I know that one of the important lessons of Tolte is that everything will turn up when I need it, and everyone will turn up when I need him or her. This was confirmed just today--I missed Damasio's departure from home, so I had to go looking for him down in the hacienda. I had just about decided that I wouldn't find him when he turned up, and we had a fine time considering what he should do for his fruit trees.
So I shouldn't be worrying about what my next job will be when I have a whole month left of this one. After all, I can't be entirely unemployed. I have a job offer in the Amazon, where I would return to being a high school science teacher, but also create curriculum for a k-12 science program that could be implemented in rural schools throughout Ecuador. Am I creative enough? No, but the internet is full of good ideas for teachers. I'm not bad at hunting and gathering.
In spite of this security, or maybe because of it, I have started looking for a job anyway. Angus is spreading my resume in a thin layer over Quito, where it may appeal to someone, but it hasn't yet. He says that my best chance to find worthwhile development work in ecuador is to work for the givernment, probably in the Ministerio de agricultura (MAGAP) or the Ministerio del Ambiente. I'd prefer to work for an NGO than the Ecuadorean government, but with looming cuts to USAID and the generally anemic state of charitable donation worldwide, the government is a better bet.
So I also took my resume by hand over to the MAGAP office in Riobamba. Daniel, the ingeniero agronomo who often works in Tolte, told me to try to get to speak to the director or the subsecretaria, but I only reached Talento Humano. But I did leave aresume, and went across to the Ministerio del Ambiente office and left one there, too. I had hoped to speak to the directora there, because her secretary told me it would be possible, but things didn't work out that way. When I got back to Tolte, Daniel told me that Mecias, the teniente politico, is good friends with the MAGAP director. He did put in a good word for me, but MAGAP is hoping to find a gringo with an engineering degree, for irrigation projects I imagine. So prospects there are also dim.
This left idealist.org, which provided me with the wonderful experience you are reading about. I found interesting jobs with El Nahual in Guatemala, Witness for Peace in Nicaragua, and SKIP in Peru. Witness for Peace and SKIP had lengthy applications, which I spent most of last weekend filling out (explaining the long stretch between blog entries, I hope). El Nahual only wanted a resume and cover letter, and they were the first to contact me for an interview. This was very exciting until I looked at the job offer more carefully and realized that it was unpaid, and provided only a place to live. Since I already have an offer of a paying job in the Amazon, I decided that I really had to bow out of what certainly would have been a cool experience in Guatemala. Maybe after my pension starts...what's that, another 11 years or so? The El Nahual people were very enthusiastic about me. I hope I've done the right thing.
Somewhat to my surprise, Witness for Peace is also interested in my application. I don't have a long or deep record of political activism, which is mostly what the work seems to be about. But I have had string feeling about American policy in Central America since before I went to the Peace Corps, so maybe that counts. Anyway, they set me up for an oral Spanish test via Skype, which made me sort of nervous. I mean, if I don't speak Spanish well enough for this job, what kind of fool have i been making of myself here in Tolte? But I passed, in spite of my inadequate attempt to translate "Central American Free Trade Agreement" into Spanish. I guess I did okay, in spite of the sort of political/economic sorts of sentences that I had to translate into both English and Spanish. Now I'm just waiting for them to interview me, which should be an exciting experience. The intellectual level will probably be more than a bit above what I'm capable of producing on a daily basis in Tolte.
Meanwhile, the new and exciting experience in Tolte has been my continuing integration into a sort of garage band that I have dubbed "La Banda de Miercoles." This is a double entendre--ask Maya to work it out for you. In any case, since I am the only person who knows how to play lead guitar for a rock or pop band, I get to be the lead guitarist. Our goal is to play at the big parroquializacion fiesta on May 21, performing covers of five (that may be too many) songs that are popular in Ecuador these days, though I think most of them are imported from Spain and Mexico. There is a serious risk that this will all be a big mess, because the guys in the band (I think the total age of the four or five of them might be equal to my own) are relying on my musical knowledge to prevent exactly that. Since I have basically zero band experience, things could get ugly. So far, I'm trying to teach them to count to four repeatedly as they play. It seems to be helping.
But in case I was about to get carried away by my own musical skills, The New Paltz Oracle named Allie musician of the week for April 26. Check out his performance of "Dear Prudence" with his amazing bass playing pal Sam on YouTube. You will love it.
So here I am, entering my last month in Tolte, unless Carolina manages to pull some sort of magical funding out of the bag and hire me for another year (the final job opportunity!) Francisco called her the other day to plead on my behalf. Of course, if I were really committed, I could probably open an English language school in Chunchi, and use that to fund whatever development activities I find interesting. I'm not sure I'm at that point. But May should be an exciting time both for my students and soil conservation practices as we move out of the rainy season and towards the end of the school year. bench terraces, anyone?
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
Amazonia
I apologize for the delay. I know you’re all dying to hear what happened in the Amazon, and I’ve been slow to put it out there. This is partly due to my efforts to fill out a job application for Witness for Peace, without doubt some of the most difficult writing I have ever attempted, and certainly the longest and most arduous job application. Some of you may get the opportunity to help me with it. Winners will be informed by personal e-mail.
The Amazon is far. Maybe it isn’t far from itself, but it’s far from anywhere I have ever been, and specifically far from Tolte. School had been closed since Tuesday, so I didn’t have to try to make the whole trip on Saturday, which might have been impossible. I had to arrive in Los Rios early enough to take the half hour canoe trip to Yachana before 6 PM. I left Friday morning in cold, dense fog, which probably didn’t help my leaving. It was Good Friday and I don’t think the Chunchi bus company that makes hourly trips to Riobamba was running. The Patria bus didn’t even slow down as it passed me by. Fortunaately, I was able to get a ride in the back of a truck all the way to Palmyra, and catch a bus from there to Riobamba, so I only lost about an hour waiting for the bus. From Riobamba I caught the bus to Tena, a small city on the edge of Amazonia. From there, I used the internet to call my family for Passover. Once I was back on the street, I got to watch a “Stations of the Cross” procession that wound down the main street of Tena. Being Jewish in Ecuador has its limits.
The next morning, I caught the bus to Los Rios. This three and a half hour trip involved two and a half hours on a narrow dirt road cutting into the rain forest. If we met another bus or truck coming in the opposite direction, we had to back up until we found some place wide enough to let it by. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get a good picture of us cutting through the jungle.
When I got to Los Rios, Diego was waiting for me with the canoe. Diego uses crutches to get around, but he was down the path and into the canoe a lot faster than I was. He very ably steered the canoe down to Yachana. The view from the river was incredible, and the picture that I share here doesn’t do it justice. Along the way, Andres, who came along for the ride with Diego, pointed out people panning for gold along the river. Apparently, when the river rises, it leaves behind material containing gold. People work all day to collect a gram or two, each gram worth about $30, which is a good day’s wage in Ecuador. Unfortunately, conditions don’t allow panning for gold every day, so it isn’t all that profitable.
We arrived at the Yachana Lodge, which is an incredible place. Tourists come from all over the world to visit the lodge and take day trips into the region. The lodge has a view of two volcanoes when the weather is clear, as well as spectacular views of the river and forest. The whole project, which includes a health center for the neighboring community of 27 families and the Yachana technical high school, is the life achievement of Douglas McMeekin, a Kentuckian who came to Ecuador 26 years ago. Douglas describes himself as an entrepreneur, always quickly adding that “it’s a personality type.” He started out working as an environmental consultant to the oil industry, moved on to a project that involved establishing schools along the river Yachana overlooks, and decided to invest in a location about midway along the path of the school project. Yachana and Douglas have one a number of prestigious awards, because Yachana is about as good an example of social entrepreneurship as one is likely to find anywhere.
Douglas was primarily interested in talking to me about Yachana’s educational projects. The high school attracts kids from al over Ecuadorean Amazonia. The program is innovative, with the kids studying three weeks without a break and going for work experiences for the rest of the month, which reminded me a bit of the Village School’s internship experience. Douglas has extensive contacts in the tourism industry, and some of the kids have even been offered jobs based on their performance during their internships.
Another interesting feature of the high school is that the instructors are all foreign volunteers, mostly recent college graduates. In spite of some minor language difficulties, these young people have been able to deliver an unusually high quality education by Ecuadorean standards, largely due to their exceptional level of commitment. Chris, Ryan, and Amanda, my hat’s off to you, or would be, if I could remember to wear a hat.
Douglas has a new project as well, on the other side of the river. It is the Yachana Technical Institute, which will offer both a junior college program and short certification courses. This has been funded through Douglas’ own painstaking fundraising efforts, most recently involving the Japanese Embassy and Schlumberger, the oil equipment company and one of the Amazon’s biggest employers. It certainly would be a great opportunity to learn how he does it. There has been concern that the high school would close for lack of funds, but Douglas is absolutely sure that this will not happen, if only because he considers the school the centerpiece of the Yachana program.
The job Douglas would like me to do is to teach science with an agriculture emphasis in the high school. There are certain curriculum points required by the Ministerio de Educacion. The general idea is that I would take care of those as quickly as possible, and then focus on experiential learning. I suppose one concern I have is that the students know more than I do about the practical end of agriculture. From what I understand, they’re all eager to stay away from it, and work in tourism. Also, there is a problem with certain neighbors harvesting school crops before the school can. This could be a serious obstacle to success.
