Travels to Cofán Land!

We have safely returned from our second trip to visit the indigenous Cofán in Ecuador!  It was a magical trip.  We traveled by van and by canoe to three areas – Loreto, Zabalo – a remote village near Peru and Columbia located on the Aguarico river, and Chandia N’ae – an even more remote village near the Columbian border.

Loreto:  The Cofán are finding that many of their plants that have traditionally provided food and medicine are not thriving as well in Zabalo as they used to due to climate change, and they have begun a project to grow these plants at a higher elevation in Loreto.  They have about 80 food plants and 80 medicinal plants now growing on a small piece of land in Loreto.  We spent a night and toured the lush plantings.  Extraordinary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zabalo:  More travel on windy roads followed by a 3-hour motorized canoe ride and we were once again in Zabalo!  We visited Zabalo in 2022 on our first trip and were delighted to return.  Highlights of our 3 day stay include:

 

 

 

• We saw a “Brigade” – better known to us as a “wellness clinic” – take place! This is the fourth “Brigade” sponsored by All Peoples.  In about 24 hours, 100 people were seen and treated.  If any more serious concerns were noted, doctors will follow-up with appointments in-town, of course necessitating travel back down the Aguarico and a couple of hours by car!  During the “Brigade”, several new families signed up for the Seguro Campesino healthcare program that we support.

 

• We did a “Days for Girls” training about reproduction and menstruation and handed out washable period products to girls and women who had not received them on our first visit. Twenty-five women and about 8 men attended, and we left a few additional kits for women who couldn’t attend!

 

• We took a short trip to the “turtle project”— where approximately four thousand turtles are raised until they are a year old and then released into the nearby rivers. The Cofán started this project three decades ago and have halted the precipitous decline of two types of native turtle species.

 

• We traveled up the Zabalo river to see what we could see – and that included 3 kinds of monkeys, gorgeous morpho butterflies, fabulous blooming flowers and more!

 

Chandia N’ae:  Getting there was half the fun!  The river was not too high (which would mean dangerous conditions) and not too low (which would have meant much difficult walking along the water’s edge).  But there were many parts that were quite shallow.  Not only did one of our Cofán guides “pole” much of the trip, he and the other men in the boat got out and pushed many times.  The half mile path we walked from river to the village was extraordinarily beautiful and clear evidence of the diversity of these forests.  We saw numerous varieties of mushrooms and fungi in this short distance.

 

 

 

We spent much time with Carlos, our healthcare navigator for the medical program we support.  He and his wife (a second marriage, both with grown children) just had a baby, so we brought a gift from All Peoples!  We learned that Carlos, who works half-time on the Seguro Campesino medical program helping people to navigate the healthcare system, has his hands full with our approximately 70 families in the program.  We will need to find partners who can contribute to paying Carlos for more of his time if we hope to see the program expand.

 

 

 

 

 

A sidenote – about three weeks before leaving on our trip, we were asked if we could bring any large camping backpacks, small tents, and headlamps to help outfit the “Park Guard” program.  This is the program that employs young Cofán men to patrol their lands for illegal gold mining, logging, and oil exploration.  Among our seven travelers, we managed to take 10 backpacks (including five from All Peoples and one from Greater Louisville Sierra Club!), 5 tents and 12 headlamps.  Here’s a picture of the Park Guards outfitted and ready to go!

 

If you have any questions about the All Peoples International Justice program that supports the Cofán, have ideas about possible partners to help expand the program, or would like to contribute, please contact Deborah Novgorodoff at Cofan@AllPeoplesUU.com.