Seven wild pigs and a baby

It had been raining buckets, and Julio was hiding underneath the tarp covering our gear in the canoe when we saw a group of people in the water. They waved and we waved back, but then realized they were waving us over, not just saying hello. Cameron tried to wake up Julio, ¨We're meeting people, and their canoe has sunk¨. Julio emerged just as we pulled up and a naked elderly man with a shot gun climbed into our boat shouting instructions in a language that sounded like water stopping and starting, or maybe chinese, or possibly navajo- but of course was none of these. He gestured to Cameron to help him take his gun off. I was standing up out of the way, and once Julio emerged he started telling me to take pictures, but I couldn´t- didn´t want to. It seemed wrong. There was a very strong smell in the air, which I soon realized belonged to the three wild pigs tied to the log that were being hauled onto our boat. Once we were all settled, with people on pigs and chairs and gear and other people, the oldest man pointed to a tattoo on his arm that read Auwa. In our time of knowing him, we had many conversations with Auwa, although he spoke no Spanish and we no wow, the language of the Hoarani people. He was animated and sweet. We went down river and passed other logs and pigs. Fabian, a twelve year old who later camped with us deep in the selva for two days counted as we passed the logs and eventually came to the final count- siete. We could fit no more people or pigs on our loaded boat, so they had to float the rest of the hunt to the village, but we did pick up a screaming baby and her mother. We pulled up next to the log and Julio commanded me to get the baby, which I did, and there I was holding a screaming infant, just like any other baby, except that he had been in the water for over an hour riding a log weighed down with pigs. His little feet pumped hard against my legs and he belted his lungs out, until mama climbed on board, pulled the boob out, and his mouth moved to another occupation. That first day I felt so strange and different and voyeuristic- watching them clean the pigs in the river, feeding the entrails to the pyrannah, letting their kids play with the stretchy skin of the intestines and the little pig fetuses that came out of a pregnant sow. I couldn´t imagine connection emerging between our different worlds and languages, but it did, miraculously it did.