CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Destination: Shandia
After eighteen days at sea Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador. "About half-way up the Guayas River," wrote Pete, "I finally comprehended that this, this was Ecuador. I felt a tingling sensation for the first time. Jim and I sang quietly, 'Faith of our Fathers,' as the boat pulled into the harbor:
"'Faith of our Fathers, holy faith We will be true to thee till death.
Leaving the ship, the two young men made their way through the stacks of baggage out into the hot sunlight on the Malacon, the parkway beside the Guayas River. The tide was coming in, and out in the center of the current, great masses of water hyacinths rode swiftly upriver. A gleaming white fruit ship stood at anchor, and beside it crowded the barges and long slim dugout canoes of banana vendors. A ferry was disgorging its sweating, shouting multitudes, with their straw suitcases, cloth bundles, chickens, and baskets. Jim and Pete stopped to watch the faces until the crowd dissipated in all directions; then they turned and crossed the street. Portals over the sidewalk shaded them from the tropical sun, and they gazed at the store windows with their astonishingly heterogeneous displays: sweaters and typewriters, frying pans and automobile tires, fake shrunken heads from the Jivaro Indians, and Camay soap. In one side street, cocoa beans were spread out like a nubbly red-brown carpet to dry in the sun. Businessmen, dressed in crisp white suits and Panama hats, were coming out of the buildings for their two-hour lunch break. Cadillacs and donkeys, nudging each other for the right of way, epitomized this land of contrasts.
With a growing population of over three hundred thousand, Guayaquil is the country's largest and most modem city, with wide streets and imposing office buildings. The streets are crowded, as owners, managers, and clerks from the various importing and exporting firms bustle about their business. Guayaquil is the banana capital of the world, and also from here, since World War 11, more than three million bags of coffee, some seventy million pounds of cocoa, and more than three hundred million pounds of rice have annually been loaded for the export market. An air of prosperity prevails, production is constantly rising, and this port city serves as the country's trade barometer.
Pete and Jim spent their first night in a third-class hotel. Heat, mosquitoes, the occasional bray of a burro, and the Latin rhythm of a dance band nearby made the night a memorable one. The next day they took a plane to Quito, traveling up over the western cordillera of the Andes, crossing a 13,000-foot pass, and landing in the capital of Ecuador. Quito is 9,300 feet above sea level, and to the west rises the volcanic mountain Pichincha.
Here was a new opportunity to "live to the hilt." This old-world city, with its adobe houses, high mud walls, cobblestone streets, ornate churches, with its red geraniums and eucalyptus trees, was to be their home for the next six months. For before they could get to the Oriente-the eastern jungle area of Ecuador, goal of their tireless preparation and planning-there remained this last requirement, the learning of Spanish, the national language of Ecuador.
They signed up for Spanish lessons with a senorita who expected nothing short of perfection, and they also engaged a room in the home of an Ecuadorian doctor who had five children. Here was an unparalleled opportunity for practice. They were forced to speak Spanish, and the children were quite uninhibited in pointing out the mistakes and peculiarities of their guests.
"Senor Jaime," said little Moquetin, a bright-eyed imp of six, "why is it that your face is always red?" Jim countered, "Why is it that your face is always brown?" "Because it is much prettier that way," was the unexpected reply.
"Language is a tyranny of frustration," Pete once said. But learn it they must. During those months of study Pete wrote in his diary: "I am longing now to reach the AUCAS if God gives me the honor of proclaiming the Name among them.... I would gladly give my life for that tribe if only to see an assembly of those proud, clever, smart people gathering around a table to honor the Son-gladly, gladly, gladly! What more could be given to a life?
"These almost six months have been crammed full of goodness and God has given us special privileges by way of having not set responsibilities, of giving us the money and the freedom to live with a national family and undoubtedly we have learned things that will stand us in good stead all our missionary lives. And it has been a terrific boon; praying together and seeing God give us faith, getting more and more from the Spanish Bible, gradually finding Spanish easier and getting useful phrases fixed in my mind so I didn't have to think out every one. It has all been good and we have learned things; how to cope with situations and how to keep our mouths shut on some subjects, how to get along with the nationals, what their perspective on missionaries is.... God is going to give us Spanish by one means or another, and Quichua as well."
Finally the day came when Jim and Pete were to leave Quito. They saw their gear thrown up on top of a fat, ungainly vehicle that served as a bus. An American truck bed had been surmounted by an amazing superstructure that protruded on both sides accommodating perhaps thirty or more passengers inside, and as many as dared cling on the outside. Squeezing themselves and their cameras, hallmark of the missionary as well as of the tourist, in among the other riders, they each found a seat-a board perhaps ten inches wide, with as much room again for the legs, between it and the next seat. They were fortunate indeed to be in a bus with an aisle, for in some vehicles passengers cheerfully clamber over the backs of the seats to their places. And they were able to sit up straight and still see out of the low windows. To have one's knees close to one's chin is not the most comfortable position, but then, they could take turns sitting by the aisle to stretch their legs.
