ODDS & ENDS

I sometimes get up to a small village called San Blas, above Urcuqui, to work with a farmer named Manuel Diaz. This is somewhat outside of my normal territory, but I had met Manuel on a bus to Quito one day some months ago and he was really interested in getting some help to improve his crops while minimizing chemical use. My first visit occurred just after Manuel had planted all of his land (one hectare, about 2.5 acres) to “tomate de arbol” (tree tomato), a fairly common crop here, popular for juices and sauces. We spent a short while out in the field, but spent most of the morning in the small mud shed where he kept all his seeds, supplies, tools and chemicals (not to mention a very large Beatles poster, circa 1965 - He did not know who the Beatles were, or where the poster had come from.)

The array of chemical fertilizers, fungicides, insecticides, nematacides and other goodies was astonishing. I asked Manuel why he had so many bags of the same type of product, but from so many different manufacturers. “This is what the vendedores (salesmen) tell me I need”, he replied. Unlike many farmers his age (50) Manuel can read, but it turns out he can not see to read the very small print on the package labels. We spent the morning sorting out the products, I explained the uses of each one, and we put the duplicate products in groups. I used some notebook paper and a marker to write down proper dosages and application procedures, in big letters. Several times we had to go over the concept of “more is not better” when it comes to chemical use. This is a common misconception here, I`ve seen it back in the states as well. We talked for a while about the basics of integrated pest management (IPM) When all was in order, Manuel said he didn`t think he needed to buy any more chemicals or fertilizers for the next year; I agreed and added “dos, tal vez”.

We walked over the farm a little more and I asked Manuel if he had seen other farmers intercropping beans with their tomate de arbol. He said he had seen it, but was worried that the beans would bring pests to the field. I told him this was unlikely, and that the beans would provide income while he was waiting for the tomate de arbol harvest, and that they can add organic matter and a little nitrogen to the soil.

A month later I went back up to see him. His tree tomatoes were looking great, and Manuel proudly showed me the 4 inch tall beans sprouting between the rows of trees. We walked around some and looked for problems, but there were none, except a minor infestastion of slugs along the field edges who were eating the beans closest to them. We talked about some remedies for that, and moved on. We were both happy, and soon walked down to the tienda for a couple of Fantas and some pan de maiz. As we sat talking on the stoop of the tienda the snow covered peak of Cotacachi appeared directly in front of us, and over our left shoulders we could see the dead volcano of Imbabura, which on this beautiful day was also snow covered, a very rare occurence.

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I caught the bus back down to Urcuqui, and made a quick dash to the bathroom before continuing on to Ibarra. As I climbed back on the bus and got into a seat I was surprised to hear a voice “ Señor Royer! Señor Royer!” following me. I turned around and saw a vaguely familiar looking older (my age, probably) woman, smiling and holding a piece of bread slathered with jam. Thanks, I said, but who are you? ···· You don`t remember me? Im Mirellas grandmother!! ···· Oh yes I remember, we met on the bus to Pimampiro . . . you were taking Mirella up to her fathers house . . .

Mirella is nine, and she speaks a little bit of english , which is kind of rare around here. On our bus ride up to Pimampiro (back in March) she was very bold and asked me if I spoke english, and if so could I talk with her for a little while. So we chatted, and a little later her grandmother invited me to Mirellas birthday party which was coming up. I was unable to go to the party, but was able to get up to Urcuqui the following week with a small gift for Mirella. Her mom was there at the house, but not her grandma. I stayed just long enough to leave the gift and not be rude, uninvited as I was that day.

Well it turns out that Mirellas grandmother runs a little panaderia (bakery) outside of the small bus terminal in Urcuqui. I was surprised she recognized me, but on the other hand not too many 6 foot bearded gringos pass through Urcuqui, so maybe not. She chastised me for not visiting the house while I was there in Urcuqui, I promised her that I would come by next time I was up, and I will. Just before the bus took off, Mirella herself jumped on board and said, in English . . . goodafternoonhowareyoufinethankyou . . . all at once. Shes a cute kid.

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In the Escuela de Cuba in Caldera last week one of the kids I was working with asked me how old I was. Fifty three, I said ···· so you have about 10 more years to live, right? ···· Well, I hope maybe a little more than that, my dad was eighty four when he died ···· ¡¿!eighty four?!? no way, nobody lives that long . . .

