Week 7:
Give and Take

August 26, 2018

I went to the Amazon on a gut feeling.  I knew that there were bounties of herbal knowledge to be found there, but didn’t really know how I would be able to apply it later, in the United States.  This internship provided me with the tools to survive (and even thrive) in the Napo province of Ecuador, connections to people knowledgeable in plant medicine, and a caring host family with one of the best chakras (rainforest gardens) around.  I brought a notebook to fill with information and drawings of the plants, an open mind, and previous knowledge of how to make extracts and preparations of medicinal plants, such as salves (herbal ointments) and tinctures (extracts using alcohol).  I also brought experience identifying plants in Marty’s plant systematics course, a concept for foreign medicine systems and how they interact with modern health care from Misha’s medical anthropology course, and some extra Spanish from Michael’s 205 course.

The results were beyond my imagining.

I formed a close bond with my host family, and they showed me their chakra.  They noticed my enthusiasm for learning about the plants, and when they found out that I knew how to make salves, they encouraged me to make salves out of Amazonian plants.  They more readily told me about the uses of the plants so I could make storable remedies out of them, and I was able to cement my learning through practical work.  I left most of these remedies behind for my host family to sell, along with the knowledge of how to make more.

I feel that my cooperation with Clemente and Elena (my host parents) is only the beginning of a long-lasting partnership, and more than that, they have become like my own family.  I fell in love with them, the rainforest, and the simpler, more relaxed life led in Ecuador.  I will apply for a Fulbright there, to study the other ten months out of the year that I haven’t seen already, observing fruits and flowers in other seasons, investigating shamanism below the surface level, studying at Ikiam (the university in Napo), and continuing to make new remedies with my host parents.

So I take out of this internship a handful of Amazonian salves and tinctures, an incredible experience of traveling on my own in a foreign country, a lot more Spanish than I used to know, and a partnership with a couple of experts on Amazonian plants.  I plan to continue studying to become an herbalist, and hope that when I open my own herbal consultation, I can buy salves and other remedies imported from Clemente and sell them at my apothecary shop.  Then I will be able to make full use of all of my experience in the Amazon.