I’ve been told that temperatures have consistently been around 35 degrees Celsius. That translates to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Two points:
1) That does not include humidity. In case you forgot, I live in the rainforest, so there is plenty of humidity.
2) This is supposedly the coolest season of the year.
Disclaimer: Pretend I am writing for The Onion, and don’t get too offended.
As an International Studies and Environmental Studies major, I spent a lot of time throughout college studying the “development theory”, in other words, studying why some countries remain underdeveloped while others are able to continue developing and become front-runners in the international system. After over a month in a developing country I have come to believe that the staple theory i.e. the prevalence of a high concentration of natural resources in developing countries, the subsequent colonization of these countries and the lingering postcolonial legacies inhibiting countries’ development, is a bunch of over-intellectualized crud.
My theory: it is just too darn hot to think in these countries, let alone develop. The majority of developing countries are in the south, which is why when talking underdeveloped vs. developed the north vs. south dichotomy is often introduced. It is generally hotter in the south, and many developing countries are situated along the equator. So while developed countries are blessed with ice, snowstorms, and frigid below zero temperatures, developing countries are plagued with blistering sun and humid air (recently one of the técnicos said, “We are in a desert with trees”, as we are suffering a major drought and it is unseasonably hot here). You want the developing world to discuss the implementation of democratically elected leaders who did not buy their seat and won’t plague the country with corruption? Nonsense, it is just too hot to think about that. Instead, I think I’ll go take a nice cold shower, but only if the water is working, which is a slim possibility, as it is also too hot to figure out how to do road construction without turning off all the water in the entire city from 9-5 daily for the past three weeks.
So there you have it, international studies students the world over can stop studying the ridiculous theories of development and embrace the most likely theory: It is hot as hell in the developing world, and no one can think straight in hell.
A Warning: First, I apologize for the massive delay in this post. I do however, have valid excuses. I have worked 19 consecutive 10+ hour days without a day off, and Ecuador is in a major drought, and our power is hydroelectric, therefore our power is cut daily for anywhere between 3 and 8 hours. Second, I must warn you that this post is basically a novel. So maybe you should bring over a snack, a drink, a pillow in case you get tired, and, especially you mom, your reading glasses, because this is going to be a long one.
Halloween Weekend was a four-day weekend in Ecuador (something to be treasured) as here “Día de los Difuntos” (Day of the Dead) is celebrated. As Archidona itself barely has enough to keep you occupied for an evening, and always obsessed with travel, I decided to join my boss (Tyler), my Quito roommate, Scott, and my boss’s South African friend Wayne and his girlfriend, Paula on a trip to Mindo. Mindo is a touristy cloud forest community 2 hours northwest of Quito, well know for its rivers and waterfalls. I had been to Wayne and Paula’s house for a soccer game when we watched Ecuador lose to Uraguay in the last minuets of the game due to a stupid referee, thus knocking them from World Cup Running, and I knew that I enjoyed their company.
To get to Mindo, I first had to take a bus to Quito on Friday evening. I will admit that I was a little nervous and not excited for the solo 5 hour bus ride from Tena to Quito during the night, but I eventually decided it was worth it. Plus, the cab ride from Archidona to Tena to catch a bus introduced me to my new, personal cab driver. A cab driver is gold here, as there is no general number you can call to get a cab and cabs are sometimes hard to find in Archidona. Now however, I have Panfico’s name and number, and have been instructed to call him whenever I need a ride anywhere. The bus ride was in fact the best ride I have had yet, but mayhem hit when I arrived in Quito around 10:00 pm. Since it was a holiday weekend, everyone was traveling, and the bus station was the busiest I had seen it yet. I weaved my way through the hoards of people and found myself a cab driver, first making sure he knew where my street was (as I can’t keep the Quito streets straight) and then securing the price of $8.
This is when things start going downhill. 30 minutes later, we were lost, him telling me he was going to charge me extra. After 45 minutes in the cab (normally a 30 min. ride) we arrived at Casa Runa (where the employees in Quito live) and the cabbie turns to me and says “$15”. I of course, was not pleased, and explained to him that normally it is a 30 min. ride, but with major traffic and him getting lost it turned into a 45 min. ride, and that it was not my fault there was bad traffic, and that he told me he knew where the street was. I was able to talk him down to $10, which I still believe to be a total rip-off, and then gave him a nasty look before going inside.