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I often get asked who I live with. Soy soltero, vivo solo ···· you live alone? How strange! Where does your wife live? ···· I don`t have a wife, I am divorced ···· Yeah, but where does your wife live? ···· OK, my ex wife lives in the United States ···· wow, that`s pretty far away. So you don`t see her often? ···· No, I don`t, were divorced! ···· Oh, so what about your mother, why don`t you live with her? ···· Well, I am 53 years old, and besides, my mother and father both died a few years ago ···· ¡Que lastima! So you are an orphan? ···· Yes, I suppose I am ···· ¡que triste! (how sad!)

I swear I have this conversation at least twice every week.

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The school garden project in Caldera is going great. We have built 24 smaller planting beds, and 2 larger ones. 12 of the smaller beds are planted to vegetables, and 12 are planted to cover crops; alfalfa, oats, and various local varieties of legumes. We`ve planted 10 mandarina trees, 6 tomate de arbol, and several types of herbs and medicinals. The kids and staff are great, and the Director has given me keys to the school entrance and the storage shed so I can come and go as I please, which is really great. It`s gratifying to show up after school hours and have 5 or 6 kids drift in to help. Thanks for the donations, having some cash on hand to buy tools and plant materials makes all the difference in the world. Next week, after a break for Thanksgiving (I`m going to Baeza “the whitewater capital of Ecuador” to have turkey dinner with other PC friends, and to enjoy a change of scenery) we will plant avocados, mangos, and taxos.

I have started a second school garden project down in Piquiucho, not far from Caldera. This is a much smaller project, yet somewhat more challenging. The student population here is unruly, discipline is nonexistent, and anarchy seems to be the rule of the day. The teaching staff here spends most of the day huddled in the directors` office, and they seem to think that the garden project is a way to slough the kids off on someone else for a while. Nevertheless, I think things will improve as time goes on, anyway I sure hope so!

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Caldera and Piquiucho are both AfroEcuadorean communities, and since the US Presidential election I am bombarded with questions -- Do you know Barack Obama?? (no, not personally) --- Does this mean there is no more racism in your country?? (no, but it means we are learning and that we are maybe a little less racist than before) --- Do you think a black person will ever be president of Ecuador?? (yes, someday, and maybe it will be you, or you, or you) You never know.

Enjoy Thanksgiving with your friends and loved ones and be sure to think a moment about all those in the world who have a little less. . .

DON`T WORRY, I`M HERE TO HELP!

I´ve been thinking about this entry for a long time. Peace Corps asks (demands) of us a certain cultural sensitivity when we post to our blogs, send letters home, post film clips to you-tube or what have you. If I had written of the following two or three months ago, immediately after the incident I´m about to describe, all of my anger and frustration would have come spilling out, and any ¨cultural sensitivity¨ that I may possess would have gone by the wayside. In that I am one who can be quite quick to judge, it has been good for me to take some time and to think about my role in this story, and more importantly to determine if I am learning anything, anything at all, while I am here in Ambuqui, Ecuador.

A few months ago, I was invited by friends to dinner and to celebrate the birthday of one of their daughters, who was turning 30 something. I arrived about 7PM, and was surprised that no one else was there. ¨Where are Juanita (the b´day girl), and Miguel (her husband) y los niños¨ I asked. Marina, Juanitas´ mother, replied ¨they went down to their house to get sharp knives to butcher the cow.¨ I was a bit dismayed by this, thinking that this meant we would not eat until midnight or later. ¨Did one of the cows die?¨, I asked. ¨Si, the cow died, and we will butcher it and sell the meat; it´s not for tonight.¨ This family had 3 milk cows, and eked out a small living selling the milk door to door from an old pot. Knowing that the loss of a cow would impact their income I was sad to hear that one had died, and at the same time relieved to know that I could eat soon, stay a short while at the party, and then get home to bed at a reasonable time.

Everyone turned up soon, we had chicken, potatoes and rice (big surprise) for dinner, and as we were cleaning up my little amiga Anita grabbed my arm and said, ¨come outside and look at the cow!¨

¨Why should I go outside to look at a dead cow¨ I asked,

¨No, silly, the cow is not dead, the cow´s baby is dead!!¨, Anita countered, looking at me like I was completely stupid.

