Ecuador Joannan silmin - Ecuador in my eyes: the time is running out

With the morning sun a mist rose from the river and in the mist the boa people.

Silently they walked above the ground, with two feet, just like any other people.

Their hair was black and the skin color of copper.

Their movements were graceful; like a dancer, waving her hair and inviting her future husband.

They were beautiful people, strong and powerful people.

The men of the village held their wives and their children and whispered promises of brief return.

Not a tear left an eye that morning; it would have been bad luck to cry, wailing like over a corpse.

The runners had returned with more warriors from nearby villages.

Counting the heavy war spears, the prince could see that he had more than hundred men with him.

Besides them stood the boa men whose numbers rose and declined when some of them entered the river and returned afterwards.

- We must go now, Amarun raised his spear and run into the foliage.

In the shadow waited his loyal bear, aproaching him it sniffed him quickly.

The warriors nodded, content, a bear was sign of strong magic.

A sign of the strength and power of their prince.

- Cacique, they called him, leader and chief.

Together they run through the forest, wary of the sharp sting of chonta thorns or the touch of the poisonous leaves.

- Do not worry, Amarun told them, I will call the land and it will seek the best place for your feet to land.

The men nodded and ran, and they could feel how the earth accommodated itself to their feet and gave them more spring, making them even faster than before.

But still they were wary of the poisonous snakes slithering above them and the bite of the great tarantulas.

- Do not worry, the prince told them, I will call the wind and ask it to sweep the leaves and branches from our path and nothing will be able to get to you in secret.

Now the men run without a worry or fear because their women had painted the skin around their eyes black with wituk seeds’ juice so that the jaguar and puma would be afraid of them.

Early in the morning, before sun rose the kuraka had brushed them with guayusa leaves and blew tobacco smoke on them.

All their eyes were rubbed with fresh chili pepper to make them strong and able to see beyond mere mortal realm.

No matter how hard it stung, not one of them had shed a tear.

But they had breathed the smoke from the purifying fire of the kuraka and they were prepared to meet their faith.

There was nothing that could touch them or scare them anymore.

And so they run, faster than the wind, their feet barely touching the earth and then springing back to the air.

Even the air and the wind carried them, further and further along until they were closing to the clearing where the prince was to meet with the woman, Iluku.