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Published: January 15th 2023
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OAT tours always have a cultural immersive experience as part of the tour. Today we visited and had a home hosted lunch with an indigenous Kichwa family and spoke to 2 teachers and met students at 2 different schools along the Napo River. I do love this part of the trip, getting to see how people live their day to day lives.
We got around by motorized canoe and walking through the forest to get to the community. One thing that was confirmed for me: Teachers are wonderful giving caring people no matter the language or culture they're teaching. One teacher, Carlos, we met had just 9 students in a one room schoolhouse on the side of the river. The families of these students have no money or way to get their kids to other larger schools a little distance away. Carlos has few resources but his students are writing with neat penmanship in composition books. He lives on the grounds of the school when school is in session. Alfredo supports this school in ways that he can. It was supported by OAT but they stopped because the school had to keep being relocated since the river has been changing and
flooding the land The other teacher Diana travels 2 and a half hours each way in a 'chicken truck. She came to a school that had nothing but bare walls and made it into a real place where children can learn, including getting toilets built. She loves teaching but gets no support from her siblings who thinks she doesn't make enough money or the Education Department of the area. They both spoke lovingly about their students.
We then went to have a home hosted lunch in the Kichwa community. Christina was our host. She is also the mother of 5, manages her chakra, farm around the house, secretary of the community where she has tried to take on the oil companies (more on that later) and walks around with a machete. She showed us her cinnamon, chocolate, ayuhuasca, banana, and yucca plants. In the house we met her mother in law, niece, and another young woman who were helping prepare our meal. She had left some fish wrapping for us to do. I took a turn at that. The meal was delicious...a whitefish they call talapia, plantains, yucca and roasted grubs. Some in our group tried one. I did
not! Every thing else was delicious. Christina showed us how she makes a chi cha drink from yucca. After 4 days of fermenting it becomes an alcoholic drink. We tasted the 3 day variety. She also makes crafts that we were happy to buy. She is an awesome lady.
Throughout the trip there's been the background story of what is going on in Ecuador because of oil. Alfredo explained a lot about how it got here but of course I don't remember what he said. I do remember that the many people and communities are being exploited and land is being destroyed. Ecuador has 1.6 percent of the Amazon rain forest and almost half of that is being used to produce oil by mostly Chinese companies. Other countries too. On one hand it is important to the Ecuadorian economy but on the other hand they are destroying the rain forest. In the community we visited they came in and built a road and oil rig because of some agreement that was signed 10 years ago.Christina helped her community to take them to court but lost the case. She told us today that the company that built the road and employed
local people for 2 months left without paying the workers. Makes me so angry that people are so powerless up against big companies.
In the late afternoon we took one last boat ride on the river to look for sloths. We didn't find any but we did see 2 more kinds of monkeys, tamarind and titi, jumping around in the trees. And more beautiful birds...the big find was the great botoo, which looks like a gray part of the tree. We've heard it's call in the early morning.
We ended watching the sunset from the boat drinking wine. The perfect end to an awesome day.
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Shelley Phillips
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What an adventure!
Your pictures are great! I loved reading about the schools and the home you visited. Such a great experience! Horrible about the oil rig, etc. I can relate to what you’re writing about the destruction of the rain forest, as that is what Danielle (my daughter-in-law) has been working so hard to change (with the Rainforest Coalition) and has told us about the many unique foods and medicines that are derived from the rain forest that haven’t even been introduced here. Thanks for sharing all your experiences and adventures here! ❤️ Shelley