More of life in the campo

I am sore. Life in Quito was lazy…I rode buses, sat in class, ate a lot of bread, hung out, read…here is a completely different world. In the campo (country/rural area) people work, people do everything for themselves, people walk to get places, there are mountains to climb and things to see that you don’t have to be afraid of leaving the house to do. I love it here. Life is calm. Everybody greets each other when they pass walking down the road. Trucks stop to pick up people walking along the road. Today I spent a lot of time walking down the roads totally lost and unable to find my house. It was the first time I didn’t get picked up or dropped off by Runa Tupari people and took the bus from Otavalo. I literally got dropped off on the side of the road and pointed in a direction. I wandered the roads for over an hour not recognizing anything and asking directions. Like I mentioned before, people like to pick a direction and point…eventually I made it home, then promptly left with my host family to go pick choclo (like corn)…more walking to the field. On the way home we stopped at the house of the abuelita (mother of Alfonso) where my family has cuyes (guinea pigs to eat) and chickens where we fed the cuyes leaves from the choclo. My mom accidentally knocked off a cement block from the retaining wall of the cuyes and killed it. They were all very sad, especially my little sister, because they hadn’t planned to kill it today….I don’t quite understand because they would eat it in a few months anyway…

It’s a community—everybody works for themselves and is self-sufficient but at the same time is thinking about the good of their neighbors and how they can help out. Every weekend there are “mingas” which are group projects in which at least one member of each family in the community has to go work or else the water to their house will be cut off. Currently my community of Santa Barbara is working on constructing their own water system because right now they have to buy from a neighboring community. On Saturday I am going to work on the minga with Alfonso, my host-dad here.

A bit more about my family here:
Soledad—another young mom, 30 years old, but at first I would have guessed older. She is currently campaigning to be elected Concejala for the canton in the upcoming elections in April. I don’t completely understand the local political structure yet, but I think her position is similar to a city council member. She is very busy visiting the communities to meet everyone and working for her party in hopes that they win on April 26th. I will be living here through May 1st so I will get to see the whole process. Even though I don’t know much about the other parties and candidates, I am a fan of her party because their logo/flag is a rainbow flag which is by far better looking than the other candidates. I hope they win because the house could get pretty depressing if not.

Alfonso—my host-dad who works the night shift of security at a hotel in Cotacachi, the town about a 20 minute walk from my community. Cotacachi is known for its leather production. I might have to splurge on a leather jacket because I have always wanted one and even though they are expensive here, in comparison to the States they are really cheap and why not buy straight from the artisans that make them? Alfonso cooks when Soledad isn’t around and last night he made a delicious meal…I was impressed. Overall he is pretty quiet and doesn’t talk much unless I ask him questions.

Emily and Sawani—Two little sisters, ages 6 and 8 respectively. These two girls are incredibly dramatic. There is a constant stream of shrieks, giggles, crying, laughing, whining and more shrieking coming from them. It’s going to take while to get used to that after my incredibly well behaved little brothers and sister in Quito. Today I helped my mom with dinner and made Guacamole. Sawani was in the kitchen and criticizing the way I cut onions to Soledad, then complaining that there wasn’t enough salt or lemon even though for me it was super salty and lemony…oh well, I thought it was delicious. The two girls also whisper a lot in front of me and giggle and look at me. It makes me kind of uncomfortable because I can rarely understand what they are saying unless they are speaking directly to me because their voices are so shrieky and whiney. But they are cute and it’s good for me to have the experience of living with younger children.

My work: For the internship I am going to spend Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday working at a “vivero” or plant nursery which is a project of UNORCAC, the indigenous organization of Cotacachi. Runa Tupari is also a project of UNORCAC which is why the two projects are connected. I will start there this Monday and will write more about that when I know more about what I will be doing. Thursday and Friday I will be in the Runa Tupari offices translating some promotional documents to English, talking to tourists about tours we offer, and going on tours especially to translate when the tourists don’t speak Spanish. As well as working in both these places, the idea is to learn about the fields—local agriculture practices and native plant species and community-based tourism—and hopefully come up with a theme to write my 25 page monografía on relating the two concepts. We’ll see how that goes…

Life is good. Food here is all locally produced, if not produced by the family themselves. Everything is fresh and delicious. I’m going to come back with some new recipes. I made friends with the guide on our hike today, Hektor, who also produces organic agriculture to sell and generally is working to be totally independent and sustainable. I’m going to go work with him when I have time to learn the practices here and see his inventions. He told me about a washing machine he made powered by a bicycle, among several other creations. I can’t wait to go check it out. I have lots to learn from life here.