An exciting aspect of working for the school is that the model of combining school with practical experience is of great interest to people in the Ministerio de Educacion, and there is a desire to replicate it elsewhere, possibly in the Galapagos. Yachana may become the brand name for a whole chain of innovative school programs, and I might have the chance to be a part of that.
On the other hand, I am not at all sure that I will take a position with Yachana. The school program is very intense and would take all my time, which means that I would return to my well-accustomed role as a science teacher. That’s not at all bad, but I’m down here because I keep hoping for something more, something new and different. I suppose that if I do take the job with Yachana, it will be because I can see a real opportunity to learn from Douglas. He and I will have to hash that out. But, for now, my job search is not over.
Nor is my search for daily work. Last week’s vacation (Tuesday through Friday) was followed by this week’s vacation (Wednesday to Friday). Wednesday wasn’t entirely vacation—the teachers and I took the sixth graders to a presentation by the Chunchi rescue squad. This took less than an hour, which I think was not a great exchange for a full day of school. Thursday there was some program for the teachers, and today, Friday, is Dia del Maestro, which we maestros are celebrating by not teaching again. I’ve only got seven weeks left to teach English. I’ve been warned that there will be a lot more days off during this time, but I hope it isn’t quite the learning blackout of the past two weeks.
On a more positive note, the windbreak project that Raphael and Carlos worked out with the Colegio Tecnico Agropecuario de Chunchi actually happened yesterday. I had discussed windbreaks with two farmers, but when Raphael went to the colegio with Carlos to look for appropriate tree species, they found that the agroforestry teacher had a bunch of trees in a nursery and was all ready to plant them. After a letter requesting them to do this and a month’s delay, the teacher showed up with 15 students and 125 trees and we planted a windbreak around Asencio’s property, conveniently located behind his house in the center of Tolte. While it wasn’t quite the technically perfect project I had hoped for, these are the first non-fruit trees planted here, and may be the first windbreak in Pistishi. There are 20 people in the granjas integrals group that Asencio belongs to—if all of them plant windbreaks, Tolte will gain 2000 trees or more. It’s not much in a territory this size, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. And Asencio was certainly very happy with the result. No doubt, a successful project.
The Amazon is far. Maybe it isn’t far from itself, but it’s far from anywhere I have ever been, and specifically far from Tolte. School had been closed since Tuesday, so I didn’t have to try to make the whole trip on Saturday, which might have been impossible. I had to arrive in Los Rios early enough to take the half hour canoe trip to Yachana before 6 PM. I left Friday morning in cold, dense fog, which probably didn’t help my leaving. It was Good Friday and I don’t think the Chunchi bus company that makes hourly trips to Riobamba was running. The Patria bus didn’t even slow down as it passed me by. Fortunaately, I was able to get a ride in the back of a truck all the way to Palmyra, and catch a bus from there to Riobamba, so I only lost about an hour waiting for the bus. From Riobamba I caught the bus to Tena, a small city on the edge of Amazonia. From there, I used the internet to call my family for Passover. Once I was back on the street, I got to watch a “Stations of the Cross” procession that wound down the main street of Tena. Being Jewish in Ecuador has its limits.
The next morning, I caught the bus to Los Rios. This three and a half hour trip involved two and a half hours on a narrow dirt road cutting into the rain forest. If we met another bus or truck coming in the opposite direction, we had to back up until we found some place wide enough to let it by. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get a good picture of us cutting through the jungle.
When I got to Los Rios, Diego was waiting for me with the canoe. Diego uses crutches to get around, but he was down the path and into the canoe a lot faster than I was. He very ably steered the canoe down to Yachana. The view from the river was incredible, and the picture that I share here doesn’t do it justice. Along the way, Andres, who came along for the ride with Diego, pointed out people panning for gold along the river. Apparently, when the river rises, it leaves behind material containing gold. People work all day to collect a gram or two, each gram worth about $30, which is a good day’s wage in Ecuador. Unfortunately, conditions don’t allow panning for gold every day, so it isn’t all that profitable.
Douglas was primarily interested in talking to me about Yachana’s educational projects. The high school attracts kids from al over Ecuadorean Amazonia. The program is innovative, with the kids studying three weeks without a break and going for work experiences for the rest of the month, which reminded me a bit of the Village School’s internship experience. Douglas has extensive contacts in the tourism industry, and some of the kids have even been offered jobs based on their performance during their internships.
Another interesting feature of the high school is that the instructors are all foreign volunteers, mostly recent college graduates. In spite of some minor language difficulties, these young people have been able to deliver an unusually high quality education by Ecuadorean standards, largely due to their exceptional level of commitment. Chris, Ryan, and Amanda, my hat’s off to you, or would be, if I could remember to wear a hat.
Douglas has a new project as well, on the other side of the river. It is the Yachana Technical Institute, which will offer both a junior college program and short certification courses. This has been funded through Douglas’ own painstaking fundraising efforts, most recently involving the Japanese Embassy and Schlumberger, the oil equipment company and one of the Amazon’s biggest employers. It certainly would be a great opportunity to learn how he does it. There has been concern that the high school would close for lack of funds, but Douglas is absolutely sure that this will not happen, if only because he considers the school the centerpiece of the Yachana program.
The job Douglas would like me to do is to teach science with an agriculture emphasis in the high school. There are certain curriculum points required by the Ministerio de Educacion. The general idea is that I would take care of those as quickly as possible, and then focus on experiential learning. I suppose one concern I have is that the students know more than I do about the practical end of agriculture. From what I understand, they’re all eager to stay away from it, and work in tourism. Also, there is a problem with certain neighbors harvesting school crops before the school can. This could be a serious obstacle to success.
An exciting aspect of working for the school is that the model of combining school with practical experience is of great interest to people in the Ministerio de Educacion, and there is a desire to replicate it elsewhere, possibly in the Galapagos. Yachana may become the brand name for a whole chain of innovative school programs, and I might have the chance to be a part of that.
On the other hand, I am not at all sure that I will take a position with Yachana. The school program is very intense and would take all my time, which means that I would return to my well-accustomed role as a science teacher. That’s not at all bad, but I’m down here because I keep hoping for something more, something new and different. I suppose that if I do take the job with Yachana, it will be because I can see a real opportunity to learn from Douglas. He and I will have to hash that out. But, for now, my job search is not over.
Nor is my search for daily work. Last week’s vacation (Tuesday through Friday) was followed by this week’s vacation (Wednesday to Friday). Wednesday wasn’t entirely vacation—the teachers and I took the sixth graders to a presentation by the Chunchi rescue squad. This took less than an hour, which I think was not a great exchange for a full day of school. Thursday there was some program for the teachers, and today, Friday, is Dia del Maestro, which we maestros are celebrating by not teaching again. I’ve only got seven weeks left to teach English. I’ve been warned that there will be a lot more days off during this time, but I hope it isn’t quite the learning blackout of the past two weeks.
On a more positive note, the windbreak project that Raphael and Carlos worked out with the Colegio Tecnico Agropecuario de Chunchi actually happened yesterday. I had discussed windbreaks with two farmers, but when Raphael went to the colegio with Carlos to look for appropriate tree species, they found that the agroforestry teacher had a bunch of trees in a nursery and was all ready to plant them. After a letter requesting them to do this and a month’s delay, the teacher showed up with 15 students and 125 trees and we planted a windbreak around Asencio’s property, conveniently located behind his house in the center of Tolte. While it wasn’t quite the technically perfect project I had hoped for, these are the first non-fruit trees planted here, and may be the first windbreak in Pistishi. There are 20 people in the granjas integrals group that Asencio belongs to—if all of them plant windbreaks, Tolte will gain 2000 trees or more. It’s not much in a territory this size, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. And Asencio was certainly very happy with the result. No doubt, a successful project.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
The Belgians are gone
This week was not an especially thrilling or fulfilling one, but in some ways it has been quite deep emotionally. This morning, the Belgians, Rafael and Geraldine, caught the bus for Riobamba. As we were walking up to the highway, they stopped to say goodbye to Pablo, who immediately offered to give them a ride in his funny little truck, better known as the Boogie Woogie (probably spelled "Bugui Wugui" in Tolte). The kindness of Toltenos to us gringos is never-ending.
I confess that I found this heart-wrenching, not strictly because I will miss them, which I will. It was a real pleasure to spend time with them, partly because they're fun and energetic, and partly because they could give me some perspective on what I'm doing here. But their going reminds me that I only have another two months here, and then I will also have to leave this place where I am so at home. Where else will people call me "Naichu Michu" (that's "nice to meet you," if you didn't guess it during my previous blog entry)? Where else will I feel so well met? People here have accepted me as an odd part of the community. I'm almost not sure I have the right to leave them behind. Although the children have come a long way, they still don't speak English as well as I had hoped they would by this point. Have I delivered my end of this bargain?
So as I contemplate my job interview in the Amazon next week, I wonder if I will come back to Tolte afterwards and make a more serious effort to stay here instead. It doesn't seem right to go, but there are some aspects of my life here that are emotionally challenging. There is no one here in the same social category that I am (divorced man over 50), which makes it difficult for people to figure me out. I seem to be classed with the other single guys of Tolte, who are generally under 22 years old. So I get to play the guitar a lot, and stay out late sometimes, but I think my behavior does seem more than a bit strange to the grown-ups.
