Last Thoughts on La Calera

Lying in my hard, narrow bed, the grey dawn light washes over me, along with the early-morning sounds of pigs grunting energetically, dogs barking futilely, and chickens clucking proudly. I stretch my limbs gently, and tell myself wistfully that this is my last morning waking up in La Calera. I slip on my faded teal flip-flops and clumsily walk down the too-high cement stairs, greeting Ines and little Dylan in her arms. This is the last morning I will see their bright dark eyes smiling at me as they hastily ready themselves for the day.

I am leaving. And I am left with so much.

I am left with so much more than I can ever articulate, with textural impressions in my bones and images that linger with me like dreams. 

But I want to reflect on a few themes with y’all.  Some of the ideas that have seeped into my pores alongside the Andean sun and rain.

One is the importance of community. Community is something in which I have invested much energy and time and passion throughout my life. Even in striking out on my own to conduct research in South America, community played an essential role. I was sustained by a community of beloved beings in the United States and other countries; the ones who wrote me emails, read my blog, skyped with me, and commented on my facebook albums. I was embraced from afar by that warm network of international support. I also was incredibly blessed by the people I met in Ecuador--both Ecuadorans and foreigners--who welcomed me and made me feel at home. From my first day in Ecuador, with a beautiful dinner and an auspicious moonrise, to the Ecuadoran friends who proudly shared their country with me, to the Indigenous community that welcomed me to live in their midst, to the sweet goodbye parties in my last days, and a surprise accompaniment to the airport by two of my dear gringa friends, my various communities were what created the experience. More than the research, or the travel, or even the important and ample opportunities for solitary introspection. 

one of the goodbye parties, with my U.S. friends!

Community is obviously not just important to me, but is central to most human cultures. For the Indigenous people with whom I lived these past months, community is essential, and the communal values shape the lives of the individuals in profound ways. That is to say, it is a much more communal culture than the United States. I want to share with you all some of the values of that communal culture, as I experience and perceive them.

“Dar para recibir”/Reciprocity

I was struck constantly by the incredible generosity of the people in the community in which I lived. If they would receive a gift, they would immediately go distribute it among their friends. One common example would be receiving a basket of fruit, and making little bundles of a few bananas and oranges to pass along to all the households of friends and family members. When you come over to someone’s house, they inevitably offer you something to eat or drink, even if you are just stopping by. There is an undeniable generosity. But the truth is, it goes beyond generosity. It represents a fundamentally different way of viewing the world. When people give, it is not that they expect an immediate tit for tat, but they really do give to receive. They give because people have always given to them and always will. Because nothing that is "ours" is really ours. We have what we have because of the cooperation of the community and planet in which we live, and share what we have, just as we receive generous gifts from others. There is a reciprocity that pervades the culture.

Minga/Communal Work

Related to that reciprocity is the concept of communal work and cooperation. The minga (shared work/project) is a fundamental mechanism of the communal organization. When something big needs to happen, everyone works together. This could be a project for the entire community, like fixing up the local elementary school, or it could be just for an individual person, such as building a new house, or holding funerary rites for a deceased loved one. Either way, everyone comes by to lend a hand. Mingas are communal work, but they are also communal funds. When a project needs doing, you will often hear “vamos a hacer una minga” (we are going to  do a minga), which means that they will solicit financial contributions and labor to make it happen. Both of these cultural values (reciprocity and communal projects) are essentially social and economic security mechanisms that ensure that no one becomes crippled by debt or hunger. Begging is viewed very negatively in Kichwa culture, and one of the ways in which the Indigenous who still live in their traditional communities are able to avoid begging (unlike Indigenous who have migrated to the cities, for instance), is that the financial support of their community is a given.

Honesty

In addition to working hard, not begging, contributing to the common good and communal projects, a Kichwa person should be someone of his or her word. Communication is often indirect in the culture, but honesty is extremely important. One should always tell the truth, and one should always follow through with any commitments. Unlike in the mainstream Mestizo culture of Ecuador, where plans and commitments can be very flexible, and where saying that you will be somewhere does not mean that you actually will, in Kichwa culture, being a person of your word is considered essential. If your word has no value, than neither do you.

