Back along, my mother used to be the newsletter writer for Joyce Illingworth, a Christian who spent a decade as a Missionary in Northern Argentina. Before I left for this adventure, over a tasty Sunday roast, Joyce helped shape my route and threw a 'fun' Salta contact in my way, named Alec. Today I met this man, and we're off North to the jungle to meet indigenous Indians...
Alec rolls up outside Formia's in an impressively battered elderly white estate, boot tied shut with elastic rope. First impressions are that he's got the 'eccentric-jungle-explorer' look nailed. Karky lapelled, long-sleeved shirt, struggling to contain a mat of ginger chest hair, matching chinos and sandals over socks. His glasses bounce round his neck on a string, a tired-looking bum-bag clips round his trim middle next to a belt-clipped phone. His unkempt, grey-flecked ginger beard and cheery freckled face, topped with a red cricket hat, frame bright and slightly mischievous blue eyes. He speaks English with an accent very difficult to place and is hard to age due to his youthful spirit, but I'd guess he's got the half centenary.
First port of call was the workshop to grab a few bits before the long drive North. Alec disappears off into a cluttered, wood-scented chaos of boxes and benches and I'm left in a disorganised office full of DHL boxes with a guy counting dried animal skins. We jump back in the car, or 'the slave' as he calls it, and set off. His car is ace; it has an almost totally cracked windscreen, with drill holes to stop the cracks spreading, and anything that can rattles. The slave seems to have automotive cancer and its various parts are packing in, including the speedo, milo (which died at 297,000km) and fifth gear (which is 'dangerous'). Plus it seems the right indicator is always on.
As soon as we join the motorway we're stopped by a bunch of people dragging branches across the carriageways, banging drums and chanting. Much to Alec's annoyance, we got caught in a teachers strike. They're protesting nation-wide for 60% more pay, but they're especially pissed off today because yesterday a teacher died after getting clocked in the back of the head by a gun launched smoke grenade, fanning their cause. Looks like we're here for a while. Alec recognises a friend and got out to chat. I went a shot off a few photos; early morning mist swirling round the green mountains, teachers shouting in bull horns, banner carriers.
Thirty minutes later we're rattling along again and I find him very open about his fascinating life. Of mixed genealogy, he had an Irish mother, English father and granddad that sold planes round South America for Vickers during the roaring 20s. With his 6 siblings he spent 6 months on a farm South of BA and 6 in London. After a spendy private education, later focusing on agriculture, he chose a different course to his fathers ideals and joined the South American Missionary Society, evangelising to the native indigenous collective. Thrown in the deep-end at 25 he seemed to have a hard time maintaining a marriage, kids and all the responsibility of SAMS.
Not far up the road something snaps and twangs under the slave's hood and the steering gets real sluggish. Pulling into a town a mechanic finds a belt joining a whole host of different parts of the engine to have disappeared, and that the power steering's died. Nowhere in town has a suitable belt. Oh well. Alec points out a stowaway on the roofrack, a dead unlucky sparrow, and laughs 'A snack for later!' before jumping back in. We clatter on. I like his style.
I'm not 100% on the chronology, but he and Joyce stuck out the Falklands conflict and through the Argentinean financial crash, and one thing led to another and he decided to get out of SAMS and set up shop as a freelance craft trader, buying and selling native Indian craftwork. A definite ideas man, scattily bouncing excitably from one good meaning idea to the next, he's built an international export business selling what appears to be fairly traded native craftwork.
"One day," he says "my wife went on holiday and never came back..." What followed was a messy divorce and a still ongoing painful lawsuit. It seems she got the kids and the moolah, and is squeezing him for more. The picture he paints of her does make her out to have horns and carry a trident. Though like Borat "...it's ok, I have a new wife." This time he married a Psychologist; an unconsciously practical choice considering it sounded like he needed the therapy. His current openness and introspection sounds like a man who's been walked down a psychiatric path.
We pull up by a set of traffic lights and a man wanders between cars selling 'The Tribune' newspaper and a selection of catapults. I'm more than tempted to get a catapult, but we settle on a paper. Then Alec makes an impressive, if rather dangerous, attempt to multitask and read the paper while driving. Though even when not reading the paper he drove with no hands rather more than I'd have liked.
Passing endless fields of sugarcane we philosophise, talk psychology, agriculture, religion, economics, property, history, politics, about the Wicki people, and about Alec's theory on why Argentina never really managed to launch itself as a country. We suddenly have to pull in again, cos this time the coathanger that's holding down the bonnet has come loose and it's starting to flap. Might not be good if it flips up at 80mph.