I'll return to this theme after reporting some interesting events of the week. On Tuesday, i got caught up in a community soccer game that included the school teachers, Rafael and Geraldine, and a large number of women and children. This turned out to be more my level than the distressing game I played back during the Fiesta de Tolte. By sticking to defense, I was able to compensate for my lack of skill by getting in everyone else's way. People declared me "better than one would expect," and I had fun for the first time in years playing a game that included a ball.
Wednesday I went to work to help a family where the father is recovering from a hernia operation. It seems this will take as much as a year. The man involved is the same one who, a few weeks back, carried about 50 pounds of corns from the hacienda to the center of Tolte, a physical feat I commented upon at the time. So losing his strength is a big blow for this relatively poor family. I can't say I was much compensation, but I did 6 hours of work on what was probably the steepest piece of land I have ever tried to stand on--and it was a cornfield. While Dona Sharita and Dona Lucia, both grandmothers, cut down the high weeds with machetes, I struggled to scrape out little rings around each corn or bean plants using a pick. Because the land was so steep, my back didn't hurt too much, but my feet and legs sure did. It's been a long time since I was that tired.
Thursday night was the beginning of the farewell to Rafael and Geraldine. This involved kooky games and more trago than I would like to admit, but at least I made it to school the next day. The teachers did not--although this is not because I am hardier than they, but less. I gave up about 1 in the morning, but they were still partying at 7 o'clock when school started. Geraldine commented that this was not like any professional behavior that she had ever encountered, and I'm inclined to agree. We wouldn't last long setting this kind of example in the United States or Belgium.
Friday was a healthier kind of send-off. Mario got the folk-dance kids together for their first real performance, and it was a great success. From there, he continued to play dance music until about 11 PM. We all had a great time dancing the night away, and I think Rafael and Geraldine were very happy with it all. I got to dance with the Toltenita of my dreams, but it's pretty clear that I'm not the gringo for her. I suppose I can live with that knowledge.
And then, this morning, the Belgians left. They're going to travel around Ecuador for a month, maybe spending some time at Yachana, where I have my interview, and then go back to Belgium. People here were really sorry to see them go--they brought a real rush of youthful energy to the place, and got a lot done in a short time. I'll have to follow up on at least one project, which seems to be mired in paperwork in the Colegio Tecnico, but I think it can be worked out. Meanwhile, I wonder how I will cope with my own departure, and whether or how I will find my way back. Even then, I will be on the outside again, not almost on the inside as I am now. It's a painful thought.
I confess that I found this heart-wrenching, not strictly because I will miss them, which I will. It was a real pleasure to spend time with them, partly because they're fun and energetic, and partly because they could give me some perspective on what I'm doing here. But their going reminds me that I only have another two months here, and then I will also have to leave this place where I am so at home. Where else will people call me "Naichu Michu" (that's "nice to meet you," if you didn't guess it during my previous blog entry)? Where else will I feel so well met? People here have accepted me as an odd part of the community. I'm almost not sure I have the right to leave them behind. Although the children have come a long way, they still don't speak English as well as I had hoped they would by this point. Have I delivered my end of this bargain?
So as I contemplate my job interview in the Amazon next week, I wonder if I will come back to Tolte afterwards and make a more serious effort to stay here instead. It doesn't seem right to go, but there are some aspects of my life here that are emotionally challenging. There is no one here in the same social category that I am (divorced man over 50), which makes it difficult for people to figure me out. I seem to be classed with the other single guys of Tolte, who are generally under 22 years old. So I get to play the guitar a lot, and stay out late sometimes, but I think my behavior does seem more than a bit strange to the grown-ups.
I'll return to this theme after reporting some interesting events of the week. On Tuesday, i got caught up in a community soccer game that included the school teachers, Rafael and Geraldine, and a large number of women and children. This turned out to be more my level than the distressing game I played back during the Fiesta de Tolte. By sticking to defense, I was able to compensate for my lack of skill by getting in everyone else's way. People declared me "better than one would expect," and I had fun for the first time in years playing a game that included a ball.
Wednesday I went to work to help a family where the father is recovering from a hernia operation. It seems this will take as much as a year. The man involved is the same one who, a few weeks back, carried about 50 pounds of corns from the hacienda to the center of Tolte, a physical feat I commented upon at the time. So losing his strength is a big blow for this relatively poor family. I can't say I was much compensation, but I did 6 hours of work on what was probably the steepest piece of land I have ever tried to stand on--and it was a cornfield. While Dona Sharita and Dona Lucia, both grandmothers, cut down the high weeds with machetes, I struggled to scrape out little rings around each corn or bean plants using a pick. Because the land was so steep, my back didn't hurt too much, but my feet and legs sure did. It's been a long time since I was that tired.
Thursday night was the beginning of the farewell to Rafael and Geraldine. This involved kooky games and more trago than I would like to admit, but at least I made it to school the next day. The teachers did not--although this is not because I am hardier than they, but less. I gave up about 1 in the morning, but they were still partying at 7 o'clock when school started. Geraldine commented that this was not like any professional behavior that she had ever encountered, and I'm inclined to agree. We wouldn't last long setting this kind of example in the United States or Belgium.
Friday was a healthier kind of send-off. Mario got the folk-dance kids together for their first real performance, and it was a great success. From there, he continued to play dance music until about 11 PM. We all had a great time dancing the night away, and I think Rafael and Geraldine were very happy with it all. I got to dance with the Toltenita of my dreams, but it's pretty clear that I'm not the gringo for her. I suppose I can live with that knowledge.
And then, this morning, the Belgians left. They're going to travel around Ecuador for a month, maybe spending some time at Yachana, where I have my interview, and then go back to Belgium. People here were really sorry to see them go--they brought a real rush of youthful energy to the place, and got a lot done in a short time. I'll have to follow up on at least one project, which seems to be mired in paperwork in the Colegio Tecnico, but I think it can be worked out. Meanwhile, I wonder how I will cope with my own departure, and whether or how I will find my way back. Even then, I will be on the outside again, not almost on the inside as I am now. It's a painful thought.
Monday, March 26, 2012
54
Thursday was my birthday, and now I’m 54. I remember George Carlin talking about the AM radio dial, and how 54, down at the bottom of the dial, always with a big 5 and a little 4, represented some kind of netherworld where decent radio signals do not go. And that’s where I have finally arrived. Of course, as I move into the decent part of the AM radio dial, I’ll become even more decrepit, but I suppose I’ll have to live with that trade.
The day didn’t get off to a great start. A parent complained to one of the teachers about the way I manage the computer room, instead of complaining directly to me, which is always annoying. I did catch up with her later in the day, and found, as I suspected,, that the problem was not so much one of computer room policy as difficulty managing her sons, who are a handful. We agreed that they wouldn’t have permission to go to the computer room until 6, unless I knew that they had permission to be there earlier, and that problem went away.
I won’t even dignify the other problem by describing it, but I will note that it is fortunate that bitter, selfish people are a small percentage of the world’s population—even if they seem to be in charge much of the time. What they fail to realize is that the rest of us can live perfectly well without them.
But good news also arrived. Carolina, president of AVANTI, my employer, has been talking to me about the possibility of working for the YACHANA foundation in the Amazon. I think this would be teaching work, but perhaps more focused on agricultural topics. Needless to say, working in that environment is the sort of adventure I thought I would need years of low level toil to achieve. I have an interview in the Amazon on April 8th, and will need all day the 7th to get there (and all day the 9th to get back). The last half hour of the trip will be by canoe. I’ll just let that sink in.
There was a great birthday moment during my class with the sixth graders. I mentioned that it was my birthday, and they asked how old I am. I told them that I was 54. One of the kids looked at me and asked, “So why are you such a muchacho?” I said that it was probably just because I’m so silly.
After an afternoon in the computer room, Freddy and Florencio invited me for some celebratory beer at Francisco’s store. I was a bit hesitant, because I had heard that something was brewing in my house (no, not beer, some sort of fiesta). But, looking back on things, I think they were part of the plan. So we had a few beers, and bought some more just in case, and headed for the house. You’d think, knowing as I did that something was up, that I couldn’t really be surprised. But I really was. It wasn’t so much that there was a party, but that there were about 50 people at it. They were mostly people that Narcisa must have rounded up from among the folks who work at the train station, the cafeteria people and the folk dancers. But there was also a big bunch of my school kids, for the 6-60 effect.
And what a party it was—I don’t think I’ve ever celebrated my birthday with such enthusiasm. I certainly can’t remember the last time that I spent several hours dancing, but I suspect I’d have to look back to the Peace Corps years. And it took all night, because, as the birthday person, I had to dance with every woman present (not that this was a burdensome requirement). The kids who have been taking folk dance lessons with Mario, who teaches as part of his AVANTI university scholarship, also did their thing to great effect. Most of the adults there had not seen the folk dance class, and they were really impressed, if only by how cute the kids are, and how serious they get when they’re dancing.
I also have to mention the great contribution of the Belgians, Rafael and Geraldine, to the festivities. First of all, when I got to the kitchen in the morning, they had left a loaf of bread which was a highly accurate sculpture of my face. I’ll probably laugh every time I remember this for the rest of my life. They were also outstanding party people, dancing to great and cheerful comic effect. I think that they will be leaving at the end of this week, and I’ll miss them. They’re really a lot of fun. I regret any negative thoughts I ever had about their coming, because they’ve made a wonderful impression on Tolte, and accomplished a lot in a short time.
