Day Three

Spent morning making a table for our eating area out of an old canoe. When first constructed, the table was at about at chin-level to Joe and I, which means that it was above eye level to our vertically challenged colleagues. Although they didnt seem to think this was a problem we suggested that it be lowered considerably. Their solution was to dig holes in the floor and to bury the legs. I guess it pays to have a dirt floor.
You may be wondering just how we are communicating with the Huaoranis? Luckily, Otobo and a few other Huaoranis have picked up Spanish and that combined with a little good old trusty sign language comprises of the communication interchange. No enligsh is spoken by any of the Huaos, leaving Joe and I the ability to talk smack freely. A good thing about witnessing Huao conversation in their traditional tongue is that it allows Joe and I a creative release by doing our own live voice-overs spectulating what they are saying or just imputing what we want them to be saying at that moment. It has never been so safe to be a smart ass.
After lunch (of Hunts BBQ suace on rice) the work group takes a canoe upstream to cut trees for the large comedor (eating structure), which is to be our first project. Several enormous trees our felled and cut up, leaving them to carried to the canoe. One of the soft-spoken Huaos we have named Lenny (think Mice of Men) is carrying one of the 400 lb+ plus logs on his back, which serves as the first of many amazing feats of strength that we would witness during the trip. They gave Joe and I a log to carry saying that it was ¨very light.¨ We could hardly carry it together and eventually had to have two Huaos finish the job. One of the young Hoao boys made the comment about us ¨their muscles must only be for girls.¨ Haha. That boy later disappeared and was not to be found again.
After a hard day of work, we thought it prudent to take a bath for the first time in possibly a week. As we are fully aware of what lurks in the rivers here-especially the small fish that swims up your ureathra and lodges himself in with spikes should you happen to take a leak in the water. I have given Joe instructions and a pistol in case this fatal tragedy should ever befall on me.
We look at the Huao for precedence in what to do about the issue of bathing. They jump out of a docked canoe to wet themselves, then get out lather up and then briefly jump back into the water to rinse off. This sort of river bathing routine would be the norm for us for the rest of our trip.
The drinking water we brought in is running low so we will need to set up some rain water catchment system tommorow.
Brought out the IPOD after dinner and those present appeared to be very interested in the device.

For those interesting...during our last week in the jungle we visited at area called Bameno, where a peace corps volunteers ventured in to hold a crafts expo with the Huao women there. She wrote up her adventurous experience and mentions us in it. The site http://www.ciao79.blogspot.com/