Saturday morning we got off to a slow start, as our ride bailed on us, but luckily we still had our junker truck, and Tyler, Scott, Noe (the dog) and I piled into the truck, Noe tied in the back with the compost. We had been planning on taking our big compost bucket (full of fruit and veggie scraps they had been collecting for months) to an organic farm. Not even five minutes into the trip, the compost bucket spilled, covering the dog and the truckbed in compost juices. Just opening the truck door was a mistake, as compost stench filled my nostrils. Tyler got out to fix the the bucket and clean up what he could, and when he got back in the truck Scott calmy said “Man, I can smell your hand”, and we could. As I mentioned, Quito was packed with travelers, and just getting out of Quito proved to be an adventure. At one point, Tyler stopped the truck on the side of the road (kind of) and asked Scott to get out and by him a phone card for his cell phone. Scott speaks minimal Spanish, and he came out to tell us that they didn’t have the card Tyler wanted but that they had a bunch of 3 dollar cards, and Tyler said he didn’t want them, Scott walked back to the store, then came out and said that he thought they were already printing the cards, to which Tyler responded, “Did you pay yet?”. When Scott said he didn’t, Tyler told him to jump in the car and we drove off, soon however, Scott yelled out “Someone is chasing us down!” and then he was locking all the doors and reaching for his mace (despite being at least 6 ft. and very muscular, he carries his mace everywhere he goes, and I have been told he also walks around Quito with a small knife and flashes it whenver someone threatening looking walks by). So, the doors are locked, and he is telling us how he is going to mace this guy, and then, the guy runs past. Apparently, he was not interested in us at all. This of course led to excellent mental images of someone gripping onto the truck window (I should also say that 3 of the 4 truck windows were broken after supposedly being fixed, and since we were driving in the rain the boys had to use all their power to push the windows back up) as Scott sprayed mace in his eyes, it also led to many mace jokes throughout the weekend. It was a beautiful 2 hour drive to Mindo, with excellent music, reminding me how much I love roadtrips (no matter the length). My top roadtrip still remains New Zealand however, I don’t know if it can ever be topped.
When we got to Mindo we drove straight to a river, where we threw the dog in the water, attempting to get the horrible compost stench out, and we dumped the compost in the weeds (we gave up on going ot the organic farm). We were all gagging as the boys dumped the compost, the smell filling our noses. After getting that out of the way, we drove to our hostel/hotel. The place, El Quetzal, is owned by an American family that Tyler met last time he was in Mindo, and serves excellent food. The family was not there, but an American, Joe who now runs the place and two friendly Ecuadorian girls were. The hotel is still under construction, so there were only two rooms, and we were the only guests. The best part about the place, other than the fantastic service, was that they grow their own cacao, which means they make their own chocolate, which means I was in heaven. You could buy chocolate bars, chocolate milkshakes, hot chocolate, and what the boys on the trip have labeled the best brownies ever. After checking in to our rooms with beautiful views of the Mindo and the mountains, we headed to the river again. We hiked up through rapids to get to some good swimming places, and then just hung out there for a while.
Sunday morning I woke up to the two Ecuadorian girls yelling, “He ate the chickens, they are going to kill him”. Apparently, during the night Noe attacked and killed the neighbor’s chickens, and the neighbors were about to inject him with some kind of venom to kill him, but Tyler talked them out of it. Sunday afternoon we met up with Wayne and Paula who had just arrived from Quito and hiked to a family’s property we had been told about that encompasses100 acres of protected primary forest that are excellent for hiking. It was a really beautiful forest, and a nice hike, with breathtaking views of Mindo as the sun began it’s downward slide. Throughout the hike we kept our eyes peeled for the speckled bear that supposedly lives there, and while Scott is convinced he saw one (it was really a falling leaf), we didn’t see any large wildlife.
The top of our hike:
That evening was our most anticipated activity: night tubing. Basically, a bunch of innertubes are tied together, and you head down a river filled with rapids while two Ecuadorian guides dressed in jeans and rubber boats prevent you from hitting anything too dangerous, or manage to free you when you and your group are wedged between one too many rocks. We decided to make it all the more extreme by going at night, and Joe (the guy running the hotel) set us up with his business. By 8:15 we were sitting in a truckbed that is obviously used to transport livestock, never feeling so much like livestock ourselves, peering through the slats in the wood sides as we raced through the dirt roads, with our tubes balanced above us.
We tubed down that section (always keep your butt up)
We finally arrived and stripped down to our swimsuits, not eager to get into the freezing water in the middle of the night. After about 1 minute of instruction on what to do (keep your butt up and don’t put your feet in the water) we were loading into the tubes. Our guides were soon splashing water at us, yelling, and then, we were on our way down the river. All of Ecuador is experiencing a major drought right now, and everyone I talk to attributes it to global warming (they seem to have a better grasp on this then many Americans, perhaps because they suffer from it more directly), and so, even though the river should be at its highest point right now, it was pretty low. This meant that our guides were often yelling at us to bounce as they tried to get us unwedged from rocks and that it was not quite as extreme as I had hoped. When I got to feeling this way however, I thought, “I am in a river, in a cloud forest, in Ecuador, in the middle of the night, going down rapids on a tube”. One of my favorite parts was watching the guides, as they would often stand on boulders to push us off, and then have to jump onto the tubs, looking something like flying squirrels as the full moon lit up their profiles. None of us have any idea how long we were racing down the river, but eventually we reached the end, and then climbed on top of a large bus and set on benches drilled into the ceiling to get back to town.