We stepped out the back door, and not 10 feet away is a pitiful, but alive, milk cow tied to a tree, looking lost and confused, with half a dead calf hanging from its backside.
I ran into the house, livid, and shouted - ¨what the hell is this!?! Here we are eating and partying and your cow is in big trouble!!¨

- Yes, we know the cow has a problem. That is why we are going to butcher it.

- But why kill the mother – we need to get the dead calf out!!

- Oh no, the calf will not come out, it has been that way since early this morning

- Early this morning!! More than 12 hours! Why didn´t you call the veterinarian – or you could have come to get me!!

- Oh, do you know about cows??

- Almost nothing, but I could have called someone who knows more than me.

- Well, now it is done. The calf will not come out, and we will butcher the cow and sell the meat.

- No no no. We are going to get the calf out and try to save your cow. You have had cows all your lives! You have had 2 Peace Corps volunteers who specialize in animals before I came here! Why do you not know how to get the calf out when the mother has trouble?

- Because it is very rare for the mother to have problems. If she has problems she is of no worth.
- Well we are going to try to help her. I will need some soap and some cooking oil.

At this point I am fuming. The cow has no water to drink, has not had any for the entire day. (Oh, cows like water?) My request for some cooking oil for lubrication is met by blank stares – my friends think cooking oil is too expensive to be foolishly wasted in this manner.
The next hour and a half is spent fruitlessly trying to extract the calf. It was born with the left leg and the head presenting. I washed up and lubricated the mother, and tried to get the leg back inside in order to make room to work and bring out both forelegs along with the head. This turned out to be impossible, because rigor mortis had set in and the calves limbs are stiff as 2 by 4s. I managed to get one of my arms up inside the mother, but was unable to budge the other foreleg. I am wearing my best shirt, which is now ruined with sweat, blood, and cooking oil. I ask for a hacksaw – we need to cut off the protruding foreleg at the shoulder, and perhaps then we can bring out the other, and then the whole calf will come. A saw is brought, and as I hack off the limb the dogs stare hungrily, knowing that they are about to feast. There is surprisingly little blood, and the job is done in a couple of moments. To no avail. I really have no idea what I am doing, yet it all seems to make sense in a dream like sort of way. I am working hard, aided by Miguel while the rest of the family either watches or goes on with the party preparations. We are unable to get any part of the calf back inside the mother. Someone fetches a rope and we tie it around the head and sawed off leg stump of the calf. Five people pull on the rope, we succeed only in dragging the mother 2 or 3 meters through the dirt. She has been wonderfully patient – apparently resigned to her fate – but willing to humor this gringo who thinks he is going to perform some kind of miracle. Her attitude mirrors that of my friends. They are humoring me; they are resigned to the loss of the calf and to the loss of the milk cow as well. There is nothing else to do; my friends, bored and eager to get the party started, pat me on the back, tell me it was a good try, and they are sorry about my ruined shirt. We go back in the house, eat some cake while a few people dance to some cumbia music, and later I walk home, exhausted and dejected. I have suffered several failures in my work here, but this one seems huge and hurts more than all the others combined. The next morning, the cow is gone – a hired butcher has come, performed a C-section to remove the calf, and hauled away the carcass in the back of his truck. My friends have received about 160 dollars for the meat value – a good new milk cow will cost them twice that.

It is this sense of resignation, of utter acceptance, that gnaws at me. It is completely foreign to me. I simply don`t understand it. Is this what comes of neverending poverty; or is this what comes of the belief that everything is in the hands of god? Or is this just part of being South American, or more specifically, Ecuadorean? I do not know – and probably never will. I have been poor in my life, and by many standards still am, but never have I been impoverished or without options. I do not believe in god, but I believe in free will and believe as well that we are all ultimately responsible for what happens to us in our lives. And of course I am neither South American nor Ecuadorean, and never will be, no matter how long I may stay here.

So where do I come off, with virtually no animal experience, thinking that I can waltz in and save the day? This is what I am trying to figure out, and I think that the events of that night caused me to rethink everything, at least as much as I am able. Since that night I have learned to think a little more before reacting; to watch the people around me and to gauge their view of a given situation. Pretty elementary stuff, really, but a new found skill for me. I have, by necessity, become somewhat more patient, and accepted that I am not going to change habits and customs that have been prevalent for generations. I have learned that some people in this world have nothing but time, therefore the passing of time means little, harms almost nothing and yet heals almost everything. Yesterday is gone, and who knows if tomorrow will ever come? Who knows what people are thinking in a culture where one can be greeted with “a los tiempos!” whether the last time one was seen was one day or one month or one year ago? In a blog post here some months or more ago I talked about the frustrations of “ya mismo”, but recently I have come to embrace the concept. Yes, it, or he or she or they or them, or the bus or the camionetta or what have you will be here eventually. When? Who knows . . . and does it really matter?

