Lunch in Alausi

What with one thing and another, Avanti hasn’t had a chance to pay me my monthly salary yet. Since I don’t have an Ecuadorian bank account, direct deposit is out of the question . That’s too bad, because I have always been quite dedicated to direct deposit back home. But getting to the bank is sort of an ordeal, and I have asked them to pay me in cash. This requires that Angus bring my salary with him when he comes down from Quio, which isn’t something that happens every week.

This is all leading up to the idea that the money I got when I was in Riobamba was just about gone by today, and my salary won’t be here until at least the middle of next week, so I had to go to Alausi, capital of the canton (sort of the county level of government), where there are two banks with ATM’s, and one of the ATM’s actually works. There is no bank here in Tolte. Most people work at the margins of the cash economy, eating food that they grow and selling other things, without much in the way of savings that would merit a bank account. There’s no post office here, either—in fact, the postal service seems to be almost unused, which may bode ill for the US postal service. I think I’d have to go to Riobamba to mail a letter, although it’s possible that there is a post office in Alausi or even Chunchi. Of course, the letter would take well over a month to arrive, so it’s not clear of mail is even a form of communication. Other fairly typical components of a US town that are not present here include: food market (though the stores do sell a few food items), restaurant, laundry/dry cleaners, movies, lending library, bus stop, auto mechanic, police of any kind…well, really, there isn’t much of anything besides houses, farms, the school, the municipal office, and the two churches. It’s a bit like a typical village on Long Island, if you think about it—except with much more communal life. And, on the plus side, I haven’t seen a McDonald’s or a Starbucks since I got here.

Anyway, going to Alausi is sort of an ordeal—you never know how long it will take for a bus to show up. As it happens, I only had to wait about half an hour to catch a bus to Alausi, which is just about record time. I walked straight down to the bank and got some money, bought some bread in one of the superior panaderias of Alausi, and treated myself to lunch (comida Alausena autentica) at a restaurant called “La Fuente,” which was the name of the landmark store that marked the end of Salitral and the beginning of Matinilla in my Peace Corps neighborhood in Costa Rica. For $1.75, I got a big bowl of soup that included lentils, potatoes, something cabbage-like (maybe a local green called celga, which might be chard or collards) and some mysterious pieces of mammal flesh, which made for some fairly tough chewing. The main dish was a similar piece of meat, but thinner and pan fried, over white rice with a beet salad on the side. That Alausi cuisine probably makes for pretty hardy, uncomplaining folk. And you don’t hear me complaining either. Lunch like that for $1.75? Awesome

Because I had to open the computer room at 3:00, I went right back to the bus stop to wait. I’d say it was about 12:00. No one was at the bus stop, and I think that encouraged me to make a real mistake. I decided to walk up to the highway. When I got there, I realized that I was not really in the right place, and would have to walk some more to get there. While I was doing that I saw a bus pass the bus stop I had left. And so I earned myself a two hour wait for the bus at the bus stop, because, in the end, that seemed like the smartest place to wait for a bus. I knew I was in for a long wait when I started seeing tourists. They must have come down to take the Nariz del Diablo train ride. But I figured the probability of seeing them was so low that a long wait must be required for that eventuality to arise. I certainly was right. There was a great moment when the bus arrived, though, and the driver told the students to wait until the “people” got on. Yes, it warms a teacher’s heart to hear remarks like this. The bus also happened to be new and clean, and it got me back to Tolte in time to open the computer room at 3:00, with a little help from Ascencio, who gave me a ride in the back of his truck instead o my having to walk into town. All I can say is, I hope I don’t have to go back to Alausi any time soon. It’s kind of a nice place, but it’s too hard to get home.

Coming of the Cuy

As mentioned in a previous blog, cuy is the word for guinea pig here in Ecuador. And as mentioned in the most recent episode, every family in Tolte is receiving a clutch of guinea pigs as an economic boost. I was wrong about the cages and pigs being given out on different days. In fact, it seemed that everyone was given a plastic crate full of guinea pigs first, and the cage materials (hardware cloth with a corrugated fiberglass roof) afterwards. A variety of methods were used to transport the guinea pig crates. The most picturesque involved elderly women who would wrap their all-purpose wool shawls around the crate and carry it on their backs. This method is used to haul everything from babies to loads of alfalfa, and it seems to work pretty well. I think it also reflects the astonishing strength of the women involved.

