Smorgasbord

While sauntering recently, I stumbled upon a group of young boys at the irrigation reservoir. When full, they treat it as a swimming pool. None had gone in yet, so I agreed to go first if they all followed. We had some swimming races, caught a few fish, and basked in the sun. Afterwards, we searched the forest for wild blackberries, topping off the biggest event of my day.

For the past few months, I have cringed every time I buy a carton of milk. Costing the same (if not more) than in the U.S., warm in a box, and pumped full of hormones for preservation, milk was not my favorite thing to buy. My desire for calcium and vitamin D routinely overcame these other factors and I forked over the money. However, I recently found a family about 30 meters up the road who not only has a cow and milks every day, but also sells the milk. 5 liters for $2.50. Fresh out of the cow´s utter, I must boil it to kill any bacteria. The wholest of whole milk I have ever tasted.

5 AM. Coastal bus terminal. Post overnight bus trip. Weird black insect I've never seen before. Bite! My hand swelled so large I could neither see my knuckles nor make a fist. I took no comparative picture, so imagine a hand of the chubbiest little baby you have ever seen. Larger though.

I already showed you the style of houses built by those living at the highest altitudes in Ecuador (Reference: El Páramo entry). Here is a house built at the lowest possible elevation. Propped on stilts and made of wood, it is designed to monopolize the ocean front property while not drowning in the high tide. Next installment: the jungle hut.

After a few missed opportunities and misinformed attempts, I attended the weekly Animal Fair in Otavalo. Planning only to check prices and find the strangest animal for sale, I wandered through pigs, horses, goats, cuy, sheep, cows, ducks, chickens, roosters, and people making lots of noise. I succumbed quickly and bought 2 chicks and 2 ducklings. Bargained down from $6 to $5. They are currently set up in a little house outside getting accustomed to a lot more space than they have ever seen. When the ducklings get larger, I will install a small pond so they can to swim. The chicks should be fully mature in two months, while the ducklings will take about four. At which point my amigos and I will slaughter and eat them, while drinking and being merry. Mmm, duck.

I had trouble keeping these cute little birds in my hands for a proper picture. As you can see, they are timid and scared on their first morning in new housing. Coming from a crowded box with dozens of others of their own species, these two pairs had probably never seen any creatures beside their own kind. By the random choice of the vendors arm , I bought these two particular ducklings and these two particular chicks. The developing dynamic of this incipient group sparks my scientific curiosity. At first, the pairs maintained special (speecial) loyalty, huddling close to their partner. They then began exploring their new housemates, the smaller ducklings retreating behind the larger chicks when their scary new human owner entered their quarters. They now travel as a group, feeding together, drinking together, and yes, retreating into the corner when I show up.

My village is currently celebrating the three year anniversary of the church. While hanging around the festivities yesterday, I started talking to some teenagers from a nearby town. They had a few musical instruments and asked me to play with them. After running to my house to grab my guitar and harmonicas, we played two songs for the crowd praising God as ¨todo poderoso¨. After our performance, we established a weekly time for me to teach them music. Their knowledge is very basic, they cannot yet hold a rhythm, and they get nervous in front of an audience. They already have instruments, they enjoy playing together, and they want to learn. The potential is astounding.

Census

Integration into a completely new community which functions with its own set of established rules has proved difficult. To ease the process, our superiors gave us specific instructions to conduct interviews of as many people as possible in the community. The purpose of this is two-fold: 1) to get to know the people and community more intimately, and 2) to see what they want and get some ideas for projects. An intimidating prospect, but doable once the motivation is found.

Once started, my project became almost academic in nature. I walked from house to house for about 2 hours each day, speaking with at least one person per household, jotting down notes in my brown Moleskine notebook.

To put some figures on my experience - I walked past 22 cows and 54 pigs. I encountered 4 people too drunk to answer my questions and 3 women unable to communicate due to the Kichwa language barrier. I was bit by 1 dog (through my Carhartt work pants). I quickly learned to walk with an intimidation stick. The interview process took me 2 1/2 weeks.

The questions went as follows:

1) How many people live in this household?
2) How many years does each person have?
3) By what means do you earn money?
4) What do you have planted right now?
5) How do you dispose of trash? Burn or throw in the river?
6) Are you part of any community groups?
7) What is your house made of? Packed earth or concrete blocks?
8) Do you own a television? B&W or Color?
9) Do you use chemicals on your crops?
10) If you could raise your standard of living, what would you require?

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Please excuse the lack of figures, I tried many formats and my Excel graphs will not work on the blog.
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Population: 418
Average number per household: 6
Number of families: 27
Average number per family: 15.5
Number of interviews conducted: 69


-Trash Disposal-

Burn: 59 households
Throw in the river: 15 households


-Use of Chemicals-

Yes: 21
Sometimes: 18
No: 29


-Employment-

Agriculture: 50 households
Construction: 4
Store Owner: 3
Flower Plantations: 6
Misc: 17


-Television-

B&W: 26
Color: 30
None: 15


-Raise standard of living?-

Sewage system. As of now, there is no public sewage system in my village. They have running water and toilets, but the waste goes either into wells or into the drainages. The larger scale solution would be to install a public sewage system, but that is far outside of my control. I can however, teach them to make composting toilets. Two birds with one stone. No more sewage problem and copious organic compost.

Views from my house

I recently moved out from my host family to my own house. While I highly enjoyed living with them, the house was ready, I had culturally absorbed as much as I would from living there (in a concrete room with no windows and a roof that leaked), I looked forward to not getting woken up at 6 AM by crying babies, and I wanted to cook a little more protein into my diet. Ok, enough justification.

Here are the views looking west and east from my new house.

Picture 1 (looking west) you can see the corner of my house, the greenhouse, and part of the garden. In the middle I show the dirt road with no name as well as the Volcano Mama Cotacachi. It looks a lot bigger in real life.

Picture 2 (looking east) is much simpler, showing a recently-tilled field and the Volcano Papa Imbabura. Legend has it the mama and papa volcanos fornicated to form the valley below. This is technically the case, geologically, as lava mixing is the closest two volcanos can get to fornication.