Complementarity

The Kichwa cosmovision asserts that everything has a complement. This is especially seen in a strong focus on heteronormative partnerships, and the importance of the relationship between husband and wife. If a member of the community dies alone, widowed, or never married, the community will often bury a dove with that person, so that he or she will be accompanied into the afterlife. All energies in the cosmos have their complement, balance, and all aspects of the natural world. Even the mountains are seen as couples, for example Taita Imbabura and Mama Cotacachi, the volcanoes in the province of Imbabura where I lived. 

Everything is Alive

This anthropomorphizing of the volcanoes relates to another important theme: everything is alive. In the Andean cosmos, every single thing is alive. The water, the rocks, the fire, the mountains. These things are not symbolically alive, but truly, literally alive, with desires and feelings and agency. For this reason, we must maintain relationships with the world around us, just as we maintain relationships with our human sisters and brothers.

Relationship with Allpamama/Pachamama

The relationship with the earth and the agricultural cycles is an essential part of life in the Andes. Their dancing is sort of a circular stomping dance, meant to remind allpamama (mother earth) that you are there, and the circles to emulate the cyclical motion of the seasons. The world is alive, a complex organism of all these living parts that make up the body of the earth mother. She has duality and complementarity in her nature, and the dual energies of male and female, hot and cold, light and dark, wet and dry, and so forth, are at balance within her body. As with the people in our community, we have a reciprocal relationship with the earth. She gives to us the fruits of the earth, that we might eat and have shelter and clothing, and we give back to her with gratitude. The earth (allpamama) gives us life, and we are sustained within the womb of pachamama (the cosmos). As humans we need these connections to survive. Whenever you drink some beer or chicha with friends, you toss the dregs onto the ground, shaking your cup with a flick of the wrist. This to give a little back to the earth mother, as a ritual reminder of your gratitude for her bounty. We dance in her honor, and perform rituals at the turning of the seasons, the planting, the harvest, and other important cultural moments throughout the year.

Time 

The turning of the seasons creates a cyclical pattern of time. The same rituals are performed year after year as the planets spin on their axes and our little globe circles around our flaming sun. In the Indigenous cosmovision, time is represented as a spiral.  We as people find ourselves at the center of this spiral, meaning that from our perspective, we can’t move forward in time without moving back, and we can’t look back without moving forward. We live within the spiral of Pachamama’s womb, the complex stirrings of the cosmos, the cyclical motion of time-space. “Pacha” in the Kichwa language is a concept closest to our western idea of space-time, the indivisible continuum of reality in which we find ourselves. 

Mama Cotacachi

Taita Imbabura

And so I leave, with these thoughts swimming around in my head, these paradigms etched on my skin.

Running along the dirt road, the sounds of early evening descend upon the quiet scene—the insects, barking dogs, and grunting pigs provide accompaniment to the soft thud of my feet. The crinkly cornstalks are silhouetted black against the pale blue dusky sky, and the familiar imposing forms of the pair of volcanoes, Taita Imbabura and Mama Cotacachi, loom dark and silent, their shawls of thick grey cloud wrapped around them as if for warmth in the evening cool. The crescent moon is like a perfectly-filed fingernail. Good night, La Calera.

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Podcasts

On a more banal note, I listened to a lot of podcasts during my time in La Calera. I loved the sounds of pigs and dogs and rustling cornstalks, but sometimes while I scrubbed my thin cotton t-shirts on the stone slab, or walked down the dirt road to the nearest town, it was really nice to listen to something else, something educational, something that reminded me of home. As such, I have become a bit of a podcast aficionado. I thought I would share with you all some of my favorites, in case you are also looking for something new to listen to.

My two favorite radio shows are This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass and distributed by Public Radio International and WBEZ Chicago, and Radiolab, hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, and beamed out by WNYC. This American Life is essentially a documentary show. It picks a different theme each week, and bring you interesting, real stories that relate to that theme in some way. The episodes are like little windows into the lives of normal people, and remind me of the beauty and oddity of the ordinary. Radiolab is essentially a science show. It is also incredibly entertaining and has amazing sound engineering and music, since Jad was a music composition major at Oberlin. Each week, they bring you a topic about the way the world works, and render it the most compelling thing you have ever heard. With Radiolab, you can download any of the old episodes for free, and I particularly recommend Cities, Parasites, and Stochasticity.

