Even though Magda offered me a hut to sleep, taught me to scrub my clothes and scale a fish, I brushed her concerns aside. Besides, Paty’s family had welcomed me with similar hospitality.

A few nights later, Magda fastened a bracelet to my wrist – a defensive amulet. An evil wizard, she said, could be casting spells upon me. It was obvious whose black magic she was safeguarding me against. I rolled my eyes like a child who doesn’t want to fasten his seatbelt.

Paty and I continued our discourse, though less frequently out of respect. We ventured deeper into the truth about her tribe’s spirit world.

My new life amid ancient folklore and generations of spiritual explorers was like listening to an alien abductee story and then having a NASA scientist say, “Yeah, all of that is true.” Paty understood and helped translate.

I learned that I was right to ask questions. Some mystic notions proved to be mere superstitions, but others, though intangible, seemed to me to be exceptionally real. Just as I understood an atomic world and the bits of data that powered Paty’s internet cafe, the shamans knew a world that I did not.