The party continued in increasingly haphazard fashion until 2 or 3 in the morning, until I truly felt that my faraway problem really can't touch me here. It really was wonderful in every way, although getting up at 6:30 to work on Friday was not easy. And, in a fit of I’m not sure what, but probably something to do with a desire not to look as old as I now am, I went ahead and shaved off my moustache, which Allie, at least, regards as great news. If all goes well, I’ll upload the first clean shaven picture of myself since my Bar Mitzvah. Forty-one years of hirsute splendor. I suppose it will return one day, if I ever come to terms with how old I really am.
The day didn’t get off to a great start. A parent complained to one of the teachers about the way I manage the computer room, instead of complaining directly to me, which is always annoying. I did catch up with her later in the day, and found, as I suspected,, that the problem was not so much one of computer room policy as difficulty managing her sons, who are a handful. We agreed that they wouldn’t have permission to go to the computer room until 6, unless I knew that they had permission to be there earlier, and that problem went away.
I won’t even dignify the other problem by describing it, but I will note that it is fortunate that bitter, selfish people are a small percentage of the world’s population—even if they seem to be in charge much of the time. What they fail to realize is that the rest of us can live perfectly well without them.
But good news also arrived. Carolina, president of AVANTI, my employer, has been talking to me about the possibility of working for the YACHANA foundation in the Amazon. I think this would be teaching work, but perhaps more focused on agricultural topics. Needless to say, working in that environment is the sort of adventure I thought I would need years of low level toil to achieve. I have an interview in the Amazon on April 8th, and will need all day the 7th to get there (and all day the 9th to get back). The last half hour of the trip will be by canoe. I’ll just let that sink in.
There was a great birthday moment during my class with the sixth graders. I mentioned that it was my birthday, and they asked how old I am. I told them that I was 54. One of the kids looked at me and asked, “So why are you such a muchacho?” I said that it was probably just because I’m so silly.
After an afternoon in the computer room, Freddy and Florencio invited me for some celebratory beer at Francisco’s store. I was a bit hesitant, because I had heard that something was brewing in my house (no, not beer, some sort of fiesta). But, looking back on things, I think they were part of the plan. So we had a few beers, and bought some more just in case, and headed for the house. You’d think, knowing as I did that something was up, that I couldn’t really be surprised. But I really was. It wasn’t so much that there was a party, but that there were about 50 people at it. They were mostly people that Narcisa must have rounded up from among the folks who work at the train station, the cafeteria people and the folk dancers. But there was also a big bunch of my school kids, for the 6-60 effect.
And what a party it was—I don’t think I’ve ever celebrated my birthday with such enthusiasm. I certainly can’t remember the last time that I spent several hours dancing, but I suspect I’d have to look back to the Peace Corps years. And it took all night, because, as the birthday person, I had to dance with every woman present (not that this was a burdensome requirement). The kids who have been taking folk dance lessons with Mario, who teaches as part of his AVANTI university scholarship, also did their thing to great effect. Most of the adults there had not seen the folk dance class, and they were really impressed, if only by how cute the kids are, and how serious they get when they’re dancing.
I also have to mention the great contribution of the Belgians, Rafael and Geraldine, to the festivities. First of all, when I got to the kitchen in the morning, they had left a loaf of bread which was a highly accurate sculpture of my face. I’ll probably laugh every time I remember this for the rest of my life. They were also outstanding party people, dancing to great and cheerful comic effect. I think that they will be leaving at the end of this week, and I’ll miss them. They’re really a lot of fun. I regret any negative thoughts I ever had about their coming, because they’ve made a wonderful impression on Tolte, and accomplished a lot in a short time.
The party continued in increasingly haphazard fashion until 2 or 3 in the morning, until I truly felt that my faraway problem really can't touch me here. It really was wonderful in every way, although getting up at 6:30 to work on Friday was not easy. And, in a fit of I’m not sure what, but probably something to do with a desire not to look as old as I now am, I went ahead and shaved off my moustache, which Allie, at least, regards as great news. If all goes well, I’ll upload the first clean shaven picture of myself since my Bar Mitzvah. Forty-one years of hirsute splendor. I suppose it will return one day, if I ever come to terms with how old I really am.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Making It
By any measure, this must have been my most successful week in Tolte. I think the key day was Thursday, (March 8), when I got to lead off MCCH’s granja integral workshop with a talk about soil erosion and how to reduce it. I talked about the different components of soil, and how easily they could wash away, especially the living components of microorganisms and organic matter. I gave examples of different land slopes that I had seen on my farm visits, and how they could be managed so as to reduce erosion. And I demonstrated the famous 1 percent land level that I learned to build in the Peace Corps, and asked to be allowed to use it with the attendees. And since they were there, I actually made appointments to see the ones I hadn’t seen.
But this talk was only the turning point of a week that saw five adults show up to study English on Wednesday, and four more on Thursday, giving me two fourteen hour workdays in a row. And on Friday, when there was no school, I did two farm visits in the early part of the morning,, attended the community budget meeting, and then, after lunch, I finally helped Asencio dig an irrigation channel on a one-percent slope, using the famous Peace Corps level. He was so enthused that he said he was going to make his own one percent level. It is also helpful that Asencio is a well-liked leading citizen—what he does is likely to catch on. I feel like it’s an historic moment, or at least a big moment in my history here.
I also took Rafael, one half of the young Belgian couple sent here as volunteers, with me on the morning farm visits. He is an agroforestry enthusiast, and he thinks that some trees, if they are of the right type, could fit into Asencio’s plot of land (the one that I leveled later that day). The only problem is that neither of us know much about the trees of Ecuador, and we were stumped (pun, hahaha) trying to come up with the right kind of tree. As usual, the universe coughed up an incredible stroke of good fortune, when Dr. Joe Peters, former Peace Corps Ecuador forestry volunteer, decided on that very day to send me an e-mail for the heck of it. Needless to say, I immediately asked him for an appropriate agroforestry species. He hasn’t responded yet, but I still think his e-mail was exquisitely timed, as are so many things that happen here.
The other half of the Belgian couple is Geraldine. Since I was told that she was a teacher, I took her to school on Tuesday. Geraldine, like me, is a high school teacher, and she found the grade 1-2-3 class a bit overwhelming (read: horrifying). I really hope that she’ll work with the kids one or two at a time on reading. I think that might be best. Her Spanish is actually very good, but 20 kids calling for her attention at once might have been a bit too much. She and Rafael spent most of the rest of the week putting down pavers in the streets of Tolte, which is the big community project right now.
The farming thrills did not end on Friday, though. I made a bunch more appointments for Saturday, and again experienced great satisfaction. Mesias has a little piece of land behind his house/store where he wants to plant the plants that MCCH brought on Thursday. He had already taken a shot at laying out contours by eye, but I did get to use the land level with him on another small area. He has a larger piece of land lower down the mountain, and I want to get out there, too, but I was glad to have a quick start on Saturday.
I had a much longer visit with Joaquin and his son Angel (better known as “Grande,” since he is easily the biggest person in Tolte). They were plowing a wheat field with a yoke of bulls, and I took the opportunity to lay out some contour lines for them to follow. Contour plowing is an essential soil conservation practice, but not one that I’ve ever gotten to work on before. In Costa Rica, it was always terraces. Anyway, they plowed until lunch, and I took over Joaquin’s part of the job after lunch. This consisted of walking in front of the bulls holding a long stick while Angel managed the plough, a job that he says makes the bicep in the arm that guides the plough really tired. I can well imagine. Anyway, it was sort of my job to use the stick to whack the bulls on the snout to turn them around at the end of the furrow, or get them straightened out if they went off track. I wasn’t at all good at this, but Angel was surprisingly patient and I did get better over time. And I only took one head butt. The word for this in Spanish is “embestiar,” a term I find particularly satisfying due to its inclusion of “bestia,” “beast.” Angel became concerned near the end of the job that the bull was determined to really get me, and he had his very pregnant wife Gladys come down to finish the job. The bull wouldn’t dare embestiar her, believe me. If I’m feeling ambitious, I took photos of some of this contour plowing, and you’ll also get a glimpse of Joaquin, who has been mentioned in quite a few of these entries.
It was now much later than I expected, about 4 in the afternoon, but I went after one more visit with Cristian, one of the AVANTI becarios who has not had enough money beyond the AVANTI grant to continue his studies, his wife, Laura, who actually was the one who invited me to visit, and their little boy, Ariel, who looks so much like Laura that seeing them together makes me laugh out loud. I learned only this week that Cristian is only 21 and Laura a mere 19, which produced more culture shock than it should have. In any case, they took me down to pieces of land owned by Laura’s grandmother and Cristian’s father. Cristian’s father’s land was a very micely laid out orchard, with ample spacing between trees and the healthiest looking trees and fruit that I have seen here, which I think shows the importance of adequate spacing, an idea I have been trying to deliver for a while.
