Photo by Eriberto Gualinga
« During the minga we did last week to get the material from the house, you can see it’s a disaster. Nothing but earth, the basis of everything to start again » Samai Gualinga, kichwa from the Sarayaku community in Ecuador.
In July 2018, the Kichwa Indians of Sarayaku deposited the declaration of the Living Selva in Quito and requested its inscription on UNESCO’s intangible heritage list.
According to their cosmogony, the earth, the cosmos, human beings, animals, flora, stones, mountains and lakes form a whole. Within this whole, there are also the living beings of the forest which are invisible. That is why the forest must be protected, just like human beings.
They also intend to propose an alternative to reduce the consequences of global warming thanks to Sumak Kawsay, the good life in harmony. This philosophy of life guides the community and has value as an example in the world.
But today they’re in a state of emergency. In the morning of March 17, the three main rivers of Sarayaku suddenly overflowed, tragically affecting the entire population: Whole houses washed away, food supplies destroyed, domestic animals missing, fish farms and fields devastated, the health center filled with mud, school classrooms razed to the ground, impassable roads, the unusable airstrip, the only bridge between the two banks ripped out, drinking water installations collapsed and much more damage.
Samai, daughter of the historic leader José Gualinga and Sabine Bouchat, now heads the community’s communications department.
It is through the Web that the kichwas are calling out.
She posts photos on the Facebook page « Sarayaku, defensores de la Selva » and sends this message by messenger:
« Thank you for giving and hearing from us.
In addition to the containment for the coronavirus and the floods we had the internet cut off. An antenna that was no longer working in Quito! It’s working again since Monday, April 13th.
As far as the coronavirus is concerned, Ecuador is quite affected. According to the figures they’re willing to give us, there are 8,200 positive cases and 400 deaths. In Guayaquil, the virus is killing people, mixing with the misery of street people. There are deaths in the streets that nobody wants to touch!!!
In the province of Pastaza where there are about 83.000 inhabitants, there are 17 cases of coronavirus and so far 2 deaths.
In Sarayaku we hope that the virus will never arrive because it would wreak havoc. Given the strong community life and the traditional chicha chewed by women and served in bowls that everyone shares, any disease in Sarayaku quickly turns into an epidemic.
The Sarayaku Governing Council has banned all outsiders from entering. There are only a few like us (me as a leader and my mother as a project manager) who can make the round trip from Puyo but with the maximum precautions and only once during the confinement.
The floods have left us in a very sad and desolate situation. Some without houses (20 houses have disappeared including ours), others with houses but all empty and in critical condition, and 80% of the village no longer have fields which are our livelihood with hunting and fishing. We have at least a year to recover.
The college, Tayak Wasi, Sasi Wasi, the educational centres of Chontayaku and Shiwakucha are totally destroyed.
Because of the confinement, students from all over the world and the country are studying over the Internet. Those from Sarayaku and other indigenous peoples and communities in the interior of the Amazon no longer have classes and I don’t know how they are going to make up for this delay in schooling.
It’s hard to combine containment and flooding.
We don’t have our fields any more and we can’t go to Puyo (4 hours away by pirogue) for shopping.
Many families in Sarayaku have taken refuge in their tambos (an area in the middle of the forest about a day from the centre of Sarayaku) where they live from hunting, fishing and gathering. They are fleeing from the virus as they did from rubella during the time of colonization! If we discover a single case of coronavirus in Sarayaku, we’ll all go to the tambo, that’s for sure.
Yeah, it’s hard to live with. Dad, Mom and I took the risk of coming to Puyo to shop for the family and the village. My father won’t go back to Sarayaku. He’s staying on Puyo to help the other indigenous people he represents at the township level. That too will be another ordeal: separation, because mother and I are going back to Sarayaku until everything calms down…and that can last!
We have received financial support thanks to friends and families living in Europe and the USA. With these funds, we are able to buy and transport food to the village.
Hoping for better times, I give you a big hug. At a distance, it is still allowed!
Take care of yourself.
Samaï
PS: To support us, you can send us funds to the account of the « Casa Nicaragua » in Belgium.
More info at: info@casanica.org
This unprecedented flooding is due to climate change and deforestation upstream. While Sarayaku has been on all fronts to curb climate change for many years, now more than ever they need everyone’s support.
We call on all allies, friends of Sarayaku and their cause to mobilize to support the guardians of the Living Forest! 100% of the donations will go to Sarayaku – tax deduction from 40€ on the account of ADI asbl (Belgium) – Iban: BE95 0000 3947 5158 and BIC: BPOTBEB1 with the communication » SARAYAKU « .
N’hésitez pas à relayer et à soutenir, selon vos moyens, bien sûr. La solidarité doit être comme le virus qui nous afflige, sans frontière. Prenez soin de vous, prenons soin de tous.
The Voice of Indigenous Women has just received this very moving message from Paty Gualinga, the nature rights ambassador of the Sarayaku community of Ecuador and one of the platform’s portraits. http://femmesautochtones.com/
Today the community is a victim of Covid19 and flooding.
It could disappear if we don’t help them.
“On very difficult days, I thank God that we are overcoming at home, anguished as I watched my old father fighting for his life I began to think that day after day the communities are silently living the dengue epidemic, without knowing it, thinking that something is wrong It happens suspecting that the Covid may have arrived in the communities, but no analysis, some elderly people die, the least that can be done is to test and look for solutions, but surely to ask for this is to face a deaf state apparatus that does not care about the life of the communities. “
Anne Pastor
