Monday 28 April 2008

Jungle style: part II

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Machetes can come in handy in a variety of situations.

They can be used to clear a trail in the jungle, chop wood for fenceposts or kindling, cauterise leaky wellies, slice vegetables, and pull up weeds.

And if you accessorise them with an impractical dress on a party night, they are also very good for pretending to be a kick ass kung fu assassin.

If you like that kind of thing...


Something tells me I´m just not hard faced enough to be convincing!


Quito is not my favourite place

I am in Quito for a few days before moving on to the next station tomorrow morning.

Have had lots of admin to sort out, including trying to access the pin number for my bank card so that I can continue here for the next four and a half months, and I haven´t really had access to the internet to update the blog. Sorry.

Will try harder tonight, because after that I will be going on a 5 hour bus journey, then a 3 hour truck ride, then meeting a man with a mule to guide me on the 5 1/2 hour hike into to the next reserve. I will be incommunicado for a while after that , as you can imagine.

Monday 21 April 2008

Moonshine at the bull ring

I may have to eat my words a little.

As soon as we left the internet shop yesterday (the one where I poured my frustration into the blog below), the mood between the other volunteer and I seemed to change. All of the things I had complained about seemed to stop, and we actually managed to converse in words of multiple syllables.

I suppose I was a bit harsh in my complaints, because he certainly isn´t a bad person and wasn´t intentionally trying to offend me. Perhaps he was frustrated and resentful with the situation, and not me, and just needed to speak to his family and girlfriend on Sykpe to feel more sociable. Whatever the resaon for the tension, it got better.

I considered deleting yesterday´s blog, because I don´t want to write anything insulting or hurtful to people. But I will leave it, because it is an example of my yo-yo-ing emotions and heightened sensitivity at the moment. The close quarters are one thing to make us edgy, and the philosophical and personal issues that the situation raises another, but when things start going off-plan in a technical sense, the feeling of helplessness and solitude can blow up out of all proportion.

This week I have had my phone stolen and discovered that my bank card doesn´t work. Two annoying, technical chains linking me to the commercial, media-obsessed western world have been cut. I never realised how reassuring these chains can be. But I will survive without them, I am sure.
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Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, last night in Riobamba.

We decided to get a bottle of wine and find somewhere to sit and people watch, because despite the fiesta practically everywhere in Riobamba is closed on Sundays.

Eventually we found a spot on some steps, next to a group of people selling artisania and playing a hotchpotch of instruments from bongos and traditional pipes to a plastic mini saxophone.

Drinking Crystal (like moonshine, the chemicals can make you go blind if you drink too much) on the steps of the bull ring, a pool of bulls blood on the road in front of us. Sat between a texan traveller and her Ecuadorian boyfriend, being taught to juggle by the Columbian guy who gave me the bracelet, and making plans to meet up and hang out on the coast in a few weeks maybe. Reassuring the police woman that I do have a passport back at the hostal, and do have a visa (hm?), and winding our way back to the hostal at around midnight, chatting and ready to sleep.

It was an alright night.

Sunday 20 April 2008

Dependency

Right now I am stranded in a town called Riobamba. I came here with one of the other volunteers because there is a fiesta celebrating a battle against the Spanish, and I really wanted to see the fiesta.

As it turns out, the fiesta only really gets going on Monday, so there isn´t really much going on right now. Juist as well, I suppose, as we by the time we arrived here the bank was already closed for changing traveller´s cheques, and my bank card doesn´t seem to be working in the ATMs.

There is a possibility that I have forgotten my pin number. How can it be that I can remember my best friends phone number from when I was eight, and the customer service number for my bank, but not the PIN that I used practically every day in Manchester?

I could kick myself, because now I am wondering how I am going to finance the next four and a half months. I have traveller´s cheques, but the recommended about of money to bring per month was massively underestimated, and I was relying on being able to withdraw some cash to make up for the shortfall (the traveller´s cheques will run out by June or July, if the past six weeks is anything to go by).

In the meantime I am completely reliant on the other volunteer, which is agonising to my spirit. He had no other option but to lend me $20 last night. It hasn´t been recognised that I had wanted to get my money sorted out earlier yesterday, when we were in Puyo, but that he had wanted to go directly to Riobamba, and now he clearly resents having had to lend me some cash.

Last night he said ´Because I am in charge, I will decide where we eat.´ I said, ´What do you mean ´because you are in charge´?´ and he replied ´Because it is my money.´ I made it clear to him that I was going to pay him back every cent (I didn´t mention the fact that I made no such demands when I lent him $20 one day when he had forgotten to bring his wallet out), and he said that he was joking.

