Another Day in Paradise...

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Hola Chicos y Chicas!
Another week has passed, and what a diverse week it has been. Last weekend I was in Quito, and met up with my Swiss friend Maggie, and we had a catch up. She had just come back from her second attempt to scale Cotopaxi, the world’s highest active volcano (5,897m/ 19,347ft), and she was quite despondent about failing for a second time. She needed more time to climb the final section of the ascent to the summit, and had to turn back with her guide at 5,400 meters. She is now determined to go back to Switzerland, get some serious climbing practice in, and return to conquer Cotopaxi! Incidentally, she managed to climb higher than any peak in the Swiss Alps, an achievement that didn’t make her feel any better. I would like to climb Cotopaxi later in the year, as it isn’t a technical climb, but it takes a couple of days to acclimatize to the altitude before attempting the summit, so I will plan to take a few days out when it fits in with work. Also, I will try and climb another (extinct) volcano, Illiniza Norte (just over 5,000 meters), which is another non-technical climb that is good to use as practice before tackling Cotopaxi…

When Maggie crashed out early in the evening I got down to some serious research, finding lots of really useful information that I have spent a lot of time this week reading through. After I returned to the reserve I had my dinner, chilled out and watched a DVD, and the next morning helped out with the final preparations for the arrival of a class of 7 year old children from the French Lycee La Condamine, a bi-lingual school run by the French Government in Quito. The school is named after the French scientist Charles-Marie La Condamine who calculated the exact location of the Ecuator (now found to be 400 metres out by GPS) and from this devised the metric system. This has led to the weird fact that there are two ‘Mitad del Mundo’s’ on the edge of Quito, one on the spot designated by La Condamine, with a monument, museums and shops, and the other (real Ecuator) more low-key affair in a village nearby.

During Sunday’s preparations one of the workers on the reserve, Israel, showed me an ‘indian’ artefact that he had found a couple of weeks earlier, when building a new fence high up on the reserve. Juan Pablo looked at it too and said that he thought that it was made a very long time ago, before the Incas (15th century), and before the tribes who were conquered by the Incas. The piece is significant because the figure it shows has a deformed skull similar to that known to have been typical of a tribe of ancient people from this area who would artificially deform the heads of their babies and children to achieve this distinctive shape. It’s an amazing thing to find when digging holes for a fence, and is only part of the archaeological evidence of the lost tribes of people who lived in the forests thousands of years ago. The forest at La Hesperia also has given up evidence of Inca and pre-Inca settlement and transit, with an intact Inca bowl found last year, and lots of Inca (and pre-Inca) ‘culuncos’, or transit trails through the forest forming thin troughs (up to six feet deep) where Inca messengers would have run through the forest bringing information and goods from the coast to Quito. Later this year an American archaeologist, Dr Ronald Lippi, who has spent years researching the pre-Inca tribes in this area will come to the reserve to look at the artefacts we have found, and the culuncos in the forest, to find out more about the people who lived here long ago.

So my week has been spent alternating between helping out with the activities of the kids from La Condamine School and reading all the useful information I got from Quito about the project last weekend. The kids arrived on Monday lunchtime, and spent the afternoon and evening getting to know their surroundings. On Tuesday morning, machete in hand, I led the kids’ hike through the forest to a little waterfall where they had their lunch and played in the river. The kids were very sweet, very noisy, and fascinated with the machete. If I wasn’t careful they would have wrestled it out of my hand and played with it. Thankfully, I managed to convince them that this was a rather dangerous idea. On the way we saw some beautiful birds and butterflies, including the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock (a big red bird the size of a macaw), cookoos and squirrels, which were crowd pleasers! On the way back I showed one of the little girls a rufous tailed hummingbird feeding in the heliconias near the path, which also went down very well. Wednesday was seed planting and tree transplanting morning, so we planted walnut seeds in the nursery, showing the kids how to prepare the soil and plant the seeds, and then we planted (very Blue Peter this) various species of trees from seeds volunteers had planted a few months before. The kids wrote their names on labels attached to the trees that they had planted, so they could return one day and see how they were getting on…