In any case, it's quite astonishing to seem people handing out crates full of guinea pigs as an agricultural commodity. I don't know if I'll ever be able to think of guinea pigs as pets ever again. Meanwhile, i can't quite think of them as food. When I got home, there were about six roast pigs being served to the road crew for lunch, and a less attractive group of animals it would hard to imagine. Let's face it: as efficient a system as this is, the things still look like rates, especially with their fur off. Not that appetizing to the outsider.

In response to the perceptive comment from Skee Jones, people here have their own land, though some have more, or better, or flatter land. This is a fairly recent phenomenon. Until the 1980's, most farmers here worked in a kind of share cropping system, or worse, for the owner of the local hacienda. They weren't really paid, but received a certain amount of access to water to grow food for themselves. Reforms have given the land over to the local people, most of whom grow a certain amount of alfalfa as food for their guinea pigs and cattle. I have been told that a good alfalfa field will last ten years before it needs renewal. I don't yet know what "renewal" consists of, though. The main thing is that, as I mentioned in the lats blog, the alfalfa-cuy system produces meat quickly without requiring much in the way of fertilizer (though I imagine phosphorus, in some form, has to be added now and again.) On a small farm, a family could probably feed itself with half the land in alfalfa and the other half in potatoes, with a little space for the guinea pig coop and a vegetable garden. It might not be the most appealing diet, but the food security would be pretty good.

In other news, there seems to be a problem with the paperwork for the 4/5 teacher, and I spent the day subbing again. I can't say I liked it much, but just when things seemed hopeless, the fifth grade uncorked a really good English class, and I felt like I was getting somewhere. Kids are so inventive when it comes to finding new ways to torment a person.

Azedon

This has been a strange week. It’s hard to describe a week of school as rough when school has been closed Monday and Friday, but I’d say this was a rough one. On Tuesday, the grade 4/5 teacher was out because of a transportation problem. I wound up taking his class, and it was pretty horrible. What, exactly, does a teacher do when the children really don’t care what you tell them to do, and do what they want to anyway? There’s no office, no one to call to remove anybody, and no point in telling anyone to leave the room because they won’t until they feel like it. But things never degenerated to the point they did the last time I took the fourth grade alone, so I thought that was a reasonable outcome.

Then, on Thursday, the k/1/2/3 teacher was out. I’ve been in there before, and I knew I didn’t want to go. I held on almost until recess, but by then they weren’t doing anything I asked them to do either. This time, I was told a substitute teacher was on her way—but no one ever came. After recess I went back to teaching English, which I can always manage for about 45 minutes with grades 4-7 (it used to be 3-7, but the third grader was moved down to the primary classroom, which makes perfect sense in this case). That cheered me up a bit. We learned to say “Here it is,” “Here they are,” There it is,” and “There they are.” We won’t remember these things on Monday, but there it is. We also learned to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors” this week, in a kind of random spur of the moment bit of inspiration. Oddly, the first two classes really enjoyed it, and the second two wouldn’t give it a chance. But I thought it was cool. Maybe that’s because I won all my matches…

Anyway, After yesterday’s round with the primary grades, I was glad (if surprised) to get the day off. I ran into one of my students, Augustin, who seem to like to invite me to work with him. Augustin is a seventh grader, but, given that his brother Juan is also a seventh grader, and much smaller, it seems possible that Augustin has not run through school in seven years. Still, I’m flattered that he likes me enough to invite me into his home life, so I went along with him to mound soil up around rows of potatoes using an azedon. An azedon is a mattock, and clearly the preferred tool around here, which is sort of unfortunate, since my shovel skill are way better. The azedon has a heavy steel head, like a hoe, and a short wooden handle. I can pretty much guarantee that any of my reader’s lower back would start to hurt in just a few minutes, as mine did. But I persisted for about three hours until just before lunch, when I didn’t feel like I was moving around very well any more. This was too bad, as only my lower back was tired. But that was enough—no more sciatica for me, thank you.

