Things to never underappreciate.. little notes that your sister secretly hid in your luggage. Comfy clothes that remind you of home, especially when your new home is a cement box of iciness. Music as a healer. Photos as motivation and reminders of why you are doing what you are doing. Also important, the fact that the world is vast and I have the privilege of being FREE, which means that I need to expand my mind outside my itty bitty community when I feel claustrophobic, tied down, and.stuck.
I am surprisingly calm despite how campo it is out here. And it’s not necessarily the lack of running water, my out-house bathroom, the kichwa language that is being spoken about one hundred times more than I had thought, the indigenous wardrobe, or even the dirt/mud road that reaches the town. When I arrived tonight, all I could see was darkness and fog...there was only about four light bulbs in the entire center of town! And, when I say town, I really mean barrio! Although the population maybe around
It was really smooth travelling today, despite my anxiety due to my heavy luggage. Meeting my counterpart, Martin, went also very smoothly. He has lots of dreams and energy but seems disheartened. He mentioned his community and how some of the members do not really like him because he pushes them to work, try new things, and take risks. He said the people here do not like to take risks and expect money to fall out of the sky. I’ll have to figure out the scoop and gossip of the town, sometimes I even feel like a spy. A spy who has given up their secrecy and is now trying to figure out the ins and outs.
I also can’t expect how Peace Corps ´expects´ us to ´hangout´ for the next three or four months, especially when I feel like I want to start working tomorrow! Maybe not a formal project to start on but to do some type of agricultural work-perhaps that will help me integrate faster and more easily.
4.26.08
First day down and I would have to admit that it was a rather successful one. Off the bat, Martin and I went for a walk around the area, nothing far off but we did a lot of trekking up and down very steep mountains. At one point I thought we hiked up a hill for at least twenty minutes! Here they definitely lack trees; top soil erosion is killing their crops with the rains, and not to mention the lack of compost in the soil and diversification of crops is creating a lot of diseases.
After the walk, I voluntarily engaged myself in a four and a half hour long minga. A minga in the ecuadorian sense, is a community project that involves the free labor from everyone in the community towards something that more or less benefits them all. So, we worked on building a new classroom for the kids. While hauling bricks and moving cement in buckets, I was able to meet the community on an even smaller scale. Although the women were quite, albeit afraid to talk to me, I was able to successfully force myself on them and make them talk to me. With a smile and broken kichwa, I attempted to get to know the hardest social group to integrate into, the women. The young girls however, definitely worked the hardest and were the most quite. The men I could converse with about life, differences between the
Other random tidbits...The people here whisper a lot, to themselves, away from me. Their curious brown eyes follow my every move. The children always seem to slowly gather around no matter what I’m doing. They are all very hard to understand, their accent is thick, and their words always seem to end in a -pse. I’m so blessed to have reception, not to mention internet! (even though it is slow) People have noticed me and seem to respond well. Tonight, I was invited to eat dinner at someone’s house and so therefore, I feel as though I made great strides today. My food and eating schedule seems a bit sketchy but now that I was able to nestle into my pad a little bit more today, I’m hoping to get a better nights sleep. Thank goodness for ipods, stolen speakers, books, good people, nature, and LIFE.
4.27.08
DAY TWO.
...Done! and I have to say (again) with much success! This morning Jose and I went on a really relaxing and beautiful hike through the valley down to his land and to the edge of a cliff that overlooked a deep crevice. The crevices or quebrados are formed from years of having no trees, I suspect. This is a very big problem because the lack of trees and cover crops is causing the soils to erode, especially when there are massive rains (like once everyday!) Also interesting, is that when it does not rain and there are winds, which happens solidly for once a month, dust blows everywhere and its cold! The main roads also have huge cracks that are sometimes 1-2ft wide or deep to a few inches wide or deep. It’s like a big earthquake a long time ago cracked the roads and a huge canyon on the side of the mountains. This is a problem I know I cannot change; it is a problem that has been continuing for years and has inevitably ruined a major portion of their soil. I feel from the information that I have gathered that most of the people here have given up on replenishing their soil and only want to produce the staple crops like, papas, fava beans, maize etc. But! even that does not make sense because the markets have an excess of the staple crops because that is what ALL the campo people are producing. Therefore, the prices for the crops go down in the markets and the price to plant, harvest, and most importantly, transport, and sell... no vale la pena. And for that reason, we need to diversify our crops here so that we can find new markets. In addition, introducing new plants back into the ground will replenish the nutrients that have been lost or devastated by growing the same crops over and over again.
The plant I want most to work with is raspberry o la mora. Moras sell pretty well and are very strong plants. They are sierra grown (although, I’m not certain how much cold they can exactly withstand), they have strong roots that will dig deep into the ground and also serve as anchors against erosion. From the fruit we can also make value-added products such as, marmalade which I think will be good for the people to know how to do. Another fruit I found here was taxo which is also very exciting.
