The shamen and the monkey

Today we did a village tour.  A local woman named Olga took us through the process of bread making.  First we went out to their yard and dug up what looks like a big sweet potato.  Then it was grated into a big trough.  Followed by being put onto a big weaved mat which has a loop at the top to hang it and a loop at the bottom to put a stick through so you can twist the mat up and squeeze all the water out.  Then put through a seive to make it flour-like.  The squeezed potato is put onto a big hotplate, and Olga used the bottom of a round bowl to compress the flour.  Then she waited a minute and flipped the whole lot.  Another minute and it was ready!  A hot flatbread made with nothing but a bit potato.  And it tasted good, we had jam and tuna and ate a whole lot of it. (Note; the jam and tuna were eaten seperately except for one crazy bastard)

Potato bread

While watching the bread making the village monkey came to play.  He was a baby woolley monkey and when you touched him he felt just like a lamb.  He was pretty funny, jumping all over everyones heads, stealing peoples bread and trying to eat one girls earring. 

Woolley monkey

After baking and playing with the monkey we went to visit the shamen.  It was one moment where I wished I could understand Spanish.  He was telling the story of how he became a shamen and was happened the first time he drank the hallucinagenic drink they drink.  I could understand bits and pieces, but he was having such a good time telling the story and had such a great smile - you know when you read about someones eyes twinkling, he really had that.  After talking to us he did some cleansing rituals on volunteers.  For Anna he waved some leaves around her and hummed away while he did.  For a couple of the guys he slapped them for five minutes with stinging nettles which made all their backs blister up, gee it was funny and the old shamen was having a great time.

Oh stinging nettles are fun.