At lunch, I got to meet Augustin’s parents and older brother, and found out that Angel, whom I’ve met before, is his cousin. Angel and the older brother were spreading cement over the surface of a house made of cinder block. It turns out that Augustin’s father (also Augustin) is a man I’ve seen around town withut ever actually meeting. He looks a bit like a circus roustabout, circa 1930: felt hat, friendly, weather-beaten face, little and wiry. I’m glad I really got to meet him. Augustin’s mother sat next to me at Wednesday night’s community meeting, working the entire time shelling something that looked like roasted squash seeds, but I’m not sure. In any case, lunch was relaxed and friendly, my day a bit painful but stress free, and it was a nice finish to a tough week. Well, finish may be too strong a word. My week won’t be over until the beginning of the Great Guinea Pig Giveaway this evening.

The giveaway is the result of a government project to foment development in rural areas. Each family in Tolte will get a guinea pig coop tonight, and eleven guinea pigs (that’s one male and a harem of 10 females) on Monday morning. Since guinea pig is everyone’s favorite food here in the Andes, this has the potential to be a kind of local gold mine especially because everyone already grows guinea pig food, otherwise known as alfalfa. Permaculturists take note: guinea pigs raised on a diet of alfalfa, a nitrogen fixing plant, may be the most sustainable agricultural system going. It will be interesting to see how this pans out over the next six months or so.

Riobamba weekend

Last weekend, I decided to give myself vacation points for completing my first month in Tolte. I figured it would give me a chance to clear my mind, maybe entertain myself a bit, and force me out of my tendency to stay put once I make the big trip. I’m not sure what I’m afraid of, but I’m not much of a traveler once I’ve arrived. I hardly ever left Santa Ana when I lived in Costa Rica, and I stick pretty close to Tolte now that I’m in Ecuador. Of course, Tolte is a lot farther from Quito than Santa Ana was from San Jose, but I still felt like I had to shake things up a little.

My original idea had been to go to Riobamaba, which is the nearest big city, and where some of the people who work in Tolte, like the school teachers and Daniel, the agronomist, come from. Angus suggested I not bother with Riobamba, and head straight from there to Banos, a more touristy town about an hour to the west. But Daniel invited me to Riobamba, and I figured local guidance beats touristy every time, so on Friday afternoon, we hit the road.

The trip to Riobamba from Tolte is simple: you take the bus up that Pan-American Highway for about two hours. It’s a bit more complicated when you get there. Riobamba is a surprisingly big place, and yu have to catch a cab to the center of town. Daniel said that he doesn’t know how the city survives. It’s his impression that the only business is clothing stores. I’m sure he’s wrong. I saw plenty of places to buy cell phones and make copies, too.

Anyway, Daniel set me up in a very pretty little hotel in his neighborhood, Barrio San Francisco, and introduced me to his parents, who run a small coffee shop. Of course I had coffee, but a friend of his Dad’s also offered me a shot of bootleg sugarcane moonshine, so I tried that, too. It was smooth at the beginning, but certainly had a fiery finish. At least I’m sure no microbes could live in it.

The plan was for Daniel to pick me up and take me to a little piece of land he has in Chambo, just outside the city. But his 30 year old VW was not behaving nicely, so we didn’t meet up again. Instead, I walked around Riobamba, looking for odds and ends to see and do. I bought potatoes, oranges, tree tomatoes, and blackberries in the open market, underwear (I wish I’d brought more), and got a haircut. What was the best bargain? The haircut, of course, at $1.50, one tenth the US price.

Of course, this inspires a brief political statement. Ecuador is not so much poorer than the United States because market prices are low. Food prices are comparable to US prices. Underwear prices are brutal. The part of the economy that lags is labor prices. Work is worth almost nothing. My feeling is that right wing policies in the United States are aimed at producing the same condition there, where unemployment is chronically high and people will work for any wage at all. It is clear that this does not produce prosperity. The experiment is ongoing in Latin America, and it doesn’t work. Or at least, it doesn’t produce a thriving economy with a sense of social equality. By the way, this economic model has been largely imposed on the developing world by the United States. We might be getting a taste of our own medicine now. In case you haven’t noticed, no one seems to like it.

