Long arm of the future

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?