Today is a brilliant day in Quito. The sky is a gorgeous aqua blue with fluffy bouncy clouds, the breeze is warm and caressing, the mountains warm and inviting, and the sun gives everything a bright new sheen. Summer has arrived they tell me. Summer here lasts for a few months only and consists of days like today and little or no rain. Summer usually starts in June, but everyone here says it has been late in coming. Winter isn´t bad either though, it´s just that days are often overcast and there is intermitant rain, but I like that climate too. So, it´s with a strong dose of melancholy that I leave this city and country tomorrow.
It´s been a wonderful visit on many levels. My Spanish classes were great and those together with living with a host families has moved my Spanish skills up a notch or two. Quitenos and Ecadorians in general are very pleasant, courteous, warm people and it has been delightful to get to know a number of people well. And then there are the adventures in the high sierras and Amazon that will stay with me forever. When I get home I will post photographs of the trip so you can see for yourselves what a great place this is, and who knows, maybe come for a visit?
So, ciao for now and check in in a week or so to see photos.
P.S. The president today announced that the government is reviewing some of its foreign debt and is claims it will not pay back loans that were obtained through unscrupuous means. He claims that a number of loans were renogotiated in favor of lending institutions by corrupt politicians. Refreshing.
Ciao
Monday, July 7, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
What little I have garnered about the political situation
So, as you will remember, Ecuador elected a left-leaning president last year. Rafael Correa is in the Chavez-Morales camp and though hís popularity has dropped from 80% last year to 55% or so this year, most people take a guarded, uncritical stance with regard to his accomplishments so far. The middle class folks say that he has done some good things to help the poorest of people in Ecuador such as broadening access to education and literacy training, for example. Cab drivers tend to support him. One told me that this past year has been the first in decades that there haven´t been massive demonstrations at Plaza Independencia. This is where the national government offices are as well as the city offices. It´s a pretty lively place with all manner of people and events and I have seen two demonstrations there. One a group belonging to a university sports team were demanding more money for sports in front of the national offices. There was a lot of singing and drumming in the crown of about 40. Yesterday there was a demonstration of about 200 uniion members at the other side of the plaza demanding their pensions or something from the mayor.
Hortencia told me that Correa came to La Chimba shorty after his election for a town meeting where everyone complained about the low price they were getting for their milk (18 cents a liter). She said since then the price of milk has been steadily rising and now they get 34 cents a liter. Almost double. I´m not sure how, or if, he had a hand in that, but good news nonetheless. Still, she said, there are mixed reviews of Correa in La Chimba. People are so impatient for change I think that often they are unrealistic as to what can be done in a year. Generally, Correa has had good policies with regard to nationalizing oil and sending the IMF and World Bank folks packing, choosing to pay them off and get loans elsewhere ...like from Chavez for example.
The country has convened a constitutional assembly to write a new constitution and that process makes headlines every day. Yesterday there was talk in the press and by the people in the form of street grafiti on the issue of abortion. Unfortunately it looks like right to life will be written into the constitution, Correa having passed on this fight in the interest of moving forward. Women´s groups here have protested, but the Catholic Church is big here, really big, so there´s probably not much hope for women and girls on this issue right now. Somehow they are going to finish this process by September and then take the constitution to a national referendum. I´m not sure how they will be able to educate people as to the contents of the constitution...the litercy rate here is only about 60%, but they did it in Venezuela, so I´m sure they´ll do it here as well.
There are a lot of displaced Colombians here as well. The official rate is 20% in refugee camps near the Colombian boarder, but unofficially there are about 200,000 Colombians in the country. In addition to displaced persons, a lot of Colombians own businesses here as well according to my informants. Everything from rose factories, to clothing and beauty shops. Sometimes I can spot them by their accents, but that´s rare. Generally, there is antagonism against them here, and the FARC hasn´t helped the situation at all, pushing people across the boarders and setting up shop in Ecuadorian boarder towns.
That´s all I can think of to report at the moment. Over and out from Latitude 0-0-0!
