ok I´m here and i haven´t been robbed yet. brief run through of some things that have happened:
Salinas de Bolivar: they pulled themselves out of poverty. they had a series of international volunteers help them develop several value added industries like chocolate, cheeses, soccer balls, and some other stuff too. awesome
Training: I finished. 3 people didn´t. 1 left of own accord. 1 got kicked out for telling PC about taking some medicines that weren´t mentioned in the application, cause the trainee wasn´t taking them at that time. at least thats how i heard the story, and PC hasn´t clarified it any. the last got kicked out for attitude or something. that´s unfortunate, i didn´t think there were any problems, but whatev. thats how it goes. there is a theory that they plan (and budget) for a certain attrition rate and if the training class is as awesome as ours and few people leave, then there might be motivation on their part to look for problems. just a theory.
anyway, we had a last night together party at a little pizzeria/bar. it was crazy. unbloggably crazy. no one got hurt. (physically at least). nough said.
So here I am in Pimampiru waiting for a truck to take me up in to the mountains. and we are on alert for swine flu, so i shouldn´t be coming back down from the mountains for a while. well, i could come back to Pimampiru, but I probably won´t be able to visit the other PCVs around here. oh well, thats not why i´m here. Cuerpo de Paseo is the pun referencing volunteer experiences primarily based in tourism. this is the cuerpo de paz not the cuerpo de paseo we say.
others say if you´re not in africa, you´re not in the peace corps.
maybe. i dunno. ecuador is pretty posh, as far as developing countries go. some people cal it posh corps. ok. thats enough. i clearly have nothing worthwhile to type; i´ll get some lunch. meanwhile, if you´re interested, chew on this bit of anthropology my brother sent me. ..
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/01/11/120-taking-a-year-off/
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Almost done with training Part 2
So Puerto Quito was fun. Played EcuaVolley and that was fun. Its kinda like normal volley ball but there are a few differences. You can spike on a serve. You can play off the net. and officially it is 3 person teams, but we had too many folks. The net is higher too.
Also we had a trainees vs. trainers futbol game, and we won. But I should keep this on topic and educational. . .
So after Puerto Quito we broke up in to groups based on region: sierra, costa, y oriente. went to Riobamba. We stayed up on a hill nearby, like a suburb, at a place called . . . Pucará Tambo which means something in Kichwa. Pucará means either community or fort, I´m not sure. It is used to refer to communities which are located on the remains of forts. The forts were used by the Cayambí to fight off the Incas for several decades. All of them I have seen are located on hilltops and consist of 3 or more concentric rings of walls/rubble. Tambo means rest, so Pucará Tambo was a restored fort turned hostel. It was pretty nice. And we got something akin to a continental breakfast, which was awesome.
The first night there a local guide (and the counterpart of one of the trainees to be stationed there) showed us the town. Its been awhile and I forgot most of the details but he told us that through community organizing, they kind of run their own show. It is a primarily indigenous community, so they don´t have to deal with mestizo bureaucracy, they get to make their own. Their fields were all very eroded years ago, so agriculture isn´t flourishing, thus leading to a lot of outmigration, but at least the ones who remain have some political power. And they build that sweet hostel. Now they just need some tourists (aside from Intiraymi the sun festival, when they are presumably booked solid).
On the way back up to the hostel, the guide started telling us about old local legends. Sometime around the late 1800s I think it was, the campesinos had to pay tribute to the whites in the city. It was called the decimo which means 10th. So they should have been giving one tenth of their produce to the city which seems like a reasonable tax to pay to avoid being pillaged by bandits (which presumable the city folk would have fought off. I dunno, ever since I read, and only half understood, an economics article about agrarian empires -something about the cost of conquering/defending peons and the sustainable profit of taxing them versus the less sustainable profit of plundering them- I try to see old school oppression in terms of rational agents) . . .
But anyway, the decimo turned out to mean men on horses coming and taking the best of the harvest, and as much as they damn well pleased. So one day, the white man on horse back is coming up the hill and this dude, the hero of the legend, crosses his path. Hero starts out all humble and offers his harvest and whatnot, but the white man insults him in some additional manner, so the hero takes him down off his high horse, so to speak. This creates a lot of noise, and a crowd forms and everyone starts beating this hapless noble. Especially the women, the guide emphasized that the community women beat the crap out of him.
And they take him from community to community beating him and such but they don´t really know what to do with him and they don´t really have a leader. So they are looking for a leader and someone calls out old hero´s name, and everyone agrees, so the hero puts on a robe and takes a walking stick or something and kills the noble and declares war on the oppressors.
So the city folk don´t dare come up into the mountains for a while, cause they know what they have coming. Hero took that noble´s head and sent it back to town to get the message across. The city folk get an army from Quito or something to get their oppression going again, but the mountain communities see it coming and they ambush what was supposed to be a surprise attack. About that time we had arrived back at the hostel for dinner, so I don´t really know how the story ended. Maybe the communities retained their independence. Maybe they lost it and only recently gained it back. I dunno. I also don´t know exactly why they lost all their fertile volcanic topsoil, but they did.
______________
So we spend the next days checking out organic gardens in the area. There was a two year project with over $100k and several specialists who came and introduced a bunch of organic techniques and crops, so they showed us a community where damn near everyone had an organic plot and most were flourishing. I asked the people, and they said that now that they had the experience of working their family plots, they had plans to expand and market. This in turn would create jobs and keep community members in the communities, as opposed to migrating to the city for work. so thats nice. The head of the project said he would e-mail me the methods, results, and technical information they used. he has yet to reply, but i am optimistic.
