Mabel Esther wears her Wiwa ethnicity like a treasure. Even if, at some point in her life, some of her people rejected her because she went to study teaching and professionalized herself, trying to steal her identity. But they didn’t succeed, of course, because that’s in the blood and she knows very well who her ancestors are. In fact, as a matter of poetic justice and to anchor her even more in her territory, they ended up naming her as the unitary teacher, that is, the teacher of the children in her community. For 43 years, she had the full authority to transmit what it means to be indigenous and coexist in a westernized world.

As a good teacher, she speaks comfortably and abundantly about the tradition of fique in her town. She says that for the Wiwa people, the fique bag is essential, as it carries the hayo, or that mixture of coca leaves with lime salts or ashes that they later chew to sharpen their thinking. Indigenous people crush the leaves inside the bag with a stone, which toasts it. That’s why Wiwa children – among whom she speaks in the first person – were born among maguey leaves, and in order to go to school, they first had to prepare two pounds of fique for their mothers to weave. For her, although hunger sometimes struck because she could only have breakfast after completing the task, this was no nightmare. She loved fique from the moment she first saw it, unlike her sister Consuelo, who preferred to grind corn and exchange tasks with Mabel, the youngest.

But “pulling the fique” was something she had to do without guidance, she recalls, understanding how difficult it was. That’s why she developed a gift, that of observation: she would quietly watch her parents and try to replicate what she saw, grabbing the carrumba, or spindle, as she saw them do, tying the fique threads to make the cabuya, and then, as she grew older, she watched how they paddled and tried to replicate the hammock her father made, unraveling it secretly in the back room of the house. She did the same with her mother, watching her weave the gauze, grabbing the thread with her big toe and moving it skillfully, and so she imitated her. It was a universe of craftsmanship that, understood through the eyes, is a major challenge. Hence, also, the mastery of this artisan who, through trial and error, managed to master a weaving unique to her region.

Mabel says that although weaving is her life, what she enjoys most about the craft is dyeing the fiber with plants, roots, stems, and flowers. When she talks about this, her eyes light up as she tells us that her garden is her little paradise. From there she takes the beetroot and trinitaria flowers, a vine that she prunes in a planter, she also uses carob seeds to extract a “spectacular” brown, and she devotes a chapter to the morito, that tree offering yellows and greens depending on its treatment. Mabel is convinced that the seed that tree gave her was carried away by a bat. Probably because it was captivated by the 12 varieties of mangoes she has in her backyard and because everything about it is lush. So yes, let’s grant the little vampire the privilege of transporting the color that makes this artisan’s life happy. Because she truly is, and she exudes that joy, celebrating that, entering her seventies, she feels so complete to keep weaving life for many more years.