Reach Out and Touch Faith

In the States, when we are not feeling well or are really sick, we go to the doctor. Here, it´s not uncommon to go to a healer to draw out the bad spirits that are making you ill. We have experienced two different healers. In our early days, on our way to Otavalo, we stopped at a man´s house. We ushered into a small back room,  where there was a table filled to the edges with a strange array of totems and statues from all parts of the world and religions. We were told that typicially when a healing happened, the person would be naked, but he asked the girl to take off just her shirt. The shaman had her rub herself down with an unlight candle. He proceeded to read it and knew so much about her medical past from it.  He put on his parrot feathered hat and started chanting to Catholic Saints that nobody had really heard of, at least that is what we came to believe because he was talking too fast everything was slurred together. He started the healing by blowing tobacco in her face, spraying her with oils, and the grand finale! Telling her to stand strong while taking a big swig of vodka and blowing fire at her. As scary and stressful as it was to see our friend become saturated in fire (she came out unscathed, other than some singed hair), there was this incredible energy in the room. After her appointment was complete, she said that she felt better than she had in years. As we were leaving, we saw a certificate saying that he was legit and had studied to become a shaman. Wish they had that major at BW.

The other healer was one that I got to experience myself. In the markets, there is a booth that  was filled with all sorts of flowers and herbs. Along with the flowers were the medicine women that ran it. We sat down and the woman started to hit us with a a thicket of flowers and chanting. After that, we were rubbed down with an egg that it suppose to gather the bad spirits, and when you crack open the egg it is black on the inside. I didn´t get to crack mine open unfortunately. I got three charcoal crosses drawn on me: on my forehead, stomach and lower back. I was a little light headed afterwards, probably from getting beat with flowers and deeply inhealing them. But there has been one thing I´ve noticed since the cleansing that has felt different. Earlier last year, a spot between my hip and my spine started to hurt when I moved a certain way, and I would get sharp pains all up my body. And here during hikes it would start to hurt too. But since the cleansing, it hasn´t bothered me at all.