OmMa yaom detox & awakening retreat
OmMa YaOm Detox & Awakening Retreat
To tell you the truth, I didn’t read the information about this retreat with scrutiny before signing up. The dates coordinated with my plans, the place seemed easy to get to, I was on the last leg of my extended time away & felt I could use a little detoxing & self-awareness, so I blindly signed up. Chi & Chia are the hosts of OmMa YaOm Detox & Awakening Retreat, a wellness retreat just a stones throw from Tabua & right on the cusp of Serra da Estrela Natural park. Chi reached out to me over Whatsapp after I had booked in & set up a time to facetime call & chat more about my expectations for the retreat. He mentioned that it wouldn’t be an “entertaining” retreat & there would be some deep-level work I’d do on myself. He mentioned it would be cold & to bring warm clothes. I can’t really remember what else he said. I talked with him from my apartment in Bucharest one morning & then pushed it all out of my mind. I didn’t honestly think about the retreat again until about four days prior while I was sketching out a plan after getting ripped off by the car rental company the minute my feet hit Portugal.
The morning Chi was to pick me up from Luna Hotel, I noticed a young girl, dressed quite sporty in trendy attire, looking a bit nervous with a bulging good quality backpack nearby. She was sitting in the lobby looking out the window. I also noticed a woman about my age with a man, presumably her husband, sitting with a suitcase, also waiting in the lobby. They were chatting easily in a different language. I had wondered how many retreaters there would be & I guessed that the couple & the young girl would be among them. I was busy finishing up some writing so I didn’t engage with them at that point. I figured there would be plenty of time to get to know them in the coming days.
Chi picked us up in his aging Hyundai Santa Fe AWD with big smiles. He was probably pushing 70 years old, rail thin with decaying teeth & a bushy salt & pepper beard. The couple said goodbye to each other & the woman, the young girl & I hopped in the jalopy & trekked out of Tabua a few kilometres to a run down two-story farm house. There we unloaded & met Chia, without much fanfare. Chia is Chi’s late 20’s girlfriend/wife & she’s far along in her pregnancy. Chi explains that Chia will show us to our rooms & explain the bathroom system. We’re living off-grid for the next 10 days & that takes some adjustments to our usual luxuries. In her halting English she walked us each to our austere rooms & explains that absolutely NOTHING is to be flushed down the toilet but our internal offerings & that water, especially hot water is at a premium, so showers must be light. There will be six people sharing two bathrooms, so be respectful. I drop my bags, claim one of the twin beds (I’m sharing the room with someone else that hasn’t arrived yet) & make my way downstairs just as three more people arrive. The person I’m sharing with is a man originally from the Phillipenes, now living in Rome & I’m pretty sure is gay. Rey seems pleasant enough & I’m confident we’ll get along fine. So, it’s five women & the gay guy, locked in this house with Chi & Chia!
We meet downstairs for an orientation & some housekeeping rules. We’re to run upstairs quickly, grab all our electronic devices & any food we have with us. I knew we were to relinquish our communication tools & I’m pumped for it. Into a mesh draw-string bag goes my phone, iwatch & iPad. We are each given two glass cork topped bottles of water that have been “charged” by sitting in the sun & it’s our responsibility from now on to ensure our bottles are kept filled & energized for drinking. He shows us the cement well encasement the bottles are placed on to recharge daily. We aren’t allowed to leave the yard for any reason & he points out the perimeter boundaries of the property. He tells us that we’re forbidden to talk to each other. Not a peep. Not a please nor a thank you. When you hear Chi bang on the singing bowl we are to assemble downstairs & this will also wake us in the morning. I’m thinking, “ya, right!”…that thing is never going to rouse me while I sleep upstairs, but I don’t express my trepidations. Chi explains that him & Chia sleep in a small caravan parked adjacent to the house & if we need anything, anything at all at anytime, we are to knock on their door & they will help us. Don’t ask anyone else anything…they’re the go-to guys. He says that he is here to challenge us, to help us find what is holding us back from achieving our best lives & while the days might be a lot of work, at the end we’ll be enlightened. It takes him almost two hours to say this.
We’re commanded to take a break & then when the gong rings to come back to the living room. We disperse to unpack. My roommate, Rey, & I start unpacking with a bit of whispered, light banter. Chi comes into the room, “NO TALKING…AT ALL!”. Oh shit, right. We grin sheepishly at each other & continue to quietly put our things away.
Right away I think, “holy hell, it’s cold in this house”, so I dig out the slippers I was bright enough to purchase in Altea & change into comfy clothes. When the gong sounds, we head downstairs to “dinner”. A small bowl of salad is placed in front of us & we dig in. No talking. No basic manners of, “please or thank you” actually feels wrong & the silence has the air feeling uneasy. Chia does the cooking & cleaning, but at this point I’m not sure if she’s an active participate in the retreat beyond that. She sits staring into the abyss with vacant lost eyes. I’m waiting for the next course in the meal, but it doesn’t come. We only receive a small bowl of salad, so I think it must be an afternoon snacky thing…Portuguese culture has dinner starting about 7 p.m. & it’s maybe five o’clock. I can’t tell, because I don’t have a method to gauge time anymore.
We assemble in the living room where there are old couch cushions on the floor, pushed up against the one wall & two other cushions we can sit on since the wall isn’t long enough for the six of us to sit in a row. There are also cheap acrylic blankets stacked in a corner near where the wood burning fireplace is. Damn it’s cold & we all grab a blanket to wrap ourselves in. Chi sits in front of us on the floor.
We do a light meditation exercise with some breath work & then he asks us each why we are there. He tells us we’ll each have a chance to address all our issues, he’ll help us breakdown barriers & we’ll unlearn things that we’ve been taught. We’ve been stuck in a rut & need a push. While we’re talking Chia appears with glasses full of fresh juice for each of us & I think, “yay, a preclude to dinner”. Shortly afterwards she delivers us a cup of hot vegetable stock. We conclude our evening with some haphazard stretching. No dinner. It’s so friggin’ cold too! When Chi tells us it’s time to go to bed, I dig out all my clothes & drape them on top of my skinny comforter, put on both sets of pyjamas I brought, I pull the covers around me in an attempt at finding some warmth. I can feel the cold air seeping in from the window beside my bed. Argh. I deep breathe. I say my prayers. And then my roommate starts snoring. Loud.
