Rafting

It feels like it has been far too long since I have discussed my Peace Corps work here in Puyo. I know it may seem like all I have been doing is walking around Puyo looking for the next story to tell in my blog, but that is not the case.

Work has been very….different….as of late. There really are a million things going on at once, but at any given point in time, I feel as though I have very little to do. This is mostly because I am still in the process of deciding how much I want to be involved with which projects we have going on at the office.

Last week, on Wednesday, I headed out to FRATES. It has been a while since I spent any real time out there. I went out with Bolivar, and we gave Antonio as ride back there as well (Antonio is the young guy running things out there now). On the way out, we talked a lot about politics and even more about cars. In Ecuador, it appears as though most people find Chevrolet to be an economical and quality car - so it is pretty popular. GM has a factory in Quito and they produce all the vehicles they sell in Ecuador in that factory. Perhaps it a little pride in what you build that makes Chevy a popular choice here. GM apparently is doing something right somewhere in this world.

Anyhow, I had no idea that we were going to have a meeting with community members at FRATES, I just walked right into that. The meeting was about an organic fertilizer project that CODEAMA is part of and that they want to extend to the FRATES communities. Bolivar spoke at length and the people were interested in taking part. However, after Bolivar was done, the conversation shifted to FRATES, Antonio, and Umberto. People were not happy with the situation out there and were obviously confused as to what FRATES was and what role it has and would have in their lives.

Umberto apparently wrote a letter to a couple community members that were causing some “problems” for Antonio and this set a few people off. I finally saw the letter and saw that it was strongly worded. Carlota, the president of the community of Vencedores, and one of the people the letter was directed towards, gave a 10 minute speech to the group bashing Umberto and Antonio. Bolivar just let her speak and didn’t try to speak for Umberto or Antonio. Antonio attempted to explain his role, but was having trouble saying the right things. He was really in one of those positions where no matter what he said, he would look like the bad guy. You see, he is in charge of the facilities now and Umberto wants to define to the communities that the property is his personal property - Antonio has to enforce that - so he is the bad guy.

After Carlota’s speech, I felt compelled to speak. I explained that right now, Umberto and FRATES have no money, none, zilch for any kind of programming. I explained that Antonio is an employee of Umberto’s so don’t be upset with the messenger - he has to carry out Umberto’s wishes. I also reminded them that Antonio has been working hard to use his resources (his father is a very influential person in Puyo) to bring programming to the communities and that he organized a medical brigade that will be coming to FRATES to give free medical aide to the communities. I also said that CODEAMA is trying to bring them free programming and training and that I am part of all of this as well and still plan on doing my own work out in these communities. I ended it all by saying we all need to work together in order for any real progress. I think it went over well and at the end, Bolivar gave me his “well-done” face and said that I did a good job. Again, my Spanish isn’t great, but it is improving. It is clear though, the people are not happy with how things are shaking out at FRATES so I think my work with them is going to concentrate on things away from the center in their respective communities.

Bolivar dropped me off at the house when we returned home. Sue was home from work sick with a sore throat. She seemed to be feeling better than she had been in the morning. I had lunch, told her of my morning at FRATES and then I returned to work.

The internet has been acting up at the office, so my normal daily connection has been reduced to couple of sporadic hours here and there. This makes my work tough, since lately, I have been doing a lot of work with the Prensa kid’s page and am working on some other Env. Ed. materials that require internet access to get the info and pictures I need. The net was out when I got back to work so I sat at my desk contemplating my next move. At about that time, Pablo invited me to go see his organic fertilizer/organic garden project on the outskirts of Puyo. We went there and I spent a wonderful 2+ hours watering plants and pulling weeds - my kinda work - the work I really miss from back home. We had a splendid time working and chatting about his potential next career move. He has applied for a job working with NAWE (the Waorani governing body). This job would be through an international environmental organization. Anyhow, Sue and I both hope that he gets the job. He is a brilliant guy and has some great ideas for how to help the Waorani.

When I finally got home, around, 7:00, I realized that I had missed a meeting earlier in the day. I just plain forgot about it because I had not even bothered to look at my calendar in the office. I later found out that the meeting had been canceled anyhow and that they forgot to tell me it was canceled, no harm no foul.

Another big project/thing going on now is that the Prensa (the local paper) wants to try to do more work in the schools (marketing for them). They have set up a series of workshops/meetings with teachers and want Andrea, Katie, and I to present our kid´s page at those meetings. They also want us to go to Riobamba and present to the Prensa there - apparently they are finally going to start printing our page there. When we go to Riobamba, they are going to take us on the Devil´s Nose train ride. This is a famous train ride in Ecuador and an engineering marvel, as it goes straight down from the Andean mountains to the coast. They invited Sue to come along, as well as, Andrea´s family.

I am getting ready to go out to do my own visits to the schools to start gathering info for the Env. Ed. Guide that I have been working on for the teachers. I have to do some surveys with them to gauge which types of activities and what themes they want in this guide. It has taken me a while to do this, because I had to get permission from the ministry of education before I could talk to the teachers. Andrea and I are currently working on a grant proposal to fund this project, as well as, other environmental outreach programming we want to do in the community.

Lastly involving work, I have been doing a lot of research for the caña/sugarcane project that we want to work on at CODEAMA. Peace Corps has a lot of sources of funding, however, I need to sift through it all to decide which route will be the best one to follow. The grant will only be for about $5,000-$6,000, but will involve about a 40 page grant proposal - I really don´t want to go through all of that work for the possibility of funding this project. So……my boss at Peace Corps has been looking at some alternatives, one being through a program with USDA and USAID called Farmer to Farmer Exchange. The idea being that US farmers could come to Ecuador to teach how to improve the process and farming techniques. A similar project was done in Honduras a few years ago where maple sugar producers went down and helped the local sugar producers to refine their process making it more productive, more efficient, more economical, and better for the environment - this is exactly what I am looking for, just need to see if I can make it happen.

The next day, Sue woke up and was still sick. This was bad news, because we were supposed to be traveling to El Chaco to compete in a rafting competition with some other PC volunteers. We would need to leave Puyo midday, so I told Susan to rest and when I came home, we would make the decision on whether to go.

Work was unproductive in the morning. No internet and my mind was occupied more with the upcoming trip and competition. I did get a few minor things done in the office, like update my portfolio and I had a short meeting with Bolivar about a couple of our projects. Other than that - not much was done. I left the office around 11:30 and headed home.

When I got home, Sue was still in bed and looked awful. She said she was not going. I then had to decide what I would do. We were on a team of 6 people and I was worried that by us not going, we would shaft the rest of the team. I made some calls and couldn´t find a replacement for Sue. Finally, I got ahold of the PCV in El Chaco and he said not to worry, they could fill our spots. Susan was not happy with this and really wanted me to go. I wanted to go, but was having a hard time leaving her in her current state. She finally told me that she would be pissed if I didn´t go - so I grabbed my stuff - that I had packed the night before and raced out the door to try and catch the bus to Tena. I caught a cab and the cab took me to bus stop where I just made it and got the last seat on the bus - the middle of the back row - oh well, better than standing or waiting for the next bus.

It is weird that I have lived in Puyo for 7 months and have yet to travel the road between Puyo and Tena. Sue has made the trip multiple times. Everyone says it’s the worst road ever - I have a hard time believing this, but after taking the trip I now understand why they think this. It is unpaved, constantly winding, bumpy, and the bus stops every 5 minutes to let someone on or off. The route is only 65km but takes anywhere from 2:15 to 3+ hours. You almost feel as though you could walk it faster.

So there I was in the middle of the back row. There is not a worse place on a bus for me. I hate being hot, I hate being crowded, and I have already established in a previous blog that the back row is not my friend. Usually when I ride in any vehicle I like to have a vent blowing on my face or a window open to keep me cool. Thus, when I ride a bus, I try to score a window seat - this keeps me from getting cranky and sick. For some reason, no matter what the temperature, Ecuadorians hate having windows open. They´d rather it be hot and muggy inside - so hot that the windows fog up than feel a cool breeze on their faces. Oh well, their buses their country - I can play by their rules.

It was about half way there that I started feeling a bit stuffed, hot, and uncomfortable. You see this is where my problems begin. I´d rather have my fingernails pulled out one at a time and be in the back of a hot, sticky bus. On a hot bus, you know there is no escape, you can´t just get off in the middle of the jungle and catch the next bus - this is the one you have to take and you just gotta suck it up. Luckily, a seat opened up by a window, just as I was reaching critical mass so we avoided a meltdown. I make it sound worse that it was - but it was uncomfortable.

I reached Tena and had to grab a bus to El Chaco. Luckily, a bus was leaving for Baeza which is the town right before El Chaco and my friend and rafting teammate, Elliot, lives in Baeza. I caught that bus, got a window seat, and enjoyed the ride to Baeza.

As we approached Baeza, the weather turned bad and it started to rain hard. I was slightly on edge, because this area is known for landslides when it rains hard. We made it to Baeza and I hopped off the bus. It was raining so hard, that I had to seek shelter in the awning of a hotel as I planned my next move. I asked the hotel owner where the camionetas to El Chaco were and he said about 4 blocks up, but that they were not running to El Chaco because there was a landslide. Hmmmmm, stuck in Baeza. I called Elliot to see what I should do. He was still in Quito, in fact all the PCV´s competing in the competition were in Quito or on there way to Quito. Most of them were returning from a big Halloween bash in Cuenca and Quito is on the way to El Chaco. I advised Elliot of my situation and he recommended that I stay at a hostel in Baeza, that if there were landslides, he wouldn´t be able to get to Baeza.

I walked through a downpour and got to the camionetas. They confirmed that they could not go to El Chaco, though one of them said he could get me there for $8, normally it is $1. I was skeptical so I declined. I then asked if they could take me to the hostal - they proceeded to tell me that there was another landslide in town that blocked the only road and that I would have to walk it - 2km in the rain. I decided to stay put under shelter of a bus stop - to see what would happen. I kept calling other PCV´s to see what they were doing. Most of them had an ETA of 11:00 or 12:00pm - if they could get through. I was there at 7:00pm - alone, soaked, with nowhere to go. It was about this time that I wanted to catch a bus back to Puyo - I figured the rafting would be canceled because of all the rain. To my chagrin, the road I was just on a few minutes ago had a landslide and was now closed. I was honestly trapped in Baeza. No worries, I could go to the hostal on this side of town and wait it out. Everyone was telling me that they could clear it out in a few hours or so - this is a normal occurrence in these parts - they clear landslides as efficiently as snow plows in Buffalo clear the streets - which is pretty well.

Just as I was heading to the hostal, a camioneta driver said he could get to El Chaco. I was skeptical, but a group of about 6 Ecuadorians seemed to believe him, so I followed the crowd and hopped in the back of the truck (it was covered). The main road was out, so this guy took a series of back roads, went over crazy bridges designed for people not vehicles, and at one point, forded a river. A normally 20 minute trip was an hour, but I got to El Chaco in tact.

Now I found myself standing in the rain in El Chaco, a town that I do not know, with no place to go. My situation hadn´t changed much - same story - different town. I finally got a room at a hostal and settled in for the night. The hostal was supposed to be $7/night, however, the owner charged me $10 because she knew I had nowhere else to go - taken advantage of - oh well.

The next morning I awoke to blue skies and sunshine. Some volunteers made it in after midnight, others stopped in Baeza, and others were still in route from Quito. Eventually, we all made it to rafting competition and we reorganized teams so we could accommodate for those who didn´t make the trip or couldn´t make the trip. We had 4 teams of PCVs. My team consisted of Elliot, Kris, Trinity, Sadie, and Jason. All of them had been partying in Cuenca the day before and some of them still seemed a bit hungover and tired from the 16+ hours of bus traveling.

The competition went as follows:

Day one (Friday) each team got one sprint run of about 300 meters. Three teams went at a time. We were in the 4th of 12 heats and we finished last in our heat with a time of 2:06.22. Only the top 12 teams would qualify to finals the next day. After the first run - we were in 13th. They gave the top 18 teams a second run. Sadly, times were getting slower as the day went on (a combo of being in the sun, drinking beers, the guides getting tired, and the river level dropping). We were in the second to last heat for the second run and we won our heat with a smashing time of 1:56.30. This vaulted us into 3rd place overall. All 4 Peace Corps rafts qualified to tomorrow´s finals - we were the top PC team, but were competing against the PC team that got 2nd last year.

Day two (Saturday). We were in the first of two flights of 6 boats. We had the worst guide the company had (we picked names out of a hat and got this guy - big on muscle but not really smart when it comes to reading a river). Today´s run was 8km - fastest overall time wins. We started off about 50 meters from a tight canyon and all 6 boats were cluster-fucked except for one lead boat - it squeaked through and took a commanding lead. We were in 5th, then made a move to position ourselves for the 2-spot when our guide stuck his paddle in and spun our boat sideways - we were in calm water for god sakes. Everyone passed us and we were disheartened but decided as a team that we would just paddle like hell and see what happened. I don´t really remember seeing much of the river, I was looking at Kris in the front and pacing my strokes off his. We were all barking commands as a team and took only 3 - 5 second breaks from paddling, the rest of the time it was all out. By the time we hit the mid-way point were back in second and the lead boat had about 100m lead. We put them out of our mind and just tried to pull away from the pack. With about 1 km to go we looked up and saw the lead raft within striking distance and went for the kill when they mis-navigated a hole. As we approached to over-take , our guide once again stuck his paddle in and spun us sideways for no apparent reason. I was pissed and yelled at the team to fight through the pain and keep going. I was leaning way out of the boat with my feet tucked in getting every bit of every stroke - I didn´t see the wave coming and I was knocked out of the boat, save my right foot, after being submerged I popped back in - spit out some water and alerted the team to the final stretch - the 300 meter stretch from the day before. We caught up to the lead boat with about 50 meters to go, then pulled ahead, they were dead tired, victory was ours until our guide turned us right into a boulder and popped up on it long enough for the team to pass us with only 20 meters left in the race. We finished second by 2 seconds with a time of 23:33.21. I couldn´t feel any of my body after the race we were all sooooo tired. We won a prize of $200. The winner of the second heat was 4 minutes behind us.

It was a great time and the river was awesome. Not a technical as some in WV or PA, but certainly more exciting - the rapids seemed to last for minutes and there were very few calm areas. It is a Class IV - V river, but we took out just before the first Class V rapid.

The whole experience was fantastic. It was a big party on the beach where the whole town came to watch. The weather was great during both days, though we had thunderstorms both nights.

I finally left on Sunday morning. Sadie and Andrew were heading to Tena so I would do the first leg of my trip with them. We took a camioneta to Baeza then hopped on a bus to Tena. This is normally a 3 hour trip, but we made it in a little over 2 hours. We saw a lot of evidence of landslides and mudslides. Apparently the last three nights of rain were horrible and a lot of houses were wiped out. The roads were clear, more or less, though so that was good. In Tena, I hopped right on a bus for Puyo. My luck in catching buses during this trip was incredibly good. The bus ride back to Puyo was miserable though. The bus was way overcrowded and everyone was anxious and grumpy. We were stopping every 2 minutes on this trip. Luckily, I had a seat though, so I was ok. As we approached Puyo, the driver took a different route that added 20 minutes to the trip and then he stopped at a gas station about a mile from the bus station. I couldn´t stand it any more, so I got off the bus and walked - in the rain again - back home from the gas station - about a 25 minute walk. Why the driver didn´t go to the station first is beyond me. There is another gas station right by it. I think he was just getting back at all of us on board who had been bitching to him about making so many stops. Oh well, I made it home and had an awesome weekend - one of the best since I have been in Ecuador. Sad that Susan missed out on it all.

Jeremy

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