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South America » Ecuador
January 24th 2008

Published: January 24th 2008

I know that everyone has been awaiting another of my thrilling blog posts. I have not been able to post any because there is no internet service in Junin and I did not have time to make an insightful and brilliant entry. Right now I am back in Quito for a bit of a rest and my first hot showers in 3 weeks. Its hard to believe that I have been here for 3 weeks already.

I got to Junin on the 3rd after a 3 hour bus ride followed by a 2ish hour truck ride across a muddy mountian road, the trip beat Delta by 5 hours. I met up with Laura, the other Observer, and her friends Hannah and Katie, who were just visiting, at the tourist cabana where the Observers live. The cabana is pretty basic but its nice. Its made from split bamboo and has 3 levels. There is a shower which has this heater which is a death trap. The heater is attached to the shower head and then to a power source by 2 wires, the switch that turns on and off the heater is shaped the switch you would see an executioner throw in order to fry a death row inmate. And, it does not make hot showers, merely less cold showers. There is also an eco toilet, its basically a latrine but is eco because you throw dirt down the hole which helps make the refuse work as a fertilizer. I also have the pleasure of washing my own clothes, which is difficult. It takes about a week for 100% cotton stuff to air-dry and a month for bluejeans.

Junin: The community is about a 20 minuet walk from the cabana. You have to walk on a rough dirt road down a mountian to get there. It is ground zero for the mining concession, the town is literally built on a massive copper deposit. Before you get to town there is an elementary-middle school, a public house where the police are currently staying and a house that is under construction. In the area around the community there are many homes and the population of Junin is somewhere around 300 people. You have to cross a bridge, which is strong enough apperently to support a truck, over the Rio Junin to get to town. The town itself has about 10 houses, a small general store, a Catholic church and pre-school. In the town square there are 3 ecua-volley courts. Ecua-volley is a sport played with 3 people to a side with a soccer ball. In order to play without breaking your fingers you have to cradle the ball when you set, but serving and the other kinds of hits you make with your fists are the same, and are painful. Every Sunday everyone in Junin and some people from other communities come into town to chat, watch and play Ecua-volley. The games can be pretty intense and teams often bet money on matches. As far as working goes, just about everyone works in agriculture and the whole area is surrounded by farms. Basic agricultural work pays $7 a day, but there are people in the community who make much more than that. Only the carpenter is really living at a noticably higher standard of living in comparison to everyone else in the community.

Food: The food at the cabana is not bad. For breakfast on the 4th we had coffee, eggs, bread, butter and jam, on the 5th we had coffee, eggs, bread, butter and jam, on the 6th we had coffee,eggs, bread, butter and jam. Every now and again we get pancakes. For lunch we are served soup with either potato, usually potato, or yucca sometimes the soup has cabbage or carrots or other veggies common in soup. For the main dish we get a mountian of rice, a protein either pig, cow, chicken, canned tuna or beans, maybe a raddish salad or beets, and sometimes another starch, either yucca or potatoes. For dinner we usually get soup, rice, meat and veggies, sometimes its different from what we eat for lunch. Its really nice being back in Quito and having some determination regarding what I can eat.

January 6th was Dia de los Innocentes. I am not sure exactally what this holiday is in celebration of. It involves young men crossdressing and wearing masks. They then go around and ask for donations for the church, dance and pass around puro (cane liquor) mixed with boxed peach flavored wine. It is celebrated across Ecuador but I dont know about the rest of Latin America. As far as I know, it is the only acceptable holiday involving crossdressing that is associated with the Catholic church.

Community Dynamics: Around 2 years ago the mining company first started being able to buy land in Junin. This has caused a split in the community with a little more than half of the community not wanting the mine and a little less than half having sold land. The land sales have caused much division within the community. The people who sold land are seen as betraying the community and the people who refuse to sell are seen as preventing everyone from becoming extremely rich. As of now, since the company cannot operate within the country, things have settled down as far as people selling land. However, the division is still evident. There are people who are devisive as far as how they treat people on the different sides of the issue. A lot of work needs to be done in order to repair ties within the community. There have been some good signs though, one of the other community´s president, who was extremely pro-mining, went to one of the people who was involved in burning down the company farm in December 06 with a box of wine and was talking about how he hoped things would get back to normal.

Parties and Such: In Ecuador you do not get your own cup at parties. It is a communal culture and usually one person has a bottle and a cup and fills the cup and passes it, this continues until everyone is happy. People also dance at parties, just about everyone dances. The drinks available in town are puro (moonshine made of sugar cane), box wine and beer. The puro is jet-fuel and burns your entire digestive system when you consume it, I have been told that it is like 120 proof. Predictably, because I am 5 inches taller and weigh at least 50 pounds more than everyone else, people have the misconception that I should be given a massive drink at parties. The word for hangover in Ecuador is chuchaqui.

Climate: The cloud forest is a rainforest at about 5,000 feet elevation. The temperature is about 60 to 70 degrees night and day. It is the rainy season, I have never been in this country during the dry season so I dont know the difference, and it usually begins raining here around 4 pm and continues until 8 am, though there is some variation in this. It is humid, it takes about a day for my hair to try.

Thats about all I know right now. I am going to put up another post about my trip to the Constitutional Assembly tomorrow or later today. Sorry I dont have any pictures, they should be comming soon.

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