On Wednesday afternoon Juan Pablo asked me to deliver some letters the kids had written to their parents about their time on the reserve to his sister Carmen in Quito. Carmen would then deliver them to the school so that the children’s parents would receive them before they returned on Friday afternoon. So, after meeting two of this week’s three new volunteers, I headed off to Quito as La Hesperia’s newest postwoman extraordinary. On the bus I met a lovely Ecuadorian woman called Cecilia, who was on her way to Quito to get a plane back to Valencia in Spain, where she now lived and worked. She is typical of thousands of Ecuadorians who live in the USA and Spain, and whose contributions to her family back in Ecuador form a huge part of the Ecuadorian economy. Cecilia left her three sons, the youngest of whom is eleven, living in Santo Domingo and moved to work in Valencia as she said there is no work for her in Ecuador. Those who do work here work very long hours, often separated from their families, or have to commute very long distances to work. The teacher in the local school here, for example, lives with her family in Latacunga, a town in the sierra three hours away, and commutes to the school every day. Classes start at 7.30am; just imagine that journey year-round… So, after saying goodbye to Cecilia, and assuring myself of a place to stay anytime I ever find myself in Valencia, I headed off to a hostal and my meeting with Carmen.

We met after Carmen’s art class, and after the quick handover I relaxed in the hostel and watched a DVD with other guests in the restaurant area below my room. Afterwards, I did a bit more research on my laptop for the Community Research project, emailed a bit and went to sleep. In the morning I collected some laundry I left to be washed the night before (ahhh - the smell of clean, dry laundry is such a great thing!!), then went to an agency that Juan Pablo recommended to me to try and get a good Galapagos deal. I managed to get a great deal for an 8-day tour, but it all stumbled at the payment stage, as I needed to pay for the tour in cash or travellers cheques immediately, but I am unable to withdraw large sums of cash in a short time period and I don’t have travellers cheques, so I tried to buy travellers cheques with my visa, but I could only buy them with cash or an American Express card… so it was a vicious circle and I gave up as I had to get back to the reserve!

Now I am back at the reserve, writing this in my room as the last remnants of today’s light fades away. In a moment I will turn the light on, but I can just about see my keyboard right now… It has been a productive, if a bit random day. This morning I fed the goats, who are all looking a lot healthier of late, and then I measured all the window panes in the volunteer house. Juan Pablo is going to Santo Domingo tomorrow to buy windows for the house, which will be great! During this week I have been putting together more questions for the local community as to their educational and social needs, and I gave the questions to Juan Pablo today to ask the Women’s group on Monday morning at their meeting. The information that I downloaded from UNESCO, the Ecuadorian Government and other sources last Friday has really helped to focus my work and give me a sense of the required standards, relevant iniatives, and the current progress internationally and nationally. I got a lot of info from the last census for this area on Wednesday night, with figures on literacy rates, numbers of child workers and other related information that hopefully will help me make a good case for funding applications. The information on the educational situation in Ecuador makes sobering reading, I can tell you. From an educational perspective, you would not want to be born as a woman in rural Ecuador. Hopefully this project will make a small difference.

So on that note, it is time for dinner, so I will sign off for another week. Hope all are hale and hearty… Love to todos (everyone!).

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Photos

A River Runs Through It
The river in the forest where we hiked with the kids on Tuesday.

Another View From the Hill
You might think I would get tired of taking photos of the same things, by now, but no... they always seem to look different!

The Kids Take a Rest
The kids from La Condamine school take a break on their hike in the forest.

Babes in the Wood
The kids make a splash in the river after their hike...

Pre-Incan Artefact
A human figure made from some kind of clay found on the resere recently...

Comments

[Sandra]

wow windows:-)
hello anna i'happy to see that you're still busy in la hesperia.. and that the children didnn't got the machety:-) are there some new volunteers? whats with the picklets? and how are you feeling now?? nice to hear taht you could met your friend :-) how was the time with carry??:-) hope to hear from you:-) greetings to the nice WARM ecuador:-) sandra