I suppose it might have been funny, except for the fact that he walks down the road tree paces ahead of me and has been overruling any suggestions that I dare to make. This morning, after I had tried and failed again to use the ATM, I followed him around town while he found himself a snack. Í didn´t have a cent to my name. I couln´t go back to the hostal because, of course, he holds the key because he paid for the room (actually, I paid my half of the room from last night´s $20, but that´s his money too, right?). Back at the hostal he gave me another $20, and made sure I knew how much I now owe him.

I am not ungrateful. Of course, I would be destitute without being able to borrow this money from him. I would have no place to sleep, and no way of getting home. I really appreciate having just a small amount of cash to be able to use the internet and feel connected to people that I care about. However, I would not have been put in this position if I had come on my own. I would have made sure that I have my money sorted out before coming. I wish I had had the strength to press for that more when he said that he didn´t want to hang around while I changed money when I could get it just as easy in Riobamba. So I blame myself for being in this situation.

But the thing that really pisses me off is the spirit in which the money has been lent. I don´t get on too well with this volunteer anyway (don´t ask how we ended up coming away together, that´s another story), and such arrogance, and the expectation of subservience, is riling me beyond gratitude. If this was Manchester, or even if I just had some means of getting back on my own, I would make my thoughts clear. But as it is, I am completely dependent on this 21 year old boy´s continued generosity for the next day at least, and I must keep my mouth shut if I know what´s good for me.

I don´t value money very highly. I would rather not have to deal with it a lot of the time. But the value of financial independence is so vast that the weight of losing it is crushing.

The majority of the women in Tsuraku are completly dependent on their men, who can come and go as they please, and the women are left behind in ignorance of what they are getting up to. Unless they bring them back a case of venerial disease, of course. And how can they ask, how can they argue, when it is the man who provides, and the man who makes all the decsions?

There is one woman that I know of who holds the purse strings; the woman who runs the tienda. She has said that if she ever gets news of her man playing around, or if he ever dares to beat her, she will kick him out, and he knows it. They seem to have a good relationship.

How great it is to have that power. That right.

Wednesday 16 April 2008

Tsuraku: Back story etc

Trying to get the measure of Tsuraku and the role of Jatun Sacha (and therein myself) here necessitates gathering some understanding of the series of socio-historical events that provide the context to the way the land and community has developed into this situation.

To save from inaccuracies in my interpretation of things, I have compiled a few extracts (geeky, moi?) from Jívaro [Shuar]: People of the sacred waterfalls, by Michael J. Harner (Berkley, Los Angeles, London; University of California Press, 1972, 1984):

“Only one tribe of American Indians is known to ever have successfully revolted against the entire of Spain, and to have thwarted all subsequent attempts by the Spaniards to conquer them.” (1)

“The Shuar also became [in the early 20th century] not just a warlike group, but as an individualistic people intensely jealous of their freedom and unwilling to be subservient to authority.” (1)

“The Shuar … long have had a practical understanding of the need to unite against a common external enemy in war. In the twentieth century, however, the gradually evolving threat did not fit the Shuar model of justification for war. Rather, missionaries and colonists trickled down from the Ecuadorian Andes and essentially infiltrated the Shuar population in the western or frontier region, gradually taking over lands formerly occupied by the Shuar.” (vii)

The Shuar eventually came to trade with the colonial settlers, clearing land for pasture for them in exchange for cloth and machetes. Then “cattle raising proved successful, and soon more colonists arrived. As their numbers increased and they were augmented by military and police units, their fear of the Shuar diminished, and they began seizing the Indians´garden clearings for pastures.” (32)

“The ´civilized´concept of killing people to defend land was alien to Shuar tradition, and they lacked and immediate cultural strategy to deal with the worsening situation.” (vii)

“[Around 1950] missionaries persuaded the government of Ecuador to set aside certain lands in the Upano Valley as church administered reservations for use by missionized Shuar.” (6)

"Finally, in the heart of the Río Upano Valley frontier area around Sucúa, where there was the greatest density of both Shuar and white colonists, as well as the catalyst of an activist Salesian priest, Juan Shutka, the protection of territory became a formerly recognised goal for Shuar survival in the early 1960´s. This recognition shortly let to the foundation of the Federation there in 1964, at this time named the Federacion Provincial de Centros Shuaros de Morana-Santiago.” (vii)

The Federation was funded by European religious organisations and other sources. “The funds supported not only the administrative activities of th Federation, but also the very important program to help the Shuar purchase cattle by extending credit. The clearing of forest and the raising of cattle have [in the 1980´s] become the primary economic activities of the Shuar. The success of their cattle industry has not only given them new self-confidence and ethnic pride, but also protects their claims to land since the creation of pastures prevents the government from appropriating it.” (10)