Since that night I have read every book, pamphlet, or magazine that I could get my hands on about animal health and especially birthing. I hope I never face the same situation again, but if I do, I will be ready with information, but only if someone asks for it. I now believe I was wrong to impose my will on my friends and on that animal that night, and I hope I have learned enough not to ever do it again.

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My friends borrowed some money, at an exorbitant interest rate, to buy a new cow. She is a beauty, and she and her mates get led out to pasture on the scrub every day, and then are brought in at night where they eat fresh cut canegrass and have all the fresh water they can drink. My friends have noted that the cows are giving more milk since they have a good supply of water every night. I smile and say “si, es un milagro, no?”.

Huerto Caldera

Well, we finally have a new project off the ground - or maybe I should say in the ground. After months of talking and planning with officials, my Peace Corps friend Chrystal Smith and I have broken ground at the Escuela de Cuba in Caldera. Caldera is an Afro Ecuadorean community about midway between Ambuqui, where I live, and Pueblo Nuevo, where Chrystal lives. There are 139 students in the school, from grades 1 - 6. We will be working mainly with the 5th and 6th graders, harvests from the garden will be used to prepare mid day meals for all the students, and extra produce will be sold in the community to provide future funding for the project. We have almost 6000sf available - for this season we are building beds on one half of that, and later we will plant fruit trees and cover crops. The staff at the school are energetic and supportive, the students enthusiastic. At this point the parents are wary, but as we proceed, and hopefully have some success, we will bring them in to the project.

So, for the handful of persons who read this blog, I would like to ask for a little help. A small cash donation, a box full of seeds, a care package of twine and rope, or what have you. If you are interested, contact me for details at rdlurie@yahoo.com. Cash donations will be used to buy tools, ornamental and medicinal plants, fruit trees and fencing materials. The school has a limited amount of funding for this project - but an unlimited supply of energy and workers.

Once this project is well underway, I will be looking at smaller but similar school projects in nearby communities. Meanwhile, my other work, with my demonstration garden and with local farmers in the North of Ecuador continues.

Gone and back again

I went to the United States for three weeks. It was great. I slept alot, drove alot, ate and drank alot, and gained ten pounds - at least. Visited my wonderful kids, in New York City and Yellow Springs, Ohio, my wonderful brothers in Baltimore, and my good good friends wherever I could find them, but especially in Ohio and West Virginia. Watched both the democratic and republican conventions (Go Barack), watched plenty of football and baseball, played pool, and pingpong, got a sausage biscuit at McDonald's and bought socks at WalMart and a new pair of sneakers at Target. I visited my old dog Nico, and sweated through some horrendous heat and humidity in the east and the midwest. It was truly a great trip, everything was perfect - yet everyday I was thinking about Ecuador. On my last day in the States, all fat and happy, I could not wait to get on the plane, and when I landed in Quito I am sure I had a grin from ear to ear. And to top it all off, the perfect end to a perfect trip, I got through customs in Ecuador without a hitch - walked right through.

So now, getting past the jet lag and the culture shock (which culture, I'm not sure) I am looking forward to getting back to work and eventually having something useful to report on this blog. Til then, ciao. (The photo is of the Hungarian Pastry Shop, in NYC, across the street from the Cathedral of St. John the Devine)

