Chi Cha

After lunch, Freddie had hired the boat to go over to the local village. In my mind I had imagined a poor town with people selling food and handicrafts. MMM so wrong. We arrive by canoe, all we can see is a muddy path disappearing into the rainforest. Freddie with great enthusiasm leaps out and is met by a non committal Rose who has on an old muddy political T shirt, a machete in her hand and two grandchildren jumping about by her side.

She leads us through virgin rainforest to a clearing, which has manioc ready to be harvested. Freddie assures us a bit too heatedly I though that as they have cleared the undergrowth there shouldn’t be any snakes!

We are then shown how to dig the manioc up, skin them to get rid of the arsenic and various other stuff like how useful banana leaves are as toilet paper. Now it is time to carry the peeled manioc up the hill to the village. We start of well sort of enthusiastically but gratefully hand over our baskets to the grandmother (who is younger than we are) and amused by the fact that a laden basket is a bit much for us.

After perilous river crossings – (well to us and nobody else). We arrive at Rose’s house… lots of mud…. Of course it is a rainforest, chickens, dogs and children everywhere. We climb the steps into a large wooden room with a slatted floor which allows the breeze to come through In the corner is a a small dug out canoe into which Rose dumps all of the manioc plus a bigbucket of water that she collects from a barrel underneath the house.

Freddie said to us, ”Go and wash the manioc,” So dutifully as good tourists, we carefully wash each manioc… along comes Rose and with a strong muscular movement swirls the water and in two seconds the dirt is gone.

Manioc uncooked is really poisonous and so 20minutes cooking is the next stage. We head off to explore the village which is virtually muddy tracks through the jungle. Double storey wooden buildings bursting at the seems with people, chickens and livestock roaming freely,

When we return the manioc is cooled and returned to the canoe where we now mash the manioc into mush ready for the next stage which is to soak it in water for 3 days when it becomes a soft drink for children or for 3 weeks when it comes a powerful alcoholic drink.

Ho Hum... Roger suddenly becomes enthusiastically passionate about trying chi cha…now Freddie and I look at him dubiously… I had been dreading the moment when asked to try this stuff. In the past they used to chew the manioc and spit it into the mix to start the fermentation process.. even though they now have a commercial product, I am nervous.

But Roger is keen and not to deny the tourist, Freddie nervously pours Roger a glass. Mmmm really boring says Roger… not for the next three weeks as Roger suffers from a parasitic onslaught only relieved by antibiotics supplied by a sympathetic doctor two weeks later in Quito…. Ho Hum indeed.ß