Waking up in Otavalo (one of the most famous small towns in Ecuador, home of one of the biggest and/or most popular open air indigenous markets in South America), a bit confused, thinking at first I was in California (where I grew up), then thought I must be in Chicago, no, Cuenca, no--aha! We are in Otavalo! It is a very nice town, with more of an indigenous population than many of the larger towns in Ecuador, although many more U.S. ex-pats arrive here every year, we were told. Our schedule is changed so that we can spend the first week with Chris, learning the ropes of interviewing with him. He is a delightful friend, so we were happy enough to change. And to learn more before embarking on our own.
When we arrived at the hotel last night, it was late and quite dark. It possesses a beautiful open courtyard filled with flowers, vines and trees and the most beautiful antique wood floors I have ever seen. It is very old, and the door lock looks like something out of a Spanish jail! Vincent says to tell you he just loves arriving in a place in the dark and waking up to see how it looks in the daylight. Suffice it to say, the courtyard is magnificent, we have a balcony overlooking it, away from the noise of the street (important for sleeping, as it lasts all night, I am told) and feel very, very lucky. After a nice breakfast of fruit, eggs and bread, we walked to the town to a restaurant where Chris had an appointment with the owner, and spent several hours looking at his beautiful restaurant/hotel/cafe complex, which he is building himself.
During that interview, I grew sicker and sicker, ending with total expulsion of all foreign material from my digestive tract. I include these somewhat gross details so that you will not envy us too much for our beautiful weather and surroundings! About 1 p.m., Chris and Romel found a restaurant near the square, where they ordered food. I could eat nothing, tried a few bites of Vincent's papas fritas (French fries) and drank a bit of water.
From there we proceeded to the office from which most of the Ecuadorean goods we purchase are shipped, and met with two artisans, one after the other. The first, Christián, is a leather goods producer who makes extremely high quality bags, wallets, purses, and so forth, very nice work. We looked over about five or six different products making suggestions for improvements, mostly in quality or size and placement of pockets, occasionally about materials. I began to feel sick again and had to visit their baño several times to get rid of excess baggage, so to speak.
Our next artisan, Aída, arrived before we were finished with Christián. She waited patiently, and while Chris contacted the home office via Skype, Aída and Christián had a lively discussion which I could not follow, in part due to my indisposition at the time. When Christián left, she showed us the new product she has developed with the Minga office and demonstrated the packaging. Since they are glass dishes, the packaging is very important. I showed her what a suncatcher looked like, as I have questions about the viability of tableware in the fair trade market, which seems to me to be dominated by high-volume, low-priced, standardized merchandise from China. I hope I am wrong, because Aída really needs the income. She is a widow supporting a daughter through college and a grown son who nonetheless is not supporting himself yet. As she was talking to Chris, I heard her say, with tears, that it was all "poco mucho." A little too much for her. She was warm and kind in her talk with us and invited us to her home and workshop, which we will see a bit later this month.
During these two interviews, more drama developed, as Chris' assistant here called to say we would have to leave the hotel because they had double booked and needed to give our rooms to people who had booked last September and November. So Chris sent his assistant out to find another hotel, of which, fortunately, there are many to choose from. She ended up getting us a place just around the corner which is clean, pretty, and slightly cheaper (although without patio). The door lock looks a bit more substantial there and everything is decorated with pine wood.
The shipping office was closing when we left, so we returned to the hotel to meet together with Chris and Romel to discuss how we would arrange to see 15 different artisans in the next three days. That sorted, the three healthy, strong and energetic men went to dinner and I returned to the hotel room for my class via internet. Too tired to do anything else afterward, I fell instantly asleep.
I did not have much time to reflect on the happenings of this day, but one connection I made is that the tomato juice (the fruit is not much like ours at all) was common to both episodes of sickness. I will steer clear, I promise, from now on. If I have another episode, it will be unrelated to tomato juice!
After my class, which focuses on personal growth, I reflected how much of what I have learned in the class experience is helping this trip to be a good one--living more extended to the world, less constricted into myself, questioning my automatic conclusions about who I am and how others treat me, and finding the deeper truths which will set me free from the shelter I constructed as a child, but which I have now outgrown and have realized it didn't protect me very much. To be still, hiding, unmoving, unspeaking to avoid pain, conflict or rejection, is very similar to being dead. I have decided to live, instead. I have learned to protect myself much better than I could by hiding and pretending not to exist. And anyway, most people are not out to do me harm--they are hoping that I am not out to get THEM. Or, even better, they wonder how they can help me.
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