Monday we set out to do some waterfall hiking, and were met by massive amounts of national tourists. This meant the waterfalls weren’t as secluded as we had hoped, but that didn’t stop us from jumping off a 40 ft. cliff into a waterfall. I had been told to pick up my feet before hitting the water so I didn’t hit the bottom: BAD IDEA…I hit the water full force with my butt, and I definitely was feeling the pain for the following days. After our waterfall hike and another great meal at El Quetzal, we packed out and headed back to Quito, not ready to jump back into the work week (I’d much rather jump off a 40 ft cliff).
We briefly talked to the president, and then he produced a huge snail shell and started blowing into it, calling the community to action. I was told that this is a dying art form, but it used to be used regularly to call community members in, as well as announce a death in the community. This particular community seems to be saddened by the loss of tradition, as throughout the day they talked about what used to be, and how sad it is that children no longer carry out certain traditions, like waking up at 3:00 in the morning to drink guayusa and listen to their elders’ stories.
Slowly but surely community members wandered over to the main plaza, and then we walked across the soccer field, behind a few homes, and into the rain forest to build the vivero. A plot was staked out, and soon everyone had machetes in hand and was clearing the ground, chopping down small bushes and clearing it of any weeds. In no time we had our plot cleared, and it seemed as though some community members were already bored. A core four along with the técnico and I stayed behind to dig up the ground, pull weeds out of the dirt pile, add sand to the dirt to make it a perfect growing mixture, build the plant beds out of old, fallen trees, build the shade structure out of bamboo (my specialty), and add the roof. Throughout the process the men would disappear for 30 minutes at a time, walking deeper into the rainforest, and would later appear with long poles of bamboo for the structure, or old trees for the plant beds, palm leaves for the roof, or a specific kind of branch that they split to make rope.
Clearing the land.
While I had been feeling slightly useless throughout most of the day as, one, I have yet to master the art of the machete (I really want to show up in a community with a totally bejeweled machete, just to see everyone’s reactions to a white girl coming in with a machete covered in jewels and glitter) and, two, I don’t know how to properly chop a bamboo plant, or get palm leaves of a tree, my moment to shine came when we were adding the bamboo crossbeams to the shade structure. The crossbeams needed to be tied to the structure with our jungle rope, and seeing as, at 5’5’ and ½, I was by far the tallest one there, the job fell to me. I tied each and every crossbeam down, while the men rested for a change, talking to me about my need for a kichwa boyfriend. I’m not quite sure what the obsession is with having me date a kichwa man, but it is a common theme, whether I am sitting in the office in Archidona or out in the communities, it is one of the main conversation topics. I did however, very much enjoy my time with the four men and the técnico I was working with, and it was nice to see what 6 hours of hard work in the sun could produce.
A side note: Word may have spread that I don’t drink chicha, as it was passed around and never, thankfully, offered to me.
I officially “moved in” to my new home in Archidona on Thursday, October 22. I use “moved in” loosely as to date the only furniture in the home is my mattress on the ground and a large plastic table that is currently used as the office table. I am hoping to get all of my furniture and (cross your fingers as I have been waiting over a week) a fridge soon.
I jumped right into the action on Thursday and got a tour with a number of técnicos (there are 8 técnicos or technical coordinators in my province, and theyare each assigned a sector and then work within that sector providing technical assistance to local communities) of viveros (nurseries) throughout the province. The interesting thing about Guayusa is that it does not have seeds. In order to grow more, you simply take a cutting and place it in the ground in a shady area. The técnicos have found that Guayusa is most successful when plantings are taken and then placed ina nursery like this:
I was given a tour of numerous viveros throughout the province, and what I found really cool is that because our budget is pretty tight right now, people have been super innovative. Instead of using the expensive tools, wood and cloth used to provide shade, communities are using the materials they have on hand. At this point, I suppose I should give some background on what we do for every vivero. Guayusa needs shade, so first four supports and numerous crossbeams are needed to construct some sort of shade-bearing materials. We also create plant beds to elevate the Guayusa. For the supports and cross beams, bamboo is used, palm leaves are used to provide shade, vines are used to hold the bamboo beams in place, and old fallen trees are used to create the plant beds. It was interesting to see what communities are doing, as well as to see different communities.