He also showed us an interesting plot from a 7 year study that had recently ended. Basically, the cattle in that area produce about 2-3 liters of milk per day. That is abyssmal. At my site they produce 5-7, and at my training host family 20-30. My training host family has factory feed and money for chemicals for their pastures. Anyway, so for this study they took a plot of land and planted trees, pretty well spaced out, like 5-10m between each. Some trees were native, others were from other parts of the Andes. All could be used for firewood or lumber or forage, some even had medicinal value. Quichual, Yaguar, and Polilepus. I´ve italicized those names as if I know that they are scientific, but actually I don´t. Except for polilepus, I´m not even sure those are real tree species, but they sound right. Anyway, point is that the cows now produce 5-7 liters per day, and they produce for longer periods. But, you can only stock half the animals. But, you don´t have to buy additional feed for them, so all in all, it is a winner. And it holds the soil better, and the trees are capturing carbon and helping along the water cycle, its really just a pretty picture. I have yet to find the paper that resulting from the study, but really an anecdote may be more powerful when trying to convince the people at my site to plant some trees, or let me plant them.
We also petted a baby llama and reached 5000m above sea level on Mount Chimborazo, the summit of which is the point on the surface of the earth closest to the sun, which makes it the tallest mountain on earth in a way, but only because the equator bulges. Anyway, these aspects of the trip were less educational. Well, I did learn first hand that snow indeed has a high albido, and that combined with the thin atmosphere associated with high altitude, I could indeed get burned beneath the rim of my hat. In fact the bottom of my nose was burnt. So I should have worn sun screen. . .
Uhh. . . We then went to a place called Salinas. Salinas is a really nice resort city on the beach. But the Salinas that we went to is not that one. It is a town built around a salt mine. Back in the 70s a Catholic priest came from Italy. He helped the people organize. Instead of violently taking the land from the hacendado, the rich guy who took half of all profits from the salt mine, they bought the land from him. He was only too happy to sell because the violent means of land redistribution was all the vogue at the time. ah. I gotta run. we are on "StandFast" starting in like half an hour. That means semi-emergency precautions for all PC trainees and volunteers due to the elections taking place Sunday. I´ll type more about Salinas later, it´s process from the poorest town in the Province of Bolivar to its current economic diversification and relative prosperity (only 5% out migration), is quite interesting.
You can read all about it shortly, if the pig flu doesn´t kill you first.
Also we had a trainees vs. trainers futbol game, and we won. But I should keep this on topic and educational. . .
So after Puerto Quito we broke up in to groups based on region: sierra, costa, y oriente. went to Riobamba. We stayed up on a hill nearby, like a suburb, at a place called . . . Pucará Tambo which means something in Kichwa. Pucará means either community or fort, I´m not sure. It is used to refer to communities which are located on the remains of forts. The forts were used by the Cayambí to fight off the Incas for several decades. All of them I have seen are located on hilltops and consist of 3 or more concentric rings of walls/rubble. Tambo means rest, so Pucará Tambo was a restored fort turned hostel. It was pretty nice. And we got something akin to a continental breakfast, which was awesome.
The first night there a local guide (and the counterpart of one of the trainees to be stationed there) showed us the town. Its been awhile and I forgot most of the details but he told us that through community organizing, they kind of run their own show. It is a primarily indigenous community, so they don´t have to deal with mestizo bureaucracy, they get to make their own. Their fields were all very eroded years ago, so agriculture isn´t flourishing, thus leading to a lot of outmigration, but at least the ones who remain have some political power. And they build that sweet hostel. Now they just need some tourists (aside from Intiraymi the sun festival, when they are presumably booked solid).
On the way back up to the hostel, the guide started telling us about old local legends. Sometime around the late 1800s I think it was, the campesinos had to pay tribute to the whites in the city. It was called the decimo which means 10th. So they should have been giving one tenth of their produce to the city which seems like a reasonable tax to pay to avoid being pillaged by bandits (which presumable the city folk would have fought off. I dunno, ever since I read, and only half understood, an economics article about agrarian empires -something about the cost of conquering/defending peons and the sustainable profit of taxing them versus the less sustainable profit of plundering them- I try to see old school oppression in terms of rational agents) . . .
But anyway, the decimo turned out to mean men on horses coming and taking the best of the harvest, and as much as they damn well pleased. So one day, the white man on horse back is coming up the hill and this dude, the hero of the legend, crosses his path. Hero starts out all humble and offers his harvest and whatnot, but the white man insults him in some additional manner, so the hero takes him down off his high horse, so to speak. This creates a lot of noise, and a crowd forms and everyone starts beating this hapless noble. Especially the women, the guide emphasized that the community women beat the crap out of him.
And they take him from community to community beating him and such but they don´t really know what to do with him and they don´t really have a leader. So they are looking for a leader and someone calls out old hero´s name, and everyone agrees, so the hero puts on a robe and takes a walking stick or something and kills the noble and declares war on the oppressors.
So the city folk don´t dare come up into the mountains for a while, cause they know what they have coming. Hero took that noble´s head and sent it back to town to get the message across. The city folk get an army from Quito or something to get their oppression going again, but the mountain communities see it coming and they ambush what was supposed to be a surprise attack. About that time we had arrived back at the hostel for dinner, so I don´t really know how the story ended. Maybe the communities retained their independence. Maybe they lost it and only recently gained it back. I dunno. I also don´t know exactly why they lost all their fertile volcanic topsoil, but they did.
______________
So we spend the next days checking out organic gardens in the area. There was a two year project with over $100k and several specialists who came and introduced a bunch of organic techniques and crops, so they showed us a community where damn near everyone had an organic plot and most were flourishing. I asked the people, and they said that now that they had the experience of working their family plots, they had plans to expand and market. This in turn would create jobs and keep community members in the communities, as opposed to migrating to the city for work. so thats nice. The head of the project said he would e-mail me the methods, results, and technical information they used. he has yet to reply, but i am optimistic.
He also showed us an interesting plot from a 7 year study that had recently ended. Basically, the cattle in that area produce about 2-3 liters of milk per day. That is abyssmal. At my site they produce 5-7, and at my training host family 20-30. My training host family has factory feed and money for chemicals for their pastures. Anyway, so for this study they took a plot of land and planted trees, pretty well spaced out, like 5-10m between each. Some trees were native, others were from other parts of the Andes. All could be used for firewood or lumber or forage, some even had medicinal value. Quichual, Yaguar, and Polilepus. I´ve italicized those names as if I know that they are scientific, but actually I don´t. Except for polilepus, I´m not even sure those are real tree species, but they sound right. Anyway, point is that the cows now produce 5-7 liters per day, and they produce for longer periods. But, you can only stock half the animals. But, you don´t have to buy additional feed for them, so all in all, it is a winner. And it holds the soil better, and the trees are capturing carbon and helping along the water cycle, its really just a pretty picture. I have yet to find the paper that resulting from the study, but really an anecdote may be more powerful when trying to convince the people at my site to plant some trees, or let me plant them.