While the orchard was quite nice, the piece of land belonging to Laura’s grandmother was absolutely fascinating. The land is incredibly steep—we seemed to be descending into another world. But the otherworldy effect was compounded by the incredible mix of fruit trees and ground crops that covered the hillside. It was like being in a food jungle, or “food forest,” as the permaculturists say. It appears that Laura’s uncle and grandmother cooked up this way of working more or less by chance, starting with small fruit trees and planting other crops to cover the soil and give some kind of yield in the meantime. The result is that this farm produces citrus, avocadoes, bananas (very unusual here), spinach, parsley, chamomile, and dozens of other medicinal and leafy ground plants. I wish everyone in Tolte could have a farm like this. I know that Rafael will be thrilled when he sees it, and spend the rest of his time here trying to figure out why no one else works this way.
This week will see me out on more farms, doing the best I can to save Tolte’s soil, as I also teach English to as many people as possible. This is why I insisted that AVANTI give me nine months—it has taken me six just to get to this point, and I think I could be really effective for at least another six. But I’ll settle for the remaining three. On the other hand, people are starting to ask me to look for a way to stay here, and I’m considering it. Life here is, after all, really good. And now I’m off to jam Ecuadorean music with Don Luis. Music, soil, teaching—it’s true, there isn’t much else to want, except a predictable salary based on recognizable work. And maybe that’s attainable…
Ah, I didn’t post this right away, and now more things that are closely related have happened, so I’ll just toss them in. Rafael and Geraldine went to the Colegio Tecnico with Carlos on Monday, and met with the Forestry teacher there. He has a nice little tree nursery, and he immediately offered to show up with a bunch of students and plant the windbreak, with a few agroforestry trees for shade in the middle of the field. He wanted to come today (Friday, March 16), but the directora of the colegio put the kibosh on that. No, the students were too busy this week, and next week is exams, so we’re inviting them for the week of the 26th. I’ve also asked them for enough trees for a piece of land where I proposed a windbreak a couple of weeks ago. We also had to write a letter officially requesting the trees in the name of AVANTI. Elvia is now correcting our crudely worded letter into the excruciating official language of such letters, and we hope to get it to the school by means of one of the students on Monday. I have to admit, I’m enjoying having Rafael and Geraldine around. First of all, they strike people as even more “gringo” than I do, probably only because they’re newer. They’re also fun to be around, and know how to get things done. I really shouldn’t have questioned their arrival.
Also, two things make me notice the passage of time. The first is that my computer has informed me that Daylight Savings Time has returned to the United States. I suppose that means that I’ve been here a while, since I was already here when Daylight Savings time ended in the fall. Also, the weather seems to be changing, perhaps prematurely. We know longer have daily fog and rain, although the rainy season is not due to end until the beginning of May. I hope that we’re not looking at a drought, or all the trees in the windbreak will be reduced to withered sticks.
But this talk was only the turning point of a week that saw five adults show up to study English on Wednesday, and four more on Thursday, giving me two fourteen hour workdays in a row. And on Friday, when there was no school, I did two farm visits in the early part of the morning,, attended the community budget meeting, and then, after lunch, I finally helped Asencio dig an irrigation channel on a one-percent slope, using the famous Peace Corps level. He was so enthused that he said he was going to make his own one percent level. It is also helpful that Asencio is a well-liked leading citizen—what he does is likely to catch on. I feel like it’s an historic moment, or at least a big moment in my history here.
I also took Rafael, one half of the young Belgian couple sent here as volunteers, with me on the morning farm visits. He is an agroforestry enthusiast, and he thinks that some trees, if they are of the right type, could fit into Asencio’s plot of land (the one that I leveled later that day). The only problem is that neither of us know much about the trees of Ecuador, and we were stumped (pun, hahaha) trying to come up with the right kind of tree. As usual, the universe coughed up an incredible stroke of good fortune, when Dr. Joe Peters, former Peace Corps Ecuador forestry volunteer, decided on that very day to send me an e-mail for the heck of it. Needless to say, I immediately asked him for an appropriate agroforestry species. He hasn’t responded yet, but I still think his e-mail was exquisitely timed, as are so many things that happen here.
The other half of the Belgian couple is Geraldine. Since I was told that she was a teacher, I took her to school on Tuesday. Geraldine, like me, is a high school teacher, and she found the grade 1-2-3 class a bit overwhelming (read: horrifying). I really hope that she’ll work with the kids one or two at a time on reading. I think that might be best. Her Spanish is actually very good, but 20 kids calling for her attention at once might have been a bit too much. She and Rafael spent most of the rest of the week putting down pavers in the streets of Tolte, which is the big community project right now.
The farming thrills did not end on Friday, though. I made a bunch more appointments for Saturday, and again experienced great satisfaction. Mesias has a little piece of land behind his house/store where he wants to plant the plants that MCCH brought on Thursday. He had already taken a shot at laying out contours by eye, but I did get to use the land level with him on another small area. He has a larger piece of land lower down the mountain, and I want to get out there, too, but I was glad to have a quick start on Saturday.
I had a much longer visit with Joaquin and his son Angel (better known as “Grande,” since he is easily the biggest person in Tolte). They were plowing a wheat field with a yoke of bulls, and I took the opportunity to lay out some contour lines for them to follow. Contour plowing is an essential soil conservation practice, but not one that I’ve ever gotten to work on before. In Costa Rica, it was always terraces. Anyway, they plowed until lunch, and I took over Joaquin’s part of the job after lunch. This consisted of walking in front of the bulls holding a long stick while Angel managed the plough, a job that he says makes the bicep in the arm that guides the plough really tired. I can well imagine. Anyway, it was sort of my job to use the stick to whack the bulls on the snout to turn them around at the end of the furrow, or get them straightened out if they went off track. I wasn’t at all good at this, but Angel was surprisingly patient and I did get better over time. And I only took one head butt. The word for this in Spanish is “embestiar,” a term I find particularly satisfying due to its inclusion of “bestia,” “beast.” Angel became concerned near the end of the job that the bull was determined to really get me, and he had his very pregnant wife Gladys come down to finish the job. The bull wouldn’t dare embestiar her, believe me. If I’m feeling ambitious, I took photos of some of this contour plowing, and you’ll also get a glimpse of Joaquin, who has been mentioned in quite a few of these entries.
Angel with the contour level
Joaquin and Angel and the Tolte Bulls
It was now much later than I expected, about 4 in the afternoon, but I went after one more visit with Cristian, one of the AVANTI becarios who has not had enough money beyond the AVANTI grant to continue his studies, his wife, Laura, who actually was the one who invited me to visit, and their little boy, Ariel, who looks so much like Laura that seeing them together makes me laugh out loud. I learned only this week that Cristian is only 21 and Laura a mere 19, which produced more culture shock than it should have. In any case, they took me down to pieces of land owned by Laura’s grandmother and Cristian’s father. Cristian’s father’s land was a very micely laid out orchard, with ample spacing between trees and the healthiest looking trees and fruit that I have seen here, which I think shows the importance of adequate spacing, an idea I have been trying to deliver for a while.
While the orchard was quite nice, the piece of land belonging to Laura’s grandmother was absolutely fascinating. The land is incredibly steep—we seemed to be descending into another world. But the otherworldy effect was compounded by the incredible mix of fruit trees and ground crops that covered the hillside. It was like being in a food jungle, or “food forest,” as the permaculturists say. It appears that Laura’s uncle and grandmother cooked up this way of working more or less by chance, starting with small fruit trees and planting other crops to cover the soil and give some kind of yield in the meantime. The result is that this farm produces citrus, avocadoes, bananas (very unusual here), spinach, parsley, chamomile, and dozens of other medicinal and leafy ground plants. I wish everyone in Tolte could have a farm like this. I know that Rafael will be thrilled when he sees it, and spend the rest of his time here trying to figure out why no one else works this way.
This week will see me out on more farms, doing the best I can to save Tolte’s soil, as I also teach English to as many people as possible. This is why I insisted that AVANTI give me nine months—it has taken me six just to get to this point, and I think I could be really effective for at least another six. But I’ll settle for the remaining three. On the other hand, people are starting to ask me to look for a way to stay here, and I’m considering it. Life here is, after all, really good. And now I’m off to jam Ecuadorean music with Don Luis. Music, soil, teaching—it’s true, there isn’t much else to want, except a predictable salary based on recognizable work. And maybe that’s attainable…
Ah, I didn’t post this right away, and now more things that are closely related have happened, so I’ll just toss them in. Rafael and Geraldine went to the Colegio Tecnico with Carlos on Monday, and met with the Forestry teacher there. He has a nice little tree nursery, and he immediately offered to show up with a bunch of students and plant the windbreak, with a few agroforestry trees for shade in the middle of the field. He wanted to come today (Friday, March 16), but the directora of the colegio put the kibosh on that. No, the students were too busy this week, and next week is exams, so we’re inviting them for the week of the 26th. I’ve also asked them for enough trees for a piece of land where I proposed a windbreak a couple of weeks ago. We also had to write a letter officially requesting the trees in the name of AVANTI. Elvia is now correcting our crudely worded letter into the excruciating official language of such letters, and we hope to get it to the school by means of one of the students on Monday. I have to admit, I’m enjoying having Rafael and Geraldine around. First of all, they strike people as even more “gringo” than I do, probably only because they’re newer. They’re also fun to be around, and know how to get things done. I really shouldn’t have questioned their arrival.