While I am waiting for the newest episodes of TAL and Radiolab, I listen to a few other podcasts, as well, most of which my friend Allison helped me find. The Moth, which is a live show of normal people telling short stories about their lives; Selected Shorts, in which actors read short literary works; Stuff You Missed in History Class, which are mostly profiles of lesser known characters in world history, and is hosted by two charming young women; the NPR Books Podcast, with current book reviews; Planet Money, with brief accounts about the global economy; A Way With Words, a show about the quirks of the English language; and Tara Brach’s dharma talks.

Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie

Some of you may know that the title for this post was inspired by one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs, which is not really a song at all, but more of a spoken-word poem. I am moved by this poem every time (100s) that I listen, so I wanted to share that with you in closing.

Audio (ignore the video--I think it's distracting)

Full Text

And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin'
Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burnin'
Where do you look for this oil well gushin'
Where do you look for this candle that's glowin'
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown

Travelin'

The past two weeks have meant a lot of traveling for me. Or as they might say here, ‘puro paseo.’ I have been a bit torn between wanting to stay in the community as much as possible, with the people I have grown so fond of, and also wanting to see more of the country before I leave. So I guess I am doing a bit of both, but the time feels so limited, and it’s hard to believe that I already will leave this place behind in a mere 7 days.

On Easter Monday, Mary and I went for a long run (14 miles) to a waterfall and back, had lunch, and headed off for Quito with our backpacks in tow. We arrived in Quito in the evening, in time for my friend Michelle’s Passover Seder that she hosted at her apartment. Michelle did a beautiful job of hosting, making her own matzo bread, matzo ball soup, veggie burgers, Russian potato salad, and Charoset. She explained the meaning of Passover to the group of people gathered there, who were mostly fairly unfamiliar with Judaism, and everyone was really receptive and enthusiastic. We did not actually do all the prayers and other rituals, but we ate the ritual foods, and shared each others' company. It was a lovely evening.

Seder plate (I added the orange!)

Seder crew

The next morning Michelle, Mary, and I took the bus to Riobamba, had lunch, and hopped on another bus to the little town of Alausí. After a breathtaking bus ride we arrived in Alausí in the evening, wandered around taking photos, had dinner, and went to bed early. Before dawn, Mary and I went for a run in the hills overlooking the sleeping town with its tiny twinkling lights, and then reconvened with Michelle for breakfast and to hop on the train. The train ride was absolutely beautiful, winding through the now-familiar, but ever-astonishing green hills of the Sierra (Andean region) of Ecuador. The route (called the Nariz del Diablo—the Devil’s Nose) is supposed to be the most dangerous and difficult stretch of track in the world, and includes some surprising switchbacks and impressive feats of engineering. There was a brief time in Ecuador’s history when the train connected the Coast to the Andes, in order to transport the newly booming cash crops of cacao, coffee, and bananas from the Coast into the Sierra for export and for in-country distribution. The train tracks subsequently fell into disrepair, but are currently being restored, mostly for tourism. The route we took is entirely touristic, running from Alausí to a negligible placed called Siabamba, where Andean dance was performed for us on the train platform, and they gave us a snack. One delightful aspect of that time in Siabamba was that there was a little bald sprite of a man, a Spanish tourist, who absolutely loved the Andean dance, and apparently had learned it at some point. With a huge grin on his bespectacled face, he danced along with the Indigenous dancers the entire time. After our snack, time in the small museum, and dance performance, the train took us right back to Alausí, chugging backwards up the track the whole way.

Alausí at night

pre-dawn Alausí

waking up

Nariz del Diablo

with the conductor

dancing

We pulled into Alausí in the late morning, and Michelle caught a bus back to Quito, while Mary and I kept going south, taking a bus to Cañar, and then on to Ingapirca—the best preserved Incan ruins in Ecuador. After wandering around the ruins, we caught yet another bus south on the side of the highway, arriving in Cuenca in the late evening. Cuenca is a charming, fairly European town, with lovely colonial architecture, a bubbling stream running through it, and a church on every corner. While there for two days, we visited churches and museums, and experienced a bit of nightlife, especially as we just so happened to arrive in Cuenca for the “Fiestas de Cuenca,” celebrating the founding of the Spanish colonial city of Cuenca.[1] 

