We are back in Ecuador, since Monday of this week, getting re-acclimated to altitude, food, new bed, etc. I've been feeling guilty for not continuing the daily blog, but Vincent reminded me it was only I who thought it had to be every day. So here goes. The woman who rented us our last apartment kindly reserved another one for when we returned, so we are now on the second floor with a nice view of a tree-covered hill, but to me even more interesting, our neighbors' homes. These are small one or two room structures made of concrete and roofed--haphazardly--with red tile. It appears to be two related families, sharing a structure in the middle which may be latrines. Each of the families washes every other day in a concrete tub outside the shed and hangs the clean clothes on lines strung all across the yard. It looks like Buddhist prayer flags. They dress traditionally. One of them, an elderly man, was working in his garden (very overgrown) with a machete the other day. He was very expert with it.
To me it is a great pleasure to watch them. They chat and work together, a lot in the open, with chickens and dogs roaming the yard in peaceful coexistence, all seemingly oblivious to the presence of tourist hostals (longer-term hotels) all around them looking by contrast garishly modern and sleek. Ours is an older one, painted pastel pink and built in an add-on fashion very familiar to Ecuadorians. You build another floor or wing when you have the money. We adore our landlady, Lilia. She is a single mother of a sweet toddler. She works very hard, moving furniture and linens and kitchen supplies from floor to floor as required by her tenants. Once she even hung our laundry when we forgot and left it in the washer! In the old place, we had very bad internet reception at first. She kept on nagging the cable company until she got it improved, and it seems in our absence she got it fixed to work perfectly. We are very grateful, as it means we can stay in touch with "back home" better.
The week before we left, we received an offer on our house. It was much, much less than the house is actually worth, but we accepted it. The inspection was this Tuesday, while we were here, so the week before we left, we spent all of each and every day working to strip our house of our belongings. Everything we own except the car is now stored in 150 square feet. It was a delight to be able to bless our friends and neighbors with gifts of furniture and dishes. We held on to only our bed, my worktable (because it took us so long to find one that was low enough), and our two rocking chairs, one a wedding gift and the other a Christmas gift. It was wrenching for me to say goodbye to our home for the last 16 years--so many happy memories were created there, and our yard was a gift of grace in many ways for us. To eat breakfast while watching the birds and squirrels managing their own lives all around us, to see the beautiful offerings of the flowers, to enjoy the largesse of our now-grown trees, then say our prayers for the day, reminding us of the gratitude we owe to our Maker, that was heavenly. Interestingly enough, there are more birds around our backyard than we have around here, I don't know why.
We will reestablish that practice again here. Now we face into the tasks of furnishing the new office and hiring the new manager. We are not solely responsible for this--we are just the arms and legs of the people who will make the decisions, but that feels good to be helping. I personally am missing everyone, particularly my daughter and granddaughters. We had some wonderful times with them in June when we were in Illinois. We return to the U.S. in early October. Then we will jump right in to holiday sales events, selling fair trade items once more. If the sale of our house goes through, and right now we are not sure that it will, we will have to hurry up and find a place to live, at least until January 1. We don't know how that will happen, but we're on a journey without a clear destination, so we'll just have to trust in God's providence.
During our time in June, we were able to launch our new book, Transcendent Joy, which can be viewed on Amazon.com. It is a book that makes ME happy to read, so we brought a copy back here for the "down days," if there are any. Vincent suggests that I start another, writing about the artisans we have met who have touched us with their courage, grace and determination to make a better life for their children than they have had. If there is time in the next three months, I will.