Also, two things make me notice the passage of time. The first is that my computer has informed me that Daylight Savings Time has returned to the United States. I suppose that means that I’ve been here a while, since I was already here when Daylight Savings time ended in the fall. Also, the weather seems to be changing, perhaps prematurely. We know longer have daily fog and rain, although the rainy season is not due to end until the beginning of May. I hope that we’re not looking at a drought, or all the trees in the windbreak will be reduced to withered sticks.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
The Belgians are coming
There has been little worth reporting since Carnaval. Things have mostly been a steady routine as I enter the last trimester of my time in Tolte. Three months from today, I'll be on a plane to New York. heaven knows what happens after that. But the time here passes ever more quickly, and I'm definitely feeling a need to wrap up the school year in style.
But on Wednesday, Tolte experienced a death in the family. Although I feel that I know almost everyone here by now, I'm not at all sure that I knew the deceased. Certainly, I don't recognize his name; people called him "Cabo." But there are many people here that I still don't know by name, or by the name that people actually use. On the other hand, he was the brother of at least three people whom I know pretty well, and uncle to a whole lot more, so he certainly had his place in the sun. He was only 64, and seems to have died from falling in such a way that he fractured his skull. People wree talking about this accident quite a bit, but I can't say I captured all the details.
I was invited to join the grave digging crew on Friday afternoon, though I confess that I didn't do any of the digging. There were more capable diggers available, for one thing, including Reccion and Damasio, one of the Segundos, and an old fellow I see every day but still don't know his name. Others were present and not digging either, but all of us were helped along by modest doses of trago. As the garve was being dug, we all commented, as farmers will, on the richness of the soil. Damasio felt that there were decomposed remains in what we were digging, that the whole cemetery has been filled and refilled several times over, though there aren't that many grave markers. I discussed the idea that, in the end, we are neither more nor less than good fertilizer: humbling, yes, but not worthless. There was also a brief discussion of the concept of gay marriage, which is overwhelmingly alien to Tolte. The participants in this discussion weren't quite sure that gay people actually exist, though I have my suspicions that gay people are hidden right in the midst of Tolte. All I can say is, they're all going to need more time.
While I was up at the gravesite, I got one of my extremely rare calls from Carolina. After asking how things are going, she announced that a married couple from Belgium is coming to Tolte as volunteers, and would I please find things for them to do? The woman is a teacher, and the man is an agronomist. Also, could I find out if they can live in the house I live in, in spite of the fact that we're crazily in arrears on the rent.
I have to say I received this news with mixed feelings. I often do feel alone, though less so lately. Introducing two more foreigners into this situation, especially two whose skills overlap (and my fears say, "overshadow") my own makes me uncomfortable at the personal level. On the other hand, the idea is to deliver as much support and development to Tolte as possible. So if I really am devoted to Tolte's well-being, I have to do everything in my power to make sure these people are busy all the time. In fact, I think the woman will be a welcome addition to the K-1-2-3 class, where I do not work, or the day care center, which has little or nothing resembling an educational program. She can also teach reading, and I could open up both the library and the computer room every day.
The agronomist's situation is more complicated. There is no structured work for him, but I know plenty of people whose fruit trees need either pruning or disease control or both. The truth is that if he works on plants, and encourages people to have me look at their soils, we can probably get more done than I can alone. But I am still getting invitations to look at people's land and offer up farm plans, so I don't think he'll push me out of a job, at least not entirely.
I suppose there are more positives than negatives in this, much as I hate to share my adventure. I will meet Belgians for the first time in my life, and they must be people of good will, because, unlike me, they are here at their own expense. I do believe that the three of us can do more than I can alone. And I can put, "Supervised international volunteers" as a resume line under my Tolte experience.
But on Wednesday, Tolte experienced a death in the family. Although I feel that I know almost everyone here by now, I'm not at all sure that I knew the deceased. Certainly, I don't recognize his name; people called him "Cabo." But there are many people here that I still don't know by name, or by the name that people actually use. On the other hand, he was the brother of at least three people whom I know pretty well, and uncle to a whole lot more, so he certainly had his place in the sun. He was only 64, and seems to have died from falling in such a way that he fractured his skull. People wree talking about this accident quite a bit, but I can't say I captured all the details.
I was invited to join the grave digging crew on Friday afternoon, though I confess that I didn't do any of the digging. There were more capable diggers available, for one thing, including Reccion and Damasio, one of the Segundos, and an old fellow I see every day but still don't know his name. Others were present and not digging either, but all of us were helped along by modest doses of trago. As the garve was being dug, we all commented, as farmers will, on the richness of the soil. Damasio felt that there were decomposed remains in what we were digging, that the whole cemetery has been filled and refilled several times over, though there aren't that many grave markers. I discussed the idea that, in the end, we are neither more nor less than good fertilizer: humbling, yes, but not worthless. There was also a brief discussion of the concept of gay marriage, which is overwhelmingly alien to Tolte. The participants in this discussion weren't quite sure that gay people actually exist, though I have my suspicions that gay people are hidden right in the midst of Tolte. All I can say is, they're all going to need more time.
While I was up at the gravesite, I got one of my extremely rare calls from Carolina. After asking how things are going, she announced that a married couple from Belgium is coming to Tolte as volunteers, and would I please find things for them to do? The woman is a teacher, and the man is an agronomist. Also, could I find out if they can live in the house I live in, in spite of the fact that we're crazily in arrears on the rent.
I have to say I received this news with mixed feelings. I often do feel alone, though less so lately. Introducing two more foreigners into this situation, especially two whose skills overlap (and my fears say, "overshadow") my own makes me uncomfortable at the personal level. On the other hand, the idea is to deliver as much support and development to Tolte as possible. So if I really am devoted to Tolte's well-being, I have to do everything in my power to make sure these people are busy all the time. In fact, I think the woman will be a welcome addition to the K-1-2-3 class, where I do not work, or the day care center, which has little or nothing resembling an educational program. She can also teach reading, and I could open up both the library and the computer room every day.
The agronomist's situation is more complicated. There is no structured work for him, but I know plenty of people whose fruit trees need either pruning or disease control or both. The truth is that if he works on plants, and encourages people to have me look at their soils, we can probably get more done than I can alone. But I am still getting invitations to look at people's land and offer up farm plans, so I don't think he'll push me out of a job, at least not entirely.
I suppose there are more positives than negatives in this, much as I hate to share my adventure. I will meet Belgians for the first time in my life, and they must be people of good will, because, unlike me, they are here at their own expense. I do believe that the three of us can do more than I can alone. And I can put, "Supervised international volunteers" as a resume line under my Tolte experience.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Que bonito is Carnaval
I have decided to try to keep a running log of the events of Carnaval, which seems to be an exciting time in the world of Tolte. Carnaval includes the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. An important difference is that here in Tolte, we don’t have enough people for a parade. It appears that in most of Ecuador, Carnaval is celebrated by splashing your friends and neighbors with water and/or flour, and sometimes foam or paint. Since the weather is usually pretty misty and cold, I have some trouble grasping the desire to experience this, or why it’s considered fun, but there you go. Time to tune up my cultural sensitivity.
Thursday, February 16: The school day ended early in a massive water fight, leading into the school vacation which runs from Friday to Wednesday. I did take most of one water balloon, but it didn’t seem enough to change my clothes over. Well, mostly—I did go and get a different sweater.
More exciting events occurred during the evening, because Carnaval is also trago season, and some pretty serious drinking was going on last night. This led to a fight which half of Tolte ran up to watch. One of the young guys cut another with a bottle, although the cut was (fortunately) not too deep. The fight was stopped, but the drinking continued. This was fortunate for me, as I needed to recover from a sad and stressful skype call. As soon as I emerged from the call, I was offered a few rounds of trago. I can’t say it helped, and it left more sort of queasy, but I did appreciate the fact that I wasn’t alone. I helped to carry one of the revelers home (people seem to love it when I do this), and was still in bed by 10:30.
Friday, February 17: School is closed, which is always tough for me because I don’t have a lot else to do here, and I’m still recovering from my skyping. But the sun is shining, and the first thing I did was wash my clothes, which were actually dry by the afternoon, something that hasn’t happened in a couple of months. Then I put on my rubber boots and went looking for work. Once again, I ran into Diego, on his way once again to try and rescue his little truck, which couldn’t make it up the muddy, slippery hill yesterday. We still couldn’t get it moving, but he did invite me to pick up an azadon and go weed the cornfield with him. His mother, one of the best local herbal medicine practitioners, gave me some running commentary on the uses of various herbs and weeds as we hacked them up (though she did save quite a few). She recommended ortiga, stinging nettle, as a tea for my chronically irritated digestive system. I’m tempted to try it. Later, I did use ortiga on my lower back, which always takes the worst of the azadon. It certainly didn’t make anything worse, but it did prevent the continued work from leaving me pretty sore in that area. The weather continued bright and sunny, but not uncomfortable, as we worked along—again, the nicest day in almost three months. I even got lunch out of the deal, which is always a plus, and was nicely distracted until after 2, when I went home to get ready to open the computer room for the Friday afternoon moviefest. No, it’s not educational, but it’s a helpful prize for the kids’ reading time in the library.
