We had not stopped for a half hour straight walking, and we seemed to have taken a little side trip, yet still in somewhat of the same direction of the campsite, or lodge; Avelino wanted to introduce us to the chief of a village, who seemed also to be a seer, unless I got it wrong, nonetheless, he greeted us and Rosa talked to him in Spanish. He gave us a tour of the village, then I asked Rosa, "Tell him I want to take his picture," and she asked the chief.

"But make sure, "he said, "to take my whole body, the spirits, the evil spirits are out for me, and want the chance to invade me, that would open a window for them," and I assured him the picture would be whole, I had a pilloried camera and so he could see it immediately, and he was happy about that.

"Do you think he will let me blow that six-foot blow gun?" I asked Avelino.

"Sure," he said, and walked over a foot or two, to where the chief was, and said something to him, and brought the blowgun back to me. I steadied it with my two hands, and blew the dart out with all my might and breath, it went about three feet, that was it. Then the chief looked at me, trying to hold his laugh in, blew it and it went I bet twenty-feet. I smiled at the older man; I was too embarrassed to try it again. I had stopped smoking fifteen-years prior to this event, but it didn't do much good for air capacity in my lungs, so I found out.

Then we sat in a big open enclosure, and he talked to us, saying something in Spanish to my wife: it was an invitation to stay in the village the night if we so wished, but I declined the offer, then Rosa asked him something about my illness, Multiple Sclerosis, and he asked questions about it, the symptoms: "In the morning," he said, "you come back here in the morning, I have some sap from a tree I will drain tonight, it will heal your illness."

Rosa translated this to me (what she had said): she had told the chief it was a neurological problem, that I was dropping things and got tired quickly, and my eyesight was half-hazard half the time, and I got tired often, and I needed to sleep for long periods, so forth and so on, etc., and it was making me unstable: all true I suppose. And he added it would cost ten-soles, or about 3.5 dollars. I assured him I would try it and return in the morning for the bottle, and Rosa smiled at him, and we said our goodbyes, but drank some coconut juice before we started our journey in the dark, and now our guide, pulling out the flashlight he said he did need was saying, "I guess I am glad we brought it along," he didn't look at me when he said it, just pulled it out of his back pocket, like John Wayne would in the cowboy movies pull out a gun, around his hip it went and flashed it straight ahead.

We would return in the morning for the"whatever it was"substance the chief had for us, and I did use it for several months, and it did seem to stop the progression of the MS, not cure it, but slow it down, and stabilize me for the moment, I will perhaps have to go back there for more, I thought, after my return home. And after it was gone, it did get worse.

Dennis Siluk

Writing is more than a hobby for me. It's a passion, one of the ways I capture and celebrate life.