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when i first met
Marco...
by Christian Schmidt-Rasmussen
When I first met
Marco, I couldn't help reflecting myself in him. He came to Sarayacu
deep in the forest in Ecuador to visit his mother and his uncle
for the first time in many years. He had moved away from the village
where he was born and raised as an Indian to a tourist town further
south where he had opened a pizzeria. A pizzeria in Ecuador is a
rather funky thing, and I had the impression that it went well.
He came dressed in his city clothes, leather boots, and a T-shirt
with a portrait of Sitting Bull. He came to visit his mother and
uncle because they are shamans and he had at the age of twenty two
encountered identity problems which is why he wanted to consult
them. A rather exotic matter by the way. After finished consultation
his plan was to leave the village and go to the capital, Quito.
He had applied for a visa for India as he wanted to study meditation
and mantra at it's well spring. This is why I saw myself in him.
This thing about looking for what's just in front of you in a completely
different place. But then the river overflowed its banks and carried
away most of the canoes and a lot of fields, approximately a disaster.
And Marco reacted like the villagers, taking it all in a high spirit,
and then it seemed immediately that the distance became greater,
the degree of identification a bit smaller. What I mean to say is
that the reaction was contrary to Scandinavian whimpering and self
pity. It's a bit like when a popular natural science programme on
the radio brings on a theme, for instance surfaces and gets around
to anything from the surfaces of the sea to body language. The similarity
is superficial so to speak. (1996)
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