I’ve been trying to find people with whom I can confidently work with and have a mutually agreement of ´experimentation.´ I need them to understand we are experimenting and that it’s not a guarantee that everything will work out. The only guarantee is knowledge that we’ll gain from both our failures and successes. And also, the guarantee of hope and effort to which we will be working towards.
More random tidbits... The people here don’t talk much, at least not to me. I find myself talking a lot, especially to the children. People here speak very indirectly and without direct answers. For example, when trying to locate a piece of land that I could privately work on, I asked are their tools I can use? Yes. You have them? Yes. Where are they? Above. Where above? Above in the bodega. Which bodega? My bodega over there, you can use them whenever... ha! writing that down makes me laugh, I have to take myself less seriously. It’s funny now that I think about it.. it’s like, when is whenever!!!! What does that even mean?
Something else that was wonderful today…After going on a walk with Jose, his ´woman´ and I made arrangements to bake a carrot cake and learn some English in the kitchen. But, right after we set apart it started pouring like cats and dogs (like it does here at least once a day) and because of that I had an extra 45 minutes to kill (life stops when it rains here, it is a known fact). When the rains finally calmed down, I heard a faint knock at the door and when I opened it, I found two little kids bring from underneath their red ponchos, a warm plate full of papas and cuye. I felt so good. It was such an act of kindness and humanity. It was given to me by the daughter of my landlord, who had also invited me to eat soup at her house the night before. As we sat in her kitchen/dinning room/pantry/garage eating soup, she explained to me in incredibly rapid Spanish (their dialect is soo hard to follow and they have a hard time understanding me too), how she wanted to expand her garden and produce different kinds of plants. She is definitely a resource for me and she has one of the very few mora plants in town. Something else sparked me as confusing while I was eating at her house…why was it that I lived in a rather large house, which also happens to be that of her sister´s who lives currently in
4.28.08
DAY THREE:
Today was another great day but a bit stressful. I need to talk to my boss, Nelson. This morning I helped cook with the mothers from 7:30 am to about noon-ish for about the 150 ninos that attend the school. I met teachers, was introduced formally to the elders who happened to be having a meeting outside, I met with four and five year olds who attend the kindergarten down below the community and I met with a man named Pablo at his farm and attempted to milk his cow (the cow knew I was a gringa and wouldn´t let me). Later that evening, I hung out with young girls while they did their howework and I tried to read my manual… or until the group doubled in size and I then attempted to teach them about wormbins. After that workshop, my night turned into a guitar jam session with my male counterparts.
The issues of the day today, is how I was feeling about being represented as an educated agricultural technic… who is supposed to have all the answers. I have to be honest and say that I feel incompetent and like a cheat/liar/ fake in front of these people. There is not much that these people do not know about their farms… they know why their crops are failing, they know why they cannot gain any money from the markets, and they know, more or less what they can or need to do to change. They want me to hand them markets that will buy their non-existent products, they want me to export goods to the U.S, they want money, they want to learn English, they want me to help them get out of poverty. On my standpoint, I am a 23 year old punk kid who just graduated from college, I went through three months of training where we briefly went over subjects that I am now dealing with. The problem that I am seeing is that the people here lack technical information, o sea, just the in-between information. They know how to get from point A to B they just kind of… screw things up along the way. They also do not know how to prepare… prepare their soil, prepare for the rain, prepare in advance for their crops! Everything here needs to be easy and with quick results and that is another reason why in the past generations of farmers have used chemicals on their crops. A few people have come up to me asking me specific questions on how to better their crops, kill this disease, fatten up their cuyes, and I found myself yesterday, just handing them my huge manual, which is by the way in Spanish, and saying… look here´s the information, let´s learn together.
I feel as though I need to give up my position as the technic here and show them my true colors, meaning my handbook. Most of everything we need to know is there and I think they will be more sustainable if they teach each other, rather than me teaching them. So, if I can get a few of them to learn the material and conduct workshops with my face (so to speak), then other people will come and they can learn from others in their community. I for one, am not capable of giving workshops on how to build and better your cuye houses, although the Peace Corps has instructed us to do so. I feel that that method is entirely unsustainable and arrogant!!!! I guess my plan will be to do basic workshops in compost, wormbins, and how to replenish their damaged lands… and have other Ecuadorians do the workshops that are more technical and specific. At this point I have no idea what the future lies… I am just brainstorming. I just do not want to the give impression that I have all the answers and I do not want the future of their lives and farms in my hands. We need to work together and experiment to see what works and what does not. I already know there are skeptics out there who think that I have nothing to offer that they do not already know… I just have to focus on those few who want to learn and who will hopefully continue sustainable practices once I leave… Each and everyday that goes by, gets closer to the end of my service.
