Globalization

In my travels, I have seen many provocative examples of globalization. In Barbados, I ate fried chicken with my feet in white sand under a red canvas umbrella emblazoned with Coronel Sanders face. In Valle de Bravos, Mexico, I was astonished to learn Doritos manufactured their familiar tortilla chips in bold mexican flavors. In the small town of Tujankir Uno, Costa Rica, I participated in meetings under a Coca-Cola tent. While all of these experiences have led me to reflect on the interactions between the developed and developing world, none of my previous contacts with globalization have done so as deeply as living in Ecuador, integrated into a place that balances precariously between authentic and manufactured.

Colimbuela consists of approximately 500 people in 75 families. They are all indigenous Ecuadorians whose families have lived there for many generations. Every family produces their livelihood, to some extent, through integrated farming. The women still wear their traditional hand-sown blouses and the kids speak in Kichwa. As ideally untouched by globalization this village may sound, its not all roasted guinea pigs and purple corn kernels.

The men do not wear their traditional outfits, but American-style clothing with pirated NY Yankees emblems and Armani labels. While many people eat what they grow or raise, many others sell the products of their land to be shipped away. Others yet work construction or in the dreadful flower plantations, producing their living in the western fashion.

The town center consists of a dirt road flanked on one side by an elementary school and on the other by a line of three houses that double as tiny general stores. One of these three stores recently installed a satellite dish and two computers that connect to the internet. Living in such a simple place, I may have lost perspective on how obsolete human innovation has made fixed distance, but I was shocked by this new urban development.

Mid-afternoon a few days after the system was installed, the father of this family visited my house to ask for help on a problem with the printer. The problem was out of my technical expertise (especially in Windows Espanol), but they asked me if I could instant message with Shelley, the volunteer here before me. This demonstration would really shrink the distance between Colimbuela and the rest of the world. So, I signed into Facebook to check if she was online.

No dice.

However, when I showed them some profile pictures and asked if they had heard of Facebook, they said no. Libro de caras? No?

That one really got me. With such a juxtaposition of cultures old and new, I still find exceptions to the globalization trend. Here we have a young couple: they run a store with internet and work construction in the city, they own no farmland. That is about of as western as they come here these days, yet these two have no concept of the most ubiquitous and permeating symbol of globalization of our generation.

This town is in a critical phase of development. One generation ago, no one had a TV. Two generations ago, kids (now grandparents) were brought up with no exposure to the Spanish language and still don't speak it. Now we see families staring at TV over dinner and kids playing GTA San Diego on the internet.

To leave you with a question to ponder, I will present the lives of two young women.

Maria and Sayra grew up in Colimbuela and are in the same class at the elementary school. After 7th grade, Maria, who has good grades and gets a scholarship for high school, leaves town for the city. She begins wearing western clothing and makeup. She marries a boy from Quito, moves away and forgets how to speak Kichwa. She and her family occasionally take trips to the beach and back to Colimbuela.

Sayra does fine in school, but finishes 7th grade and stays at home. She works in the fields, helps raise her younger siblings, and plays in the open country. She marries a man from the same town and never travels farther than one hour from home. She never forgets Kichwa or her culture, but can hardly write a sentence in any language and lacks an understanding of her own country in the world. She eventually receives a portion of her parents land.

Whose better off?

Chimborazo

11 PM, January 17, 2011 (5000 meters, 16, 400 feet): Dressed in so many layers, I feel warm in the frozen weather. 5 companions, 3 mountain guides, and I leave the Mt. Chimborazo refuge at 16,000 feet to attempt a summit of the largest mountain I have ever seen.

You may remember my recent successful summit of Mt. Cotopaxi. The cold pierced my bones, the fatigue caused my legs to almost crumble like a ragdoll, and the 19,344 ft altitude gave me a hacking cough. Whatever unneccesary pain that experience brought, a harder challenge lay ahead.

