Ecuador is the beautiful country where I live. Been here a year and a half now. It has three distinct topographical areas: 1) the Pacific Coast 2) the highlands (Andes Mountains) and the Amazon.

A few weeks ago I traveled to the Amazon area with my wife and son. We flew several miles into the jungle and landed on the grass at the Waodani village of Damointaro. The people seemed to be happy to see us as they ran to the plane.

Talking to Niwa, he told me in his broken Spanish that we would dance, then "play". The tribal dance was so fun! The "play" Niwa was talking about turned out to be learning to throw a long wooden spear at a banana plant trunk. It was fun when we hit the target, but it was even "funner" when we missed, and the laughter exploded!

The lady in the picture danced for us with the womens group. She had a beautiful headdress that I wanted really bad. I try not to covet what belongs to others, but I blew it on this one.

Of course, this little village was no stranger to capitalism. After the dance and the "play" came the souvenir woven bags, spears and blow guns. I pointed to her headdress and said, "I want one of those." She walked away. I was about to give up, when she came up to me with a shy smile and handed me the beautiful bird-feather headband. I took it with a smile, then said, "Thank you." Then she took my five bucks! Did she say "thank you"? I dunno. How do you say that in Woadani?