We stop for lunch at Embarcation and I grab a seat while he gets change from a bank. He joins me and orders a corn dish I've never tried, so I give it a bash. Turns out he's pretty much a veggie, not entirely by choice, but cos hepatitis shagged his liver. The half hectare of fluorescent yellow corn cake, drowning under cheese sauce, was passably bland but could've fed a village.
We pick up a nurse and two teachers, hitching a few km down the road to their respective workplaces. Apparently it's normal practice to pick up uniformed professionals and give them free rides. Perhaps I should get a nurses uniform, then I'd get free lifts everywhere! Perhaps...
After Embarcation it's off the main roads and onto the old tierra. Everything that rattled before throws an epi. We pass miles of Soya plantations that Alec says were once forest. It's gradually being eaten up by a disastrous combination of illegal logging and agriculture. The Wicki people, still hunter gatherers, and the environment are the only losers.
Passing homes of 'Log thieves' who Alec's caught but can't stop, and real live mounted gauchos, in hats and chaps, we arrive at the 'protected' Wicki Mission area. I knew it wouldn't be so, but this modern day Mission couldn't have been further from the ornate stone mission reducciones of the Jesuits. Neither was it villages full of wigwams. Turns out it's just a pocket of real poor people living in mud 'adobe' houses behind stick fences. As we drive up, adults appear with bags full of handicrafts and children seem to appear and multiply from behind trees. Alec gets out and dons the bestringed glasses which don't sit straight on his face. He obviously puts in orders and collects them next time, and has a mark-up he calculates on an archaic data organiser.
Another thing I'd expected was traditional indigenous fashions, like the Bolivian and Peruvian Indians. But the Wicki people simply wear standard western clothing. Men in trousers and t-shirts, women in flowery dresses, baby strapped on with a sash and flip-flops. Though the women do seem to follow a 'the more materials, colours and patterns clash, the better' policy.
The Wicki have heavy-set Marlon Brando Godfather cheeks, and definitely have a more indigenous look than the neighbouring Argentineans of Spanish decent. They are very mild mannered, always shake your hand and are notoriously bad at making decisions. They follow a 'goodwill' merit system, where they do you a favour in exchange for an owed favour anon. This fit very well with Christian Missionary ethics, but was and still is exploited by entrepreneurial Argentineans who've no intention of returning favours.
We shuffled from village to village as the Wicki came out to sell Alec their stuff. Still fully involved with the wellbeing of the Missions Alec organises Wicki Footy championships and marathons and is endlessly fundraising for Church roofs, the building of a Museum and other Wicki related projects. As well as helping Alec tie up and bag giant bunches of necklaces, I pretty much photodocumented the day, to the entertainment of the kids. We left a box or two of instant mash and candy bars at each village. Some kids had ginger highlights as a consequence of malnutrition. I was asked by a lady if I'd photograph her family because her mother was dying, so Alec drove on & I obliged.
We met up in the main town where Alec had parked up. We unloaded our stuff and set up our mozzy nets in our mud hut. While the threat of Malaria is low there's been a resurfacing of Dengue Fever of late and while you don't die (first time you get it...) it gives you a bitchin headache. Our 'bathroom' has a brownstained bathtub and a cupboard with large spider legs protruding from one side. In the 'kitchen' our fridge is open and contains two black kettles, a packet of medication and a lonely tub of marmite. The 'lounge' has a fine selection of National Geographics circa 1993.
While Alec sets to work, paying for carvings, paintings and jewellery from a never ending queue of locals, I set off to explore the village. Cut to ten minutes later and I'm surrounded by kids messing about for the camera then swarming round to see the picture on my LCD. Children appear from nowhere. It's no surprise that every girl over 20 years old here has a baby in tow.
When I ask Alec for some water I'm supplied orange Fanta. Fortunately I love Fanta, but this might explain why the place looks like it's crying out for a good dentist. Even the kids teeth look like wooden stumps.
Alec organises a village meeting to sort the upcoming footie tournament and we leave them to it while we eat a beefy dinner washed down with more Fanta. I learn the best way to hunt a condor and after a long day we hit the hay...
***
Up and pottering about at 0645 in the spitting with rain, we rearrange the already loaded Slave and pack in five Wicki for the bumpy journey back. We pass eagles and herons out looking for breakfast and philosophise our way back to Salta, taking the road Sandra and I should've taken instead of the Jungle Road. As I ponder what splendid luck to see this crazy backwater we see an ambulance mow down a chicken. Sad and morbid it's true, but what delicious irony to cark it being hit by an ambulance.
Barns
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