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.