On our first night there we walked around the city, and I had my first experience with performing as a mime. We stopped to watch a mime in the central plaza, and before I knew it, he was inviting me into his performance. I played along enthusiastically, until the scene ended with us in a duel, me shooting him in the chest, and then clutching his dying body in sorrow. Afterward, he bowed to me, gave me a “rose,” and a hug, and looked at me bashfully. It was really quite fun. In that same plaza, we ran into a Brazilian artisano (traveling hippy artisans that you will find all throughout South America) whom we had met in Peguche. He remembered us, and gave Mary a rose he had made out of some sort of palm leaves or other natural fiber. Later that night, at a hookah bar where we had stopped for a bite to eat, we left the rose on our table for the cute bartender. He ran out after us, telling us we had forgotten our rose. When we told him we had left it for him, he looked so taken aback and genuinely touched that I don’t think I will ever forget the sweet expression on his face. He gave us each a hug, and we went on our way.

Ingapirca

Templo del Sol (Temple of the Sun) at Ingapirca

the rose

church in Cuenca

Cuenca

From Cuenca, we caught a bus to Loja, another 5 hours south of Cuenca, and then another bus about an hour and a half further south to Vilcabamba, “the sacred valley.” (At this point, we were nearing 20 hours of travel away from where we started up here in Cotacachi). I fell in love with Vilcabamba. It is often hyped as a tourist destination, and has many extranjeros (foreigners) who are moving there to retire, but its charm is undeniable. It is small and tranquil, and people sit around talking and drinking beers in the central plaza. It is also a nestled amidst some amazing nature, including the “megadiverse” National Park Podocarpus. One major highlight for me was renting horses for a six-hour ride in the lush green hills surrounding the valley. We scrambled up steep rocky trails, ate lunch by a river, and bathed in a waterfall. I had never actually ridden a horse before, and I loved it, especially galloping! Mary and I also got massages from a sweet old lady named Piedad, and stayed at an amazing little ecolodge on a nature reserve, called Rumi Wilco. The land was bought and preserved by an Argentinian couple where both partners are biologists who worked for years in the Galapagos doing research. They fell in love with Vilcabamba, and set up this reserve and ecolodge 15 years ago. It was incredibly quiet, warm and sunny, beautiful, and rustic, and our fellow guests were delightful. An Irish filmmaker named James, and two Bostonians who quit their jobs working at Harvard to go travel around South America. Needless to say it was fun talking about Cambridge with them!

riding the trails around Vilcabamba

the river at Rumi Wilco

After two days of horseback riding, reading in hammocks, walking and running around on trails, and swimming in the river, we returned to Quito on the overnight bus. We spent the day in Quito, Mary at her school, and me doing various tasks such as filing my taxes, finally registering for the marathon, buying artisanal chocolate and drinking carrot juice. That evening, we met up with Michelle again and all went to see the Hunger Games film at the movie theatre. I had not watched a movie in a long time, and have been very drawn in by the books, so it was fun to watch; despite the poor character development in the film, the visual aspect of the books was captured well, and it was a treat to be at the movies.

I came back home to La Calera for two days, and then took off again, this time for the Oriente, as the Amazonian rainforest region here is called. I had the opportunity to go with a group of biologists and environmental scientists on a site visit to a project of the Ministry of the Environment. My friend Carmita is a geologist, and works with the government on various development projects, including this one. Amazingly enough, I got to tag along as an anthropologist.

On Thursday, my friend Roberto and I drove the 2 hours from Otavalo to Quito and picked up Vladimir and Felipe. The four of us then drove the 5 hours northeast from Quito to Rio Coca, where we met up with Paola, Alejandra, Carmita, and Santiago, and slept for a few hours. Friday morning we drove 3 more hours to a little "town" called Tierras Orientales. The car sped along the curving highway under the sultry grey sky, heavy with the possibility of rain, passing through dense greenery punctuated by oil refineries. The Oriente is, after all, a treasure trove of "black gold," a huge source of income for Ecuador, and a huge source of controversy, as well, particularly as the 2008 constitution ostensibly protects the intrinsic rights of nature. From Tierras Orientales, we took a canoe a few hours down the Aguarica River, to visit various small communities on the banks of the river. The river seemed to be the main artery of all the communities in the area, and served as a highway of sorts. As we sped along in our launch, captained by the reserved but kind Giovanny, we saw trucks and building materials being ferried up the river on huge barges, and even a water ambulance. 

