As I said yesterday, in this town of 14,000, there are 3,000 artisans, mostly woodcarvers. One of them is our hostess' brother-in-law, Pablo. We walked down the main street with Aida until we reached Pablo's workshop, near the main highway. Pablo was carving a large statue of a priest, and he demonstrated how the arms and head would be attached later. Most of the wood is pine, as the government prohibits cutting the harder, darker woods of the rainforest, such as teak.
Afterwards, Aida showed us how to get on the bus to Ibarra. As my phone was working, but no longer charging, we went with her to the Apple store with my phone charger, which appeared to work with other phones, so the agent told us to bring the phone in tomorrow to check out why it wouldn't charge. On the way out, we encountered a friend of Aida's who was wearing a very pretty necklace-and-earrings set which Aida had made for her. We took a stunning photo of it.
When we returned we continued our interview with Aida. She showed us a newspaper article which had recently been written about her. One of the things she said in that interview is that "art is in my blood." It is true--just about everything in her house was designed or made by her. After she got married, she learned jewelry making in alpaca, copper, silver and stones. Her sales were good at first, but after dolarización (where the currency was replaced by U.S. dollars), a lot of the Latin American tourists stopped coming as things were now too expensive, so in 2000, she started making glass jewelry. Her income really helped the family and gave her a bit of independence with money, which she appreciated. She would work for a while, then use the money to construct their home here in San Antonio, then work a bit more and construct some more. After five years of this, she had completed the house to the point they could move in and finish the work while they lived there. She really loves the freedom and company of living in this house, closer to nature and the real world than she ever felt in the big city. She had a shop in Ibarra for years, but gave it up because her sales had dropped, rents had increased, and she could no longer afford it.
She still thinks of running a shop in town, but most of her income comes from the glass pieces she makes for export, or from sales in Otavalo on market days.
She showed us some photos from St. Maarten, in the Caribbean, where a French couple used to invite her to spend time with them. She was very happy on those occasions, she recalls, with a sigh and a lingering smile.
Now she is working all the time, a thing which I discovered when I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom--Aida was up and working with the tiny pieces of glass on her worktable. Her hope is to fulfill her daughters' dreams of an education. Anaís, 18, and Yamani, 22, are both in college hoping to land professional jobs, one as a dentist, the other as a film sound producer. As we saw, these things are almost out of reach for so many Ecuadoreans.
Showing posts with label San Antonio de Ibarra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Antonio de Ibarra. Show all posts
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Thursday, March 12 San Antonio de Ibarra
This morning, we said good-bye to the Rojas family--we had grown very fond of them. Carlos' mother explained that the young man I saw studying in the patio was also working for them while going to school. She said there were many young men (varones) like him who would love the chance to work and go to school. This one is helping his mother with living expenses while he goes to school. They employ as many people in this circumstance as they can--it is not just for us, she explained, that we do this work. Carlos and his mother both run through the compound constantly, fixing this, demonstrating that. The two of them drove us to Otavalo, where we first faxed our application ($18!!!!) then had an early lunch, picked up Romel and caught the bus first to Ibarra, then to San Antonio de Ibarra, a small community of wood artisans. San Antonio is home to about three thousand artisans, mostly in wood.
Right outside the main entrance to the town is a museum and gallery of the most famous of them all. The statues are very imposing. We rode the jolting bus up, up and up to the top of the town and stopped in front of a tall gate, where our hostess, Aida Males, was waiting for us. We walked through an extensive compound accompanied by several barking dogs, one of which was Maya, the mother of two pups. Maya turned out to belong to Aida, as she followed us into the house.
Aida specializes in glass. Early in her career, she studied architecture, and the home she now lives in she designed herself. It is spacious, although with a small footprint, and airy. It has magnificent views of the surrounding mountains and the town of Ibarra, and this night, we watched the clouds creep up the mountainsides until everything was covered except her house. We had a lovely time with her, asking her about her family and her work. Her husband died in 2014, leaving her a widow with three older children, a son, Felipe, 29, and two daughters, Yamani, 22, and Anaís, 18. Felipe is a tattoo artist who lives in Quito most of the time and visits his mother once a week. Yamani is studying odontology in university, and Anaís, sound production, also in university. One thing we learned early and well is that she is always working to care for the needs of her family.
The compound is populated by various members of Aida's family as well as her mother, who is also a widow. When her father died, the land was divided up between the siblings, and now each one has his or her own house, as well as various children and grandchildren having dwellings here. It is literally one big happy family. I asked Aida about this, and she replied that like every family, they had people who were hard to get along with and people who were very easy-going. But it is clear from the way that small children appear in various houses at different times that everyone takes care of and enjoys being with everyone else.
Her brother took charge of Felipe many times when his father was unavailable, and she is very grateful--anything this brother needs or asks for, she is happy to do--haircuts or birthday cakes are no problem.
This first night we are tired from the long journey, but we sense we have met a kindred spirit here and have been welcomed in first class style.
Right outside the main entrance to the town is a museum and gallery of the most famous of them all. The statues are very imposing. We rode the jolting bus up, up and up to the top of the town and stopped in front of a tall gate, where our hostess, Aida Males, was waiting for us. We walked through an extensive compound accompanied by several barking dogs, one of which was Maya, the mother of two pups. Maya turned out to belong to Aida, as she followed us into the house.
Aida specializes in glass. Early in her career, she studied architecture, and the home she now lives in she designed herself. It is spacious, although with a small footprint, and airy. It has magnificent views of the surrounding mountains and the town of Ibarra, and this night, we watched the clouds creep up the mountainsides until everything was covered except her house. We had a lovely time with her, asking her about her family and her work. Her husband died in 2014, leaving her a widow with three older children, a son, Felipe, 29, and two daughters, Yamani, 22, and Anaís, 18. Felipe is a tattoo artist who lives in Quito most of the time and visits his mother once a week. Yamani is studying odontology in university, and Anaís, sound production, also in university. One thing we learned early and well is that she is always working to care for the needs of her family.
The compound is populated by various members of Aida's family as well as her mother, who is also a widow. When her father died, the land was divided up between the siblings, and now each one has his or her own house, as well as various children and grandchildren having dwellings here. It is literally one big happy family. I asked Aida about this, and she replied that like every family, they had people who were hard to get along with and people who were very easy-going. But it is clear from the way that small children appear in various houses at different times that everyone takes care of and enjoys being with everyone else.
Her brother took charge of Felipe many times when his father was unavailable, and she is very grateful--anything this brother needs or asks for, she is happy to do--haircuts or birthday cakes are no problem.
This first night we are tired from the long journey, but we sense we have met a kindred spirit here and have been welcomed in first class style.
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