Thank You, Ecuador

What do you get when you cross the aboriginal environmentalism of Avatar, the cultural tourism of The Beach, and the narrative hilarity of Carlos Castaneda? You get “Amazon Awakening,” a humungeous work of travel journalism written by Andy Isaacson and published in last Sunday’s New York Times.

The moral hook for the article is the struggle of Achuar, an Ecuadorean indigenous group, to preserve their way of life against the encroachments of civilization in general, but more specifically the oil interests that are after the massive reserves that sit under the rainforost of the northeastern Amazon. But that’s just an excuse; the real motivation is for Isaacson to engage in the most egregious exercise in transcultural condescension since Alanis wrote “Thank You, India.”

It begins with the very setup for the trip, in which Isaacson offers the standard excuse of every self-styled authenticity-seeker: Everyone else may be a tourist and a voyeur, but I’m different:

The trip was to be a departure from the typical Amazon tourism, which tends to package wildlife viewing with a certain cultural voyeurism. I wanted something more immersive and participatory: an experience with Ecuador’s indigenous people that would expose me to a different orientation altogether.

And like every other tourist before him, the voyeurism begins almost immediately, when he takes advantage of a layover in Quito to visit a nearby shaman named “Don Esteban,” aka “Steve”.

…Don Esteban emerged wearing a knit V-neck sweater and slacks, beaded necklaces and a yellow-feathered headdress. He beckoned us into the adjacent treatment room, which was sparse and dim and smelled of burnt sugar cane alcohol. I was directed to sit in the corner beside a desk cluttered with melted wax, glass balls, brown eggs and various other mystical paraphernalia.

Sounds like my friend John’s coffee table in residence in first year university. Steve proceeds to perform some ceremony that will help bring Isaacson in tune with – wait for it – Mother Nature:

Don Esteban had me stand naked in the center of the room. Beating a drum and chanting around me, he summoned the ancestral spirits before instructing me to face the four directions of nearby volcanoes in turn, with arms raised, as he blew tobacco smoke on my skin and slapped me with nettle leaves. Then, with his cheeks engorged with alcohol, he held a candle flame to his lips and unleashed spectacular balls of fire that dissipated across my chest.

It’s pretty clear the “shaman” was making this up as he went along. You can imagine what really happenened. Don Esteban and his wife are sitting around having a drink when the tour guide shows up and goes, “dude, we got a live one here. Get out your headdress!” And then Steve – sorry, Don Esteban – is like, "Uh, here, rub this candle all over yourself, and then I'll beat you with nettles and...uh...blow smoke in your face."

Isaacson, of course, leaves feeling “serene”.

The whole thing continues on like this for another three thousands words as our narrator finds himself embedded deeper into Achuar life. After conceding that tourism has its downside (“the loss of communal values and a new market mentality, alcohol abuse, litter, men cutting off their traditional ponytails”), Isaacson has the gall to suggest that he’s actually helping these people:

Such quaint cultural displays meant to satisfy tourists expecting something “authentic” and exotic can also resuscitate and revive aspects of traditional culture. “It makes us see how we’re admired and validates the importance of our traditions,” Mr. Tsamarin had told me, adding that the Achuar now consider the value of their cultural heritage as a useful leverage against oil development.

Right – helping people by convincing them to turn their village into what amounts to a zoo.

There’s no question that the Achuar are in a tough spot. Like almost every aboriginal group on the planet, they are going to face tough choices trying to balance traditional forms of life with the imperative to modernize. But probably the last thing they need is people like Andy Isaacson visiting them for the express purpose of having them minister to his own spiritual lacking.

(Thanks to the Handcaper)