At each spot where we climbed up the steep muddy banks onto shore, the scientists took water samples, plant samples, documented the animals we encountered, tested ambient noise levels, recorded GPS coordinates, and so forth, while the other anthropologist and I verbally administered surveys to the people we met. The survey tried to determine a whole slew of things, such as access to water, health care, schools, the primary income generation in the community... I helped with the survey, dictated GPS coordinates, and otherwise spent my time sucking on raw cacao seeds, practicing my Kichwa with the Amazonian Kichwas we met, drinking fresh coconut water, endlessly joking with the hilarious crew of scientists (we were all about the same age, so that was fun), and meeting huge spiders, tiny monkeys, and birds with brilliant plumage. I am not sure how much I support the actual development project as such, as I suspect it will cause more environmental impact than ideal, but it was fascinating to be part of the process, and see some of the government policies in action in a very different cultural and natural environment than the one I know so well here in the Northern Andes.

Cacao

We finished our work, packed up, and all drove back to Rio Coca to go out dancing. The next morning, everyone headed back home except for my pre-existing group of friends: Vladimir, Carmita, Roberto, and me. The four of us went to a typical Amazonian food restaurant, where we tried chicha made with Yucca and Chonta (both were delicious...the Chicha de Yucca tasted a lot like kefir, actually) and some fat little worms called chontacuros. After that, we visited a zoological center where they are working to protect the endangered animals of the rainforest, and headed back to Quito. 

chontacuros

Now I am back in La Calera for my final week in Ecuador. Working on writing and wrapping things up. My next post will be some general reflections on my time here in the community, as opposed to a more newsy update like this one. Thank you again for reading, and for helping me to feel at home in the global community of which we are all a part.

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[1] Cuenca is actually a very old city, having first been an important city in Cañari culture, probably founded around 500 AD. When the Cañaris were conquered by the Incas in the 15^th century, Cuenca (then known as Guapondeleg) became the capital of the northern part of the Incan empire and was renamed Tomebamba. When the Spaniards in turn conquered the Incas, they salvaged the stones from the Incan capital buildings to construct their European churches and government buildings. They founded the Spanish settlement called Cuenca on April 12, 1557.

Holy Week

 

I just returned from a whirlwind weeklong tour of southern Ecuador, which I will write about in my next post, but first I wanted to share a bit about Semana Santa (Holy Week) here in Cotacachi. Holy Week is very important culturally throughout Latin America, but for me this year I was struck by how unreligious the whole thing seemed, at least in a strict sense of the word “religious.” We did not attend mass once, and there did not seem to be much internalizing of the story of Holy Week. There were religious processions throughout the week, and a dramatic reenactment of the passion in the town square, but that was combined with a commercial fair for promoting leather products and other local businesses, and Magui spent almost the whole time cooking and selling food as part of that fair. I found myself contemplating both the story of Jesus casting money-changers out of the temple, as well as my conviction that the distinction between sacred and profane is a false dichotomy. I certainly think we do a disservice to ourselves if we refuse to recognize the sacred in the everyday, even in the more “profane” aspects of the quotidian, such as economic transactions. But there was something decidedly uncomfortable for me about the commercial aspect of Holy Week in Cotacachi. It was a really positive week overall, however, and the importance of family and tradition was abundantly clear.

making Fanesca

There is a tradition of making a soup called Fanesca during Holy Week, particularly on Thursday. I got the opportunity to participate in the whole laborious process at Magui’s house, starting Thursday morning. It is made with approximately 12 ingredients, now said to be in honor of the 12 apostles. Many people think that making Fanesca is an earlier Indigenous tradition that was later syncretized with the Christian tradition of celebrating Holy Week, but the origins of Fanesca are unknown. In this spring season here in the northern Andes, the corn and beans are still fresh and young, but are just starting to be dried for use throughout the summer, [for example, the dried corn will be used to make the traditional fermented corn beverage (chicha) for Inti Raymi (the summer solstice and festival of the sun) in June]. Fanesca makes use of all these fresh, tender beans and grains, incorporating chochos (lupine beans), habas (fava beans), choclo (sweet corn), zapallo (squash), mellocos (a small, soft tuber), and arvejas (peas), among others. The soup is traditionally garnished with a hardboiled egg, fried plantains, little fried bread dough balls, avocado, and cheese. It is also generally made with salt cod, added towards the end, and often optional. I found the introduction to this recipe for Fanesca to be a good description! Anyway, Magui’s fanesca of course turned out fabulously, and we got to enjoy it by around 1:30 pm. I wasn’t there from the very beginning, but I think the whole process started around 6 am, and so took about 7 hours. 

