A few weeks ago some of my friends and I travelled about 3 hours to Otovalo. This is an old town with great indigenous history. Every Saturday Otovalo is the host of one of the world's largest artisanal markets that takes up the entire downtown with vendors selling food, clothing, scarves, jewelry, art, etc. Most of the locals can be noticed by their clothing. The women wear white hand-crafted dresses and often a distinct hat. We walked around the market for hours deciding what to buy (literally everything was worthy of being purchased). Upon arriving in Otovalo the da before, we walked along train tracks out of the town and into a rural area on the mission of finding Cascadas de Peguche (a large waterfall). After about an hour's walk we came to the park where the waterfalls were rushing from about 40 ft up. Otovalo was a beautiful place that I will undoubtedly be returning to soon, likely for Christmas shopping.
About 3 weeks ago, we travelled to Canoa, a small and quite coastal town. As school has been getting busier we were all in need of a relaxing weekend with no homework. The bus to Canoa took 6 hours and we travelled at night to maximize our time at the ocean. We arrived around 5 in the morning to a warm breeze. We slept at a hostel and when we woke up we headed straight to the restaurant for breakfast. Soon after we found ourselves in the white sandy beach. Throughout the whole weekend there was little sun but we made the bet of it. The air was warm and that's all we needed. I spent more time exploring the beach and checking out the shells, crabs, and birds I came across then actually lying on the beach. The beaches of Canoa are extremely quiet, especially because we went as winter was beginning to set in. This was great because there were fewer people to embarrass ourselves in front of when we took surfing lessons the next day. We came across an awesome deal where 6 of us got 3 hours of surfing lessons for $10 each. Although I had surfed before, I was not used to the large waves in Canoa. At one point the surfing instructor told me to follow him out further into the ocean so that I could practice swimming through the waves. t this point I didn't have my board to lie on so my arms and legs got tired quickly from the pressure of having to push through the waves which were incredibly strong. After swimming out far, I finally got my board and the instructor insisted that I try to ride those waves. They were huge and quite frightening. I tried it out but whenever I fell I was beaten up by the huge wave. When we got back to the beach, the instructor told me that in 5 days I could become a pro, which was reassuring because after been hit by many a wave, I thought I was sure my amateurism was evident.
Last week we went on a class field trip to a farm just outside Quito. We had been learning about sustainable food practices as well as the importance of food sovereignty and food security in Ecuador. This trip was meant to put what we had read about into our minds through a more practical and realistic approach. The farm is a relatively small plot of land that had been broken up from a larger hacienda estate. Upon arriving we first learned that the farm has no access to running water and thus they use a very different system for their bathrooms. The bathroom is in a separate building from the house made of beautiful brick. Because the farm doesn't have running water, they rely on rain water for their needs. Thus, the bathroom is not equipped with a flushing system. All waste is reused as fertilizer fort he grass and the trees.
The farm grows fruit and vegetables and uses them for their own subsistence in addition to selling to the local town down the mountain. The owners of the farm are also a part of the Via Campesina movement where small-scale producers work with local populations to provide healthy and affordable food bundles to the communities. It's a movement that created food sovereignty or the ability to have control over their own food production. The farm also uses no pesticides in their growing process. The trip to the farm was of great interest to me as I am a proponent of small scale sustainable farming as opposed to corporation production for trade on international markets.
This past week we left very early Wednesday morning and travelled about 5 hours North of Quito to the Intag Cloud Forest Reserve. We stayed at the lodge of a well known activist against mining exploitation in Intag, named Carlos Zorrilla. Carlos has worked very hard for Intag by resisting and pushing out the Canadian mining corporation Ascendant. Carlos founded the grassroots organization DECOIN (Organization for the Defense and Conservation of Intag) to resist World Bank sponsored projects for mining exploration in the cloud forest. Carlos has been targeted and officially criminalized by Ecuador's president, Raphael Correa, as been one of the people who are hindering Ecuador's development. But is the destruction of natural resources, the displacement of people, and the creation of major health issues really "development"? It's certainly debatable. Carlos talked to us about his resistance to the mining initiatives as well the continuous motions made by various corporations in tandem with the Ecuadorian government to push mining as an economic benefit. Mining relations between Ecuador and big corporations through bilateral treaties are written and designed to create jobs and wealth for the exploited country(Ecuador) and emphasizing that the two countries will protect the other's mining interests. The problem here is that Canada, for example, mine in Ecuador and thus under the treaty Ecuador must protect Canada's mining interests, however, there are no Ecuadorian mining companies in Canada, so Canada does not need to protect anyone and therefore they benefit from these relations, leaving Ecuador with a mass loss of resources and Canada with more money. Being Canadian and always proud of it and never ashamed to say where I'm from, that changed after listening to Carlos.