12 AM, January 18, 2011 (5,200 meters, 17,000 feet): Our consistent line of 9 climbers reaches the glacier. We stop for a short rest to fasten crampons on our boots, unstrap our ice axes, and form groups of three connected by a rope. Augmenting that of our headlamps, the full moon casts a bright light over the whole mountain. When we look up, we get visual confirmation that our next few hours will be very painful.

At 20,702 feet above sea level, Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador. Regardless of the more than 8,000 feet of altitude it lays below Mt. Everest, Chimborazo sits so close to the equator (and therefore the equatorial bulge), that its summit is the farthest point from the center of the Earth.

2 AM, January 18, 2011 (5,700 meters, 18,700 feet): The ridge has been gained and dangerous ridge scrambling has been surmounted. At points, the ridge is wide enough for only one foot placement, so lucidity and concentration are gravely needed. A steep snow field now looms above us, and we begin making switchbacks as we climb higher and higher toward the summit.

After multiple high-altitude camping trips, feeling acclimated and in shape, we (my companions and I) found ourselves in the refuge, tucked in our sleeping bags at 5,000 meters. The mountain looked appetizing, conditions were good (not much snow), and successful summitting stories were abound from recent days.

4:30 AM, January 18, 2011 (6,000 meters, 19,700 feet): After 2 1/2 hours of continuous climbing up a snowy slope with a much greater angle of repose than your normal sand dune or type-example stratovolcano, the snow begins to give way. What had been a nice slick ice sheet topped with packed snow 24 hours before, is now a two foot-deep layer of loose snow flakes. Every two or three steps means a defeated fall into the soft-packed snow and at least 30 seconds of stasis so I can catch my breath.

Thought to be the tallest mountain in the world until the early 19th century, early summit attempts ended in bittersweet failure. Two famous attempts, in 1802 and 1831, marked the highest elevation attained by a European in recorded history (19,280 ft and 19, 704 ft, respectively). Legendary English explorer Edward Whymper successfully reached the summit in 1880 on his first attempt.

The afternoon and evening spent in the refuge was tranquil inside yet volatile outside. As we sat playing cards, relaxing, and passing time, snow and sleet battered the roof and came fluttering in through whatever holes existed.

5 AM, January 18, 2011 (6,100 meters, 20,000 feet): My legs are failing, the snow won´t hold my weight, my head begins to throb, my stomach threatens to expunge the apple I ate a few minutes back, and I begin to exhibit a dry cough. As I look up the slope to check what lays ahead, I see the distant headlamps of other climbers hundreds of feet above. The cautionary words of my mother echo through my head ¨If you feel the altitude, its OK to turn back.¨ As much as it hurts my inner self to admit it, I have reached my physical limit. I decide to descend. Since my climbing companion is fresh and ready to continue, our guide contacts another group via walkie-talkie and arranges for me to descend with them. As I sit alone in the snow waiting to descend, I turn my headlamp off to appreciate the stars. The co-existent beauty and sadness of this moment overcome me and I begin to cry. I really wanted to reach the summit. Yet I sit here at 20,000 feet above sea level, farther on top of the world than I have ever been, and I cannot help but appreciate all that I have around me. Both my immediate world and the abstract concept of life itself.

The decision to turn back was both easy and difficult. I recognize how rare and precious it is to find oneself in a position like that, and I wanted to absorb it for all it was worth. But when I realized my physical abilities were overcome by the mountain, I really had no choice.

5:15 AM, January 18, 2011: I rope up with my companions and we begin our long descent. Of the two friends I am now connected with, I am clearly the most lucid. The one placed in the front of the rope suddenly drops to his knees for 2 minutes of uncontrollable vomiting. While most of the horrid sounds do not expel any material from his mouth, I notice a small green pool of melted snow as I pass. Our descent lasts another 2 1/2 hours. My desire for pictures has been eradicated under these extreme conditions, so I will not have many to show. The sunrises as we descend, and the clouds below look like layers of a cake. My altitude issues subside and my fatigue materializes as the most grave of my current ailments.

