Friday, October 30, 2015

Trouble in Paradise - Intag

The Ecuadorian villiage of Pucará is a solid candidate for the title of World's Most Unassuming Place.  It's a humble little town, small in every sense, with modest buildings dwarfed even further by the Andean monoliths that pierce the horizon in every direction.  The center square, complete with a small church, two stores, and a volleyball court, branches out into a few sleepy streets, ranging out in different directions towards family farms and friendly bungalows.  The dirt highway, old but rarely used, rolls haphazardly through the middle of it all; trucks and buses rumble by semi-regularly, pushing onward to bigger and busier destinations as locals chat nonchalantly outside.

Pucará has never really tried to attract much attention to itself. It's a reserved place, even by Ecuadorian standards; by American ones, it would qualify as ¨extremely quiet.¨ But after spending some time in the villiage, an outsider will discover a new-age vitality that's hard to come by elsewhere in the rural Andes. Off the square, for example, there's a Spanish school where local women can earn money by teaching tourists and backpackers their language.  A shiny new Community Center, officially the largest building in the entire Intag Watershed, fosters a close and communicative local network.  Close by is the Rio Intag Coffee Cooperative, a regional coalition of growers who together produce some of the world's most delicious - and critically acclaimed - coffee. Residents run a restaurant, selling only the freshest of sustainably grown local goods; there's also a handbag weaving business that exports to two other continents.  Although fewer than 250 people call Pucará home, the area's energy and industry are suggestive of a much larger place.

Our ten days in town were some of the fullest and most eye-opening yet.  We worked closely with Peter Shear, an American expat living in Pucará who has devoted his last 20 years to developing the community. We spent the week working for the residents, exploring the region, studying sustainable agriculture, and learning about the pressing socio-political issues of the region.

Things aren't looking good for Pucará.  The villiage is in the midst of a decades-long conflict that threatens to uproot the entire community and destroy the local way of life. The Intag Watershed, where Pucará is located, sits atop one of the largest unexcavated copper deposits in the world; it also happens to be among the planet's most biodiverse regions, with more species per hectare than almost anywhere.  Excavating and refining the copper would swiftly reduce the entire watershed to a barren wasteland, thereby eliminating one of the last great natural paradises and displacing thousands of natives, including the citizens of Pucará and similar villiages.  International companies have been jostling for the rights to the copper deposit since 1996, while the Ecuadorian government has sat passively by. Supported by only their own industry and determination, the locals have succeeded in preserving their land, fending off powerful corporate giants from Japan, Chile, and Canada. Recently, however, pressed by a growing national debt, the Ecuadorian government has begun an effort to sieze the land for itself. Locals and outsiders alike view this as traitorous; it also goes against several constitutional laws.

Our role in the conflict was a small one: To learn what we could about these problems, and then dedicate just a few days of our time and energy to the community. We saw firsthand that Pucará's best bet is a stronger, more self-reliant Pucará; our task, then, was simply to support the town.

So we stayed awhile.  We ate at the restaurant, bought some handbags, and paid host families for room and board.  We spent a few mornings plowing fields and planting pineapples with and for some of the local farming families. We hiked (and, in one case, ziplined) all over the place, absorbing the scenery and experiencing the Cloud Forest while it still exists. We chatted with locals. We salsa'd with our host moms in the square.  We got absolutely decimated by the local soccer team - although we let them win, obviously, because that's the charitable thing to do, of course. And it's safe to say that we had a truly unforgettable exrpeience.

Places like Pucará are a dying breed. Life in the 21st Century has become so hurried and competitive that even the most rural communities are endangered by the pressures of the modern area - to the detriment of their cultures and against their collective wills. But Pucará is fighting back. The times have galvanized the people into action, and they're all working, with some success, to preserve their heritage and their home. We were extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to experience their way of life. Hopefully, it will remain for years to come.

There are no guarantees, however; the people of Intag are fighting an uphill battle.  Money, of course, is what's lacking. There's truly no better place to put your spare change - dollars go a long way in Ecuador, and every cent counts in this fight.  Visit http://www.decoin.org/ to donate or to learn more.

*Actually not Pucará, but a similar-ish villiage near Otavalo, since I forgot to take pictures of the town

A slice of the Intag Watershed.  Can't capture it with a camera
SpongeBob?

Awesome tourist cabins where we stayed our last two nights, near the villiage of Junín (population: 36) - another example of Intag's industry





Monday, October 12, 2015

Welcome to the Jungle - Tena/Otavalo

We spent four days of last week in the Ecuadorian Amazon, 30 bumpy minutes outside of the city of Tena, learning how much life can improve when you're half an hour from the nearest power outlet and surrounded by deet-hungry mosquitoes.  Special thanks to my anti-malarial tablets for making this awesome stay possible.

