of our luxury resort jungle lodge