Anyway, back to Riobamba. By the time I had walked about the city Saturday, I was sort of tired of the place. I mean it was nice enough, but I don’t know anyone there. I cut the edge by taking advantage of the hotel’s nice wireless connection to do a bunch of skyping, but I was glad to return to Tolte Sunday morning. And I guess that’s what a vacation is for.

Nice pics

"Nice pics" is one of Fredi's favorite phrases in English, due to his exposure to Facebook. Today, thanks to a fast internet connection in Riobamba, where I am vacationing for the weekend, I give you some nice pics of Tuesday's trip to Nariz del Diablo, and some others of key people and places in Tolte. Here goes:

Two of the three buildings that make up the Escuela Arenillas Tolte. The other is to the right of this picture, at the other end of the plaza. The library and Laboratorio de Computacion are just to the right of this pic.

 Nariz del Diablo is the small, steep mountain at the left of this picture, just above the truck tailgate. This picture was taken in the back of Francisco's truck as we rode to Alausi

This is Angus Lyall, tireless development worker and unflappably good-natured. Of course, he made this whole adventure possible by hiring me.

Nariz del Diablo from the train station. You can see a bit of the zig-zag track. It's hard to figure out how anyone managed to work on the mountainside at all. It's also easy to understand from a physical perspective why there were so many fatalities in its construction (though perhaps harder to understand from an ethical perespective.)

The touristic railway cars, quite handsome indeed. I'm not sure how closely they resemble the originals.

Some of my friends and neighbors: From the left, a partial pic of Mariana Chogllo (Jose's sister, I think), Maria Elena (Narcisa's mother, talented farmer), someone blocked by a pole, Mesias, the teniente politico, who is responsible for certain official paperwork functions in Tolte, a friend I haven't met yet, Ascencio, Francisco's brother and former community president, Mesias, my store-owner friend featured in previous entries, Francisco, persidente de la junta directiva de Tolte, and Christian, farm laborer, futbolista and occasional adult English student.

A quick shot of mixed Agriculture in Pistishi. I believe that this is Alicia's farm, next door to Maria Elena's (actually, her brother in law's land). You can see naranjilla and cabbage at the low level, fruit trees (maybe Cherimoya--I can't remember from this pic) above. Note scenic burro in background. Jeff will be disappointed to learn that no one here keeps llamas--they are regarded as more appropriate to higher altitudes with colder climates.

Senor Turista

So Angus wasn't the only one who got involved in the test of the train station tourism group's hospitality. Due to a shortage of people to fill the station hotel's rooms, I was invited along as well. I had to pay $5 for the privilege, but it was a good deal. I got a train trip worth $20, a couple of decent meals, and an overnight stay in a yet-to-be opened restored train station. That's a pretty good deal for $5.

It also made up for the morning I had with the fourth grade. Although I have been doing much better managing them for English class, I was asked to take them all day, and stupidly said yes. I'm not sure why this request came in. I suppose it had something to do with the arrival of the new 3,4,5 teacher, who came today. We sort of made it through English, but when I turned to math, things went to hell in a hurry. That's a long 5 hours.

So Angus and I rode in the back of a Francisco's pick up truck to Alausi, to take the train ride down to the station. As you'll see when I upload my pictures, the trains cars are beautiful restored cars with plenty of lacquered wood to look at. The trip from Alausi across Nariz del Diablo is spectacular, of course. These are the Andes we're talking about, some of the highest, steepest mountains in the world.

The notable thing about the Nariz del Diablo protion of the route is that there are no tunnels as the train drops down the mountain's face. Instead, there is a zig-zag series of switches that takes the train down grade, first forwards then backwards then forwards again, until it reaches the station.

When you reach the station, there is a troupe of folkloric dancers doing dances that none of them knew until they were taught. That is to say, the dances may be folkloric, but they are not something that would have sprung naturally out of Tolte without instruction. One of the Fredi guides is the lead dancer, so when the performance was over, he joined the other Fredi to lead a tour up to Tolte. I was in Mesias' passenger van with the other Fredi, who I thought did a reasonable job of coming up with things to say for the hour or so it took us to reach Tolte, stopping every so often for pictures. By the way, I took a few pics that I will share the next time I have internet access, I hope. I was concerned how Fredi would do, because Angus and I had coached him Sunday, and I think he was pretty good.

