Colonos - Amazonia por la vida? is a blog that two colonists, Colono and Colona, are using to communicate experiences arising from living on what is probably best described as the frontiers of capitalism, or western, (neo-)liberal colonisation of the rain forest.Colonos is the words used locally to describe the people, encouraged by the Ecuadorian governments in the past and the present, who come to seek fortune in the land opened up by the destruction of the forest and the inclusion in the capitalist economy of the people who traditionally lived in the Amazon - the so-called indigenous peoples.Although it is clear that we, as Europeans and as members of a higher education institution, are also colonos, we hope that we will be able to engage and live with the people and the environment in a slightly less destructive manner than is common for the Euro-breed.Please find out what exactly brought us here.
Don Vicente Mamallacta shows that he is still going strong, building a house in the traditional Kichwa manner.Vicente is in his 80s and lives in a community called Santo Domingo near Archidona in the Napo region of Ecuador and is a very powerful ayahuasca shaman (healer). He can be contacted via his son, Silverio:
Don Vicente Mamallacta introduces himself and speaks about his extraordinary life as a shaman. It is in Kichwa and will hopefully be done with a better camera one day (batteries dead and nno electricity, so it filmed with an Olympus Mju 800 digital still camera) and with subtitles.Vicente is in his 80s and lives in a community called Santo Domingo near Archidona in the Napo region of Ecuador. He can be contacted via his son, Silverio: . See the first part here: http://colonos.blip.tv/file/1229...
Don Vicente Mamallacta introduces himself and speaks about his extraordinary life as a shaman. It is in Kichwa and will hopefully be done with a better camera one day (batteries dead and nno electricity, so it filmed with an Olympus Mju 800 digital still camera) and with subtitles.Vicente is in his 80s and lives in a community called Santo Domingo near Archidona in the Napo region of Ecuador. He can be contacted via his son, Silverio:
Almost in Abancay, this is another simple sequence to give an idea about how the road is.
Lucanas is on the Nazca-Abancay (a new and now one of the primary routes from Lima to Cusco) road, shortly after the Abra Condorcenca pass (4390m) and after the road forks north to Ayacucho. This is a simply little sequence recorded with a point-and-click digital camera out of the window of a car.
On the beach of Colan, near Paita, Piura in Peru. Many big birds diving for food and what might seem to one is a fight over the fishy food, to another could be a collaborative effort to tear in bits and pieces the meat of the poor fish.
A song of praise for Ayahuasca, the mother of all medicinal plants in the Amazonian cosmovision. T'was recorded during an assamblea of yachaks (curanderos, shamans), outside Tena, Napo, Ecuador, on January 13, 2007.The sound is not very good (recorded with a digital still camera in motion picture mode, then converted to OGG Theora with ffmpeg2theora) Read more about Ayahuasca in Colonos - Amazonia por la Vida!
Bebe is not a baby tiger, but a little baby sloth - more about her here:http://colonos.wordpress.com/2006/12/22/supreme-method-of-being/
Chonta Kuros is a delicate dinner item around here, they are maggots that come from within the Chonta palm (also called peach palm, its fruit is yellow, with fibrous pulp, dark brown wood is very hard but elastic).They are either roasted as they are on open fire (often charcoal in the towns), or rolled in banana leaves and cooked likewise.
Barely a month old they have begun to fight, but can't stand up properly to pee yet, - so they roll in it, and we all roll with it.