Habas, ready for us to peel

Fanesca!

It is a very thick hearty soup, so I went home and napped after that, and was awoken by a surprise invitation (most invitations here are surprises, in that nothing is ever really planned ahead) to go visit Rodrigo’s mom way up by Lake Cuicocha. I sleepily stumbled downstairs and we all piled into the truck—probably about 14 of us. There we had another version of Fanesca, made my Rodrigo’s mother, and all sat around the fire eating. We stayed until late into the night, talking, laughing, and eating. That night I really felt home with my family here. Especially as we drove back down to Calera in the cold rainy night, and I held the sleeping Kairik on my lap, it felt like a family trip with my biological family. I remembered myself as little Kairik, soundly asleep in the warm car with my family, on the way back from some long event. Only now I was the one caring for a sleeping child.

Friday morning we woke up early and Inés went to work on getting me ready for the day. That is to say, she dressed me up in an anaku, the traditional outfit of Indigenous women in this area. She had announced her plan to do so for Viernes Santo (Good Friday) a few days earlier, and it would be a lie to say that I did not assent with delight. I had been secretly hoping someone would ask me to wear an anaku all along. She helped me slip the silky embroidered blouse over my head, wrapped the double woolen skirts around my waist, fastened them with a tightly wound, wide red sash—the mama faja—topped with a thinner sash that matched my blouse. She tied a wool fachalina (shawl) around my shoulders, wound my ponytail up tightly in a cinta (embroidered ribbon), and wrapped my wrists in coral beaded manillas, which are meant to protect the women. Traditionally, they were made of real coral, but now they are just reddish beads. We put on my walka (gold necklace) and gold earrings, and my alpargates, and I was ready to go. 

in my anaku

with my family at the cemetery

All dressed up, we went to the cemetery in Cotacachi to sit at Inés’ family plot with some of her siblings. Like on the Day of the Dead, we had food with us, and people would come by with little plates of food for us, and we would give them something in return, often bread and bananas. After a bit, we left, and started walking around to watch the religious processions. At that point, I lost my family, and ended up spending the rest of the day with various friends. Overall it was a really fun day, and I really enjoyed being dressed up elegantly in anaku. Multiple people stopped me on the street to tell me how beautiful I looked and asked to take a photo with me, which I obliged, so there are a few strangers out there with photos of themselves with a gringa in an anaku. I suppose that is not something that one sees everyday here. I stayed in Cotacachi into the evening to see the nighttime processions with the saints. My (Indigenous) friend Paúl’s perspective on that spectacle was that it made him uncomfortable because it felt like an ongoing display of colonialism. He pointed out that the only people you see laboring under these heavy wooden saints are Indigenous, and that he felt like symbolically it reminded him that the Indigenous are still oppressed by the legacy of colonialism and divorced from their own culture and religious traditions that were forceably taken from them. I thought his analysis of the symbolic aspect of this tradition was really insightful, and I was reminded in that moment that the actor who played Jesus in the reenactment of the passion earlier in the day had also been quite White.

reenactment of the Passion

processions

On Saturday Mary and I went to the sprawling Otavalo Market for one last shopping trip to pick up sentimental things for ourselves and gifts for others. I am most happy about the coral beaded manillas that I bought for myself, which I have been wearing ever since. They are supposed to protect you, and when I look at my wrists, and think of all the Ecuadorean Indigenous women whom I have come to love, who wear these beads around their wrists everyday, I really do feel a sense of protection and solidarity with them.