Dinner was good when we got back (starving) to the station. Narcisa (the one who's house I live in) had the lead on that, and it involved chicken stuffed with something, rice, and vegetables. There was also a tasty green soup, into which we sprinkled popcorn (not as weird as you might think.) Unfortunately, after dinner, the review meeting began, and there was much criticism from the railway people of the "producto" we were trying to sell the tourist--unsafe vista points, no clear destination in Tolte, etc., etc. I finally gave up in exhaustion at 11, but the meeting went on to something like 2:30 AM Still, some of what they wree complaining about was fair enough. and Angus and I came up with some good "product" ideas as we walked up to Tolte this morning. We didn't make it back in time for school, but I figure nobody worried about that too much, what with a new teacher to abuse. Product ideas include a night tour of the "pueblo abandonado," if we can make it safe enough to satisfy the railway people (who wanted a night entertainment to be part of the tourist package.)

I also got to miss a chunk of computer room time in the afternoon. One of the farmers came in and started asking about his fruit trees, and Angus agreed to cover the room while Daniel and I went down to take a look. It was like Peace Corps days for about an hour, as we tried to figure out what he ought to do. Daniel's plant pathology chops are much better than mine. But there will be panel discussions again on Friday, and Angus has left me in charge of representing AVANTI's opinion on agricultural production. After that, at Daniel's invitation, I'll spend the weekend getting to know Riobamba instead of going to Banos. Banos may be nicer, but I think it will be fun to check out the more ordinary city of Riobamba with local advice. It's only a 36 hour jaunt, anyway.

Maybe I'll have soe pics to show you tomorrow.

Travel Day

Angus is in town for the “hospitality test” at the train station, and Saturday (Sept. 24) turned out to be a big traveling day for us, totally unrelated to the train test. First of all, I wanted to go to Alausi, capital of the canton (sort of like the county seat), to get some cash and buy a few things. I especially needed a pair of jeans, because one of the pairs I brought with me just doesn’t fit well enough to count on. I also needed a towel, something I have been scraping by without since I arrived. You want to know how—okay, in what I regard as the sort of thing people expect me to do, I have been drying off with yesterday’s T-shirt before putting on today’s clothes. Come on, once I said I didn’t have a towel, you knew that’s what I was doing. Angus really needed to use the internet, and I wanted to, because I can’t get used to checking my e-mail only two or three times a week.

Anyway, off we went to Alausi in the back of a pick-up truck, because that’s what people do here when the bus doesn’t come. Sure, it’s stupidly unsafe, but that’s part of the thrill of living in the developing world. We got to Alausi and found an actual cash machine, something that doesn’t exist in Tolte or Chunchi. It didn ‘t work. But there was actually a second cash machine that did. With money in our pockets, the first thing to do was get breakfast, scrambled eggs, bread, and coffee. I get coffee very rarely because I keep forgetting to buy any, and it’s only instant anyway, but I was glad to have some. Then we went to an internet portal we had used a coupe of weeks ago, and it was closed. The reason was that they were doing some kind of transmission maintenance. The electricity has been off from 8-5 every day since Thursday. So no internet yesterday, either.

But I was able to buy jeans, an additional pair of underwear, and a towel. Only the jeans were a bargain at $18. It’s been a long time since I bought a towel, but at $7, I was really sorry I hadn’t packed one. The underwear, at $4.25, were no bargain, but are unquestionably the nicest pair I own. I also bought a children’s book (Aesop’s Fables) for the library. It dawned on me last week that we do not have anything like a good set of graded reading material in our tiny library, which has maybe 50 books in Spanish (and maybe 60 in English) for children. Aesop’s fables are useful at around the third grade level because the vocabulary is a bit bigger than in lower level reading, but everything is very short, so you can finish before you get worn out. I’m also sorry I didn’t bring the children’s books in Spanish from home, but you can’t carry everything. I’ll have to hit a book store in a big city on one of my “weekends out.”

