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Ecuador
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July 2004
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Ecuador
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July 2004
Santo Domingo de los Colorados
Last Friday July 2nd, we left Quito at 7 am and headed for Santo Domingo. Mesías accompanied the trip with his guitar and amazing voice. The drive was beautiful and our driver Marcelo was a great driver as usual. We were excited to see the Indians of Santo Domingo also known as the “Colorados,” because of the red paint they put in their hair and the patterns they put on their skin. We arrived in Santo Domingo at about 10:30 am, with the intent to visit a school to do our service of fluoride and anti-parasite pills for the kids. To our surprise, the town was having a holiday, the day before the town’s Independence Day. All of the schools were out for the day, so we weren’t sure exactly where we would be doing our service, but we knew we would find something. We decided to go and see the museum of the Colorado Indian tribe that we had heard about, so asking around, we finally found it. It wasn’t really a “museum” like we were used to seeing with a big building and glass cases with cool stuff inside, but more of a demonstration of where they lived and how they lived. The men there had a red pigment in their hair which is called achote mashed up and then painted into their hair. They also had black lines and dots on their arms, legs, chest, and face. The women were wearing the traditional dress of bright colors for a wrap-around skirt and the men had a wrap around covering as well, but black and white. They gave us a tour of their place, showing us how they cook, dance, make fabric, music, and how they live in general. Dr. Zambrano offered to give fluoride treatments to the children and anti-parasite pills to everyone. They seemed excited and called some more children to come and get the treatment. Our fellow volunteer Kevin performed a juggling show which is always a hit and the kids and adults loved it. It was evident that there was a slight language barrier as they didn’t quite understand all of his jokes. When he asked them to give some names of different animals so he could act them out while juggling, they only shouted out one and it was definitely not a name in Spanish. Their primary language is called…sufini……… After the juggling, we taught them how to prevent parasites with a song. There is normally a part in the song that talks about not walking around without shoes, but Dr. Zambrano thought we should leave that part out considering their custom to always go barefoot. We then handed out the anti-parasite pills and provided the fluoride treatments. We also handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste to everyone there. The chief of the tribe talked with Dr. Zambrano and they decided on a date when we could come out again and do actual dental work. They seemed very excited and we decided on the end of this month. Though things didn’t go according to our original plan, we were able to be exactly where we were needed and have a prospective service project with them to help them even more. As we left, we paid our $2 entry fee for each of us (for the museum tour) and said “nos vemos” with a plan to come back. There was a monkey on a harness that gave Kevin the juggling king a big hug, not really letting Kevin go. It was a good trip and we felt good. It was a beautiful place and we are looking forward to going back!
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