Bras

Once we had a group of four European missionaries, two couples, who came to the house wanting to go upriver to visit the Indians. During the trip up the Rio Chico, a small river that is a branch off of the Chucunaque just north of Yaviza, the missionaries constantly commented about the Choco's lifestyle. They were horrified at how they lived and talked about how the Indians' souls were in danger of going to hell. I didn't pay much attention to this since we encountered missionaries all the time, and they all were fairly clueless about the indigenous people. Missionaries understand their own religion and seem to have good intentions, but they have little or no understanding of the people whom they are trying to help. After the trip up the Chico we returned to El Dorado and the next day the missionaries left, telling me that they would be back.
About three weeks later they returned. This time they brought two large boxes. I didn't question them about it. After all, they were the paying customer and I was happy for the charter business. Only when we got to the first Chocó village did I find out what was in the boxes.
They were filled with "bras!"
At each village they gave the women the bras, and showed them how to use them. As I stated earlier, the Chocó women are very polite and gracious, and they continually thanked the missionaries for such wonderful gifts. The scene repeated itself in each of the three villages going up the Chico River. The missionaries gave the women the bras, then they demonstrated how to put them on, and then the Chocó dutifully obeyed all the while thanking the missionaries profusely while smiling from behind their new white bras. The next day on our way back down the river, as we passed each village, all the women ran to the shore to wave to us, while showing off their new bras. When the missionaries left they were very proud of themselves for bringing ‘civilization’ to these poor backward people. I realized that the missionaries truly thought that by providing the women bras they were in the process of helping these people save their souls.
Approximately three weeks later the missionaries returned, and this time they brought only one large box. I had learned my lesson from the first experience, so I asked right away what was in the box. The box was filled with Bibles written in Spanish. It occurred to me just how much sense this made for a people who were largely illiterate, and had no written language, but again I kept my mouth shut.
We went back up the same river, the Rio Chico, and came to the first village. All the women and children came down to the river bank to meet us and ... not a woman had a bra on!
Now, at this time I could only speak about 30 words of Chocó, and most of the words I knew had to do with animals. I was still having trouble understanding what they were saying because they speak their native language so fast and tend to run their words together.
All I could get out of them when I asked them where the bras were was, "We love the gifts, and you have to bring us more!"
When we got to the second and third villages we found that the same thing had happened at each one. Not a woman had a bra on, and they kept telling me that they loved them and that we had to bring more.
We built our camp for the night in the third village. We were still puzzled as dusk set in and the men came marching back from the fields. To everyone's astonishment the men were wearing the bras. They had them fastened around their waists, and now they had a pouch for their tobacco, and their machete slipped easily into the side, etc. They had rigged the bras so that for the first time in their lives they had pockets.
The missionaries were trying to impose their own values and culture on another group of people, simply because they were different. It goes to show that generally speaking, it is almost impossible to change culture. The Chocó and their ancestors have lived in this manner for many centuries. A direct effort on the part of these missionaries to effectuate a change in their lifestyle was doomed from the start. This group of frustrated missionaries left and never came back. It is precisely because of this story that I believe that a road bridging the gap would create little or no change in the lives of the Chocó Indians.