In contrast with the U.S., Easter Sunday itself was basically a non-event. Inés’ mother had surgery on Saturday for appendicitis, and we went to visit her in the hospital in the morning. Other than that, Mary and I brought a little of our own celebration to La Calera. We made the kids an Easter basket, and had planned an Easter egg hunt, but it was pouring all day, so we abandoned that idea in favor of simply letting them paw through the basket in search of treasures. We found a basket in Magui’s outdoor kitchen, cleaned it up, filled it with fresh grass, stickers, notebooks, crayons, Clementine oranges, hardboiled eggs, mini bananas (called oritos), mini apples, and little candies. The kids loved it, especially the stickers and the notebooks.

kids with the Easter basket

sumak

There is much to share, as always, but my goal for this post is to practice a bit of thrift of word. Since I last wrote (before posting the article), I have hiked Volcan Imbabura with some wild elementary school kids and a couple of scrappy dogs, helped translate for a group of medical students and doctors from University of Florida who came to our community on a medical brigade, participated in the facilitator training for the Alternatives to Violence Project, helped to start a theological discussion and ritual space at the Casa Trans in Quito, had a really lovely visit with my friend Whittney from the States, went to see Manu Chao and Calle 13 in concert in Quito, participated in two ritual baths for the Spring Equinox, and made some really fun new Ecuadoran friends who have taken me to a waterfall, a museum in a cave, a lake, and some thermal pools. This past weekend, I climbed up to the first glacier on Cotopaxi volcano--one of the highest active volcanoes in the world! It was really an experience to touch snow on the equator. On Sunday, I went on the ciclopaseo with some friends in Quito. Every Sunday, the city closes certain main roads and rents bikes along the way for folks to jaunt around. It is really fun, and certainly makes Quito feel smaller. Other than my research, my main occupation lately has been working a lot with the women's jewelry-making collective in my community—Sumak Muyo. I have been participating a little as a fellow artisan by making some necklaces, but mostly working on the marketing side of things. On that note, please check out our new facebook page! (Feel free to “like” it or share it, too!) More on all this below. 

ciclopaseando

Hiking Imbabura

a straggler on the hike

The hike up Imbabura was with Mary's host-dad, Oswaldo, and his students from his one-room schoolhouse nestled way up in the cold, foggy flanks of the Imbabura volcano. It took us over 2 hours just to get there, and this is a commute that he does every single day, to go teach a handful of students of all ages. We arrived and the students already had a head-start on us, impatient to get up the mountain. The kids scrambled up the steep path ahead of us in no time, while I slowly lumbered behind, but they thankfully responded to the yell for them to come back towards us after a few hours, once the impenetrable fog rolled in. We shared a feast of government-issue school snacks at the top, and tumbled back down. 

at the top, in the fog, eating government snacks

I have talked about the Alternatives to Violence Project in past posts, when I did the basic and advanced trainings. The website I linked above also has good information on the project itself, so I won’t say much about that. But the facilitator training was a really great experience, and I am so excited to serve as a facilitator in the future! I am hoping I can connect with some women’s prisons in the States to facilitate AVP trainings there, among other contexts. It really feels like such a good fit for my passions and talents, and is just so practical, which appeals to me. I feel like so often I am passionately but impractically opining about justice, and this model offers specific, effective tools to bring about paradigm shifts in how people see and experience violence on all levels—personal, familial, structural. It’s really exciting and hopeful for me to be involved in this global movement of passionate volunteers!

Another exciting project recently was working with Monica to help open a theological space at the Casa Trans in Quito. Casa Trans is a residential community for transgender individuals in Quito, and does a lot of activism around gender and sexuality in Ecuador. With our theological training, Monica and I had the delightful opportunity to facilitate an inaugural space for Queer theological dialogue and spiritual reflection at the house. We actually used a lot of the participatory activities we learned in our AVP trainings, and were just generally open to hearing from the group about what their visions were for the space. It was a really positive experience, and very moving to hear about the personal spiritual journeys of all those present. I was struck once again by how much human beings seem to hunger for spiritual meaning and expression, and how much repressive religious spaces and traditions can’t take that hunger away from people, even if they do leave them confused and hurt.