“Originally the Federation helped individual nuclear families acquire legal title to land, but surveying so many small tracts was difficult, and there was the danger that individuals would later sell their lands to the colonists from the highlands. Now the focus of Federation efforts is to obtain title to land by centros, with the families resident in a centro being allocated plots of land for their use, but not for their individual ownership.” (x)

“Meanwhile, the Shuar struggle to save their lands as white (mestizo) colonists continue to immigrate from the adjacent Ecuadorian highlands in ever increasing numbers. To make matters more difficult, often this colonization is sponsored by the Ecuadorian government [through resettlement programs]” (xii)

"Missionaries, with the backing of law enforcement agencies, were putting Shuar children in boarding schools and enculturing them to the new, alien way of life. this direct, unremitted contact was tending to acculturate the frontier Shuar to the national Ecuadorian way of life and the direction of the trend was towards eventual assimilation."
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The road from puyo to Macas runs through the middle of Tsuraku (Pitirishka in Quichua). It is about 1 1/2 hours bus ride south of Puyo and north of Macas. The busses run regularly (about one every 45 minutes in either direction), and the driver honks his horn to let people know he is coming. the busses cost about $1 an hour, and let vendors on at the busier stops to sell apples, bananas, ice creams frozen in plastic bags, newspapers and sweets.

From the hand drawn map on the wall of the reserve house I count about 100 buildings, including outhouses, a school and college (named Collegio Tsansta, after a traditional Shuar practice worth googling), health clinic and basketball court. The buildings are made from either wood or breeze blocks, with tin or thatched roofs. There are a couple of examples of traditional Shuar buildings, but most people live in more ´modern´constructions.

Tsuraku was established in the 1960´s when a man called Moncayo settled here with his four wives. The community now consists of about 300 people, the majority of which are direct descendents of the original family and carry the Moncayo name. One of the original wives still lives. She looks to be in her seventies or eighties, and she wears a bright pink t-shirt and bright orange skirt, and outfit that makes me smile each time I see her.

The community is very close, both physically and socially, as footsteps and conversations can be heard from house to house. There are three shops of varying sizes, and sometimes we buy a beer and sit outside the shop to play cards. The Shuar tend to stay indoors in the evening, and so we tend to have the most contact with people in the daytime.

Jatun Sacha arrved in Tsuraku four years ago, and occupies both a privileged and precarious position. As Tsuraku is comminity-owned land, Jatun Sacha rents a house by agreement of the community. Anything that Jatun Sacha does here must be by agreement, which is I think is good considering the way do-gooders have seized control of the Shaur´s destinies in the past, but also means that things can take a long time, and that each project must prove its worth before the people embrace it and decide to collaborate.

One of the major aspects of Jatun Sacha´s work in Tsuraku is to encourage sustainable forestation practices. Cutting the forests for pasture or manufacturing is a rewarding prospect in the short term, but primary forests trees are 500 years old and so this is a severe threat to forest susinability. Jatun Sacha´s desired goal is to demonstrate and educate about sustainable practices. This is not easy, because a reforestation project for mahogany trees, for example, will not reap any results for a number of decades, and so the aim is to encourage people to appreciate the benefit their taking part will have on future generations; for their children and grandchildren.

An aspect of the reforestation project at Tsuraku is the establishment of viveros, or tree nurseries, to propagate enough mahogany plants so that in future years these trees can be sold as an alternative to cutting primary forest. Jatun Sacha has its own vivero, and would like to encourage people to establish them on their own lands. As these are long-sighted projects, and community members cannot be forced to recognise the benefits of having one, it is reassuring when a family does decide to put their land to this use.

Over the past weeks we have created a vivero behind the big tienda (the shop). We macheted clear an area about 500m sq, plotted out a number of beds, cut the trees to make the borders and fence posts, dug the soil and weeded it, sorted the seeds and planted them. Just over a month ago it was an overgrown wasteland, and now it is a working piece of land with fresh green seedlings peeping above the soil.

In thirty years time the little boy who lives in the tienda might be cutting these trees.

It´s funny. I´ve found it really dificult to describe the details of what I have actually been doing here. There have been quite a few times when I have felt really disheartened that we aren´t really doing very much, and many times that has been exactly the case as work can often be cancelled due to heavy rains or suchlike. There have been moments where I have wondered whether we are having any good impact on the environment or community by being here, as the work is so piecemeal and the effects are obscure.

But just now, thinking about the little boy in the tienda being a grown man and possibly cutting a tree that we planted, I feel quite positive about being here. I certainly don´t think that we can be having a negative impact. The project is young like the saplings, but something grand may come of it yet.


I will be leaving Tsuraku next week.

Coming of blog-age

I have been visited by google searchers!

So there.