In the end, I pushed my limit, challenged the mountain, and reached an altitude at which I may never again stand. While I really wanted to make the summit, it was out of my reach. And you know what? That´s OK. Instead of making the top and possibly losing my life, I would rather live to tell the tale to the rest of you.

Turkey Day

Well, to be more accurate, Turkey Slaughter Day. Instead of gathering the family together in the scenery of late fall, my friends and I rented a cabin on a tropical beach. The weather was hot and sunny on the scorching sand, but comfortable and shady under the coconut trees. We maintained a continual fire of coconut wood for the duration of our stay, building it up to large proportions after sunset. We surfed, drank batidos and beer, ate seafood, swam, hiked, and played american football.

The premise of Thanksgiving is of course family, friends, and food. Our perception of how to rightfully celebrate the holiday morphed along with our reconaissance of information. Before our arrival (and in the weeks leading up to it) we pictured fish and fried plantains in an open fire. To accomodate this fantasy, we stocked up on tinfoil at the grocery store in a larger coastal town. While this idea was valid and served us well for the first night of our retreat, the tinfoil ran out quickly and the owner of the cabin lent us a grill to place over the fire. This opened up a world of possibilities.

Idea number two came when we saw the fisherman bringing in the catch on our second evening. A few others and I ran over to their truck, which was loaded up and ready to head out. We figured on buying some smaller fish to cook that night. None of us were ready for the sight of that truck. Instead of the typical sea bass, flounder, and bagre, the fisherman had eels the width of telephone poles, weird fish with fins coming out of places I never would have imagined, and manta rays with 6-foot diameters. When asked how a manta ray may be cooked, a local woman told me breaded and fried. ´Muy rico´, she said. This sounded quite interesting as a thanksgiving day meal, although none of us had experience slaughtering anything close to a manta ray.

Idea number three came when we saw the owner of our rented cabin´s poultry raising operation. She had one main house with full-grown animals that roamed her beach front property, as well a separate building for the babies. In addition to the normal chickens, she also raised turkeys. Not only this, but she had a beautiful alpha male turkey ripe for the chopping block. This of course was our most appropriate option, but she would not sell it for less than $60. With our collective turkey appraisal experience, we deemed this pricing not extraordinary. After all, what are the chances that this lady would have such a unique turkey ready for us to eat?

The decision to buy took us another day. Once we woke up on Thursday morning, our minds and wallets were in acccordance. We walked over to turkey´s house, brought it over to our fire pit, laid its head on a makeshift chopping block, and took its head off with one smooth gesture of the machete. We then proceeded to defeather, clean the insides, and cut up for cooking. Without a rotisserie spit, it would have been difficult to roast a whole turkey over an open fire. So, we grilled as though it were midsummer in the northeast. Some of the tastiest and most unique turkey I have ever had, enjoyed under the shade of tropical coconut trees, with feet in the sand, hand on a beer, waves a-crashin´, and friends all around.

Slaughtering ones own animals surely induces an ambivalent feeling among many of my readers. While I understand the apprehension to embrace this aspect of the food chain, I will also repeat many people who have come before me and say: to all of you meat eaters, this death must occur for you to enjoy animal protein. No matter how far away it feels from your Peter Luger steak, your meat chili, your chicken burrito, or your thanksgiving turkey, this death is closely connected to your food. Modern society allows us to look away and forget this link in the chain of life, but it is still there, and we should all engage it when given the opportunity. One should feel the full karmic gravity and pay the emotional price of enjoying their food.

Click the link on the top right for more pictures of the events described herein.

Pondering Purpose

After almost 7 months at site, I have had a lot of time to reflect on my role as a Peace Corps volunteer. Without much of a mandate, starting projects has been hard and free time has been ample. As you may imagine, it can be difficult to find motivation when you have no fixed work plan and you rarely report to your superiors.