We also petted a baby llama and reached 5000m above sea level on Mount Chimborazo, the summit of which is the point on the surface of the earth closest to the sun, which makes it the tallest mountain on earth in a way, but only because the equator bulges. Anyway, these aspects of the trip were less educational. Well, I did learn first hand that snow indeed has a high albido, and that combined with the thin atmosphere associated with high altitude, I could indeed get burned beneath the rim of my hat. In fact the bottom of my nose was burnt. So I should have worn sun screen. . .
Uhh. . . We then went to a place called Salinas. Salinas is a really nice resort city on the beach. But the Salinas that we went to is not that one. It is a town built around a salt mine. Back in the 70s a Catholic priest came from Italy. He helped the people organize. Instead of violently taking the land from the hacendado, the rich guy who took half of all profits from the salt mine, they bought the land from him. He was only too happy to sell because the violent means of land redistribution was all the vogue at the time. ah. I gotta run. we are on "StandFast" starting in like half an hour. That means semi-emergency precautions for all PC trainees and volunteers due to the elections taking place Sunday. I´ll type more about Salinas later, it´s process from the poorest town in the Province of Bolivar to its current economic diversification and relative prosperity (only 5% out migration), is quite interesting.
You can read all about it shortly, if the pig flu doesn´t kill you first.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Almost done with Training
Ok so we went on a Technical Training trip last week. First we stayed at a sweet hotel in Puerto Quito which is lower and much more humid than the Sierra. Lots of bug bites. The hotel was managed by a high school somehow. They had a nursery and some small livestock. Also down the road was an integrated farm called La Montaña they grew chocolate trees as their main source of cash but they also had banana, and various wood species. They also had Tilapia pisciculture, vermiculture (worms), and pigs and some other stuff. We toured there, trained there, build some A-frame levels and made some slow forming terraces. Thats basically a small ditch along a contour, with a slight decline to drain and some perrenials planted directly above it to stabilize. As rains erode soil down slope, the plants slow it down and filter out some soil while the water goes down the ditch instead of washing out more soil. Over time the upper wall of the ditch gets higher as the perennials catch more soil. And eventually you have a terrace, and it doesn´t take tons of labor.
Also, we pruned some cacao, you have to keep the branches low enough to reasonably harvest. There was a termite nest on mine, so I machetied it down and fed it to the tilapia. The chickens enjoyed the trail of termites as well. I hate to let tht protein go to waste (which is one reason I ate a grub that one time, but we feed most grubs to turkeys here).
uh i gotta run. i´m not even halfway done with the tech trip, and we´ve done more since then. and we´re done with training next wednesday when we swear-in, and then i´ll go to site where i don´t expect to have access to the web for quite some time. . . . so ¡chao!
Also, we pruned some cacao, you have to keep the branches low enough to reasonably harvest. There was a termite nest on mine, so I machetied it down and fed it to the tilapia. The chickens enjoyed the trail of termites as well. I hate to let tht protein go to waste (which is one reason I ate a grub that one time, but we feed most grubs to turkeys here).
uh i gotta run. i´m not even halfway done with the tech trip, and we´ve done more since then. and we´re done with training next wednesday when we swear-in, and then i´ll go to site where i don´t expect to have access to the web for quite some time. . . . so ¡chao!
Monday, April 6, 2009
El Ultimo Guerrero Cayambi
The rest of the site visit . . . I met Victor, the project director. 26 years old. Ingeniero Agropecuario interested in organic ag. also, we tied Paraguay 1:1. That makes it very difficult to go to the World Cup. Still possible I think, but I don´t really keep up with these things. Otherwise. . . I planted some potatoes with the host family and got my forearms sunburned. The father was impressed with my back and knee resilience, so I offered to show him joint mobility exercises. That will have to wait till I get back in May. . .
So back in Cayambe, we had training Friday, and more Spanish class Saturday morning, which I was not happy about. But fortunately our new facilitator is as cool as our last one, and she had our class in town. While we were walking around chatting spanish, we ran in to the 3000 year old shaman/cacique I mentioned a few posts back. His name is Pablo.
Pablo told us he would take us to his secret pools Sunday morning. He told us if we paid $50 for an old horse or a calf or something he would sacrifice it to the condors which would then fly down and consume it while we watched/took pictures. Cool, but we don´t really have that kind of money.
Anyway, so the next day me and two of the facilitators take the bus to the middle of the world monument near Cayambe (there seem to be many such monuments along the equator), where we met Pablo. He took us down a path and showed us where he would sacrifice livestock if we had it. The condors need room to take off, which is more difficult on a full belly. He pointed out a condor flying above the mountain as well. ´These are the last flights of the condor we are witnessing.¨he said. He´s probably right I guess. There are some 200 condors in Ecuador, he knows of 6 in this area.
So we checked out a little cave and then he took us down to the pools. The water comes from springs which filter through poumice stone. or some sort of stone which came from volcanic eruptions. it´s white and they call it cascajo and it is used as a soil amendment.
so the water comes out tasting fresh and he said in the morning it is carbonated. Pablo claims to be a geologist and I am inclined to believe him. He told us to get under a water fall, which would clean us and strengthen our lungs. Felt good enough. Then we got in this pool that he said his granpa constructed. The algae is a natural soap, he said. He also said the water would be good for us, but one of the facilitators had a slight allergic reaction. ´That´s not allergies, that´s your body rejecting all the synthetic things you eat and wear.´ ok.
so he´s got this scar on his back which he pointed out to me and said it´s from a spear. From the last indigenous war back when he was 18. Why did you fight? I ask. *shrug*
but on the bright side, he says he has worked on management plans for reserves before. Those of most of the indigenous reserves in Ecuador he says. Awesome, so I put him in contact with my counterpart Carlos, and we will see how that goes.