After the tours of the viveros we picked up our moto bikes, and Thursday night my boss and I had dinner at a great pizzeria in Tena run by a German guy (first we were stopped at a police checkpoint and held for several minutes because our license plate was faded and my boss didn’t have his license, luckily we were let go). After our meal, we were given free shots. I’ve decided that I am going to make Pizzeria Vagabondo my new regular place, even if it does require a 30 minute bus ride to get there. We rounded out our Thursday night sleeping on the bare floor of my new home, as we did not have any mattresses (thanks to the cops that held us up meaning we arrived at stores after closing time).
Friday was a big day, and it started with us picking up a técnico, Pedro, at 6:30 am. to head to one of his communities. It was an hour-long truck ride on dirt roads littered with massive boulders, up and down hills and over rickety bridges. I am surprised our old, beat up truck made it, but an hour later we were pulling into a community very deep in the jungle. This is by far my favorite community, as the women were the most outgoing indigenous women I met and the men made me feel comfortable. The plant beds were already established in this community, so we started pulling weeds from the beds, and soon various community members were producing their plant cuttings to plant. A pot of Guayusa tea and two mugs were passed around and after a speech by the community president, he began planting his cuttings, dunking them first in an organic fertilizer and then placing them in the divots someone had already created.
Each community member did this, and eventually we ran out of cuttings, so I went with my boss, the técnico and two community members to an old woman’s house who has a bunch of Guayusa trees to take some more cuttings. This woman took to calling me Guayusa Warmy, which means Guayusa Woman in Kichwa. She kept trying to convince me to enter the Guayusa Pageant in November (there is a big Guayusa festival coming up in November), despite the fact that a white girl from the U.S. can’t enter. After taking lots and lots of cuttings, we hung around the woman’s house while the group drank Chicha (I declined) and then we headed back to the vivero to continue planting. By the time we got back, attention was starting to wane and beer and Chicha was being consumed in copious amounts, I luckily was able to turn the Chicha down rather discreetly with a slight nod of the head. I worked hard with the woman calling me Guayusa Warmy, the president, and a few others to finish planting the cuttings, sweating profusely under the strong Ecuadorian sun. Once all the cuttings were planted, chipati leaves (a kind of palm leaves) were stuck into the ground to provide shade:
I was hoping we would be able to take off before lunch began as I have learned never to look forward to a meal in Ecuador. Instead, my boss, the técnico, the community president, and the coordinator of the project in the community and I were seated at the lone table and chicken foot soup was placed in front of us. You read that right: chicken foot soup. Luckily, my boss turned to me and said, “Chicken feet, definitely not my favorite”, and he didn’t eat the foot either. What I found so very ironic was that as I was eating this soup, a chicken was pecking at my foot (chickens are EVERYWHERE here). I thought I could handle the soup, but then a whole chicken carcass was placed in front of me, with some singed feathers still on it. I tried to eat what I could, but I truthfully couldn’t eat very much. I was hoping no one would call me out on it, but they did. I used the same excuse I have used since I arrived: “I am never really that hungry, I can’t eat this much food”, which is true, they eat massive amounts of food. Throughout the meal more Chicha was passed around, and my glass was filled with Guayusa tea time after time. At the end of the meal we were given a special treat: coca cola. I had been drinking so much water, Guayusa, and now coke that by the end of the afternoon I thought I was going to explode. I asked a woman if there was a bathroom nearby, and she laughed and said “Si, en el campo”, meaning, “Yeah, in the forest”. I decided to hold off as I thought we would be passing through a town soon, and because we were soon saying goodbye to community members and loading up the truck to head out.
Community members ended up piling into the back of the truck, and we were on our way, taking different routes to drop members off in their respective communities. As we were driving in the rickety truck on the bumpy roads, I started to reconsider my decision to not use “el campo”. To make matters worse, we didn’t return the way we had gone, and we did not pass through the community I was banking on finding a bathroom in. I turned to my boss and said “Next town we pass through, can we stop so I can find a bathroom?” 45 minutes later, we made it into a town, and to my embarrassment my boss asked Pedro, the técnico, if he knew of a bathroom in the area I could use. Pedro got out with me, and we went to the Police Station, but no one was there. Pedro then took me across the street, knocked on the door of an old woman’s home, and asked her if I could use the bathroom. So there I was, in this random woman’s home, with my coworker making conversation with this woman. It was a slightly mortifying experience and from now on, I will always choose “El campo”. Shortly after this incident, my boss pulled over to the side of a huge bridge so that he could jump from the bridge into one of the Amazon’s tributaries.
Finally, we were back in Tena, but our marathon day was not over, we had to buy stuff for the house. Pedro accompanied me throughout Tena as I bargained over the price of sheets, stovetops, large water bottle holders, etc. I was extremely grateful for his help, and really enjoyed his company. The day came to a close as the power throughout the town went out, giving me the perfect excuse to go to bed at 9:00 pm.
And, proof that I am alive and part Guayusa Warmy:
