Dylan Said, "Don't Think Twice, it's Alright"

The man wasn't talking about the kind of situation I'm going to describe, in fact Dylan was referring to a defunct relationship, but I think we can employ his words here for all intents and purposes. What I'm alluding to is a decision, a decision that I made personally around twelve months ago, a decision that has changed my life.

In January of 2011, I met with a woman who was pursuing her Master's degree at Indiana State University. At the time, I was in the last semester of of my Master's program. I had, of course, seen Stephanie Reinert before, had ran into her in the copy room and waved in passing in the department hallway, but we had never talked and had really never formally met. One day Stephanie asked if I would be interested in meeting with her to talk about a place in the middle of the Ecuadorian Amazon known as Yachana. That name, Yachana, means a lot more to me now, but I do remember being intrigued simply by the name. I would later come to learn that "yachana" is a word from the indigenous language Quichua and it can be translated to English as, "a place for learning." Regardless of anything that has happened in the last eight months, one thing that is completely undeniable is that Yachana most certainly has been, for me and many others, a place for learning.

If you have been following my journey, then you already know what my decision was in the end. When Stephanie met with me I was frantically trying to figure out how to find a job in and move back to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Interestingly enough, Stephanie's stories and a few conversations with the founder of Yachana were all it took for me to sign on. I think, at the time, I was easily convinced due to my romanticized predisposition to want help out and work alongside people who are doing positive things in the world. I don't use the phraseology, "work make a difference in the world," because the thought of that just sort of bothers me (I'll explain later). After hearing about Yachana, I did think it would be a great place to do something productive and important. So, did we do productive and important things? I think the answer to that might surprise you. 

When I see or hear phrases like "make a difference," "provoke a positive change," or,  "work towards a better/brighter future," I not only feel a strong repulsion for how generic and overused such phrases are, I also think that using such ideologies is pretty damn pretentious. Aside from all of that, it takes a pretty self-confident or delusional individual to think that they alone can "change the world." So, you will never catch me saying that what I have done at Yachana is going to somehow change the world. After becoming so close with the other volunteers, I can safely say that they would never say that either. The truth is, any halfway intelligent, not full of him or herself, volunteer doesn't expect to change the world. A decent volunteer is simply socially conscientious and wants to use their talents to help out in whatever way they might be useful.

In Berlin there is a 1.3 km section of the Berlin Wall, which has been conserved as a public display of art known as the "East Side Gallery." On one particular part of the wall, there exists a very interesting and profound inscription, it says, "Many small people, who in many small places, do many small things, can alter the face of the world." Now, I don't know about the whole "alter the face of the world" part, but I would like to think that, in the time we spent at Yachana, we were able to do some small things in a small place that I hope will be useful for the kids that we taught. I'm willing to accept that not everyone one of the students will now have a better life after this year (in fact many of them won't), but I do think that what we have done has improved their chances. Regardless of anything else, I can safely say that all of the students at Yachana High School improved their English abilities, increased their Math skills, learned about different literature they were previously unaware of (some even became big readers), and picked up on a lot of practical and useful knowledge from their internships. None of this is guaranteed to help them in the future, but I'm guessing that it certainly won't hurt. 

Certainly the kids got something out of all the work that we have done, but what about me? Early, when I was talking about what makes a good volunteer, I hope I didn't make it sound like volunteers are completely selfless. The fact is that being a volunteer does have a lot of self serving functions as well. If people did everything without thinking about themselves, the Peace Core wouldn't exist. It's funny because not all volunteers are the same, some are much much more self-serving than others. There are volunteers with a savior complex, volunteers with a messiah complex (also known as missionaries), superman volunteers (who think they can "fix" the world), gringo "spread the American way volunteers," environmental "save the planet" volunteers, and the list goes on. What kind of volunteer am I? The truth is I never really thought about it, and that's where Dylan come in. When I made the decision to come down and work with Yachana, I didn't think too much about it. Like I said, it didn't take much to convince me. Don't think twice, it's alright! 

I couldn't be happier that I didn't think twice when it came to making the decision to go out into the middle of the jungle. Would I do it all over again? Of course I would. When I said Yachana has been a place for learning, I meant it. I believe, and I'm sure you'll agree if you have been following my blogs, that I have learned just as much, if not more, than my students. 

What now? Well, for one thing, I have been spending the past couple of weeks in Quito just to get acclimated to living in civilization again. Once you've been trained to be in constant jungle mode, debriefing takes a bit of time. I have to remind myself that there is really no longer any need to shake out shoes or clothes before putting them on, hot showers feel pretty damn good, I like not sweating 24 hours of the day, I'm still getting used to the feeling of dryness and I don't have to check furniture, walls or beds for Bullet Ants before leaning, sitting or sleeping on them. Yes, being in Quito requires a whole different set of survival skills. Instead of worrying about being attacked by an animal, you worry about getting mugged, instead of sweating to death, you have to put on five blankets to go to bed at night, and instead of walking a mile to the lodge, I walk up hill to a bus stop and am out of breath by the time I get there (altitude). Canoes have been replaced with motion sickness provoking buses, pure air has been replaced with smog, and the croak of frogs and the sounds of millions of insects and animals at night has been replaced with police sirens and muffler backfires. Yes, it's a strange transition and I'm sure it will get stranger when I get back to the states. It's not all bad though, I appreciate the fact that I have 24hr, reliable and fast access to the net, a hot cup of coffee every morning, constant electricity, lights at night, and ice cream! 

My plans have changed a bit, a lot bit. You may not have been expecting this blog this early on, after all the school year was supposed to be for ten months. Due to some unfortunate happenings that I won't bore you with, the year ended two months earlier than planned. It was a bit surreal, bittersweet and sad, but we were informed of a situation and had to say goodbye to all of the students in a matter of less than 24 hours. It was interesting saying goodbye to all of those kids, they had become my family over the eight months that we spent together. The interesting thing is that most of them were very matter of fact about their goodbyes. You can definitely tell that they are used to people coming and going in their school lives. The good thing is that they always have each other and I know they will be alright. I'm sure I'm going to miss them more than they'll miss me. 

Two days ago I had to say goodbye to Amanda (the first Yachana volunteer that I met, we were on the same flight into Ecuador and we traveled to Baños together), she´s back in Pennsylvania, Ryan (the other Indiana guy, from Crawfordsville, who I am exactly the opposite of, but became very good friends with) and Stephanie will be heading down to Vilcabamba shortly to live there for a month. Just like that, our little family of volunteers was broken up. It's been too long since I've cried and the moments in which we said goodbye were tough, but I still didn't cry. Along with the kids, I've been missing these guys a whole lot in the past few days and maybe I should just bring on the tears :-) 

It's really tough to go back to your home country after you've been in another for an extended period of time. It was insanely difficult when I went back to Indiana after studying in Buenos Aires. The good thing is that I know that it's going to be hard and I'm going to just have to start preparing myself for that. I think I'll write short blogs about the re-entry process, it's really very interesting. Maybe writing about what's going on will help me mentally deal with it, I think you will be surprised about some of the things that happen to you. It's called reverse cultural shock, and I'm thrilled that I'll be going through it yet again, let me tell you. 

As I finish up here, the lighting is showing me yet another thing that will be different when I get back in the states. What do I mean by lighting? Well, it's 6:30 pm and there is no light, that's what I mean. Twelve hours of day, twelve hours of night, not in Indiana. Let me put that on my list, get used to crazy Indiana time again. Back to the U.S., it won't be long, on the 10th of May, as a matter of fact. See you soon, save a three-eyed fish for me!

  

Desolation Road

I originally wrote this at the beginning of March, when the internet was down, and saved it to publish it at a later time. Now that I am ready to upload it, things have happened here in Ecuador that make this entry even more important. During the time that I was writing this blog entry, two opposing factions were readying a face-off in Quito. News was released that Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, signed a deal with a Chinese mining company to begin the largest mining venture in Ecuadorian history in the Amazon. As a result of this news, a group of indigenous peoples, from the area where the mining is to take place, marched from that part of the Amazon to the capital of Ecuador, Quito. They walked over 500 miles. Correa rounded up people in his support and had them protest for the mining on the same day that the indigenous group arrived at the city to protest against it. Take a look:

Roads are good right? Roads mean access, ease of movement, development, Progress, with the big “P.” I remember, when I was in my early years of college, there was a road that was to be widened and improved, in front of the house that I rented from my boss. This project, I was told, meant a lot of great things. It meant that access from one side of town to the other would be improved, transit times would be cut down, the new wide road would link up to a new bypass (which was also another wonderful project) and life, in general, would be just, overall, better for the people of the town. This road project also meant that I got paid quite a nice sum for relocation, as a victim of “forced eviction,” since the new lane of the road would be passing right through what was the front yard of the house. Essentially, the government bought me, my landlord and the land.

At the time, I thought that the whole project was pretty great. I bought into the idea that I was sold. After the “ground was broken” I remember the project taking a considerably LONG amount of time. Part of the process involved cutting down and clearing out a lot of trees. Once the road was finished, in the years following its opening, I don’t really remember many changes. The traffic was about the same on the road, getting across town took about the same amount of time as always and the promised development is just that I guess, the road is now there, yay!

It wasn’t until now that I really started to think about some of the impacts of that road, of the many trees that were taken down and what that meant for whatever animals were living in that area. However, this blog isn’t intended for that road and its impact, but rather about different roads, roads down south, southern hemisphere, Ecuadorian Amazon, South America. If you think that the road in Terre Haute, Indiana meant a lot of different things, just imagine what a road in the middle of the rainforest means. Currently, all over South America, there is a lot of road construction going on in the lung of the Amazon. You might be questioning why I chose the word “lung” rather than “heart,” as is standard vocabulary for this type of imagery. Well, the Amazon is, quite literally, one of the major lungs of the world.

Did you know that the Ecuadorian government is building roads in the Amazon? If you didn’t know that, then you probably also didn’t know that the Brazilian, Bolivian, Colombian, Peruvian, and Venezuelan, among other governments, are also doing the same. I can’t comment much on the situation in those other countries, as I haven’t witnessed it first hand, however I can tell you about what it’s like here in Ecuador.

You may recall me talking about traveling from Tena to a community upriver from Yachana called Los Ríos in order to return from Quito. Remember the blog in which I bitched about the terrible ride by bus, over a road that is constructed by river rock? That road is one of the many that was built in the middle of the Ecuadorian Amazon, providing access to once uninhabitable territory. This is territory where only indigenous tribes lived before. Now, all along this road, there are hundreds of houses and small communities all scattered about, populated by people known as colonos¸ colonizers. I never have liked the word “colonizer,” it brings a negative connotation to my mind. When I hear “colonizer,” I think “conquest” and I automatically revert back to my knowledge of what conquest is. In my mind, images of the early European colonizers (the English, the French and the Spanish) come up and I think about destruction. Remember what you were taught about the colonizers? I recall the genocide of millions of indigenous, the clearing of an unfathomable amount of forests and the hunting and killing off of animals, many of which no longer exist or are near extinction. Yes, for me, “colonizer” is quite an ugly word.

Unfortunately, here in the Ecuadorian Amazon the story of colonizing is very similar. You might remember me talking about the Yachana Wildlife Reserve and the partnership Yachana maintains with an organization out of the UK known as Globalvision International. One of the many projects that GVI is working on right now is all about road building. The outlook of the whole thing is bleak, but GVI’s idea is to at least give the people an idea of the impact so that they are at least conscious of what they are doing. So you may be asking, what is the impact then? Well, let me relay what the GVI  people told me. Keep in mind, the members of GVI are scientists, I am not.

The way I was made to understand the situation is that road building and colonizing has four phases. The phases are as follows: Phase 1 – the initial road is established, Phase 2 – that initial road is widened, Phase 3 – telephone poles and power lines are put in and Phase 4 – the road is paved. These might all seem like simple processes when they are presented like that. I don’t want you to forget, however, that we are talking about this all going on in the middle of the rainforest. Keep in mind also that the people begin to colonize from the start of Phase 1 and that the colonizing also has many impacts. Let’s take a look at what the impacts are in each one of these phases.

Before we begin, here's one of my pics of more or less un-messed with rain-forest.

In Phase 1, when the road gets put it, a lot of machinery, heavy machinery, has to be brought in. I don’t know about you, but the mere words “heavy machinery” bring another word to my mind, “destruction”. When these machines are brought in, their main purpose is to knock down a lot of trees, flatten the land and make a path. Usually, as a means to save time and money, the straightest line is selected for this path-making, which means the features of the terrain aren’t usually taken into account and there isn’t much regard for what is taken down. As you might imagine, the initial road making, with all of this loud machinery, scares the shit out of animals, and those who aren’t destroyed by the machines retreat deeper into the jungle. We also mustn’t forget that many animals live in these trees that are torn down and the trees themselves are not just life, but life-sources. As the road is being constructed, people begin to colonize, which means more tree chopping and land flattening to make way for their homes and farms. One thing that’s good about phase one is that the road is relatively narrow and there is still a bit of canopy over the road and tree cover still exists.

This is a road (Phase 1) built right in the middle of the Yachana Ecological Reserve by the government.

Phase 2 means that more trees have to come down as the road gets wider. In Phase 2 the canopy is opened up much more to make way for another lane on the road. GVI informed me that, once the road is made, the government has a right to develop twenty meters on either side of the road (forty in total). If they so choose, they can develop forty meters on one side and leave the other. What does a wider road mean and a more open canopy mean? First, it means that monkeys that use the trees as their home are very vulnerable because they can no longer cross the road by tree, but rather must cross on the ground. Once a monkey is on the ground, it is vulnerable to bird attack. The opened canopy also means heat, which kills amphibians like frogs and lizards. No trees means no shade, which means hotness. The road being wider also means an increased since of security for motorists, which means that many more vehicles will pass and at greater speeds. The increased speeds and quantities of vehicles mean that more animals will either be ran over or retreat into the forest due to the noises and vibrations. These wider roads also mean more access, which means the individual houses begin to become more frequent and small villages or communities are formed (more land “development”).      

+  =

The electricity installation of Phase 3 means more canopy opening and more tree destruction. Remember, when you take down a tree, you don’t only kill the tree, but you also destroy a habitat and whatever the tree lands on. The holes for the posts attract frogs and other amphibians and become death traps, the animals go in, but can’t get out. Afterwards, the posts are simply dropped in on top of the animals. More trees have to be cleared out so that they don’t interfere with the power lines. Once electricity is installed, more people are attracted to the little villages and communities and these soon become towns. Communities, villages and towns mean buildings like churches, medical centers, schools, stores and more homes. All of those things require more taking down of trees and lead to the fleeing of more animals. Unfortunately, the animals that stick around these communities or towns are often hunted and killed as well (mostly due to a lack of understanding or education on the part of the people).

            I witness Phase 4 every time I take the trip from Quito to Tena, but I haven't seen it here, this far inside the jungle yet. I’m told that is to come just in the near future. Phase 4, when realized, will mean more destruction, more machinery and more “development.” Asphault will have to be brought in and laid down, the speeds will go up even faster on the road, more animals will retreat or be killed and more trees will be downed. Once access is facilitated enough by paved roads, communities and towns will become small cities. I know this is how it will happen because it has already happened. Tena, a rather considerable city, is right in the middle of what used to be full Amazonian jungle.

            This is all progress, right? Historically, what we have been taught is that once an influential group, say an entire government, gets it in its’ mind that they are progressing, this “progress” cannot be stopped. Please don’t let me tell you that everything is wrong with this road building. There are benefits, the Ecuadorian people do have the right to access to a better life, they should be able to more easily transport their products, they should be able to get into the cities and they should be able to develop “their” land. Here’s where my skepticism comes in, it’s why I put the word “their” between quotation marks. Is really any of this land ours? I think the simple answer is “No,” but the complex answer is, “Legally, based on laws that men have created and accepted universally, it is now.” Apart from that, while the government tells the people that they’re constructing these roads to better their lives, the major driving factor behind the creation of these roads is the facilitation of access for oil exploration.

So, my short and simple assertion is going to be a very skeptical one, but it will be the truth if we do nothing. Let me paint this picture for you. We do nothing, meaning we cannot stop the destruction of the planet. We have gotten to the point where there is no turning back. There are a bunch of “bleeding heart liberals” (to make use of the overused label) all over the world that are sitting back in their comfortable furniture, air conditioned homes, in their developed cities, with their hybrids, their computers and their comfortable lives in their animal and tree free cities shouting, “Save the planet.” I don’t mean this to insult them, but the planet won’t be saved while all of us are still on it. All they need to do is look around at the places they live in, think that all of that was forest before it was “developed,” before it was “colonized.” Why? It’s simple, we are terrified of nature in its’ natural state. No one wants to live in nature; they only want to camp there on the weekend. We are much more comfortable with our automobiles, our temperature modified living, our grocery stores, etc. Notice that I said we, including me.

            You’re now asking, “If things are so bleak, if the planet is doomed, what are you doing?” I’m doing what I can, along with many of those other bleeding hearts, to slow things down a bit. For now, we can educate, we can get more people to do less killing and destroying of plants and animals and we can slow the process down a bit. Ultimately, I realize that we might not be able to stop it; we may very well be a nasal infection that the earth is going to sneeze out one of these days. Meanwhile, I’m doing my best to help out down here, to educate a little and slow down the destruction. You may not know it, but a lot of other bleeding hearts and I, along with a lot of young people of the new Ecuadorian Amazon generation, are down here doing what we can to protect your most valuable assets, life forms and oxygen. Please do what you can to try to postpone, maybe even stop, its’ disappearance with us.             

Fly like an Eagle to the Sea, and the jungle, and the Mountains

It is common wisdom here and a source of bragging rights for all Ecuadorians that their country, a country most close in size to the U.S. state of Colorado, is one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet. Just to provide you with some trivial information, Wikianswers tells me, “Colorado is the 8th largest state with 103,729 square miles [and] Ecuador measures 98,985 square miles.” As you might imagine, at its size, Ecuador is not a very big industrial nation, which means that it relies on limited resources for national income. One of these resources is the export of fruits and roses, although the income generation and dependability (shelf life) of those products is sometimes iffy, another product, unfortunately, is oil, which is leading to the deforestation of the Amazon (a topic I address in another blog to come) and, finally, one of the most important national products of Ecuador is a service, tourism.

            If you ask any Ecuadorian what the most amazing thing about their country is, they’ll be very quick to tell you (or boast) that the tiny country of Ecuador has three incredible landscapes that very few countries possess: coastal, mountainous and jungle. The bragging rights provided by these three natural landscapes are the base for the entire tourism industry of Ecuador. The Ecuadorian government, past and present, has not been unwise in its exploiting of this natural resource. The former tourism campaign was decent, with its catchy slogan, “La vida en estado puro” (Life in its pure state), but Rafael Correa (current president of Ecuador) hit a grand slam with his investment in the new Ecuadorian Ministry of Tourism, “Ama la vida” (Love Life), simple, but great!

            So, why does any of this matter, am I working for the ministry of Ecuadorian tourism? I can assure you, as my bank account reflects, that I am not on the Correa Ama la vida payroll, but I would like to promote some tourism in this blog. It’s not my intention to solely promote Ecuador, but its triple threat landscape provides me with an argument that I think my readers will be unable to deny.

            It might not be convenient (or maybe it won’t meet your expectations) for you as the reader, but for me, the writer, it’s much more simple if I cut out a lot of the “anti-travel abroad” protests that I’ve heard over the years and narrow them down to the three most common: fear, egocentrism and money. One of the most typical things I hear from people in the U.S., when I talk to them about traveling abroad, is their proclamation of fear of the unknown. After that, I also get the very egocentric question, “Why leave the states when we have it all here?” Lastly, I usually get some sort of decree about the extreme state of poverty that the would-be-traveler is, supposedly, currently in. I know this seems formulaic; after all three arguments fit conveniently into three main points of the body of an essay, but let’s take a look at each one of these arguments individually.

            FEAR, this is most definitely one of the most powerful drivers behind a lot of our actions, isn’t it? When people in the states think of traveling abroad, they tend to get a very nervous and worry a lot about a little. “I can’t speak the language!”, “Rules, transportation, stores, bathrooms, etc. will be very different there!”, “What about converting money?”, “What if I get lost?”, “What about the out-of-control drug war?”, and “Aren’t things dangerous ‘over there’?”, are just a few of the worries I have heard. If you let fear rule your life, you may never do anything nor experience anything new. Most of these doubts or worries are completely irrational anyway. “Is it dangerous over there?”, it’s dangerous everywhere! The U.S. may be one of the most dangerous countries in the world, especially if you look at the murder and other crime rates, but that doesn’t seem to keep anyone from going to work or conducting their normal business. Those other things are just problems that you must learn to get over, they’re part of the experience. If you don’t speak the language, you do the best you can, if you get lost, you work to get found, and you figure all of these things out.

The next claim I want to address is the idea that the U.S. somehow has everything and, therefore, there is no need to travel to any other country. This claim is certainly untrue. I cite my early statement about Ecuador, the country just slightly smaller than Colorado, with its’ coastal, mountainous and tropical jungle regions. Is this also true for the U.S.? Coasts, check, mountains, check, and tropical jungle, no check. Where is the tropical rainforest in the states? The simple answer is, there isn’t one (unless you count Puerto Rico as part of the states). The 50 states have pretty incredible and diverse landscapes, but they don’t have everything. There is a rainforest, in Washington State, but the US is not in a tropical region, so there are simply things that we don’t have. Keep in mind, as well, that the US is HUGE, so it’s pretty incredible to think that Ecuador, a little tiny country has many things that the United States do not.

Anyone who has read Darwin knows about all of the incredible species he discovered on the Galapagos Islands. Ever get a look at the Galapagos tortoise in its’ natural habitat? Another interesting trivia fact, there are around 888 bird species in the United States, Ecuador has 1,515. You may be saying to yourself, “The number of bird species is VERY trivial,” and, “What do I care about birds?”, but I’m simply using that as an example of the differences. The diversity of natural wildlife in Ecuador is simply astounding and unlike anything else I’ve seen in the states.

The differences don’t only exist in the flora and fauna. If you’ve been following my blog regularly, you will have also noticed much dissimilarity between Spanish colonial constructions in South America and those British (the ones that are left) of North America. I’ve visited many countries in Latin America and one very incredible thing about their architecture is that a lot of colonial constructions are still very much intact. I should not only argue for travel to South America. Keep in mind that the modern Americas are very young, I have yet to travel to Europe or Asia, but, there, we’re talking about nations that are thousands of years old.

The worst excuse I’ve ever heard for not traveling is, “I don’t have the money.” If you wait until you do have the money, you might never have the chance to do anything until you’re at the point where your body is no longer able to enjoy it. Given, there are, most definitely, situations that take economic priority to travel, but I would suggest that some creature comforts can be sacrificed to increase your quality of life through a travel experience. Find a way, plane tickets are expensive, but other things are cheap. I can eat a complete meal here in Ecuador for $2.50 usd! I think that we sometimes have the mentality that our material purchases will improve our quality of life. People have this idea that they need to spend all of their money on a home, a car, a stereo system, a television, etc., which leaves them without a dime to spend on travel. People work so hard to pay for all of their material possessions that they’re trapped into a job where they are given two weeks off a year. Two weeks off a year is hardly enough time to go anywhere and, when you’ve already bought into the idea of a capitalist’s paradise, the only kind of trip you’ll allow yourself to have at that point is one straight from a brochure, all expenses paid. The expenses are definitely paid, at the highest price possible.

So, you might be wondering how the theme for this blog came about. At the end of February and the beginning of March, I found myself sitting on a beach*, under a tent, sipping on a 40oz beer that I had just purchased for a dollar and staring out at the Pacific Ocean waves roll in. I had a revealing thought at that moment, “Here I am, on the beach with little money in my bank account (but plenty of beer), happy as hell, and there are many people that will never do anything like this.” It made me sad, so I wanted to write an entry to try to convince my readers to travel abroad. Come down and visit me if you want! I hope I haven’t sounded condescending (that was not my intention); I simply want to encourage you to improve your quality of life a little without material goods. Leaving home means a challenge, a cultural exchange; quite literally, it’s an “experience of a lifetime”, and you shouldn’t wait any longer.

*I actually traveled from the Amazon (Yachana), to the sierra, Quito, to the Coastal city of Manta, back to Quito and, finally, back to Yachana in a period of less than ten days. I was able to visit three very diverse landscapes in less than ten days, that’s one of the reasons this country is so amazing. 

Man on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, or Maybe Not

The internet, connectivity, signal, Wi-Fi, web, online, etc., all of these words are things that have become very familiar to us in our “modern world”; and all of them are things that I have been without for several days now. It’s funny, but you really forget how much these “social networks”, more like “anti-social networks,” trap you in. My level of anxiety, from my state of “disconnectedness,” is nearing the summit of Mt. Despair, but, just before I get there, I’ve decided to take a step back and look at the plain irrationality of the whole thing.

            I think the most apparent thing that I should be recognizing is the fact that I LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON! I realize that it is quite a miracle of science that Internet, with a capital “I,” and the F-word (Facebook that is) have even found their way into the selva. Is Mark Zuckerberg aware that even underprivileged kids from the Ecuadorian orient, many of whom live in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t mean rural Indiana nowhere, have Facebook accounts? Would Mr. Zuckerberg be willing to donate some of his gazillions of dollars to my students if he did know this? Who can help me with this matter? Anyhow, my point, after that brief rambling session, is that kids here in the orient who have no computers in their homes, generally have regular access to internet while they’re here at school, thanks to Yachana. Unfortunately, the rule of the selva is that things tend to break with time out here.

            Our internet system is a bit of an intricate beast of technology, which I will not even presume to be able to explain with my little knowledge. Let’s face it, with things moving as fast as they are, a 2^nd grader can do things with a cell phone that are completely lost on me. At any rate, some way or another, an internet signal is aimed at a big satellite here at Yachana, which, in turn, is distributed by a series of other satellites and antennas. Believe it or not, the antenna at the high school spreads the signal it receives, from the lodge, which is about a mile away, all around the school grounds and gives us Wi-Fi (very slow Wi-Fi¸ but Wi-Fi nonetheless). A signal is also somehow sent down river (about 2-3 miles) to the Global Vision International Yachana reserve and distributed in a similar manner. As you might imagine, if something goes wrong with this system, it is a bit complicated to get it fixed. First and foremost, I have never passed a Best Buy while floating down the Napo River, and I don’t think that the Geek Squad makes house calls here. Can someone also look into that for me? As a result of a “down” in the system, we have now been without internet, within the entire Yachana community, almost since the beginning of the month.

            The first thing that this experience has taught (or rather revealed to me) is that, over the years, I have slowly and without knowing become very sick with a new disease known as, “Facebookus Addictulitis.” What is the cure for this disease? Well, scientist (mostly those born in the fifties and sixties) all over the world are hastily and desperately searching for a cure, but they have been, thus far, unsuccessful. I however, Christopher Mackenzie Baumunk, MA grad of Spanish Literature, believe I have come up with a remedy (or at least a temporary treatment). All you have to do is volunteer to teach at Yachana Foundation, in the interior of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and wait for something to go wrong with the internet. Alternatively, for a speedier cure, you could also bypass the wait and volunteer at a place in the selva that simply has no internet. Might I suggest a very unique experience with an indigenous Amazon tribe, perhaps the amazing Shuar people, or the Huarani?

            Well, I have decided to respond to the plea of the band Third Eye Blind, “Wish you would step back from that ledge my friend…,” and not end it all quite just yet*. Ultimately, I think my internet-less experience is going to be a quite good one for me, even if I can’t see that at this point. I do think that my friends and family, you, the reader that follows this blog, will begin to feel just as disconnected from me as I do from them. That is certainly one of the unfortunate effects of this circumstance, but all I can do is apologize for my long absence from blogging and emailing. Even as I write this (in Word), I am uncertain when I will be “reconnected”. There is a very good possibility that I might not actually be posting this until the end of the month, when I’m in Q    uito on break. I have also previously written two other blog entries, which I have been unable to publish, but plan on doing so whenever the “access” returns.

            While I am writing this, I am laughing to myself slightly because of the vocabulary I have been employing. My mind reverts to It’s a Wonderful Life, also to the 60s, 70s, 80s and, even, some of the 90s, when words like blogs, blogging, emailing, Wi-Fi, etc. would have been completely unknown gibberish. I don’t have to go into this subject to much, because I know it’s one that is over-exposed as it is, but it’s interesting, isn’t it? Just think, we have even had to reinvent words, take words that used to have another meaning and give them a new one. A net is still used for fishing or playing sports, but it is also the Net and a mouse was a problem that required the use of traps with cheese, poison pellets or the purchase of a cat, but is now also what I’m holding in my hand, manipulating the cursor. From my point of view, that of a child born in the 80s who grew up in the nineties, this transformation and movement of technology is incredible. I remember the first modems that made that horrible sound, which I affectionately called “The Dying Cat,” the term “56k”, which meant it took one hour to download a song on Napster, the little AOL Running Man, “You’ve got mail!”, and the old Floppy Disks that were literally floppy! Now we have about a million words to identify our storage devices that are smaller than my pink finger, pen drive, thumb drive, memory, flash, and the list goes on.     

            Now that I find myself out here in the selva, without my precious connection, I realize how much a big part of our lives technology has come to be. I’ve almost always known technology like this because I grew up as it was growing up. It might be the craziness talking, but I think I am starting to like being without it! As many of you know, I have never liked texting and I am more than ecstatic to be free of that completely dehumanizing and, often times rude, practice. When I say it’s dehumanizing, I refer to the fact that it ties you to the machine and makes your response almost as instantaneous as the obnoxious beeping, buzzing or musical prompt it emits. I call texting rude, because it is often done right in front of you, while you are conversing with someone, having dinner with them or sharing a beer; the live, face-to-face, communication is abruptly cut off and priority is given to the machine and its’ prompt. I am curious as to how my family and friends are doing and I wouldn’t mind having news of the “outside world,” but I am glad to be free of the impulse to see if I have notifications or new emails.

            The lack of internet combined with terrible weather is also leading to some curious behavior issues. Thus far, this has been an interesting month; we are in the rainy season, which means, if it doesn’t rain a lot, it rains every day. I have been told that the rainy season lasts until June, so we can expect this weather almost every day for the next three months. I’m from Indiana, I’m no stranger to adverse weather conditions, but I must admit that I have felt a bit like a walled in cat during the past week. No internet, no electricity during the day (our inverter is down) and a lot of rain, make you look for new things to occupy your time in the jungle. I guess the Northern Russians must feel this way in the middle of winter, unfortunately we can’t resort to Vodka here. My students expressed their feelings of entrapment by trying to sneak off, without permission, to the community fair downriver, two days ago.

I feel strange because I am now the “responsible adult,” the “authority,” who is required to “lay down the law” and provide a punishment. I don’t much like being the authority figure, it makes me feel old and see myself as the mean parent (I don’t want kids, EVER), but, with the help of the other volunteers, all three of us looked like the bad guys and we decided on the punishment together. It’s funny, as I spoke with the kids I felt like I was repeating my mother’s words, “Son, you will never lose my respect or my love, but you have definitely lost my trust.” The kids, a group of five, as a consequence of their actions, no longer have permission to go to the community or anywhere else without our accompaniment and have also lost their next external internship, which means they will be interning at the lodge next month.  

            Well, I will wrap up this document (I call it a document because I have no clue when it will become a blog) here. Just as I finished that last sentence, the rain starting coming down even harder. The tin roof of the high school amplifies the impact of the drops and that depressing feeling starts to creep on in. I think I remember seeing a chess set around here somewhere. Does anyone remember Rocky IV, when Rocky’s trainer is playing chess with the Russian owner of the cabin that they’re training in in the middle of the Siberian dessert? That’s how I’m beginning to feel, minus the cold. I hope the kids know how to play chess. 

*My readers who are nineties kids will get my reference to the song “Jumper,” but, if you didn’t get it, take a look at Third Eye Blind’s, “Jumper,” on YouTube.          

              

Destined by Chance

I know that I’ve taken an embarrassingly long hiatus from blog writing, but I have an interesting story that I hope will make up for my month-long absence of material. This story actually finds its beginning in another country, taking a few years’ worth of steps back in time. It’s a story that has yet to conclude, one that, with any luck, will continue for years and years to come. The most recent chapter took place in Ecuador, but the story begins on a VERY hot day, hace unos años atrás, in the city of sueños (dreams) and Tango, Buenos Aires, Argentina (Capital Federal).

A young man (you could call him young for the fact that he was, but the term “young” certainly didn’t reflect his state of mind at that time) was embarking on what would become a life-changing trip. He was dropped off by friends and family at IND, destined for a transfer in MIA and an eventual arrival at EZE. He was a bit strange for the fact that he had no fear of flying and, unlike most people, he really quite enjoyed airports and the whole process of getting on a plane (he still does, in fact, enjoy them). If you haven’t guessed by now, the young man was me, and I definitely didn’t know that the trip was going to be life-changing. I should think that, if we did know which of our actions were to be life-changing, we would most likely not take certain risks or make such decisions due to the presence of our constant, annoying and persistent fear of CHANGE (with capital letters). Fortunately, I had little to no idea what was in store for me in Buenos Aires and, as Robert Frost said, “…that made all of the difference.”

I remember distinctly driving into the city from the Buenos Aires Airport, Ezeiza, and beginning to question myself about where I had gotten off to. If you haven’t seen Buenos Aires before, then it may be a bit hard for you to comprehend, but I will try to explain it. The city is Euro-Latino, that’s the best way I know to put it. The buildings, plazas and parks are beautiful, most of the constructions date back at least a hundred years or more, but the city is also filled with trash, graffiti and dog shit awaiting the unknowing foot on all of the sidewalks, among other unpleasant things. The porteños, people from Buenos Aires, are a rare species of Latino, many, but not all, of whom lack every quality one loves about people in South America. They don’t tend to be the friendliest, many are quite pretentious, when you ask them where they’re from they usually say Spain or Italy and they almost seem contemptuous of the detail that they just so happen to be born in Latin America. To make a call back to Frank Sinatra, luck was a lady with me when I got my roommate for that tiny apartment in Buenos Aires over Calle Viamonte. He was Argentine, no doubting that, but he most clearly was not porteño.

My first couple of months in Buenos Aires was actually a little depressing because I got my room and there was absolutely no one there. I waited and eventually arrived at the conclusion that I simply wouldn’t be getting any roommates. I went on a trip to Uruguay with a few friends and, when I got back to BsAs, I walked into my apartment to find a very long-haired young man sleeping in one of the extra bed. We made introductions, he told me that his name was Branko, and the very first thing I learned about Branko was that he was a TALKER! If I recall correctly, we spent the next three to four hours conversing about most of Branko’s life story, which was great because I had gone two months with hardly anyone to talk to.

During the rest of the time I spent studying in Buenos Aires, Branko and I became very good friends, we were brothers. We also got another roommate, José Manuel, whom I also consider a very dear friend. When I left Argentina to study my Master’s, I had to say goodbye to a lot of friends, but saying adiós to my roommates was the most difficult. When you live with people for some time, it is a drastic change when you check out. I wasn’t sure if or when I might see these guys again, it was  rough.

            When I went back to the states, I was a bit of a wreck for a year. They call it culture shock in reverse and it hit me pretty hard. That whole year all I could think about was BsAs and the life I had there. I didn’t really know how, but I had to figure out a way to get back. After a year of studies, I decided to bite the bullet and pay the ridiculously expensive ticket back to EZE, even if I was only going to be able to spend a month there, I knew it would be worth it. It turned out that Branko and José were still roommates and that they had acquired a pretty decent sized apartment in the barrio (neighborhood) of Flores in Buenos Aires. So I stayed at their place for a month in the summer of ’09. Being back in the city just made me want to live there more, but I had to head back to finish up the MA, me despedí otra vez, I said goodbye again to my friends and to Buenos Aires.

            I spent two years in Terre Haute, studying  my Master’s, teaching, working and dreaming up different schemes for how to find my way back to BsAs. I maintained contact with Branko through Facebook, but nothing regular. Slowly but surely, I got used to living back in the states and I had to forget about my vida bonarense, the Buenos Aires life. I progressed into the last stage of my Master’s in 2010-2011. During that time, I made a trip down to Ecuador, over the holidays, and made some painful observations that began to direct my thoughts and desires into a definitive decision. I came to the realization that I, most selfishly, wanted to go back to Argentina mostly for personal reasons, just for me. Argentina is a fairly well-developed nation, one of the wealthiest in Latin America and things are more or less stabilized. Of course there is poverty and there are many things that could be improved, but the situation is not totally dire. What I saw in Ecuador, to the contrary, was an extreme poverty, a people hurting and a huge need for some change. I also met incredibly humble and inviting people who treated me with a hospitality that I hadn’t ever known before. You already know how the rest of the story goes and how I ended up here in the middle of the Amazon, swatting arenillas as I write this blog and they proceed to bite the hell out of me.      

            Now, let me fast forward to January/February 2012.  At the beginning of the last jornada I got a Facebook message from Branko, “¡Chris, estoy en Ecuador broooo!” Branko made a five day trip in bus from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Lima, Perú and ended up in Montañita, Ecuador. I could hardly believe it when he told me, but my dear old argentine brother was in the same country as I. In the last week of January I headed up river to Los Ríos, made the three hour bus trip up to Tena and, after some walking around, found Branko in the flesh with a huge backpack on his shoulders. It was a sublime experience to see him again after three years, and in the Orient of Ecuador of all places.

            Branko spent a few days in Yachana, he went around everywhere barefoot and shirtless and didn’t seem to get bit by a single bug, qué envidia (what envy). All of the others got along with him very well; Branko is an easy person to get along with. I actually did something new that I had yet to experience in Yachana with him and the coworkers, we went tubing! It’s a pretty simple concept, you just get one of the old style semi tire inner tubes, get in a canoe and go up river, jump into the Napo (the tributary of the Amazon that we live by) with your inner tube and let it carry you downstream.  The only trick is to make sure you can paddle a bit with your hands so that you wind up on the shore when you get to where you want to stop. The Napo does have Cayman, Anaconda, Piranha and other such animals, but they seemed to just leave us alone, I guess we weren’t interesting enough.

            At the end of the week we headed back up to Tena along with the group of other volunteers. We had decided to all travel to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador. As you might expect, the bus ride from Tena to Cuenca was quite miserable and deserves a bit of story in itself. Our original plan was to travel in train from a city called Riobamba (about five hours from Tena) down to Alausí and the Devil’s Nose (this is a famous railway for two reasons; because it’s a feat of incredible engineering that cuts its way through the Ecuadorian sierra and you used to be able to ride on the top until someone, quite literally, lost their head). Once we got to Riobamba, they informed us that the train was not operating, “When will it be up and going?” They told us, “In June,” which in Ecuadorian means, “In a few years.” The other volunteers decided to stay in a “classy hostel,” which cost about $8 a night, and Branko and I opted for the more economic option, $5 a night. You can imagine what $5 a night looks like, but, on the plus side, we got to leave our mark on the wall. Who’s classy now?

 

            We grabbed a bus on down to Cuenca, which meant another six hours through mountain highways and no bathroom, what joy! Branko, after having spent five days in a bus, didn’t have a single complaint about six hours. I fell in love with Cuenca just about as soon as I got there. It’s very similar to Quito in the fact that it’s between the mountains, but that’s about where the similarities end. Cuenca is incredible clean, it’s cold, but a bearable cold (nothing like the freezing nights of Quito), the people are incredibly friendly and have a sing song way of talking, there are beautiful parks and plazas, a considerable part of the city consist of Spanish colonial constructions and, best of all, there isn’t a ridiculous amount of traffic congestion. Branko, the other volunteers and I all agreed that we could easily live in Cuenca. It would appear that there are many foreigners that agree with that sentiment. Cuenca is one of the number one spots for expat retirees, especially from the U.S. It’s easy to understand why, life is tranquil, the cost of living is low, the people are amazing and the landscapes are beautiful. I’ll put it on my list of potential future places to stay for an extended period.

            When we got to Cuenca, we went in search of a specific hostel, but it was all booked. We were guided around the corner and, per chance, we just happened upon a great place, $8 a night, with an amazing ceiling. The hostel was originally a mansion from Spanish colonial times. These constructions are great, the center of them is open (kind of like the plaza of a city), the ceiling is glass so all of the light comes in and you feel like you’re outside and all of the rooms surround the home’s open center (interior patio).

           

            The first day we were in the hostel, I went down to the kitchen to heat water for maté and happened upon a group of Argentines doing exactly the same! Branko and I became quick friends of these fellow Argentines and discovered that they were porteños. These people were great, it just goes to show you that not all porteños are mala onda (bad vibes) and you can’t generalize. It would be like saying that all Parisians are jerks, although I’ve heard many are! We spent a few days drinking A LOT of maté¸ lazing around, walking slow, cooking, hanging out and downing Cuba Libres with our new found friends. They were a very Argentine couple of days. We came to the conclusion, together, that in Cuba the Cuba Libre probably isn’t known as such. We speculated that there it may be known as the Bloqueo Económico or the Guantánamo Preso (Economic Blockade or Imprisoned Guantanamo). Just a little political humor, for those of you who get it J.

            The Argentines told us that they had only a week left in Ecuador and, therefore, were going to head down to Vilcabamba (a town known for the longevity of its inhabitants, many of which live to see 100 years of age or more). Branko, also having limited time in Ecuador, decided to head down with the group to check it out. Once again, my brother from another mother and I were to part ways. The goodbye was not so tough this time because I knew, at that point, that the two of us are simply destined by chance to be friends and we will certainly meet up again in the future. Buenos Aires is not far off!

Alone Again. Naturally.

I have it from credible, native Ecuadorian, sources that I'm still allowed to wish a Feliz Año Nuevo, Happy New Year, to you up until the 6th of January. So, ¡Feliz año! Right, now that that's out of the way, prepare to be shocked:

Now, if you're not Ecuadorian or you haven't visited Ecuador during New Year's Eve, you are now forming for yourself a series of questions and revelations, which may include the following: "Are those men?, Are they wearing dresses?, Those ARE men!, Wait, those are street-walking transvestites!, Why are there a bunch of street walking trannies?, Why am I looking at a picture of street walking-trannies? and, finally, What the hell was Chris doing and where the hell was he to have taken a picture of these finely dressed gentlemen?" Don't worry, there is a completely "logical" and "normal" explanation to all of these inquiries. 

Firstly, although I might have a hard case to prove, these gentlemen are in fact NOT street-walking transvestites, but rather viudas, or widows. Wait for it, it will all come together I promise. I´m actually even asking myself how, but one way or another I will explain this so it makes perfectly good sense, just wait and see! I already introduced you to the term año nuevo, right? Well, here is an año viejo, "old year":

Surely, at this point, you are getting more than just a little annoyed with me. I can just imagine you saying, "Those weren't widows, they were trannies, and this isn't an old year, it's a smurf that someone has tied to the front of there car!" "Lucy, you've got some explainin' to do!" 

Deep breath, and here we go! Well,the Año Viejo, has to go somewhere, right? I mean the old year can't simply just disappear. It kind of dies, doesn't it? Well, what happens if we decide to help the good ol' old year on its way out? How about, while Mr. Old Year is on his death bed, in his final hour, we stomp on him, fill him full of combustibles or douse him with flammables and set him on fire! That's exactly the fate that awaited Mr. Smurf above. 

This tradition is common throughout Ecuador and many other Latin American countries. The idea is to create a large doll or effigy, which tends to represent something or someone from the old year. In the case of the photo above, this "old year" is designed after the Smurfs movie; words can´t describe the pleasure they must have felt from burning something from that awful movie! Many of the dolls are made with the faces of politicians, famous people or even family members. This doesn't mean that they want to burn their family member, but rather incinerate and send packing any bad energy or luck that that person may have had during the past year. If the año viejo is an effigy of a politician, you can bet they weren't happy with something that politician did that year. In other words, were saying "CHAU" to the old year and any bad things that happened during it by burning the hell out of it!  In the case of the dolls designed like smurfs, the Simpsons or other cartoon or commercial characters, those are just for fun or examples of how commercialism infiltrates even the most unique of cultural practices.  In the end, it really doesn't matter who or what the old year is designed after, just as long as it's understood that it represents the past and it will be turned to ashes with the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve. Part of the "old year" floats away and the other half gets swept up off the street the next morning, and that's how they invite the Año Nuevo in!

I know what you're thinking, "That's all good and fine, you have to burn off the old year, but what do the cross dressers have to do with anything?" Like I said, the año viejo dies, well it's strictly "logic", the old year leaves behind his wife when he dies. As a result, the lovely viudas, widows, go out into the streets, dressed to the nines, to stop cars in the streets and ask for money to support their children now that there husband is dead. It's all for fun and it's really quite hilarious. Those men who wish to participate, borrow their mothers' or sisters' clothes, and sometimes makeup, get dressed and make for the streets of Ecuador. The parties are the biggest and best in the small neighborhoods where large groups of friends get together to practice the tradition. 

Apart from stopping the cars, the viudas put on quite a show; they usually dance suggestively ("suggestively" is saying the least) to earn the 5 cents that every car is expected to pay for the orphaned children of the año viejo. Any Ecuadorian knows that, if you go out late on New Year's Eve in your car, you will be stopped frequently and be provoked to pay up the offering. If you're not interested in this, you don't go out driving or you stick to the major highways, but you may also get stopped on those! 

Okay, so maybe dressing up like a lady and asking for money isn't your thing, no worries, there are other traditions that you might enjoy. In fact, there are a whole lot more traditions, but I'll just talk about two more that I really like. One involves uvas, or grapes, and the other requires a maleta, suitcase. Let's talk grapes first.

At the stroke of midnight, if you want to have a good New Year, filled with lots of luck, you better have 12 uvas in your hand or pocket, ready to eat. When the clock hits midnight, with each bell strike after, 12 in total, you must eat a grape. Now, if you have large grapes with seeds, this is quite a feat. No worries, the traditions, as I'm sure you've gathered from the men's dresses, have flexible rules. You can eat your grapes at your own pace at midnight and MOST people won't judge you. No need to start the New Year off with a nasty stomach ache. Where does this tradition come from? If you asked an Ecuadorian or other Latino, they may not really know, but Wikipedia does have the answer! It happens that this tradition dates back the end of the 19th century in Spain, where vineyard farmers began the tradition in Alicante and Murcia. They said that eating the 12 grapes would bring good luck with a plentiful harvest in the coming year; they also, conveniently, sold, and continue to sell, more grapes at the end of the year. Don't underestimate the power of the grapes! I know someone who didn't have her grapes last December 31st and she had a terrible start to 2011. 

Another favorite New Year tradition of mine is "The Running of the Suitcase," as I call it. What this tradition consists of is blowing the dust off of whatever suitcase your storing in the closest or attic and taking it down to the street to roll it around the block. Running around the neighborhood with your empty suitcase is a perfect way to ensure that you will have a year full of fun and exciting travels, plus it's the only time you can test your luggage out in the street without the neighbors looking at you funny! 

Now, for your viewing pleasure, a few more images of men in dresses: 

And here are some pics of the general festivities:

There it is, my expertly crafted blog rationalizing the practice of Ecuadorian men dressing up like their mothers and sisters, the burning of life sized smurfs, the gorging of twelve grapes and the sprinting around with your carry-on. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, but I can assure you that you didn’t get as much as a kick out of it as I did live and in person. Nothing more funny than watching a grown man try to dance Salsa and Cumbia in his sister’s high heels. As I wrap up this blog entry, I want to sincerely wish you a Happy New Year once again. I hope your year is full of éxitos, successes, and alegría, happiness. At the same time, I hope mine goes well again because, at the moment, I´m unfortunately feeling a bit resentful with the aftermath of the holidays. The festivities give you vacations, bring you friends and loved ones, and let you have fun and enjoy life to its fullest, just in time to send the friends and loved ones away on planes and in cars and cut the vacation off after the first week of January. Well, I plan to continue to have fun and enjoy life to its fullest, but I’ll have to do so a few friends and loved ones short. In the meantime, I’m feeling, “Alone again (naturally).”