Lupe Maravilla: Tripa Chuca

Yard Tales

Renowned transdisciplinary artist Guadalupe Maravilla was among the first wave of undocumented immigrants to enter the US from Central America when he immigrated alone from El Salvador at the age of 8. In this audio narrative, Maravilla sensitively recounts harrowing tales of traumas experienced during the events leading up to and including his border crossings and how they later evolved into an illness he uncovered through experimentation with “ancient medicines” — eventually getting diagnosed with and then overcoming stage 3B colon cancer. Maravilla has seemingly spent his life crossing borders and entering forbidden spaces of different kinds and in this episode, he incisively recounts the tale of a dramatic journey traveled with intent and intensity.

FROM THE EPISODE: There's a man that claims to be some sort of curandero, which is like a shaman figure. And he has ayahuasca and I said, okay, I'll try it...So I take the ayahuasca. 40 minutes passed by. Nothing happens to me.

The guy next to me is vomiting, the other person next to me is crying. Someone else looks like they're levitating. And I'm just like, fuck, I don't feel anything. I had done so much research about this that I was like, "I'm one of those people that is not meant to see anything today because I'm not ready. I'm not spiritually connected and not spiritually ready for what it's offering me. I'm just one of these people." ...

And I have a sense of anxiety because I'm not seeing anything. Everyone's having an experience. But then I was like, "Oh, my stomach hurts." So I go to the bathroom, I pull my pants down, I sit on the toilet and I'm like, "Well, I gotta take a shit."

Wait, I'm not taking a shit. I'm sitting in the toilet. And I look through my legs and I see so much light. It feels like when you're on the highway and someone's blasting their headlights. These giant lights and it's coming out of the toilet and I'm like, "What is this light coming out of the toilet? It's coming out of my ass."

And then I started to have like 10,000 orgasms. I fall off the toilet, my pants are rolled down, belt's unbuckled, and light is streaming across the floor horizontally because I'm laying on the floor and I try to get up. And it's just like this light and orgasms.

The curandera, who was this shaman, he's knocking on the door, "Are you OK in there? Are you OK?"

"I'm more than OK, leave me alone. I'm having 10,000 orgasms." Water's coming out of my eyes, water's coming out of my mouth, my ears, everywhere. I'm just kind of exploding, having this gigantic orgasm...

So afterwards I was like, what happened to me in the bathroom? ...[The shaman] said to me, "That's the first time you did ayahuasca and the ayahuasca was trying to cleanse your stomach because you have a problem in your stomach."

I went to Woodhall Hospital and got a colonoscopy done, and they found that I had stage three B colon cancer. And if it was a couple months away, it would have gone to stage four, which is terminal. So that is how I found that had cancer...

It was obviously clear that the cancer came because of my trauma. And the trauma that I had of being separated from my parents and the war, and crossing in Tijuana, and that girl that was raped and seeing all of this...all that trauma was all there. And I held it in my stomach for so long and eventually it developed into a tumor that almost killed me. [END EPISODE TRANSCRIPT]

Maravilla is raising individual donations for undocumented families who have been denied federal stimulus funds. Donate directly through Venmo: @Lupe-Maravilla. Learn more at guadalupemaravilla.com.

Produced, directed, reported, edited, and sound designed by Luz Fleming. Production Assistant: Davis Lloyd. Executive Producer: Jacob Bronstein. Music by Luz Fleming and James Ash. Theme Music: Andy Cotton & Luz Fleming. Art & Design: Andy Outis.

Find more information on this episode including related images visit: yardtales.live/episodes/tripa-chuca

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