Hortencia told me that Correa came to La Chimba shorty after his election for a town meeting where everyone complained about the low price they were getting for their milk (18 cents a liter). She said since then the price of milk has been steadily rising and now they get 34 cents a liter. Almost double. I´m not sure how, or if, he had a hand in that, but good news nonetheless. Still, she said, there are mixed reviews of Correa in La Chimba. People are so impatient for change I think that often they are unrealistic as to what can be done in a year. Generally, Correa has had good policies with regard to nationalizing oil and sending the IMF and World Bank folks packing, choosing to pay them off and get loans elsewhere ...like from Chavez for example.
The country has convened a constitutional assembly to write a new constitution and that process makes headlines every day. Yesterday there was talk in the press and by the people in the form of street grafiti on the issue of abortion. Unfortunately it looks like right to life will be written into the constitution, Correa having passed on this fight in the interest of moving forward. Women´s groups here have protested, but the Catholic Church is big here, really big, so there´s probably not much hope for women and girls on this issue right now. Somehow they are going to finish this process by September and then take the constitution to a national referendum. I´m not sure how they will be able to educate people as to the contents of the constitution...the litercy rate here is only about 60%, but they did it in Venezuela, so I´m sure they´ll do it here as well.
There are a lot of displaced Colombians here as well. The official rate is 20% in refugee camps near the Colombian boarder, but unofficially there are about 200,000 Colombians in the country. In addition to displaced persons, a lot of Colombians own businesses here as well according to my informants. Everything from rose factories, to clothing and beauty shops. Sometimes I can spot them by their accents, but that´s rare. Generally, there is antagonism against them here, and the FARC hasn´t helped the situation at all, pushing people across the boarders and setting up shop in Ecuadorian boarder towns.
That´s all I can think of to report at the moment. Over and out from Latitude 0-0-0!
La Casa de Hortencia
My hostwhile in La Chimba, Hortencia, is an amazing woman. She is raising two children on her own and owns her own home and has been building another unit above hers. The upper unit just needs the finishing touches, but she says that will take a while. Her husband abandoned her and her daughter while she was pregnant with Luis seven years ago. He went to Spain and had not been heard of since. Vinicio, the tourism chief, told me that nearly 50% of the youth in La Chimba have emmigrated to Spain in the last ten years. He says that the crops they used to grow we rendered useless because the US and Europe dumped subsidized wheat and other crops (corn, I think) on the market here at prices far below what the farmers in La Chimba needed to survive. That´s when they switched to cattle, but still that´s not enough to sustain a population.
This is the area where your beautiful roses come from as well. There are more than 3000 rose factories in this part of the Andes, most of which poison the workers with noxious chemicals and barely pay a living wage. But let´s not go there.
My last two days in La Chimba were spent with Hortensia and Luis and were great fun. One day we went to the cows and rode the milk truck into town afterwards with a bunch of other people, standing in the back of the truck with a gigantic, brilliant rainbow behind us. Exhilarating! Another morning we went to Luis´ school for the graduation ceremony of students at all grades, and later took a bus into Cayambe the biggest town around (about 45 minutes by bus) and bought a cake for Luis and his cousin who were graduating, had lunch, did some shopping, and then took a bus part of the way home and a truck the rest of the way. Most people here travel by bus and in the back of trucks. Pretty cheap way to get around, though riding on the back of trucks isn´t the safest way travel. My last night at the house, we had Hortensia´s sister and kids over and had a cake and dancing party. Photos and video to follow.
This is the area where your beautiful roses come from as well. There are more than 3000 rose factories in this part of the Andes, most of which poison the workers with noxious chemicals and barely pay a living wage. But let´s not go there.
My last two days in La Chimba were spent with Hortensia and Luis and were great fun. One day we went to the cows and rode the milk truck into town afterwards with a bunch of other people, standing in the back of the truck with a gigantic, brilliant rainbow behind us. Exhilarating! Another morning we went to Luis´ school for the graduation ceremony of students at all grades, and later took a bus into Cayambe the biggest town around (about 45 minutes by bus) and bought a cake for Luis and his cousin who were graduating, had lunch, did some shopping, and then took a bus part of the way home and a truck the rest of the way. Most people here travel by bus and in the back of trucks. Pretty cheap way to get around, though riding on the back of trucks isn´t the safest way travel. My last night at the house, we had Hortensia´s sister and kids over and had a cake and dancing party. Photos and video to follow.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Back from the Sierras
Whew, what a wild week that was!