Accessorizing

. If Dame Viviane made wellies (does she? I want some), she would make them like mine, I am sure.

The ingenuity brought about through practicality lends itself a particular style. My socks are too short for my boots, and so walking and working in humidity for hours causes chafing and an unsightly rash if I don´t have trousers tucked inside. And so my ´pirate´turn downs provide a simple and chic solution.


So far I have yet to find an answer to the question of the mid-calf tan line.


A pocket knife is a girl´s best friend. So far mine has been used for (amongst other things):


  • chopping vegetables in the rainforest, as an alternative to the customary machete

  • freeing a fallen horse from its load in the jungle

  • tweezing splinters

  • making a ling shot to collect leaf specimens

  • jungle manicures (apparently in Spanish there is a special word for the dirt under one´s nails)

  • piñata production

.....and tonight, I will attempt to give myself a haircut with it.

Sunday 13 April 2008

Community

In a culture so socially and structurally different to the realm of contemporary western experience as that of developing indiginous communities like that of the Shuar in Tsuraku, outsiders are naturally drawn together.

Being able to share tips of places to go to do laundry in the town, or a cafe that sells coffee made from ground beans, to hear of experiences that are at the same time both cautionary tales and amusing anecdotes, to talk about visas and leishmaniasis and other technicalities, and to try to unravel the puzzle of sustainable rainforest management and community development with people who are also confused, and exhausted, and awestruck, is a great tonic in a situation that can be very isolating.

There were three of us volunteers at Tsuraku until the welcome arrival of three more on Friday. We were beginning to develop cabin fever from living and working in such close quarters with no one else to talk to and nowhere to go for some time alone. The Shuar are very familyand home-oriented, and so even if the language barrier disappeared there would be little likelihood of them socialising much with the foreigners in the evenings. The volunteer house is too small to spread out, and so there is no option but to live on top of one another. By Friday some conversations had reduced to grunts, and the irritability level was high. It was not unremittingly unpleasant; there were lots of interesting conversations and amuzing moments, but even the most tolerant of people will find themself tested by having to spend almost every waking moment with two strangers from different backgrounds and different personality types. As soon as the three Americans arrived we all perked up. Sentences were formed, there was no silence at mealtime, and the permeating fug lifted.

There is another small community 25 minutes walk to the north of Tsuraku which also has a volunteer project, and currently has four volunteers; all English girls. This weekend I and five other girls have come to a town called Baños, which is located in the valley of the volcano Tungurahua (the one that errupted again earlier this year). We shared a dorm, boiled and froze ourselves by turns in the thermal baths, went on a three hour hike up the mountain to get a good view of the town, went dancing in a nightclub, and had a massage with hot stones amongst other things. I wouldn´t have managed to do even a portion of that, and certainly wouldn´t have enjoyed it as much, if I hadn´t the company of the other girls.

I am just about getting used to the fact that I am the oldest, and that some of my experiences or thoughts might not be the same as the younger ones. I have dated someone with children not much younger than two of these girls, which makes me feel slightly odd, but then I suppose that sort of thing is only going to happen more often from now on.

I just wish I knew what happened to that wisdom that is supposed to come with age.

Synaptic meltdown.

Sometimes I think that perhaps my brain has actually gone numb.

I blink after staring at a pile of rocks for half an hour and realise that I have no idea what I have been thinking about. A swarm of half thoughts flitter through my mind, and then are lost.

I am conscious that there is so much that I have to write about, so much that I am missing out that would be of interest to people. I know that each time someone emails me and asks whether I am happy, I skirt around the question. But each tiny detail is like a pebble on a mountain. To describe the shape and colour of the pebble is one thing, but without the mountain there is no sense to it.

I have been getting lost in the plate tectonics of things, and now I am trying to drag myself to the surface and lay out all my pebbles and twigs and bits of bones in a nice neat pattern on the ground.

It may take some time for me to be able to make a clear picture of the shape of things.

Sunday 6 April 2008

Gringo legs - the best dinner in town - to go, or to eat in?

The pattern of the red spotten swollen mass that is my legs changes daily, but what doesn´t change is that my ankles are no more. The intense throbbing itch comes and goes in waves; the result of presenting myself as fresh meat to the unconquerable bugs of the Amazonian rainforest. The larger (sand fly) bites each have a bruised radius of 2-4cm, and scratching them is blissful, if momentary release.

However, I have been warned that in this humid climate scratched bites have a tendency to develop into open sores, which can then develop into more serious infections. So my will power is being tested, as just the short satisfying moment when the nail digs into the itch is such a temptation that I catch myself scratching unconsciously, in my sleep even.

And then there is that one strange bite that looks different from the rest. That may, or may not, be the temporary home of a fly larvae while it grows.

Well, I always did like to play the hostess.