From Ethan's letter to his granddaughters, Ella and Grace.
I am an old man now and my hair has turned white, but I feel like a child inside in part because of the joy of having met so many wonderful people and having lived within so many inspiring landscapes. Each picture in this book reminds me of the day I took it: how I came upon someone along the trail, the wind, the clouds, the greeting in a foreign language. I would click the camera each time I saw something or someone that inspired me: a tree in bloom, a thatched hut overlooking the sea, snow-capped mountains, children playing with simple toys like marbles in the dirt, a grandfather showing his grandchild fruits and vegetables in the garden..
As I travel, I seek out people and landscapes that touch my heart. I begin by looking for children whose faces reveal innocence and whose laughter peals like tiny bells. I search for a grandmother who has a twinkle in her eye. Word of a farmer caring for his land like his thirteenth child encourages me to walk over mountains to meet him, and I always try to connect with the village midwife or herb gatherer. Groundedness, humility, wisdom, authenticity—these are what I travel to learn.
We are all travelors, giving and receiving as we go about our daily lives. And we all travel in our own ways; some with backpacks to foreign countries, and some with laptops to offices; some seek silence in monastaries, while others seek out crowded cities; some thrill to see a model with glowing skin, and others revel in a tribal chief whose face resembles a roadmap in three-dimensional contours. We all seek to find ourselves, one way or another. My life has been spent searching for my own true self and I have found it in the hearts of the authentic people you are about to meet in this book.
-Ethan Hubbard, from the preface of his book
The Wood Gatherer
32
While trekking at eleven thousand feet in the Sacred Valley of Peru, I came
upon a man with two stout mules loaded with wood descending a precipitous
mountain trail in a cold, drizzling rain. "Allinllachu (How are you?)," he
muttered, with eyes downcast. "Allillanmi kasiani (I am fine)," I replied as
we quickly passed.
Six feet away I whirled around and stole a photograph of him. He turned slightly to see what I was doing and then continued on his way.
I intuited from the man's Indian attire and his facial features that he was a Quechua Indian, a descendant of the Incas who once ruled Peru. With a machete at his waist and his axe secured by rope to the load, I imagined that he had cut his load of firewood higher up in the mountains. He and his mules carried the aroma of sweat, wet woolen garments, and sap from the green wood.
But who was he? Did he live in the village below? Was he
married? Did he have electricity in his house or did he sit in the dark at
night? Could he read or write? Was he content to be a wood gatherer? What
did he dream about? Was Jesus his savior or did he call upon the old Inca
gods? What was his name? I wondered, too, what he thought of me, a gringo
who had taken his picture without asking.
Weeks passed and I didn't think of the woodcutter again. One evening I brought my boom box down to the café below my room in the Alcazar Hostel in tiny Ollantaytambo and announced quietly to the two cooks and the two kitchen girls that I wanted to share some music with them after they had finished their work. The tape I chose was a Kitaro selection-New Age
synthesizer music. When they were finished, the five of us gathered in the
kitchen doorway listening to the flute-like sounds float out onto the night.
The music was ethereal and drew others to it. Soon fifty people sat on the
ground outside in silence, mesmerized, transported to some distant place.
Children and elders alike remained still for the half hour the music played.
The wood gatherer was one of those drawn to the music. I spotted him from my position by the doorway. When the music had stopped and people began heading home, he walked out of the crowd and approached me, doffed his cap, and softly gave me his course, hardened hand. We didn't bother with words, but just stood close upon the stone terrace, smiling at each other. Then he turned and walked away and I went to sleep in my room above the café.
84
For a month I lived above a grocery store in Ashton village on tiny Union Island. I would climb out the window at dawn and ease myself into the crotch of an old tree, like a possum, and watch the village come to life. Chickens and goats roamed through the sandy streets; a boy herded sheep toward the hills. The old barefoot midwife might arrive at the store and buy her single can of malt beer and, on rare occasions, "Jingle Bell" Thomas would bring in a live two-foot long inquana slung over his shoulder for someone's cooking pot.
168
For three weeks I lived at The Kraal Hostel in Tsweleni on the beautiful Eastern Cape with a handful of world travelers hailing from England, Israel, Ireland, France, and Italy. The summer days were long and dreamy: we surfed in the Indian Ocean, rode fast horses on the beach with Xhosa teenagers, and partied to the music of James Brown with The Kraal cooks; Big Cynthia, Precious, Constance, and Fundiswa. This small village was home to two hundred Xhosa people, the same tribe of Nelson Mandela. In remembrance of this great personage many families still made the "msimbitie," a simple staff cut from a hardwood tree that had served as an important weapon in their uprising against the horrors of apartheid.