El Ultimo Guerrero Cayambi is his e-mail signature, by the way. It means the last Cayambi warrior.
Not sure if writing an entire blog entry on this dude is appropriate. Well, its on the guy and his pools. and the progress of the management plan. anyway, i thought it was interesting. I´ll probably take some other trainees back to those pools this week.
So back in Cayambe, we had training Friday, and more Spanish class Saturday morning, which I was not happy about. But fortunately our new facilitator is as cool as our last one, and she had our class in town. While we were walking around chatting spanish, we ran in to the 3000 year old shaman/cacique I mentioned a few posts back. His name is Pablo.
Pablo told us he would take us to his secret pools Sunday morning. He told us if we paid $50 for an old horse or a calf or something he would sacrifice it to the condors which would then fly down and consume it while we watched/took pictures. Cool, but we don´t really have that kind of money.
Anyway, so the next day me and two of the facilitators take the bus to the middle of the world monument near Cayambe (there seem to be many such monuments along the equator), where we met Pablo. He took us down a path and showed us where he would sacrifice livestock if we had it. The condors need room to take off, which is more difficult on a full belly. He pointed out a condor flying above the mountain as well. ´These are the last flights of the condor we are witnessing.¨he said. He´s probably right I guess. There are some 200 condors in Ecuador, he knows of 6 in this area.
So we checked out a little cave and then he took us down to the pools. The water comes from springs which filter through poumice stone. or some sort of stone which came from volcanic eruptions. it´s white and they call it cascajo and it is used as a soil amendment.
so the water comes out tasting fresh and he said in the morning it is carbonated. Pablo claims to be a geologist and I am inclined to believe him. He told us to get under a water fall, which would clean us and strengthen our lungs. Felt good enough. Then we got in this pool that he said his granpa constructed. The algae is a natural soap, he said. He also said the water would be good for us, but one of the facilitators had a slight allergic reaction. ´That´s not allergies, that´s your body rejecting all the synthetic things you eat and wear.´ ok.
so he´s got this scar on his back which he pointed out to me and said it´s from a spear. From the last indigenous war back when he was 18. Why did you fight? I ask. *shrug*
but on the bright side, he says he has worked on management plans for reserves before. Those of most of the indigenous reserves in Ecuador he says. Awesome, so I put him in contact with my counterpart Carlos, and we will see how that goes.
El Ultimo Guerrero Cayambi is his e-mail signature, by the way. It means the last Cayambi warrior.
Not sure if writing an entire blog entry on this dude is appropriate. Well, its on the guy and his pools. and the progress of the management plan. anyway, i thought it was interesting. I´ll probably take some other trainees back to those pools this week.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Site Visit
Well, I was going to put off blogging another day or so, but my mom tells me ëveryone is excited about your blog¨ those dots over the e in everyone would be quotation marks if this keyboard was in the US.
So, last Sunday I hopped on a bus and headed to my site. When I got to Pimampiru, I met two brothers, sons of the family I will be staying with, their mother, and my counterpart, Carlos. Well, not my official on paper counterpart, but I´ll get to that. So they showed me the camionetta, thats a truck which people ride as if it were a double decker bus. we had some lunch (chicken foot soup, with real chicken feet, and some other not as exciting stuff), and then we hopped on the truck and headed out with just under a dozen other folks.
The truck belongs to one of the brothers, Juan Carlos. The other brother, Hugo, lives in Quito. He works, but I forgot in what, and, along with Carlos my pseudo-counterpart, and one other guy, runs a foundation which I will be working with. The family I am staying with has three other grown children, all of whom work in Quito. Job prospects are slim at my site.
The truck blew a gasket on the way. I don´t actually know what that means, or if that describes accurately what happened, but I heard a pop. and it wasn´t the tire. So I hope out to stretch my legs, and another guy hops out with me. He pulls me aside and tells me he wants to talk to me about something. Fortunately Carlos comes too, because I can´t really understand what this old dude is saying. But Carlos translates old campo person spanish to young Quito person spanish (Carlos lives in Quito and is youngish):
This old guy says that there are a lot of ancient indigenous burial sites around here, and a lot of them have gold. Carlos confirms this, some one found a big gold scepter a while back, and they are always uncovering burial pots with bones in the fetal position within. This old guy says there is definitely a stash on his land, because he has seen a ghost of a lady wearing a golden dress. So he invites me to come visit him and maybe bring a shovel. Carlos says his neighbor must have a nice dress.
So they fix whatever it was that was wrong with the truck, temporarily at least, and aside from the muddy hill we had to hop out for, the rest of the ride was uneventful. the scenery was very nice though. Steep hills, rivers, tropical cloud forest vegetation. and empty pisciculture pools. more about that later.
When we arrive, I meet the father. Nice guy. Volunteer park ranger. We chat for awhile about all the things that need to be done around here. Then we watch the game. Ecuador 1, Brazil 1. Damn refs didn´t call a foul that would have lead to a penalty kick that would have won the game for us.
That night, Carlos and Don Chavez (the father) take me out to explore the neighborhood. This is a barrio of 70 people, 21 families. There is the school, the playground, the teacher´s house, the church, the community house where meetings are held, and the old school where the dance during parties. It has a leaky roof. They would like to add a second story as a tourist lodge. They have wood for this.
The next day, Carlos and I go down to the main community, a couple of miles, or 25 minutes driving. We check out the Colegio, a technical highschool specializing in pisciculture. Their pools are empty. The rector tells us that one of the neighbor´s workmen dumped rocks off a cliff on to the entry way for the water for the trout pools. That was about two months ago. I want to go down with a hoe and a pole and clear it out. By hand I figure it might take 6 weeks. I´d figure less, but they figure more, so I average. Anyway, the rector doesn´t want that he wants to get a machine to make a new entry way. This would require dynamite. and a machine. When is it coming? when it comes. well if you give me a hoe and a pole and 6 weeks. . . no. also, their water tank leaks. I figure it works like a toilet and I could probably fix it with my leatherman. or maybe some wire and epoxy. but no, he´ll have his maintenance man fix it.