Saturday, February 18: This is my big chance. An organization that promotes community based tourism, Maquita Cushunchac, better (and more conveniently) known as MCCH, has started a program of granjas integrales, or holistic farms, with the goal of making them points of interest for tourists. They were hoping for 20 participants; I think we have 11. I have attached myself to this project as much as I could with the hope of doing some farm planning and soil conservation work, as in the old Peace Corps days. But I’m also armed with new Permaculture knowledge and thousands of stored pages of organic gardening information that I hope will be helpful. My main ideas are to encourage the farmers to plant on the contour, maybe even build bench terraces, and rotate their crops and farming activities. Fruit trees are popular and profitable here, so those won’t be rotating, but maybe I can either use them as contour lines or integrate them in some other way into the total farm plan. If I can get a couple of farmers to try my ideas, I think it could be very helpful in terms of whatever my next job will be, and that’s not as far into the future as it once was.
I got to see two of the pieces of land I planned to see, and one I didn’t, so I think that went pretty well. I walked down with Joaquin to the piece of land that he already has planted in fruit trees. His major problem is a fungus that has attacked just about all of his trees, probably aided by the fact that they are planted too close together. I’m not sure how much I can do for him, given that fruit trees are pretty permanent and can be easily moved. I encouraged him to try organic methods of fungus control, but I think the situation is probably too much in need of an immediate remedy to be solved that way without a significant economic loss. Organic farming works best when you start from the ground up, and this piece of land is already sort of locked in.
I went on to see Juan’s piece of land nearby—at least I hope I did, because he wasn’t there, and I was working off neighbors’ directions. This is more interesting, because it isn’t totally set. Part of the land is in fruit trees, and part in row crops. About three quarters of the space is very steep, and should all be in trees, but the remaining quarter is fairly level, and could be laid out nicely on contour. When I see him, I’ll let him know.
The last piece of land belonged to Jose Manuel, secret guitarist and owner of the nearly tropical piece of land I saw during the Fiesta de Tolte. This land, too, was already plants in fruit trees, and is pretty well set, though he has similar plant disease problems to Joaquin’s. But I suggested that we could lay out irrigation canals on the contour, and he thought that sounded pretty good. We’ll have to see how that goes.
So today produced nothing tangible, but I think there’s a little interest, and some level of taking me seriously in this role. I think people have it pretty clearly in mind that I’m the English teacher, and can’t quite grasp that I’m actually trained to be something else. But this is the best I’ve done in the agriculture world since Costa Rica, I think, and there’s a chance something good will happen.
I finished the afternoon/early evening off watching Mario teach folk dancing to the school kids. This has been my most successful idea for something for an AVANTI grant winner to do, probably because Mario is a good teacher, folk dance expert, and just generally responsible. It’s certainly none of my doing, but I’m glad I suggested that this is what he do. The kids are surprisingly into the dances—it’s not like square dancing in gym class when I was a child. One of them has the potential to be a real tourist attraction—he’s a fifth grader who’s about the size of a second grader, very cute, and is probably the best of the kid dancers. During the school vacation in July and August, I have the feeling that he could be stealing the show down at the train station. In a selfish way, I was relieved to see that Mario also felt compelled to call a meeting with the kids about their behavior. I’m not the only one they misbehave for—though I’m surprised they misbehave for Mario, who is the same sort of cool young man as the classroom teachers they do behave for. I’ve been here almost six months, and I’m still not sure how to get the moving in the same direction. This might be more of a problem in dance than it is in English.
Saturday, Feb. 18: The day started with a good, though somewhat slippery, run through the muddy streets of Tolte. I had hoped that yesterday’s bright sunshine would dry the roads out a bit, but it rained overnight, and things were sort of sloppy. But my running has improved, and I’m glad I decided to break social convention and start doing it. Although people find it unusual, they seem to feel that it’s a good thing to do.
A pause now for news of something gross. Sensitive persons should skip the following paragraph.
As I’ve mentioned, the rainy season weather here is cool and damp. I have noticed mold growing on all sorts of things inside my room, including things I have not touched or soiled in any way. The air is just that soggy. The topper was this morning, when I noticed some mold on my pillow case. I took the pillow case off to wash it, and found that the pillow itself was loaded with block mold. I sure hope ‘ve been sleeping on the other side of the pillow, which was not as bad. I think I’ll try to buy a new pillow in Chunchi today.
Chunchi promises to be exciting today. The Tolte team is playing a soccer game, and there will be Carnaval water fights all over town. I’m going to try to stay dry, because the weather is cloudy and chilly. But I’m going to take my chances and find out how things go.
And now that I’m back from Chunchi, I can say that I took a fair amount of water, shaving-cream like foam, and some colored powder smeared on my face, because I wandered up and down the streets of Chunchi with the futbolistas. The game never happened because the other team failed to show up, which was a shame, because it was going to be on a real field with grass instead of the “indoor” games on the small cement plazas. So off we went, armed (wel,, not me, I just can’t quite be that way) with these big cans that spray foam, up and down the streets of Chunchi. Just as Halloween in the US, girls take the worst of this sort of thing, but I saw some girls dishing it out pretty well. As I said, I took a certain amount of everything, but it wasn’t too bad, because I didn’t get soaking wet and the sun did break through mid-day. I never did get lunch, but I did get a new pillow, which might be more important. I also drank a few shots of trago with Augustin, always a dangerous game, but I managed to avoid total inebriation. Of course, people are drinking beer and playing with water up the road. I don’t think I’ll tell you whether I attended or not.
Monday, February 20: So I’m not going to say whether I attended, but I will say that I felt a bit queasy this morning. And this was not great because I had more appointments to visit farms for conservation planning today. The first one was with my friend Mesias at 8 o’clock. At 7:49, I headed up to the road to his store, but Don Juan, in a highly festive state, was going the other way. He grabbed me and insisted on taking me to his house, which is in the opposite direction. Along the way, he bought some trago. I have to say that the smell alone as it was being poured out was almost too much for me. He wanted me to drink some, but I just had to refuse. I felt like the bank examiner in WC Fields’ “The Bank Dick.”
At Don Juan’s house, he insisted on giving me mote con cuero (corn with fried pigskin) for breakfast. I can’t say I ate much, but I did the best I could. Several of his children live in Cuenca, but they were home for Carnaval, and the atmosphere was certainly festive. Many people here live apart from one or more family members, and it seems to be very hard on them. More on that later.
Anyway, by the time I headed up to Mesias’ place again, it was 9, and he wasn’t there. In a scene out of my Peace Corps experience, he had forgotten and gone to Gonzol, a town on the way to Alausi, and wouldn’t be back until late. This was not a critical problem for me, as I had other farms to see, but I had been sort of counting on him to direct me to Josefina, who is someone I know less well. But I decided to go ahead down to the “hacienda” anyway. This may have been a test of whether the universe is still taking care of me as it did on the day I had to deliver the bottle of trago to Joaquin. And, of course, it is.
In a fit of bravery, I decided to take the trail described in the episode title “Acrophobia.” I have now gone up and down that path a couple of more times, and I figured it was time I handled it alone. Everything was going fine until I came to a small landslide that more or less blocked the trail. I hesitated to cross it, because I wasn’t sure if the rocks would start rolling or not. But going back up and around seemed out of the question, so I sort of crawled around the rock pile until I was back on the path again, and then things were fine. I had been told that Josefina was in a particular spot that is along the road, after the trail ends. So imagine my astonishment when I looked up and saw her and her sons hoeing weeds out of a pea patch on a piece of very steep land above my head. If I hadn’t taken that trail, I never would have found her. And she, too, had forgotten that I was coming. But she gave me her youngest son as a guide to the land she wanted me to look at, and I got to complete the appointment.
Even better, as the boy and I were walking along, I ran into Baltazar and Philomena, whose land I was supposed to look at on Tuesday, which I was afraid might be complicated by Carnaval. They seemed very interested in my suggestions for farm planning, and I have an appointment to see them Thursday evening to come up with a design. That level of commitment is a real thrill, just one step removed from putting pick and shovel into the ground.
We continued along the road and I got a look at Josefina’s land, which also has a pretty strong slope. She is already using a kind of contour ditching for irrigation, but I told her son that I’d like to use a level to lay it out in a more refined way, with a known grade. My friends in Costa Rica really liked using terraces because it made irrigation a lot easier and more certain, so I’m hoping I can sell that aspect to everyone here as well. And I do mean everyone, because I also took a look at Belena’s farm, which I have seen several times before, and the idea of terracing also seemed the obvious solution there.
I had heard that Jose Manuel’s land was downhill from Belena’s, so I walked to the bottom of her farm to see if I could figure out where it was. Don Lucho was down there spraying something from a backpack pump—I suspect it was herbicide. I was considering asking him where to look when Jose Manuel himself came walking by, and took me directly to the spot I needed to see. (Was the universe taking care of me, or what?) The lower half of the land is planted in fruit trees, but the upper half is row crops and a very small fish pond that he wants to expand. Again, I explained how terraces could help, and suggested that he expand the fish pond along the contour, instead of downslope, so that it would hold more water with less digging. He seems very eager to do work of this kind, but he is always saying that he doesn’t have enough time to do everything he wants to do. I did explain that I only have a few months left here. We’ll see if this work gets done during that time.