There are many days in which I find myself without a schedule. I wake up and must decide how to fill my time. On these days, I end up reading a lot, going into town for sundries, cooking an intensive meal, baking a pie, walking the countryside, talking with people in my village, working in my garden, handwashing laundry, taking care of my chickens, or playing soccer with local kids. Some of these days are supremely satisfying, especially when I make a new connection, learn something new and interesting, or at least not sit around and do literally nothing. Some of these days, however, I feel futile. What is my position here? What can these people really learn from me? Am I intergrating as well as I could be? Will my community be better off when I leave? Am I giving as much as I am getting out of this experience? These questions fill my mind on those days in which I feel purposeless. While that is a shame to ever think of oneself, Peace Corps work requires patience, persistence, and the ability to fail.

Instead of allowing these darker thoughts to permeate my person, I try to use them as a point of motivation. (What better than lack of purpose and futility as a means of motivation? Or what worse?)

On the days in which I have something scheduled, I of course feel much more purposeful and utilized. This may include english class at the school, working in the school garden with the kids (which is starting to look quite productive), or cooking class. Yup, my zuchinni, banana, and apple-carrot breads have enjoyed such wild popularity with the Ecuadorians with whom I have regular contact, I have begun a weekly cooking class. Wednesdays at 2 PM in Messi Astaya´s house, for any of my readers who may be interested.

The first week I put up flyers around town advertising a ¨Clase de Hornear con Jacobo¨. I had originally hoped to teach the village mothers how to bake these sweet breads. Their children would certainly be grateful. However, only three such mothers showed up for the first class. I instead got a nice slice of life (mothers, children, fathers, teenagers). The same group met up the following week to make pizza, and I mentioned the possiblity of turning this into a microenterprise. We would bake during the week and sell our product at the Sunday market in town. As momma always said, ¨We shall see¨.

Although I find myself pondering my real purpose here during slow times, I look around at the place in which I live and consider myself lucky. If all it takes is a few flyers around town to get a project started, there is nothing holding me back from making a real impact.

School Garden

The greatest challenge thus far in my Peace Corps service has been creating my own work. I was placed in my town of 400 people with no real counterpart to help me in the process of integration or give me direction in my work. So, I fill my days trying to get farmers excited about organic agriculture, talking to them abstractly about building a composting toilets, tending to my garden and chickens, as well as walking the countryside. Beyond this, I work with the school both teaching English classes and running the garden. Because it is a consistent obligation (rather than sporadic meetings with random campesinos), I get to work closely with kids, and I can directly view the results of my work, what I do with the school has given me the most satisfaction of anything yet.

The previous volunteer had a school garden as well, but only used a small portion of the land available. After negotiating with the town´s group of mothers, I have full license to use the land as I see fit.

Each 7th grade student gets their own plot of land, upon which they plant, tend, and harvest. I provide the seeds (some of which I got donated, some of which I bought) and help them with both techical knowledge and the physical labor. Anything harvested goes directly to the kitchen to feed the entire student body during lunch.

The degree to which they take pride in their own land is incredible. I expected to constantly provide motivation for them to work on their plot, since after class every afternoon, they find themselves working their family´s land as a chore. Yet, even when I am not present, they are out in the hot sun watering, weeding, or simply admiring their work. Must be either the spirit of competition or challenge of doing it all by themselves, but I have some good gardeners at my disposal.

Looking into the future on this project, I would like to make it sustainable. Instead of just a few students planting vegetables during the school year, I want to include more grade levels, build a greenhouse and composting toilet, as well as get some animals to 1) provide pest control, 2) manure, and 3) protein in the student´s daily lunch diet.

Unfortunately, these fine ambitions require money, the likes of which will not come from the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education. Therefore, in the next few weeks, keep your eyes out for a means of donating both to this school garden project and my composting toilet project.

Pictures Explained:

1) Me distributing seeds wearing my indigenous outfit.