Randomness

Worked hard for a few hours this morning, came home hungry and made a great lunch of red beans and rice and then took a very satisfying nap. Life is good. Now I am killing some time ´til the sun gets a little less brutal, and then I´ll get a few more hours in of barely keeping the garden alive – between the lack of water and a whole host of merciless insects, not to mention the chickens – it is quite a challenge. My hosts are quite amused as I explain for the millionth time why I am not using chemicals to control the gusanos and the plagas, and they really get a kick out of my spraying hot pepper sauce on the tomatoes and broccoli to keep the chickens away. ¨These types of chickens love aji y pimientos picante, they are watching you and licking their chops¨. Well, I´m at least as stubborn as the chickens are hungry, and we will see about that.
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I traveled to the south of Ecuador for the better part of 2 weeks in early July. I had not previously traveled further south than Riobamba, so I found some time to do so. I opted to fly down to Loja, or rather the airport at Catamoya, an hour away, which serves Loja and the south. A bus from Ibarra to Loja would have been 16 hours or more – the flight was less than one hour; well worth the extra cost. From Catamoya I hopped on a bus to visit a Peace Corps friend, Akul Nishawala in Catacocha. I stayed only one day and a night, I hope to go back sometime for a longer visit. Akul made a great red curry for dinner and we watched Ecuadors´ LIGA club team beat Brazils´ team for the championship. Despite being thoroughly outplayed LIGA won the game on penalty kicks – some vagary of the rules of soccer tournaments that I still do not understand. Anyway, it was pretty exciting, and after the victory most everyone who owns a car or truck in Catacocha started driving through the streets blowing their horns. Amazingly, the next morning (the game had ended around midnight) the town was awash in banners proclaiming LIGA´s prowess and hailing the new champions of South American futbol.
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I left Catacocha on a 10 AM bus, having planned to meet some other PC friends in Loja that afternoon. It was 4th of July weekend and some of us were heading down to Vilcabamba, one of Ecuadors´ most popular tourist destinations, for some hiking and what-not. I traveled down to Vilca with Shawn Stokes and his wife Maria Ellis, and we stayed 2 nights at a fairly outstanding hostal called Izhcayluma. Our plans for hiking were thwarted by rain and hangovers, but we did visit with some other PC volunteers in the area and looked in on some of their projects. We ate a lot of great food as well, Izhcayluma does a great job with the vittles. Vilcabamba itself left me cold, and a little perplexed as to how it gained its reputation as a hot tourist destination. In my opinion the scenery up here in the North is just as spectacular, and the weather is a damned site better. I was also a little put off by the dreadlocked hippies wandering around or sitting on the steps of the iglesia chanting or playing wooden flutes – and even more put off by the rich Europeans and American expats who were buying up property and sending land prices soaring. I was shocked to see that Vilcabamba will soon have a gated community, populated by wealthy and paranoid gringos. That doesn´t seem right to me. I left Vilcabamba thinking it was best to keep the tourists down there in the South – don´t want too many of them fouling the nest up here in the North! I also left feeling very happy that I was not here in Ecuador as a tourist, that I was actually living here, and imbued with some vague purpose for being here, as well. How will I reconcile this concern the next time I am traveling as a tourist? Haven´t the faintest idea.
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Maria, Shawn, and I headed back to Loja to pick up groceries and other supplies before heading out to their site, Fundachamba, which is literally in the middle of nowhere. Perched on the western edge of the cordillera, the climate is just right for coffee growing, and harvest was in full swing. Unfortunately, there were very few pickers, since a misguided town official had had all the Peruvian laborers arrested and thrown into jail in Loja, 4 hours away. Peruvians provide the bulk of labor in harvesting the coffee crop, and are absolutely essential in towns like Fundachamba where the younger folks are leaving for new lives in Quito, España, or Nueva York. Despite the shortage of hands, there was coffee everywhere, drying in the sun on rooftops, in the streets, on balconies - every flat surface was covered with beans. Almost all of the coffee is sold in Loja at wholesale for ridiculously low prices – Shawn is working with the local co-op to roast and package coffee to help increase incomes in the area.