Obviously Whittney’s visit could be a post of its own, but the brief summary is that she came for 5 days, and in that time we covered a lot of ground. The morning after she arrived, we took a bus to Santo Domingo, plunging down into the hot greenery from the cool heights of the Andes. We headed out to an Indigenous community near Santo Domingo, called Chihuilpe. There we met Henry, a Tsáchila leader and musician who works pretty tirelessly to preserve their endangered culture. There are only about 3,000 Tsáchilas left at this point, spread between 8 different communities. The time we spent in the community was admittedly a bit random, but included a nice guided walk with Henry, painting ourselves with the seed that the Tsáchilas traditionally use to make ceremonial black marks on their bodies, a cleansing ritual with the shaman--Don Manuel, and a slightly sleepless night enveloped in mosquito netting and humidity, with unidentified (and heavy) creatures scurrying across the tin roof all night.  The next morning, Don Manuel conducted a traditional “sauna” of sorts for us with medicinal plants, we drank some instant coffee, and we headed off. 

Henry painting my wrist with the seed

Don Manuel, the shaman

the seed that makes black dye

We caught an 8-hour bus to the coast. It was a beautiful ride to take during the day, to see the many topographies and microclimates roll by, spilling out beside us as if from a spool of multicolored thread. We arrived in Puerto Lopez in the evening and found a cute hostel where we showered and left our backpacks before heading out to enjoy some cold juice on the beach and coming home early to read in bed. (Obviously Whitt and I together really bring out each others' inner party animal). The next day we took a tour to Isla de la Plata (known a bit ironically as “the poor man’s Galapagos”). The tour consisted of a pleasant boat ride to the island, a guided hike around the verdant island with our friendly guide, a lot of Blue-footed Booby sightings, snorkeling, fresh fruit, and far too much sun. On our second and final day on the coast, we caught a bus and then hiked to Los Frailes beach, also part of the Machalilla national park. The hike was incredibly humid, but rewarded with some beautiful beaches along the way, and a summit with cool breezes where birds flew below your line of vision, and the brilliant cerulean sea swept out in all directions, nearly blending with the bright blue sky. We swam in the warm waves and assiduously tried to avoid further burning our crisp shoulders. I ran into a friend from all the way up here in Cotacachi on the beach (a former volunteer at Aya’s organic farm where I was teaching after-school English with Mary), and we split a motor-rikshaw back to town with her and presumably her Ecuadorean lover. That was really fun and worth the dollar. Back in town, Whittney and I ate an unhealthy dinner of arepas (Colombian fried corn patties) and a crepe smothered in chocolate sauce and homemade ice cream. Then we hopped on a bus. 

one of the many landscapes on the ride to the coast

approaching the Isla de la Plata

the isla

the famous "blue-footed booby"

hiking to Los Frailes

We took the overnight bus back to Quito, slept for about an hour in the sitting room at our Quito hostel, and then headed out to enjoy the day. We shopped at the artisan market, took the TeleferiQo up Pichincha Volcano, and wandered around the historic center of Quito. There, we ate more fried food. A name we considered giving Whittney’s visit was “Tiff and Whitt’s tour of the fried foods of Ecuador.” It was a great visit. 

At the top of the TeleferiQo with Whitt

Finally, I would like to explain a little more about Sumak Muyo. This is a project that some of the women in our community started a few years ago. They gather together in the evenings to make jewelry out of natural materials, mostly seeds. Through the funds raised by their collective project they have been able to build a daycare/preschool for the community, among other important contributions. They have a strong willingness to work, and there are a lot of other women they could invite to make jewelry with them, if they had a stable clientele base/demand. So Mary and I decided to work on marketing their jewelry, and are currently looking into various options for that, including starting an Etsy page. On Wednesday I went with one of the women to open her first bank account, which we will use as the bank account for the group. It is pretty exciting! If any of you have interest in buying some necklaces or other jewelry to support the women, please let me know, and I would be happy to bring some jewelry with me back to the States. While our Etsy page is under construction, you can see some of the styles on the facebook page I linked above. I will be taking more photos and adding them in the next few weeks. Feel free to request a specific style or color! 

There is more to say, as always, but for now, I leave you with some more photos. Next update: Semana Santa! (Holy Week) 

pancake party for Mishary's birthday

Ritual bath for the Spring Equinox

me at Laguna Mojanda

Volcan Cotopaxi

snow on the equator!