I arrived in a small village in the high sierras with my English tutor after a three- hour bus ride on Monday. I moved in with an indigenous woman and her delightful, young son, Luis, and my tutor stayed at another house in this village of 2000. The terrain in the Ecuadorian sierras in absolutely breath-taking. Huge green, lush mountains adorned by yellow and green patshwork quilting. Happy cows everywhere and beautifully-clad indigenous people going about their daily chores. Picture your most idealistic buccolic setting...and that´s La Chimba.
The main economic activity of this community is the production and sale of milk. You are kind of a nobody without a cow here. The milk they produce is eventually made into powdered milk and sold in Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. And this is some really hard work.
My hostess gets up every morning at 4:00 a.m., walks for 45 minutes to a pasture where the family cows live(she has five cows herself, but the whole family has about 20), milks her cows and then gets on a milk truck which carries the peasants and their milk to a purification center. She then comes home and does all the chores around the house which include gardening a small family plot, then takes off again at 3:00 to repeat the milking process. After all that she comes home and makes dinner and cleans some more! Hortensia and I and Luis got along famously, in fact the most fun I had in La Chimba was the time I spent with them.
The foundation with whom I am taking classes, is helping this community to develop community-based tourism projects as an extra source of income. So, one of the ¨Fun¨activities they arranged for me was to climb the local volcano. Now, the village is situated at around 9000 feet, so already the air is pretty thin. When we arrived at the base of the mountain, I heard Vinicio (head of tourism in La Chimba) tell our truck driver to pick us up in an hour. ¨Oh, an hour" I thought to myself, ¨Thats good, because that volcano look awfully high. I guess we are only taking a small hike¨¨ To my utter horror, I realized ten minutes in that we were to climb 1000 feet! And that we did. But it didn´t take an hour to get me up and down the first 1000 feet of the gigantic volcano. It took three and a half. I guess they will think twice before they invite the next approaching-sixty year old for a jaunt up the volcano.
Of course, the views were spectacular, but I would say this climb is a close second to the Virunga Volcano near-disaster in Rwanda last year. I must say though, that through the course of the many, many, many, rest stops we made, the three of us had some excellent discussions on politics, economics, and philosophy. When we finally made it back, I had to lay down for two hours to recuperate.
As if that wasn´t tortuous enough, the next day they took me to a fishing project they were working on. That entailed me riding horseback for one hour in the rain (the two guys went in the truck!) At first I was embarrased because I explained to the little nine-year old boy who accompanied me, that I was terrified of galloping horses, and that he was, under no circumstances, to engage his horse in a gallop, or even a trot for that matter (His horse was the alpha male, so my horse followed behind him.) However, after 45 minutes of cold rain, I told the kid that we needed to get a move on and so we began to move somewhere between an trot and a gallop for the last 15 minutes, and it wasn´t so bad after all.
The other terrifying thing about the horse ride is that from the road we took there was a 1000 or so feet drop to a river below, and these horses didn´t have shoes on, so they prefered to walk in the extremely narrow path of grass right at the edge of the cliff rather than the rocky road. A number of times, I tried to get my guy back on the road, but he always wandered back to the grass strip, so I just stopped looking over the edge and hoped for the best.
When we reached the fishing project site, I had to climb down about 800 feet to the fish ponds on an 85 degree path so thick with mud, that it was impossible to use, so we had to crawl down on the grass next to the path. Very harrowing, not to mention embarrassing. Then they had me fish! I hate fishing. But these ponds were so thick with fish that with a bare stick and little string with a hook on it, I caught three fish in about two minutes. Hortensia was very proud of me. So was Luis, and with great fanfare they cleaned and cooked the fish for lunch. That´s when I told the fellows, I had had enough of their outdoor tourism, and was going to spend last two days of my visit with Hortensia. And that was where the fun began.