"Vamos!" called the driver. Jim and Pete rejoiced that the bus was going to start on schedule. But no such luck this time-for this is the land of monana. Everywhere there are unexplained delays, and perhaps the most trying thing of all to an outsider is the fact that no one seems to be the least interested in giving an explanation. No questions are asked. Silence. In this case, the delay lasted only ten minutes or so; and, without warning, the driver gunned his motor and the bus lurched to a start.
Leaving the city, the bus climbed up over the paramo, where a cold drizzle added to the bleakness of great stretches of brown grass. An occasional Indian galloped by on horseback, red wool poncho flying in the strong wind. A woman dressed in a heavy wool skirt and embroidered blouse passed at a dog trot, the usual gait of the Indian of the high Andes. Her baby, dressed exactly as she was, complete with fedora, joggled in a cloth on her back. The mother's hands moved nimbly, spinning wool on a spindle.
At 12,000 feet the men could see the small grass huts of the highland Quichuas. They eke out a living herding cattle and sheep, growing potatoes and certain grains. This scene was soon replaced by the and territory surrounding Ambato, the city of the earthquake of 1949, and the "gateway to the Oriente." Here the bus stopped, and was immediately besieged by women with their trays of fried pork, meat pies, glasses of fruit drink, or slices of pineapple piled into an enamel basin. Each called her wares in a peculiar singsong.
The trip was resumed once more, with the bus climbing up between lofty, snow-clad peaks, then tipping forward to swoop down in dizzy, hairpin turns into the vast gorge cut by the Pastaza River through the eastern cordillera of the Andes, past the cone-shaped Tungurahua, an extinct volcano. With startling suddenness the desert of the western slope and the high mountain pass were replaced by lush greenness on the breathtaking eastern descent. Purple orchids nodded out over the road as the bus swayed and jerked along the narrow shelf of road, a precipice on the right, a steep wall of rock shouldering up on the left. Toward late afternoon the bus rounded another curve, and the Pastaza spread itself out before them, flowing in broad ribbons over black beaches. This was the western extreme of the mighty Amazon basin, which terminates three thousand miles to the east, as the river empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Another little town or two, and Shell Mera was reached. A former base of the Shell Oil Company for prospecting operations in the area, it is now an unpretentious huddle of dilapidated wooden buildings; houses, a hotel, and stores on one side of the road, and an army base and mission-sponsored Bible school on the other.
The Ecuador base of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship was at the southern end of town. Here Jim and Pete met Dr. Tidmarsh, the missionary with whom they had corresponded before coming to Ecuador. And with him they were soon flying north from Shell Mera, over the green sea of jungle, following the Ansuc River toward the Atun Yaku, headwaters of the Napo.
They were headed for Shandia, the Quichua mission station which Dr. Tidmarsh had had to abandon because of his wife's health. They planned to reopen the station, Dr. Tidmarsh staying till they could get established. Shandia did not at this time have an airstrip, so the three flew to another station nearby. Here they landed and set out on foot through the jungle. It was late in the afternoon when they started, and knowing that it was normally a three-hour hike, they raced against the sudden tropical twilight. Slipping on grassy roots, stumbling and struggling through deep mud at times, they pressed eagerly on to the place that would be their home for months to come. They were full of anticipation for what lay ahead, but at the same time they drank in the beauties of the great Amazon rain forest through which they passed.
It was virgin jungle. Trees with buttress-shaped roots grew to tremendous heights, often with no branches except at the top. Under these umbrellas an incredible variety of flora thrives. It was often impossible for Jim and Pete to distinguish the leaves which belong properly to the trees, for the huge tangle of lianas, air plants, and fungus that sponge a living from them. Orchids everywhere lent their soft colors to the living green. Fungus grew in vivid colors and bizarre shapes-vermilion, shaped like the ruffle on a lady's dress; turquoise, shaped like a shell, half hidden under a rotten log.
Just as the moon rose over the forest, the three men burst into the clearing that was Shandia.
"Indians immediately gathered around," wrote Pete, "and I remembered a couple of faces from Tidmarsh's pictures, and felt a kind of pride in remembering. My first thought was, 'Yes, I can love these people.' The ink-colored designs on the women's faces interested me and the pitiful drape of the faded blue skirts. Lots of children were about, smiling shyly. Babies sucked on big, tremulous breasts, and the young, eager faces of boys looked up at us. Heard Tidmarsh's first conversation in Quichua; wondered how I would ever learn it."
At the same time Jim wrote: "We have arrived at the destination decided on in 1950. My joy is full. Oh, how blind it would have been to reject the leading of these days. How it has changed the course of life for me and added such a host of joys!"
At the far end of the clearing stood the small thatched house in which Dr. Tidmarsh had lived. It was walled with split bamboo, floored with boards, and set on posts to insure circulation of air and to give protection from both the damp ground and the invasion of insects.
"At my first glance the house looked spacious and comfortable," Pete wrote in his diary, "and I thought how easily Olive and I could live in such a set-up, feeling joy in the knowledge and anticipation. Afterwards we got cleaned up a bit, washed our muddy feet in the ice-cold Napo, took a look around, and settled down to a meal of rice soup, plantain, manioc, and rice, with coffee. Now by the light of the kerosene lamp I am writing on the dining room table ... tired but full of thankfulness to the Father, who leads on. In reality, this is not an end but a beginning."