In addition to leading DECOIN, Carlos' lodge is also a farm where grows sustainable shade-grown coffee to offer a economic alternative to mining in Intag. Shade grown coffee allows for more life because trees can be planted in the vicinity of other types of trees rather than in an open field that has been created for cultivation. There is also less erosion because rain hits the leaves above the coffee trees before hitting the ground and contributing to th erosion. The food that we ate while at the lodge was all fresh and most grown on his farm. I have never eaten such good food. It's not an exaggeration to say one can taste the difference between GMO/large-scale production goods and sustainable, pesticide-free food. That first night Carlos set up a light with a sheet hanging in front of it to attract moths. The purpose was to show us a simple explanation of the diversity found in the cloud forests. Within minutes of turning on the lights there were 30-40 different types of moths all clinging to the same sheet. Carlos told us that nearly every night that he sets up the light for the moths, a new type of moth that he has never seen before will appear. Carlos has lived there for about 20 years and that night he still saw 2 knew moths that he had never before come across.
The second day in Intag was a busy one! We started the day by hiking for 4 hours through the primary forest (meaning nothing has been cut down and replanted, all life is primary). As we climbed up and around one of the mountains, our guide Roberto (the only full-time worker on Carlos' farm) would stop along the way to explain to us aspects of the forest's biodiversity. At one point we stopped beside a tree where Roberto dug his large knife in the trunk. A black liquid emerged onto his knife and explained that this substance can heal external cuts and scratches as well a stomach ulcers. To apply the liquid to your skin hardens it and creates a protection on top of the cut. Essentially, it is a completely natural polysporin. When we returned from the hike, a local artisanal group explained t us how the make their products. The group is comprised entirely of women who use their handicrafts to supplement their income from farming. The women use Agave, which is basically a 10 foot tall aloe plant to make their products which we later got to purchase. These women also became our host mothers for the remainder of our stay in Intag. That afternoon we had to climb back up the mountain to get to the homes of our new host families. this journey up the mountain was a long and difficult one. Some families(like mine) owned horses or donkeys to take us up the mountain. I didn't ride the horse until the last half hour. The paths were narrow and the terrain was steep, soft, and rocky making for a rough ascent. Upon arriving at the home I would b staying at I was not really too surprised. What I saw was more or less what I expected. The home was made of cement and the walls didn't completely reach the roof making the house extremely cold and a place for not just people, but for mosquitos and many other bugs. The next day I was to follow my family and assist them with their daily work routine. The family I stayed with were bean farmers which meant waking up at 5am with he roosters. A about 7:30 we left for the work day and needed to climb further up the mountain in order to scale down it to get to the valley. The walk down the mountain was unlike anything I had ever done. There were no paths or ruts in the ground, all we had were trees and plants to grab ahold to steady ourselves so that we didn't fall face first hundreds if feet down the mountain. Once we reached the valley, my calves were burning in pain but work began right way. We started by laying out tarps and emptying sacks of shelled beans onto the tarps so they could dry out in the sun. About an hour later we checked the beans and because they were dry enough we could take long ticks and began beating the beans. We spent about an hour completely pulverizing the shells so that all the beans would fall out of their dry shells. We then needed to separate shell from bean. The next step was to ensure there was no dirt or debris with the beans when they get put in the sacks. The beans are scooped into baskets and held over heads and dumped into another basket. This is don so that all the debris can fly out with the wind as the beans fall straight to the basket. Then the beans are put into sacks and are ready to be sold locally. Most farmers in Intag are subsistence farmers, so they produce food to consume for themselves but there isn't enough to sell. The work was extremely labour intensive and very difficult in the hot sun. I was glad that I didn't have to harvest anything off the mountain. Farmers need to make use of all available land, so their are full crops growing on the sides of the mountain, top to bottom. When we finished working, we climbed back up the mountain. I dreaded this all day knowing how tired I would be and how exhausting and physically challenging it would be. The Grandmother, who was likely around 70-years-old, climbed up and down the mountain with incredible ease while wearing croc-like shoes. The 3-year-old son also climbed down and up again with little effort. I, wearing my hiking boots, still struggled to find good footing. I could not complain as the view on the way up was the most incredible I have witnessed so far in Ecuador. The clouds were beginning to set in around the mid section of the mountains. To look on each side of me and see nothing but foliage, cloud, and mountain left me needing to stop often to turn around and take it all in. My explanation of this beauty does not do it justice, but unfortunately it was impractical for me to lug my camera with me to work so I have only my memory to allow me this scenery from now on. While walking up they explained to me that they do this routine every day. Day after day they descend the mountain, work hard for 8 hours, and then climb back up. I was impressed but also saddened that the worked this hard with barely any economic return, especially for the Grandmother who still had to exhaust herself everyday at her age. That night I slept for maybe 2 hours. I had discovered a mouse in my bedroom, a large black spider across from my bed, and a multitude of black grasshopper-like bugs around the room. This combined with front door that continuously swung open all night allowing more bugs to enter, kept me awake. In the morning I found a large beetle making it's way up the blanket toward me. I was surprised that I was bothered by these conditions, but I was and I didn't like myself for it. Part of studying what I do is understanding that not everyone lives the same. It is one thing to be aware and understand, and very much another to experience it yourself. I learned so much from my time in Intag and loved working as a bean farmer for a day, learning the ecology of the cloud forests and hearing Carlos' first-had experiences with mining "developments". To be here requires me to constantly ensure that my mind is open and aware. To close it for just a second could mean losing or jeopardizing my own knowledge and reality, and to do that would be a crime in itself to me, the people I learn from, and Ecuador from whom I take so much and hope to give somehow in return.
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