Bathing with Alligators

Have you ever bathed with alligators nearby? 

Michelle Gachet, from Amazon Frontlines’ communications team and Milena Piaguaje, an Indigenous youth activist and storyteller from the Siekopai Nation, both have. It happened during a trip for their recently published multimedia project, A Territory Called Pë’Këya. In this short essay, Michelle shares her experience of the collaboration as part of a new series, Chronicles, where we hear directly from our team of creators.

For every project that I’m a part of at Amazon Frontlines, there are so many untold stories that lead up to it getting out into the world. I wanted to share one here so that when people experience A Territory Called Pë’këya they’ll know a bit more about where it came from. 

Last summer the Siekopai nation held a gathering in Pë’këya, to allow Siekopai people from Peru and Ecuador to reunite on their sacred land. Pë’këya is the ancestral territory and spiritual heartland of the Siekopai people, who are famed for their medicinal plant knowledge. The majority of the nation was displaced during the Ecuador-Peru war of 1941 and it wasn’t until 80 years later that the Siekopai nation won the right to their land back in Ecuadorian courts.

I thought it would be amazing to do a photography project while they were all together and I also wanted to do something with the Siekopai women I was working with in the Indigenous Storytelling Lab, to show how they felt about this territory. In particular, I thought of one storyteller, Milena.

Milena and I met during a photography workshop that I led five years ago. She sat quietly and I thought she wasn’t that interested. But then I got to know her and her energy was so strong. I showed her technical things about photography, but she started teaching me about life. We’d be walking in the jungle and she’d see that I was walking flat-footed and she’d say “You don’t know how to walk right!”  She’d tell me to curl my toes, to grip the ground. Pretty quickly, we started becoming friends. 

When it was time to go to Pë’këya there was a separate canoe for photographers and journalists, but Milena invited me into her family canoe. It was beautiful to go with them and it was also so packed we couldn’t even move. I was squeezed up against her mother. Which was good, because she shared her food with me. The trip took nine hours and I was nauseous, trying to hold it together while Milena and her family showed me everything along the way. 

When we arrived at Pë’këya, it was beautiful; this place I had heard about and imagined as sort of a dream, an idea, was there and I was there. 

I could only imagine what it must be like for Milena to visit it. During that trip it became clear that we had to do a project that actually included her voice. So we started working. Playing, really. What was the best way to explain her relationship to this sacred place? We decided to open up our process, so people who experience it can hear her speak casually. I asked her questions and we recorded her answers, talking about Pë’Këya and what it was like returning to it.

We also wanted to include a song. There are traditional songs sung in Paicoca, the Siekopai language, but we wanted this to be personal so Milena wrote her own lyrics honoring Pë’këya. I recorded her, but what I love most is that while she agreed to translate it for me, there were certain parts that she wouldn’t translate; they would remain hers and the Siekopai’s alone. I thought it fit in with the nickname we have for each other: ingobernable—ungovernable. Listen to the song she created. It’s incredible.

The truth is, we didn’t really know what the project could be until we were both there together. It’s like when I saw the alligators. I knew that the Spanish name for Pë’këya, Lagartococha, means waters of the alligators, but one evening, while bathing in the river, I saw their eyes, peering at us, these little sparkling red beads in the night. And that was different than knowing—being there. In our projects, we’re trying to help people get as close to the sense of being there as we can. 

By the end, Milena and I created something that is meant to feel immersive. Though, my favorite part is still a photo: The portrait of Milena, sitting with her sunglasses and her yellow skirt and blue-flowered shirt—it’s her, that super sharp, brilliant photographer and friend. It’s common to see Indigenous Peoples represented through stereotypes, but in that portrait I see Milena and that just makes me really happy. 

Michelle Gachet