We bunked down in a ridiculously cool two-story shack that our backpacker-friendly host family had constructed in the middle of the jungle.  Reaching the encampment from the dirt road required knee-high rubber boots and a 10-minute trek, which turned out to be a lot more awesome than inconvenient. Overlooking the Napo River, a famous rafting destination, the shack served as our base of operations as we spent the week adventuring through the rainforest and brushing up a little more on our Spanish.

I don't know what to write about first.  The waterfall hike? The laguna hike? The second iteration of the aforementioned waterfall hike, in which we free-rappelled down the same 25-foot cascadas that we had climbed up twice before? The mind-blowing night skies, the likes of which can only be seen numerous kilometers from civilization? The afternoon that we spent panning for gold in the river - with some actual success? Maybe the morning riverside yoga sessions, or the nighttime campfire jams? What about the fact that our amazing host family cooked us native Ecuadorian cuisine all week, serving it up hot and fresh right outside our shack? Or the fact that we're even here at all, instead of in math class or something? It's a challege to keep track of everything, and even harder to do it justice in words.  So many experiences, so much gratitude, and such a short time.  I can't believe it all went by in four days.

Unfortunately, though, it did - which would suck, except we're now in the bustling tourist hub of Otavalo.  We're here for three nights, and it happens to be a blast here as well.  We arrived on Saturday morning, settled into our hostel (has running water AND electricity), and struck out to explore the famous outdoor market.  It's a really cool scene, and our haggling skills are getting sharper all the time.  Most of us, if we hadn't already, bought ourselves ponchos made of llama wool. We'd look exactly like an indigenous tribe if we didn't look so much like tourists.

Today we taxi'd/hiked up to a famous tree, El Lechero.  It supposedly has healing powers; it definitely looks like it has healing powers; if these bug bites stop itching any time soon, I'll be inclined to believe that it does, in fact, have healing powers. It was a great way to spend the morning, healing powers or not, and we followed it up the right way: with a stop at a nearby bakery.

In Ecuador, a dollar can buy two generous slices of cake.  There are some American stereotypes that we're more than happy to uphold.

The back yard



Oh, hey there.


(Yo, also, everybody should check out my buddy Lucas' blog at https://doslenguasdosalmas.wordpress.com/ .  For more blogs written by Carpe Diem kids, doing cool stuff in other parts of the world, go to https://www.carpediemeducation.org/blog/ .)

More pictures to follow, when I can find a fast enough internet cafe.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Chasing Waterfalls - Baños

It´s almost a challenge to describe the Ecuadorian town of Baños without sounding like a travel brochure.  The place has everything a tourist (or a roving band of student-volunteers) could wish for: a friendly atmosphere, fantastic food, plenty of nightlife, and a picturesque mountain range, which rises up majestically on every side and boasts something like 65 waterfalls.  The outdoor scene, as you might imagine, is off the charts - but the biggest draw of all is probably the series of volcanic hot springs for which the town is named.  This week we´ve encountered other non-locals - mostly European backpackers, actually - for pretty much the first time since Quito, and it´s not too tough to understand why they´re here.

I spent the week living with my buddy Peter - Pedro, I meanunder the roof of a friendly and welcoming host family.  The first of several homestay families on the trip, the Iglesiases set a pretty hard-to-match precedent: They showed us around town when we arrived, cooked us amazing meals all week, and washed our clothes at the laundromat that they run on the roof (an extremely helpful service after a week on a banana farm).  They were remarkably accommodating, and we were blown away by their willingness to take us into their day-to-day lives.

When we weren´t sleeping, eating, or retrieving laundry, though, we were usually out taking advantage of our time in Baños.  Our full schedule was comprised of almost equal parts learning, volunteering, and exploring.

We spent our mornings at a small Spanish school down the street, sharpening our Spanish with a dedicated group of teachers - including, but not limited to, some of our Las Delicias hosts from last week.  Our Spanish skills are improving in leaps and bounds.  For me, basic strings of words are starting to become more intuitive, and I´m starting to understand what it means to think in another language.

We would head home each day at lunchtime to eat with the Iglesias clan, and then return to school afterward for more classes  -  but, this time around, we were the teachers.  Levi and I were tasked with teaching elementary English to a small class of 13-16 year olds, none of whom had more than a year´s worth of English instruction under their belts.  It was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. Our Spanish skills and creativity were taxed to the extreme, but by the end of the week we had made a pretty successful foray into the ins and outs of present tense verbs. On the last day, our students bought us a cake and asked for our email addresses. Incredibly gratifying.

We were extremely productive during the days, and exremely active during evenings and weekends. Additional accomplishments of the week include, but are not limited to: Rafting through a jungle, summiting a mountain, climbing a waterfall, salsa-ing in a nightclub, filming a music video (more on this later), running to the hot springs, and stumbling upon a good American-style burger joint.  Overall, the week couldn´t have been better.




¨Spanish Jenga¨

I can´t remember what this fruit is called, but it´s delicious.
It´s the thought that counts.