When we leave, Carlos tells me that the rector told him he´d fix the tank last time they spoke, a month ago. He explains that part of the machismo culture is not taking other people´s work from them. So I´m glad I have Carlos to help me with these things. Also, the rector seems pretty legit. He´s worked their for some 18 years. He´s got some serious credentials in pisciculture. And he didn´t just have bad news: his students have to complete some 120 hours of environmental volunteer work per year, so thats a potential resource for me; and they are getting funds from the Proyecto to start a vivero on their grounds. A vivero is a nursery. I´ll get to the Proyecto in a bit. But the soil is bad, and there are security issues that need to be shored up before the nursery gets going.
From there we go to the Proyecto office. This thing is funded by the European Union. Carlos scored this for the community, like he got a volunteer from Peace Corps (me). It amounts to something like $150k going to a new truck, several computers, staff for one year, the nursery, and jarring and jellymaking equipment. The nursery grows fruit and reforestation trees. The trees are given to the local farmers. Their produce, at least some of it, according to market studies and processing capability, is bought by the microempresas, that´s the small enterprises firm, processed, and sold locally and abroad. During the first year, starting now, agricultural and environmental extension agents will go to the various neighborhoods of the community and teach best practices, which the farmers may accept or reject, since it is their land afterall. So this seems like a good thing.
But no one is at the Proyecto office except the secretary, so I don´t find any of that out till the meeting the next day. Anyway, Carlos and I hike the shortcut back to the house. He points out the Eucalyptus trees and the abandoned greenhouses, plastic tatters on wooden frames, which are the result of USAID efforts over a decade ago. Abandoned greenhouses are clearly worthless, the Eucalyptus trees are generally considered to have negative environmental impacts: the suck up a lot of water, and their leaves contain resins which are harmful to other plant species, thus stifling biodiversity. So not all development efforts work out. Many don´t. Will mine? They say there is a town in Ecuador with a street named after a PC volunteer. Maybe they´ll name a street after me. We are hiking up this shortcut, taking about an hour, because the road is so bad. We talk about bettering and extending the road. But wait a minute, the neighborhood where my site is is supposed to have the most intact forest. It is also the furthest from the main community. If this correlation is causal, then wouldn´t bettering the road lead to more deforestation? if they can get their products to market easier, won´t they produce more? log more? clear more pasture? leave more trash from the city lying on the path for us to pick up? normally I don´t pick up trash on the ground, but since carlos is doing it i might as well follow suit. also, there really isn´t much so picking up a little leaves it fairly pristine. carlos assures me that bettering the road will not lead to more deforestation.
when we get back we eat lunch. then we go check out the school. the teacher is struggling with her computer. we offer to help. (we is still carlos and i) somehow 50gb have been used and we can´t figure on what. but thats not the problem, the printer is, so we mess with that for a while. the teacher would really like computer classes for her and her 8 students. also english classes. also a fence around the school grounds to keep out wandering livestock. i can do these things. she is also young and has all of her teeth. but the guy i later see her with has probably noticed these things before me. anyway, the fence can be a cerca viva, that means live fence, and we can expand upon the garden, and i can teach some environmental ed to the kids. so i have things to do in the neighborhood that don´t require the hour hike to the community center.
next we (C & I) take another hike up to a get a vista of the reserve. My site is located near the Cayambe Cocas national park, one of the largest in Ecuador. Between that and my site is a private reserve which the foundation which Carlos, Hugo, and the other guy run, the Fundación Semilla Ambiental has been working with the owner of the private reserve to get government support. There are three options: SocioBosques, Servidumbre Ecologica, and Bosque Protector.
SocioBosques is an Ecuadorian government thing which pays $10-20 per hectare of preserved forest, focusing on areas which have enthological importance (indigenous presence), watersheds, and areas bordering national parks. This private reserve, called Sabia Esperanza, which means Wise Hope, has no living indigenous peoples, but it does have at least 3 distinct ecosystems (páramo, cloud forest, and humid forest), and it does border the Cayambe Cocas. They are communicating with officials about the viability of getting in this program.
Servidumbre Ecologica is basically an agreement between neighbors to mutually protect their lands. The owner of the private reserve is certainly down for this, but the neighbors would probably need some incentive. Sociobosques could be an incentive. Ecotourism could be another. Anyway, to do this right, you have to write down all the ways the land can and cannot be used, and that pretty much requires a management plan. . .
Bosque Protector absolutely requires a management plan. It means that if the owner doesn´t have the resources to preserve the land (prevent logging, poaching, fires, etc), the gov will step in and help out. thats what Bosque Protector means, a management plan means a group of biologists specialized in birds, plants, animals, fungus, and whatnot spend a couple of weeks studying the site and a couple of more weeks analyzing the data and it costs several thousand dollars. I say it´d be nice to have that done by the time I leave, Carlos says he plans on getting that underway in 6 months at most. so i guess i´ll email all my biologist friends. . .
the proposed funds for this would be coming from ecotourism. but the economy is down. i play devil´s advocate with Carlos for a bit. We are looking out over the reserve. Not many tourists come this far out in the mountains. there are plenty of other more popular tourist destinations. and seriously, the economy is down.
maybe we can get some local university students to help us with a base for the management plan. then we can work from there.
we return to the house. we have scheduled a neighborhood meeting for 6pm. to introduce me to the community. we get to the community house at 6:30. at 7 enough people are there to start. Carlos does most of the talking. For my part, I point out that there are plenty of volunteer opportunities in the US, I chose to go abroad because I like to travel, to get to know knew places and knew people. I couldn´t ask for a better site than ecuador, and I really like this community. I don´t know much about agriculture, but I have resources from which to learn.
Then we do a priority needs assessment with the community members at the meeting. This is one of 4 PACA tools which the PC has taught us to utilize. PACA stands for Participatory Analysis for Community Action. We split into two groups, guys and gals. PACA does this for all the tools because many development efforts in the past focused only on guys, then only on gals, and really one needs to focus on both at the same time, while recognizing that they are different.
