On the trail, I heard children playing in the forest calling me. The forest was overgrown with narrow trees and the dense growth almost evoked bushes. The children were partly curious, partly surprised, and wanted me to take a few photos of them. The two boys immediately started climbing trees and posing. It was a children’s playground.
Mamo Abel stopped and showed us flowers – bushes with white fragrant flowers. He plucked one and sniffed it. He said that flowers that don’t smell can’t be used. The flowers had a sweet scent. Then he put the flower back in the bush. He showed us dark blue to purple flowers on the path. He said that they are very important and that they heal eyes. He plucked one flower and from the bag that was hanging under the flower, squeezed out a substance that stretched a little in its consistency and dripped onto the ground.
I was amazed at how many colored stones I saw around. Red, blue and yellow. Mamo explained to us that blue stones represent negativism. These are places where lightning often strikes and splits the rocks.
When we returned to the pueblo, José Luis, the young man who had gone shopping with us, hung hammocks in the shade of a tree for us to rest. I soon fell asleep. Overhead, I kept hearing hummingbirds chirping as they flew by. When I woke up, Marga was gone, and I was still sleepy. I took my bathing suit and went to the Jerez river. In the river, there is a hole between the stones on the bank where you can lie down and lean the back against the stone, so that the current will not carry your body away. The water woke me up and refreshed me. I wanted to stay here as long as possible, to embrace the whole moment and the place, but how can I embrace the river and the moment?
Knowing that the Wiwa women would prepare lunch for us soon, I returned after a bath. There was a large portion of shredded cabbage salad with carrots and onions, tomatoes and cucumbers and a fried egg with a piece of cheese. It started to rain. We stayed in the kitchen, looking at coloring books about the Sierra Nevada for children and talking. When it stopped raining, I went to the river again. This time just to sit there and think. I sat for a long time on the shore on a stone and watched the stream of water, which after a while appeared like strands of hair flowing linearly and evenly forward like a wave with stripes that almost merged in a long exposure.
Then I heard ‘Hola’ behind me and I looked around, it was Mamo Abel, who came to tell me to be careful, that the river will rise, because it rains a lot in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I bathed and washed myself and went back. It was already getting dark. We were sitting in the kitchen during the evening, imbued with twilight, but the kitchen was alive. Children were playing and men had come home from work. Mamo Abel’s wife came. With her hair wrapped in a red scarf, which she then took off and placed in her lap and wrapped her legs. I noticed how attractive she was when she laughed.
After dinner, Mamo Abel asked us how our day was and invited us to ask him whatever we wanted to know. At night, the moon shone again so strongly that it flooded the whole area with its light. I realized how powerful this place is and how true and wise the words of the Mamo are.
Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. Text and photography © Jaroslava Šnajberková, 2023
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