2) 7th grade students showing the seeds they are about to sow.

3) Happy face.

-2 to 6 months

After requests for yet more pictures, I have created a Picasa photo album to link to this blog.
This album summarizes my first 8 months in country though the various events for which I had my camera. For your viewing pleasure.


http://picasaweb.google.com/schwarz.jacob/2To6Months?feat=directlink

Cotopaxi

Cotopaxi Volcano. 19, 344 ft above sea level. The second highest peak in Ecuador and among the tallest active volcanos in the world. A type example of a stratovolcano. In Kichwa, Cotopaxi means ¨Collar of the Sun¨. Aptly named for the shape the sun makes when it peaks its cone-shaped body.

Hiking this mountain was definitely among the top 5 most intense things I have ever done. Up there with summiting two Colorado fourteeners in one day while winter backpacking, biking over 90 miles per day across the Nevada summer desert, and skydiving.

Logistics:

Sunday afternoon - Gear check and hike to Refuge (4800 meters, 15, 800 feet.) Learn to walk on the glacier with crampons and an ice axe. Try to rest.

Monday morning - Wake up at midnight. Dress, eat breakfast, and begin climbing by 1 AM. Reach glacier at 2 AM. Begin ice climbing. Reach summit at 6 AM just as the sun is rising.

Here I show myself and my 5 companions doing our gear check before our hike to the refuge. I cannot decide whether Jack there on the left ruined the picture or enhanced it with the behind the legs crotch-grab.

I came highly equipped for this climb. Layers included 3 pair wool socks, two pair glove liners and one pair waterproof winter mittens, three layers on bottom, 5 layers on top, a scarf, a bandana for the face, and two hats. In my opinion, unless you are Sam Horstmann, no matter how many layers you wear, you will freeze your ass off.

Regardless of all these layers, most of my group neglected to bring along a sleeping bag. Not for the climb itself, but for easy resting in the Refuge before its start. With the temperature hovering around freezing, we lay spooning on top of bare mattresses wearing all of our layers. More than rest or relaxation, this was a period of mental preparation.

Hiking to Refuge from the parking lot below. You can see our equipment on our backs and the behemoth mountain towering above us.

The hike itself started out harmless enough. After an hour of hiking up scree, we reached the glacier. From then on, the going got easier with crampons and ice axes. Two climbers per guide connected by a rope. As it was dark most of the way up, we could neither see the large drop offs awaiting us below 8-inch-wide ledges, nor peer into the depths of the ice cravasses we so giddily jumped across. Say hello to our energetic 3 AM faces. One of the first stops, and not yet drained of energy or sick from altitude.

The sun came up as we were just below the summit. The entire night had been headlamps and lack of visibility. When the sun came up, and the colors of the sunrise replaced the darkness of stars and night sky, the beauty was tantamount to anything in my recent past. Out of this world.

The summit was invigorating, but not quite as climatic as one may expect. We got caught in a snow storm with zero visibility, not to mention temperatures far below zero Fahrenheit and piercing winds. After the obligatory yodeling, pushups, and summit photo, my two American companions and I started down. A few minutes down, we encountered the other three from our group. One was vomiting from altitude sickness, another hallucinating stars in the air and electricity flowing through his rope, and the third (we were told) passed out in the snow 30 seconds after our salutation. Regardless of the challenges, all six of us made it to the top.

I did not feel much altitude sickness. This I found strange, since it has affected me at 12,000 feet. The most I felt was some lightheadedness and dizziness walking down. Goes to show that it affects everyone differently and can be very unpredictable.

Once all down (at 9 AM remind you), the collective attitude was one of such miserable fatigue that although it was a great experience, we would never attempt such a crazy mountain again. An hour later, back in the van on our way to Quito, we decided to attempt Chimborazo (longer, taller, steeper, and with more ice, but 1) the point in the world both farthest from the center of the earth and 2) the point closest to the sun).