From the bookstore we went to the hospital so that Angus could coordinate, or communicate, with the director of the TB program. There are two or three cases of TB in Tolte, and there is supposed to be a program to make sure that the patients are taking their medicine every day for three months as directed. The medicine, by the way, is free to the patient, to help ensure compliance and TB eradication. Angus got the phone number he needed, so we got lunch ($3 for a healthy plate of chicken, rice, and vegetables with more coffee) and headed back to Tolte, this time inside a bus.

When we got to Tolte, it was almost 1. Mesias, who owns one of the three general stores and a small passenger van, had invited us to a community festival where he had been “invited” to give away prizes to the crowd. Mesias is one of my favorite people in Tolte. He’s unusually short, even by Ecuadorean standards, and built like a wrestler. I think I find him so likeable because he’s really open and affable at all times, and gives the impression of being a genuinely contented family man, with a young wife and four little girls ranging from babyhood to the seventh grade. He’s also a font of information about local history and events.

The civic fiesta was in a tiny place called Toctezimin, a half an hour above Chunchi. And I do mean “above.” In all that driving time, I doubt we moved more than a mile or two east or west. The rest of the distance was all up. Driving is much more three-dimensional here than on Long Island.  Toctezimin has about 80 residents, wich makes it even smaller than Tolte. Farming is a little different, too. The extra altitude means the climate is colder, with even more emphasis on potatoes, wheat, and barley than in Tolte.

The fiesta included food booths, a soccer tournament, and bull fighting, the setting for Mesias’s largesse. Bull fighting here is not much like he Spanish art. It involves bulls being let out of a truck into a make-shift bull ring, where local boys with matador capes try to lure the animals into attacking without getting trampled. Somewhat to my surprise, no one was. Mesias had regaled Angus and me beforehand with stories of fatalities at other civic fiestas, which didn’t sound too festive to me. But people here seem to view risk in a very different way from North Americans. In any case, after the bull fighting, Mesias’ brought out a bunch of stuff an started tossing it to the crowd like a one-man Mardi Gras parade: soda, candy, wine, liquor, all tossed into the air to whomever could grab it. He was a big hit.

After that, the man who invited him to give all this stuff away invited us to dinner. And, as the occasion demanded, dinner was Cuy con Papas, Guinea Pig with Potatoes. Having been sick all week, I wasn’t too enthusiastic with my piece of the Guinea Pig, but I did my best with the accompanying bowl of soup and its lump of pork, and the mote (big kernels of boiled corn). I also risked a glass of chicha (corn “beer”), something I am trying to get someone to teach me how to make. It involved boiling corn meal, adding an appropriate amount of crude sugar, and waiting a few days. More on this as it develops. Anyway, to top it all off, we were given a 12 bottle case of beer (that’s 1 liter bottles, by the way) which we had to find a way to finish off. Fortunately, the Tolte soccer team (there they are again!) had just finished their last game and were able to help us. They also took care of the rest of my Guinea Pig.

By this point, I knew that if I weren’t desperately ill, my stomach troubles were over. And indeed they were. I woke up fine this morning, worked on my laundry, and prepared for that practice run of the train station hospitality test which will happen Tuesday. This test is being run by the train company to determine if the Nariz del Diablo station is ready to receive overnight visitors and handle guided tour experiences into Tolte. One of the particular concerns were to see if our two young guides, Fredi y Fredi, were up to the task. We sort of dragged one seriously hung-over Fredi from his house. The other was nowhere to be found. Also, one of the two people who are supposed to cook told us yesterday that he didn’t really feel like doing it. But we ground ahead with a trip down the mountain in Mesias’ van working on guide patter with the Fredi we had. We picked up some of the cafeteria staff, and rode back up trying to figure out what we need to be ready to go on Tuesday. Weirdly, it seems as if everything is going to be fine. That is, after Angus has sort of an anxious day tomorrow.

I have sort of an anxious Monday, too. It seems that the third teacher really is going to arrive tomorrow, which means that I’ll lose my classroom space. I should be able to set up in the breakfast room or in an open room upstairs in the municipal building. And tomorrow night, I start my classes for adults, which will mostly focus on the train station personnel. As of tomorrow, I’ll have been in Ecuador 3 weeks. I can’t figure out why, but it seems like I’ve been here for months.