5'5" (and 1/2) in Ecuador

Ecuadorians as a whole are pretty short people. This topic has come up numerous times, whether while watching my boss (at 6 ft. he is considered a giant) play volleyball, while buying motos and listening to the técnicos complain about how tall the motos are, or while working in the communities.

Last Friday (October 30^th) at 8:00 am I headed out to a community with one of our two female técnicos to help construct a vivero (nursery). We took a 20-minute cab ride (all taxis here are yellow pick-up trucks since paved roads are few and far between (even in Archidona)), and then we were de-boarding the taxi to find two very angry dogs waiting for us. Luckily, we were armed with machetes, shovels and a rake, and were thus able to fend the dogs off as they chased us from the center of the community to the president’s home.

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.

Determining the layout.

Mixing the soil and pulling the weeds out.

The structure and the first plant bed.

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.

The work of a "giant".

Adding the palm-roof.

The group (minus the técnico).

After the men took celebratory shots, we were lucky to find a taxi that had just finished dropping someone off in the community and we jumped in. Exhausted and hot after a long day of work, I hopped in the shower and then prepared for my weekend trip to Mindo (read about it in the next entry!).

A side note: Word may have spread that I don’t drink chicha, as it was passed around and never, thankfully, offered to me.