I´m with the ladies and Carlos is with the men. This is not how we planned it. I have been told that jealousies arouse easily in these parts, but it just worked out this way. So the ladies´priorities are: fix the road. build a bridge over the quebrada so we can travel when it rains. and work at the school (english, computers, and fence, like i mentioned). also, and this was an afterthought so it didn´t really get ranked in the priorities, but they all agreed it was important: train and get seeds for them to have integrated farms so they can feed their children well.
One lady got really frustrated when she realized that I couldn´t necessarily accomplish all of these things. specifically the road and the bridge. they are already in the process with the gov. she said, ¨so should we stop with the government, if you are going to provide these things?¨nononono. please don´t do that. i´ve never built a road before, or a bridge, i don´t really have the power to do such things, and my organization isn´t likely to get them done for me either. but hey, since i don´t really have a 9-5, or a farm or family to look after, i´ll go to the municipal office and nag them about the road sometimes, ok. . . .ok.
they guys want agricultural technical assistance, dairy technical assistance, and more markets for their products. well, the Proyecto covers that, and i´ll be working with the Proyecto, so I think things will go alright. also, i got an old PCV (claims to have been the first organic veggie farmer in ohio) to commit to giving a charla, thats like a seminar, on organic ag. also, i got a list of their tomate de arbol pests, and I got an ag manual with organic pest remedies. also, Carlos mentioned a NGO in quito which helps small farmers find markets. so yea. alright.
at the meeting I met the president of the neighborhood, nice guy. as well as the standing president (covering until the elections april 26), an older gentleman who was supposed to be my counterpart but that was before he got this position. anyway, he agreed to help Carlos and I by getting copies of some maps of the area showing land titles, watersheds, maybe even land use. . .
so that was my first full day at site. next day we participated in a minga, that a communal work party if you haven´t been keeping up. started at the old school house, moving the lumber inside so it would get rained on less. and then going down the road chopping the back the vegetation with machetes and hoeing clear the ditch on the side. carlos said i looked like i was in star wars wielding that machete. i had slightly different technique.
one of the guys tried to sell me some of his land. it is on about a 65 degree slope. no joke. i said if i was ever looking to jump off something, i might buy it from him. $10k. yea right. here, i got it in my pocket. oh no i don´t, must have fallen out.
then the electioneering trucks come by. they give us bread, cola, candy, and booze. that booze tastes terrible. puntas they call it. then lunch break. i get two plates. then Carlos yells over from around the bend that it is lunch time, so i get another plate. then we go back to the house, and i get another plate. we were gonna go to a meeting in another neighborhood, but we´d be late, and i´m full and lazy. so we hang around the house helping Don Chavez fix his pig pen. then we go to the main community for a meeting about the Proyecto same as the meeting we skipped, just a different place, so we didn´t miss anything.
i find out about the Proyecto, which I already typed about. afterwards, we ride home in the back of the truck. i get some more puntas, and an offer to get a personal guide to Lago Puruantag when I return in may, because this younger farmer thinks i´m a nice guy. the one with the booze tells me to take him back to the US, where the fields are flat. but this place is beautiful and you are close to nature. nature is nice, but it doesn´t pay the bills, take me to the US. He doesn´t like it here, says the younger farmer, because he is fat and he rolls down the slopes. He is a little bigger than the others. I want a tractor, he says, we don´t have any tractors here, they won´t fit on the slopes. Why don´t you make terraces, I ask. Because we are lazy! and he gives me another drink.
Meanwhile, this other drunk SOB keeps trying to shake my hand. we are both at the very back, tailgating so to speak. he is on the left, i am on the right, so when he offers his right hand, i offer my left, because my right hand is the only thing between me and a busted back full of rocks. and he´s like, no, like a man, like a man, with the right. so i wrap my arm around a bar and do what i can to shake his hand. ok, that was cool the first time, he demands i shake his hand about a dozen time in the 20 minute ride, and when he gets dropped off, he shakes my hand again, and he about got his ass dragged down the road when the truck pulled off cause he wasn´t letting go and i sure as hell wasn´t about to jump out the back. anyway, he did eventually let go.
well, if you´ve read this far, then you deserve the pointless story presented above. meanwhile, the guy who runs this internet place wants to close, so i gotta head out. the rest of the site visit went well. . . . other people have much crappier sites. some people on the beach have better ones. i am very happy with mine and the work i have ahead of me. hasta la vista
So, last Sunday I hopped on a bus and headed to my site. When I got to Pimampiru, I met two brothers, sons of the family I will be staying with, their mother, and my counterpart, Carlos. Well, not my official on paper counterpart, but I´ll get to that. So they showed me the camionetta, thats a truck which people ride as if it were a double decker bus. we had some lunch (chicken foot soup, with real chicken feet, and some other not as exciting stuff), and then we hopped on the truck and headed out with just under a dozen other folks.
The truck belongs to one of the brothers, Juan Carlos. The other brother, Hugo, lives in Quito. He works, but I forgot in what, and, along with Carlos my pseudo-counterpart, and one other guy, runs a foundation which I will be working with. The family I am staying with has three other grown children, all of whom work in Quito. Job prospects are slim at my site.
The truck blew a gasket on the way. I don´t actually know what that means, or if that describes accurately what happened, but I heard a pop. and it wasn´t the tire. So I hope out to stretch my legs, and another guy hops out with me. He pulls me aside and tells me he wants to talk to me about something. Fortunately Carlos comes too, because I can´t really understand what this old dude is saying. But Carlos translates old campo person spanish to young Quito person spanish (Carlos lives in Quito and is youngish):
This old guy says that there are a lot of ancient indigenous burial sites around here, and a lot of them have gold. Carlos confirms this, some one found a big gold scepter a while back, and they are always uncovering burial pots with bones in the fetal position within. This old guy says there is definitely a stash on his land, because he has seen a ghost of a lady wearing a golden dress. So he invites me to come visit him and maybe bring a shovel. Carlos says his neighbor must have a nice dress.
So they fix whatever it was that was wrong with the truck, temporarily at least, and aside from the muddy hill we had to hop out for, the rest of the ride was uneventful. the scenery was very nice though. Steep hills, rivers, tropical cloud forest vegetation. and empty pisciculture pools. more about that later.
When we arrive, I meet the father. Nice guy. Volunteer park ranger. We chat for awhile about all the things that need to be done around here. Then we watch the game. Ecuador 1, Brazil 1. Damn refs didn´t call a foul that would have lead to a penalty kick that would have won the game for us.
That night, Carlos and Don Chavez (the father) take me out to explore the neighborhood. This is a barrio of 70 people, 21 families. There is the school, the playground, the teacher´s house, the church, the community house where meetings are held, and the old school where the dance during parties. It has a leaky roof. They would like to add a second story as a tourist lodge. They have wood for this.
The next day, Carlos and I go down to the main community, a couple of miles, or 25 minutes driving. We check out the Colegio, a technical highschool specializing in pisciculture. Their pools are empty. The rector tells us that one of the neighbor´s workmen dumped rocks off a cliff on to the entry way for the water for the trout pools. That was about two months ago. I want to go down with a hoe and a pole and clear it out. By hand I figure it might take 6 weeks. I´d figure less, but they figure more, so I average. Anyway, the rector doesn´t want that he wants to get a machine to make a new entry way. This would require dynamite. and a machine. When is it coming? when it comes. well if you give me a hoe and a pole and 6 weeks. . . no. also, their water tank leaks. I figure it works like a toilet and I could probably fix it with my leatherman. or maybe some wire and epoxy. but no, he´ll have his maintenance man fix it.
When we leave, Carlos tells me that the rector told him he´d fix the tank last time they spoke, a month ago. He explains that part of the machismo culture is not taking other people´s work from them. So I´m glad I have Carlos to help me with these things. Also, the rector seems pretty legit. He´s worked their for some 18 years. He´s got some serious credentials in pisciculture. And he didn´t just have bad news: his students have to complete some 120 hours of environmental volunteer work per year, so thats a potential resource for me; and they are getting funds from the Proyecto to start a vivero on their grounds. A vivero is a nursery. I´ll get to the Proyecto in a bit. But the soil is bad, and there are security issues that need to be shored up before the nursery gets going.
From there we go to the Proyecto office. This thing is funded by the European Union. Carlos scored this for the community, like he got a volunteer from Peace Corps (me). It amounts to something like $150k going to a new truck, several computers, staff for one year, the nursery, and jarring and jellymaking equipment. The nursery grows fruit and reforestation trees. The trees are given to the local farmers. Their produce, at least some of it, according to market studies and processing capability, is bought by the microempresas, that´s the small enterprises firm, processed, and sold locally and abroad. During the first year, starting now, agricultural and environmental extension agents will go to the various neighborhoods of the community and teach best practices, which the farmers may accept or reject, since it is their land afterall. So this seems like a good thing.
But no one is at the Proyecto office except the secretary, so I don´t find any of that out till the meeting the next day. Anyway, Carlos and I hike the shortcut back to the house. He points out the Eucalyptus trees and the abandoned greenhouses, plastic tatters on wooden frames, which are the result of USAID efforts over a decade ago. Abandoned greenhouses are clearly worthless, the Eucalyptus trees are generally considered to have negative environmental impacts: the suck up a lot of water, and their leaves contain resins which are harmful to other plant species, thus stifling biodiversity. So not all development efforts work out. Many don´t. Will mine? They say there is a town in Ecuador with a street named after a PC volunteer. Maybe they´ll name a street after me. We are hiking up this shortcut, taking about an hour, because the road is so bad. We talk about bettering and extending the road. But wait a minute, the neighborhood where my site is is supposed to have the most intact forest. It is also the furthest from the main community. If this correlation is causal, then wouldn´t bettering the road lead to more deforestation? if they can get their products to market easier, won´t they produce more? log more? clear more pasture? leave more trash from the city lying on the path for us to pick up? normally I don´t pick up trash on the ground, but since carlos is doing it i might as well follow suit. also, there really isn´t much so picking up a little leaves it fairly pristine. carlos assures me that bettering the road will not lead to more deforestation.
when we get back we eat lunch. then we go check out the school. the teacher is struggling with her computer. we offer to help. (we is still carlos and i) somehow 50gb have been used and we can´t figure on what. but thats not the problem, the printer is, so we mess with that for a while. the teacher would really like computer classes for her and her 8 students. also english classes. also a fence around the school grounds to keep out wandering livestock. i can do these things. she is also young and has all of her teeth. but the guy i later see her with has probably noticed these things before me. anyway, the fence can be a cerca viva, that means live fence, and we can expand upon the garden, and i can teach some environmental ed to the kids. so i have things to do in the neighborhood that don´t require the hour hike to the community center.
next we (C & I) take another hike up to a get a vista of the reserve. My site is located near the Cayambe Cocas national park, one of the largest in Ecuador. Between that and my site is a private reserve which the foundation which Carlos, Hugo, and the other guy run, the Fundación Semilla Ambiental has been working with the owner of the private reserve to get government support. There are three options: SocioBosques, Servidumbre Ecologica, and Bosque Protector.
SocioBosques is an Ecuadorian government thing which pays $10-20 per hectare of preserved forest, focusing on areas which have enthological importance (indigenous presence), watersheds, and areas bordering national parks. This private reserve, called Sabia Esperanza, which means Wise Hope, has no living indigenous peoples, but it does have at least 3 distinct ecosystems (páramo, cloud forest, and humid forest), and it does border the Cayambe Cocas. They are communicating with officials about the viability of getting in this program.
Servidumbre Ecologica is basically an agreement between neighbors to mutually protect their lands. The owner of the private reserve is certainly down for this, but the neighbors would probably need some incentive. Sociobosques could be an incentive. Ecotourism could be another. Anyway, to do this right, you have to write down all the ways the land can and cannot be used, and that pretty much requires a management plan. . .
Bosque Protector absolutely requires a management plan. It means that if the owner doesn´t have the resources to preserve the land (prevent logging, poaching, fires, etc), the gov will step in and help out. thats what Bosque Protector means, a management plan means a group of biologists specialized in birds, plants, animals, fungus, and whatnot spend a couple of weeks studying the site and a couple of more weeks analyzing the data and it costs several thousand dollars. I say it´d be nice to have that done by the time I leave, Carlos says he plans on getting that underway in 6 months at most. so i guess i´ll email all my biologist friends. . .
the proposed funds for this would be coming from ecotourism. but the economy is down. i play devil´s advocate with Carlos for a bit. We are looking out over the reserve. Not many tourists come this far out in the mountains. there are plenty of other more popular tourist destinations. and seriously, the economy is down.
maybe we can get some local university students to help us with a base for the management plan. then we can work from there.
we return to the house. we have scheduled a neighborhood meeting for 6pm. to introduce me to the community. we get to the community house at 6:30. at 7 enough people are there to start. Carlos does most of the talking. For my part, I point out that there are plenty of volunteer opportunities in the US, I chose to go abroad because I like to travel, to get to know knew places and knew people. I couldn´t ask for a better site than ecuador, and I really like this community. I don´t know much about agriculture, but I have resources from which to learn.
Then we do a priority needs assessment with the community members at the meeting. This is one of 4 PACA tools which the PC has taught us to utilize. PACA stands for Participatory Analysis for Community Action. We split into two groups, guys and gals. PACA does this for all the tools because many development efforts in the past focused only on guys, then only on gals, and really one needs to focus on both at the same time, while recognizing that they are different.
I´m with the ladies and Carlos is with the men. This is not how we planned it. I have been told that jealousies arouse easily in these parts, but it just worked out this way. So the ladies´priorities are: fix the road. build a bridge over the quebrada so we can travel when it rains. and work at the school (english, computers, and fence, like i mentioned). also, and this was an afterthought so it didn´t really get ranked in the priorities, but they all agreed it was important: train and get seeds for them to have integrated farms so they can feed their children well.
One lady got really frustrated when she realized that I couldn´t necessarily accomplish all of these things. specifically the road and the bridge. they are already in the process with the gov. she said, ¨so should we stop with the government, if you are going to provide these things?¨nononono. please don´t do that. i´ve never built a road before, or a bridge, i don´t really have the power to do such things, and my organization isn´t likely to get them done for me either. but hey, since i don´t really have a 9-5, or a farm or family to look after, i´ll go to the municipal office and nag them about the road sometimes, ok. . . .ok.
they guys want agricultural technical assistance, dairy technical assistance, and more markets for their products. well, the Proyecto covers that, and i´ll be working with the Proyecto, so I think things will go alright. also, i got an old PCV (claims to have been the first organic veggie farmer in ohio) to commit to giving a charla, thats like a seminar, on organic ag. also, i got a list of their tomate de arbol pests, and I got an ag manual with organic pest remedies. also, Carlos mentioned a NGO in quito which helps small farmers find markets. so yea. alright.
at the meeting I met the president of the neighborhood, nice guy. as well as the standing president (covering until the elections april 26), an older gentleman who was supposed to be my counterpart but that was before he got this position. anyway, he agreed to help Carlos and I by getting copies of some maps of the area showing land titles, watersheds, maybe even land use. . .
so that was my first full day at site. next day we participated in a minga, that a communal work party if you haven´t been keeping up. started at the old school house, moving the lumber inside so it would get rained on less. and then going down the road chopping the back the vegetation with machetes and hoeing clear the ditch on the side. carlos said i looked like i was in star wars wielding that machete. i had slightly different technique.
one of the guys tried to sell me some of his land. it is on about a 65 degree slope. no joke. i said if i was ever looking to jump off something, i might buy it from him. $10k. yea right. here, i got it in my pocket. oh no i don´t, must have fallen out.
then the electioneering trucks come by. they give us bread, cola, candy, and booze. that booze tastes terrible. puntas they call it. then lunch break. i get two plates. then Carlos yells over from around the bend that it is lunch time, so i get another plate. then we go back to the house, and i get another plate. we were gonna go to a meeting in another neighborhood, but we´d be late, and i´m full and lazy. so we hang around the house helping Don Chavez fix his pig pen. then we go to the main community for a meeting about the Proyecto same as the meeting we skipped, just a different place, so we didn´t miss anything.
i find out about the Proyecto, which I already typed about. afterwards, we ride home in the back of the truck. i get some more puntas, and an offer to get a personal guide to Lago Puruantag when I return in may, because this younger farmer thinks i´m a nice guy. the one with the booze tells me to take him back to the US, where the fields are flat. but this place is beautiful and you are close to nature. nature is nice, but it doesn´t pay the bills, take me to the US. He doesn´t like it here, says the younger farmer, because he is fat and he rolls down the slopes. He is a little bigger than the others. I want a tractor, he says, we don´t have any tractors here, they won´t fit on the slopes. Why don´t you make terraces, I ask. Because we are lazy! and he gives me another drink.
Meanwhile, this other drunk SOB keeps trying to shake my hand. we are both at the very back, tailgating so to speak. he is on the left, i am on the right, so when he offers his right hand, i offer my left, because my right hand is the only thing between me and a busted back full of rocks. and he´s like, no, like a man, like a man, with the right. so i wrap my arm around a bar and do what i can to shake his hand. ok, that was cool the first time, he demands i shake his hand about a dozen time in the 20 minute ride, and when he gets dropped off, he shakes my hand again, and he about got his ass dragged down the road when the truck pulled off cause he wasn´t letting go and i sure as hell wasn´t about to jump out the back. anyway, he did eventually let go.
well, if you´ve read this far, then you deserve the pointless story presented above. meanwhile, the guy who runs this internet place wants to close, so i gotta head out. the rest of the site visit went well. . . . other people have much crappier sites. some people on the beach have better ones. i am very happy with mine and the work i have ahead of me. hasta la vista
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