More on all that later as I need to get home now.
Finally, Great news. Camila was accepted into Hastings and starts mid August. Que viva Camila! As they would say here.
cheers
I arrived in a small village in the high sierras with my English tutor after a three- hour bus ride on Monday. I moved in with an indigenous woman and her delightful, young son, Luis, and my tutor stayed at another house in this village of 2000. The terrain in the Ecuadorian sierras in absolutely breath-taking. Huge green, lush mountains adorned by yellow and green patshwork quilting. Happy cows everywhere and beautifully-clad indigenous people going about their daily chores. Picture your most idealistic buccolic setting...and that´s La Chimba.
The main economic activity of this community is the production and sale of milk. You are kind of a nobody without a cow here. The milk they produce is eventually made into powdered milk and sold in Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. And this is some really hard work.
My hostess gets up every morning at 4:00 a.m., walks for 45 minutes to a pasture where the family cows live(she has five cows herself, but the whole family has about 20), milks her cows and then gets on a milk truck which carries the peasants and their milk to a purification center. She then comes home and does all the chores around the house which include gardening a small family plot, then takes off again at 3:00 to repeat the milking process. After all that she comes home and makes dinner and cleans some more! Hortensia and I and Luis got along famously, in fact the most fun I had in La Chimba was the time I spent with them.
The foundation with whom I am taking classes, is helping this community to develop community-based tourism projects as an extra source of income. So, one of the ¨Fun¨activities they arranged for me was to climb the local volcano. Now, the village is situated at around 9000 feet, so already the air is pretty thin. When we arrived at the base of the mountain, I heard Vinicio (head of tourism in La Chimba) tell our truck driver to pick us up in an hour. ¨Oh, an hour" I thought to myself, ¨Thats good, because that volcano look awfully high. I guess we are only taking a small hike¨¨ To my utter horror, I realized ten minutes in that we were to climb 1000 feet! And that we did. But it didn´t take an hour to get me up and down the first 1000 feet of the gigantic volcano. It took three and a half. I guess they will think twice before they invite the next approaching-sixty year old for a jaunt up the volcano.
Of course, the views were spectacular, but I would say this climb is a close second to the Virunga Volcano near-disaster in Rwanda last year. I must say though, that through the course of the many, many, many, rest stops we made, the three of us had some excellent discussions on politics, economics, and philosophy. When we finally made it back, I had to lay down for two hours to recuperate.
As if that wasn´t tortuous enough, the next day they took me to a fishing project they were working on. That entailed me riding horseback for one hour in the rain (the two guys went in the truck!) At first I was embarrased because I explained to the little nine-year old boy who accompanied me, that I was terrified of galloping horses, and that he was, under no circumstances, to engage his horse in a gallop, or even a trot for that matter (His horse was the alpha male, so my horse followed behind him.) However, after 45 minutes of cold rain, I told the kid that we needed to get a move on and so we began to move somewhere between an trot and a gallop for the last 15 minutes, and it wasn´t so bad after all.
The other terrifying thing about the horse ride is that from the road we took there was a 1000 or so feet drop to a river below, and these horses didn´t have shoes on, so they prefered to walk in the extremely narrow path of grass right at the edge of the cliff rather than the rocky road. A number of times, I tried to get my guy back on the road, but he always wandered back to the grass strip, so I just stopped looking over the edge and hoped for the best.
When we reached the fishing project site, I had to climb down about 800 feet to the fish ponds on an 85 degree path so thick with mud, that it was impossible to use, so we had to crawl down on the grass next to the path. Very harrowing, not to mention embarrassing. Then they had me fish! I hate fishing. But these ponds were so thick with fish that with a bare stick and little string with a hook on it, I caught three fish in about two minutes. Hortensia was very proud of me. So was Luis, and with great fanfare they cleaned and cooked the fish for lunch. That´s when I told the fellows, I had had enough of their outdoor tourism, and was going to spend last two days of my visit with Hortensia. And that was where the fun began.
More on all that later as I need to get home now.
Finally, Great news. Camila was accepted into Hastings and starts mid August. Que viva Camila! As they would say here.
cheers
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