The three of us spent a day building a wall made of cob – a mixture of clay soil, sand, and any type of straw that can be found locally. A labor intensive process, to be sure, but materials costs are nearly nothing. A gringo friend of Shawn´s has built a spectacular cob house outside of Matacuya, I will post a few photos at the flickr link. It´s a funny thing that so many old-style cheap and renewable technologies which are coming into vogue with us westerners are seen almost as insults by many Ecuadoreans – there are cement block fabricators on almost every corner and isn´t it so much easier and faster just to lay up block? I like the possibilities of cob building, but can´t argue with the other point of view.
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I walked 45 minutes down the mountain to hit the main road where I could catch a ride back to Loja, and there I jumped on a northbound bus headed to San Felipe de Oña where I stayed the night with another PC friend. I got up early to catch the 7am bus to Cuenca, but it never showed up, nor did the 8am bus. I read some chapters of whatever book I was carrying for such eventualities, and chatted with the locals for awhile. Finally around 9 a bus rolled into town, and I was on my way to Cuenca. I have noted a time or two in this blog particular bus adventures, but this trip put all the others to shame. (A close second is the trip to Chugchilan when we all had to leave the bus while the driver and helper had to hack out the side of a mountain to gain enough roadbed to make up for the portion that had collapsed into the canyon the night before).
The fun began when our driver decided to ignore a desvio (detour) sign, and continued along the same portion of road, which was under construction. At the top of the hill we encountered roadworkers and machinery, and they told the driver he had to turn back, which meant backing downhill about 500 meters to a turn out. The road was only about 2 inches wider than the bus, and when the (pissed off) driver threw her into reverse gasps and muffled screams escaped from the lips of some of the passengers. When we hit the wide spot the driver skillfully made a 3 point turn, but not before half the passengers had left the bus, sure that it was about to plunge backwards, into the abyss. I stayed aboard, figuring there are worse ways to go. Anyway, we successfully made the turn, and headed back down the hill to the desvio, which put us out of the frying pan and into the fire. Our alternate ¨road¨ was the camino antigua which means it was essentially built to carry donkey carts and foot traffic. On this day it was carrying two way traffic detoured from the major North-South highway in Ecuador, and there was not a policeman or traffic controller anywhere in sight. Our ayudante, the drivers helper, ran several hundred feet ahead of the bus to make sure we would not run headlong into southbound traffic, and at one point, one hapless driver was forced to back up for 10 minutes, on a single track road, while our driver stayed on his front bumper and very neatly kept the 2 left wheels of the bus on the edge of the very precarious roadbed. By this time, people on the bus are freaking out, many were on cell phones calling loved ones, others were crying, some were on the verge of fainting. There were also a few diehards who simply slept through the whole thing. After a very long time, we finally hit pavement, but only after the driver negotiated an impossible turn in a small pueblo, where the right side of the bus actually scraped the full length of a stone wall while trying to avoid the overhanging eaves of the house protruding from the left. Our driver received a hearty round of applause for that maneuver, and later when we took a bathroom and lunch break I bought both the driver and the ayudante a beer, and told them ¨bien hecho, maestros¨. (Well done, experts)
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It may seem that I give too much attention to bus travel – but it is such an integral part of daily life for PC volunteers and locals alike that it becomes impossible to avoid the subject. A few days ago I was on a bus with an Ecuadorian friend and we agreed that those who never travel by bus (the rich) are missing out on a great slice of life. But even on the busses life is changing – the drivers are becoming less inclined to allow large animals like goats or sheep into the passenger area, such are now stowed on top of the bus, tied by the ankles, or in the luggage compartment, stuffed into sacks and tossed around like bags of rice. Of course, chickens, cuyes, cats and small dogs still get smuggled into the ¨people part¨.
In an effort to alleviate traffic congestion, many cities in Ecuador, including Ibarra and Otavalo have introduced new laws requiring that buses stop now at designated paradas only, instead of every 20 or 30 ft. as has been the custom. Traffic inspectors now tape the doors shut, and they can only be opened at the next official stop. The more clever drivers have gotten around this inconvenience by rigging one or two of the curbside windows to open fully, enabling passengers to climb in and out wherever they please. Not all passengers can take advantage of this feature, of course, but for those who can it is worth the trouble. A driver told me it´s not against the law, because there is no law written about passengers entering and leaving the bus through the windows. Makes sense to me.