I had promised myself that I would take the main road back home, but Jose was carrying a big load of corn back to his house, and I sort of felt like I had to go back the way I had come. He had hoped to get a ride, but there were no cars, probably because of Carnaval. So he hoisted what had to be at least 50 bulky pounds on his shoulder, and walked the trail that still scares me with it. The resulting display of physical endurance was little short of amazing to me, perhaps outdoing the remarkable feats of strength performed by Mr. M.I. of Colliersville, NY. When he got to the landslide, he simply walked over it. I sort of crawled in his footsteps. Later, one of his daughters carried her four-year-old over the same spot, perfectly upright. All I can say is that I just do the best I can.
I got home and changed for a Carnaval party at the home of Don Sauce, also known as Luis, Fredi’s father. This was a big family event, because (if I understand the family relations correctly, and I’m not sure I do), his brother-in-law Alfredo, who appears to be the baby of a family with maybe half a dozen sisters, came home this week from England. He had been there eleven years, and his mother and one of his sisters had mentioned to me how difficult this was for them and for him. As I mentioned before, this business of having a family member far away is especially difficult in a place where such a premium is placed on family ties. Anyway, Alfredo’s mother was just about glowing. It was nice to be there.
As you might imagine from the story of Ramon’s homecoming in November, there was fritada to be eaten and vast amounts of alcohol to be consumed. I was given a pass on trago, but I still had to deal with a fair amount of beer. Also, in another Carnaval tradition, we all had our faces smeared with cornstarch, so we looked a bit like clowns (me probably a bit more than most). I kept waiting for the Carnaval singing to start. I had brought my guitar along and had a pretty clear idea of how to do the Carnaval music. Some time playing along with the Carnaval music playing on the stereo helped. But I didn’t really get to play until a couple of groups of Carnavaleros came by. This is a sort of trick-or-treat tradition, where groups of kids or adults come to your door and sing Carnaval songs, and receive food (and liquor, if they’re adults) for their pains. I had been showing some of the kids, and Alfredo’s sister, how to play Carnaval music on the guitar, when Luis finally broke out a little electronic keyboard and we got down to business—sort of, because everyone was pretty inebriated by then. Luis and I have played together before, but haven’t done so recently. I picked up what he was doing right away, and then we had some classic Carnaval singing, with lyrics ranging from the religious to the ribald. Unfortunately, we didn’t last too long—food and drink soon knocked almost everyone unconscious, but not before Luis’ compadre told me a detailed story of how he travelled illegally to work in the United States. It was pretty frightful, and indicates the level of desperation involved for the people who make the trip. It doesn’t give me a clear idea of what to do about the immigration problem, but it does make one wonder about a country that is so much richer than its neighbors and shares so little with them.
As I wandered home, a came across Mario and the other Fredi, and Fredi’s brother Guido, (in from Cuenca because Fredi and Guido are sons of Don Juan), who were drinking trago and playing the guitar. I played with them for a while, including a few songs in English, just to top the evening off. The air was pretty chilly, but it was nice to sing in the dark. I talked with Guido a bit about life in Cuenca, and he invited me to visit him there. Maybe I will—as we know, Cuenca’s pretty cool, even for a stranger. It might be cooler with someone who knows his way around.
Carnaval, February 21: The day got off to a quiet start. I guess everyone is recovering from yesterday and preparing for today. I got up and did some laundry, because although it’s still quite cold, the sky is bright and my clothes might actually dry. I ate breakfast with Narcisa and Jose, and Narcisa invited me to Belena’s house for lunch. That should be cheerful, and should still leave me plenty of time to get wet and go singing tonight, if I can find a crew to sing with. I also need to find a rope to hold my guitar up.
During the morning, I tried to scout a crew to sing with. Diego likes to sing, so I stopped by his house to see what his plans were. He wasn’t there when I got there, but his sisters and sister-in-law chatted me up while everyone got ready for hog slaughter and butchery, one of my favorite pastimes in Tolte. Because I had an invitation to lunch, I didn’t stay for the butchery, but I did lend a hand in the slaughter, which, as usual, was not as quick as one might hope. I stayed long enough to see the hair blowtorched off the poor beast, and then headed towards Belena’s house. Along the way, I had some trago pressed upon me by a guy I once met from Iltus, who was riding with a bunch of friends to Nariz del Diablo. Their arrival in the plaza produced a hilarious water fight—the women of Tolte, particularly those from near my house (which is near the plaza) really gave them a bath. Right after that, Francisco drove up with about twenty teen-aged (and would be teen-aged) boys in his truck, and a case of beer on the front seat. While I was drinking the beer he thrust upon me, I took my own shower, which was enough to mean that I had to change my shirt and sweater, but I toughed out the wet pants.
In case you think that all this drinking and the rural lifestyle has no consequences, I’ll report the following disturbing incident in vague terms. Remember that there is no police force here, and domestic problems are generally perceived as personal, not social. A very drunk woman came down the hill toward the truck, where she found her husband, a man old enough to know better and one of the famous drinkers of Tolte. She seemed to be complaining that he hadn’t taken care of the animals, and trying to catch his arm to drag him home, when he simply slapped her to the ground. People seemed to feel badly, and helped her to her feet and so on, but no one (including me) actually did anything. I do feel guilty about this, but I don’t have the stature to be the conscience of Tolte, because as a gringo most of my ideas are suspect—or the strength to confront the offending husband, a man who truly resembles Popeye: smallish, but extremely tough and strong. I report this so that you can understand that Tolte is not Shangri-La, or some place I have invented, but a real rural community with the attendant problems produced by alcoholism, limited education, isolated poverty, and a traditional culture. Of course, any suggestions as to what I might do in the aftermath would certainly be appreciated.
I went home and hung up my wet clothing, and headed for Belena’s house where I was expected for lunch. Don Juan was there, in even worse condition than he had been yesterday morning, along with his wife, and Narcisa and some of her sisters. Don Juan is apparently their uncle, a relationship I had kind of suspected but wasn’t clear on. Massive amount of food were served, starting with chicken soup loaded with a big piece of chicken, and followed by cuy and chicken with potatoes and rice. Chicha and trago were also being offered. I really didn’t have enough appetite for the situation, but I was certainly impressed with the way Narcisa and her sisters put away their food. I’ll say this: I’ve never seen a woman in Tolte turn down food or complain that too much was served. They tuck in with a will. In some cases this is because farming certainly gives one an appetite, but not all of these women are farmers. I suppose it goes without saying that women here tend to look somewhat more maternal than they do in New York. Don’t forget that they’re also tremendously strong.
Not too long after lunch, I heard music from the little adobe building where Luis plays with the pick-up band of which I am a some-time member. Figuring that this would be a good chance to get my musical evening started, I picked up my guitar and headed over. I guess that six months of hearing local music has made it easier for me to understand what is happening when they play. For example, I realized that Luis generally only plays in the key of F minor, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. It is also rare for a song to have more than two or three chords—four is probably a maximum. I also found that after listening to Luis run through the melodies on the keyboard a few times, I could pick them out (more or less) on the guitar. Juan Carlos loaned me a neck strap to play the guitar standing up, which turned out to be a great help later in the evening. I guess we did about two hours before Luis went home and Juan Carlos and I went up to Mesias’ store to find a singing group.
The singing group wound up being five or six people, all young men except for one old gringo. The weather was a misty drizzle, and made me think a bit of “A Christmas Carol.” The first place we stopped was at Narcisa’s house, where I eat lunch. I was a little unsure how she would take the sudden appearance of half a dozen drunken revelers at her door, but it turned out that she was tremendously amused by the sight of me playing guitar with this group. She was a generous Carnaval host, too, handing out Zhumir (trago manufactured under actual distillery conditions, quite a bit milder than the real thing) and cuy con mote. We also passed by Diego’s family’s house, where I had helped to kill the pig in morning, and were treated to some of the animal (cooked now, of course). The big party, though turned out to be right near my house, in a little adobe house below the level of the street that belongs to the grandmother of two families’ worth of my students. I had passed it every day, but never been inside. All I can say was that it sure looked like a fiesta, twenty or thirty people packed into a tiny space drinking and singing bawdy Carnaval verses back and forth between men and women. Belena turned out to be especially good at this—she definitely had an edge in experience over the members of my group. I played the guitar for this activity until my fingers got numb, and then played some more. I’m certainly glad that I managed to pick up the Carnaval music before Carnaval was over. I really felt mixed into the middle of a Tolte house party.
Again, I feel compelled to mention that all was not entirely festive in this fiesta. Late at night, when almost everyone else had left, the mother of two of my students talked to me about her concern for her cousin, offering more evidence of domestic violence in Tolte. She also talked about how her husband had been in Spain for the past seven years, but in contrast to most of the situations I have heard of like this, he has abandoned his family in Tolte and has left her alone to support four children ranging in age from 9 to 13. I can’t really imagine how she gets by. I know she worked as a cook in Cuenca for a couple of months, but seems to be back to farming in Tolte since about a month ago. As always, this is an adventure for me, but a real hard life for many of the people who live here.
And that was Carnaval in Tolte, 2012 edition. In some ways, it really was even more festive than the Fiesta de Tolte, maybe because it was for Tolte alone, instead of all of the surrounding communities. There is a kind of wild joy in all of the soaking with water in the cold weather, the smearing of everyone’s faces with cornstarch and colored powder, and the massive consumption of food and drink. There's a verse in the Carnaval song that says, "If Carnaval were to die, the world would end." It’s Mardi Gras without the upholstery, combined with Halloween and Thanksgiving. And Easter is only 40 days away.
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