Adentro (part 2)

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Adentro (pt.1)

(this post has turned into a ridiculous length, so I am splitting it into 2, or maybe 3, parts.)

I passed the last week of May and the first week of June in El Oriente, invited by my Peace Corps friends Jeremy and Susan King who live and work in Puyo. Most of Susans´ work is with the Huaroni tribe (these are the Indians depicted in the movie ¨End of the Spear¨ as well as the subject of a great book by Joe Kane titled ¨Savages¨) Like all natives in the Ecuadorian Amazon the Huaroni have been impacted by 50 years of oil exploration and extraction, illegal logging, and a steady stream of missionaries. More info about the Huaroni people and history can be found at Wikipedia, or amazingly enough, at http://www.huaroni.com/. Although the Huaroni have a long history of violence against outsiders and against neighboring clans the people we encountered in Menapare and Tepapare were anything but ¨violent savages¨.
Our trip adentro began in Puyo, where Susan, Jeremy and I met up with another PC friend, Kris Pedings. The four of us had trained together in La Esperanza, so it was a nice reunion – although I was dismayed that my Spanish lagged far behind theirs! In the morning we went to the offices of AMWAE, the agency Susan works with, to pick up supplies and to meet the 9 students from Duke University who were here to construct a water collection system and also to determine the community´s interest in solar derived electricity. With a grant from somewhere, AMWAE had recently purchased a brand new Yamaha 40HP outboard motor for one of its dugout canoes – we all watched in awe as one of the Huaroni men carried it down the stairs from the office and loaded it into the back of the chartered bus. This was only the first of many outrageous feats of strength that we would witness in the coming week. As the morning wore on, Duke students straggled in as did the Huaroni who were heading back to their villages. Our scheduled departure time became a distant memory as we gathered food and water, loaded bags and gear, and waited for something to happen. Ya mismo.
All of a sudden, the driver fired up the bus – it was packed to the gills with people and stuff, a gigantic water tank tied to the roof along with metal roofing, tubing and other various and sundry work related supplies; bags of cement, tanks of gasoline, and the 40 horse outboard all stashed in the compartments below. That the bus even moved was somewhat a shock. We had a beautiful and uneventful drive to Puerto Napo, where we took on 2 more passengers – Jeff Brown, another PC volunteer from up in Chaco, and Mary Fifield, who lives and works in Tena. She is affiliated with Global Pediatric Alliance and a friend of Jeremy and Susan´s. We then made a short stop in Misahualli where we had to track down a component of the outboard motor that was vital to its operation, namely, the key. A key was located, and as we left town crossing the rather suspect bridge over the Rio Napo, our driver forgot about the water tank strapped to the roof and inadvertently pulled down an electric wire. Thus, to cross the bridge we had to remove the tank, then walk across the bridge as it had been determined that the bus along with passengers would be too much of a load. We all waited on the other side with our breath held as the bus lolled over the bridge and made it safely to the other side, where we repacked the water tank and went on our merry way.
Our next stop would be Menapare, about 2 hours away and the end of the road. Along the way we passed settlements of colonistas, people who work for ¨The Company¨ (the oil companies). We passed parts of the pipeline, and at least one compound where supplies for oil extracting were piled up, waiting to be utilized. Towards the end of the road we came across a guarded checkpoint – we were about to enter Huaroni territory – and we wondered if the suspicious guard would allow this overloaded bus with its motley crew of gringos to pass. He did, and we cruised on in to Menapare.
We were staying only one night in Menapare, in the morning we would be traveling 2 -3 hours by canoe downriver to Tepapare. We unloaded the bus, and reloaded all work related supplies (including the gigantic water tank) into a dugout canoe waiting below the bridge, to be taken to Tepapare. The canoe would return for us in the morning. There had been rain, and the river was muddy and fast. There were some concerns that if it rained more during the night that we would have to wait to continue on, but as it turned out the night passed clear and quiet; we set up our tents and mosquito netting, prepared dinner for ourselves and the villagers, told stories and sang songs, and later crawled into our bags.
In the morning we woke to find that one of the Huaroni men had killed a small caiman with a machete blow across the skull, and that it was being roasted over a fire at another hut as part of breakfast. Hard boiled eggs, oatmeal, coffee and crocodile – the breakfast of champions! The meat was tender and tasty, much more palatable than I had expected.
After eating and washing up we broke down camp and started loading canoes. It was a short hike from the village to the river, and everything was carried down. We packed out 2 canoes – both appeared overladen, with only 4 – 6 inches of gunwale visible above the waterline. A light drizzle was falling, and as we left for Tepapare I noticed I was cold – something I never would have expected in the Amazon. The river was still up, but not dangerously so. As I looked around, at the river, at the jungle, at the water sloshing around my feet in the canoe, and at the people I was with, I had another of those moments of recognition where I just grin a little and say to myself ¨holy shit, I´m in Ecuador¨.
I would like to report that during the two hour cruise down to Tepapare that I saw great stands of primary jungle and thousands of exotic birds, butterflies, and flowers, not to mention some rare example of one endangered creature or another, but I can´t. Although far from Tena, we were still too close to civilization and its´ effects – oil extraction, colonization, illegal logging and hunting. Nevertheless, it was beautiful, and quiet (when the outboards were turned off), and I was thrilled to be there. We floated and motored downriver, and as we made a wide turn in the river we were greeted by 20 or 30 souls standing on a muddy bank, the people of Tepapare.