We are still adjusting to and learning a different way of life. I am told (by the Ecuadorian consulate in Chicago) that jobs are very scarce. There are a lot of small business enterprises--micro, really, for many--where people combine their work with their daily chores. If the children are not in school, they play in the yard or the shop, wherever their parents are, or if they're old enough, they help. Some people do daily agricultural or cleaning work, others have small convenience stores in their homes, others are fortunate enough to have skills in producing crafts for export. The big factories are on the coast, not here, so there's no real slave labor. However, life here is much simpler, much less expensive (for us, not necessarily the ordinary citizens of Ecuador), and at a much more steady pace. When we were back in the U.S., for example, we felt literally bombarded whenever we entered a retail store or grocery--too many choices, too much pressure to buy, buy, buy. It was also very difficult to fit in visits with people we really wanted to see--either their schedule or ours was full. Not a problem here, but maybe that is because it is necessarily a smaller number of people, having arrived here only six months ago. No one expects a dishwasher or a vacuum cleaner or a car or a dryer for laundry or hot water in the kitchen sink, even though Ecuador is not a poor country. It's just not a part of the landscape, and I had no idea how much I did NOT miss those things, nor how much they complicate my life in the U.S. until now.
I was very happy to witness the regrowth of Ten Thousand Villages Evanston, which you know Vincent and I played a big part in opening. They had been in some bad straits early last year, so it was good to see the renewal of hope and energy, brought about by the staff and the new manager, Joseph. I thank him for taking such good care of "my baby." I know some of the artisans their work is benefiting, and they are grateful, too.
This afternoon, we will get ourselves unpacked and buy groceries for next week. Tomorrow we hope the sun will shine and we can do the laundry. Thank you all for your friendship and love. We are very blessed whatever country we are in because of you guys.
Love,
Susanne & Vincent
Showing posts with label Ecuador. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ecuador. Show all posts
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Saturday, January 31, 2015
January 31 Chordeleg and Gualaceo
We walked into town to catch the bus for a day trip today. While we were waiting, a woman maybe 80 (or less, but it's hard to tell) in indigenous dress came up to us and asked where we were from. I told her and she asked if we would give her a gift. We were glad to, just because we were happy with the day and with our surroundings. She asked God to bless us and went on her way. It isn't hard to know which was the bigger gift.
We climbed into a bus with five others and went off to visit these two villages outside Cuenca. I realized with dismay as we left the house that the soles of my walking shoes were falling off. Providentially, I found a rubber band on the sidewalk to hold the worst one on. Not to worry, our guide said, we were going to a village renowned for shoes!
It was a beautiful journey up and out of the city, everything so green from the rain. We stopped first at a workshop where they make ikat fabric. It was so startling to see a process completely similar to the one I first saw in Laos, here 11,000 miles away. The techniques came with the first inhabitants. Amazing to think that they are so ancient. The second incredible thing is how much work goes into this fabric. They take cotton thread and wind it around and around between two slender sticks until they have a good amount, maybe a foot in height and 18 inches in width. Then they take fibers that they have stripped from the agave plant and wrap them tightly around various small sections of the thread so that they will not take up dye. Most of the dyes are made from natural things, like black walnut, indigo, tiny parasites of the cactus, seed pods, coal and much more. Making the dyes takes up to three weeks. The dye bath takes days, then all the agave strips must be untied, as many as 50 or even more for one batch. It makes my head spin and my eyes roll back in my head to think about it.
AFTER all this is done and the thread dries, it is threaded onto a loom, both the regular standing kind and the backstrap are used here. It can take three days or three months, depending on the fineness of the thread and the complexity of the pattern, to weave the cloth. Then a weaver makes a complex pattern by tying the fringes together in tiers. They do no exporting in this shop, everything is sold in country, and usually to buyers who come to them. We saw a wedding gift which was more than 100 years old hanging as a display, with the words "Republic of Ecuador" woven into the cloth in reverse, that is, the letters were formed by open space rather than thread. We asked if they have patterns or anything to help them, and they just tapped their temples. "It's all up here." I remembered the woman I met in Laos who said, "Show me a pattern, and I will be able to weave it for you." How they get a few blobs of white on yards and yards of thread to form birds, flowers, chickens--anything--is beyond me. My brain just was not constructed that way!
Afterwards, we visited an orchid farm. I spied right away a sign directing us to: "Respect and protect the trees and flowers. They are the hope of an environment in danger." It is a really beautiful and tranquil place, with waterfalls, fountains and a swimming pool (empty at the moment). They have more than 5,000 varieties there, four of which they have created themselves by cross-pollination. Five people pollinate the orchids by hand, harvest the seedlings and raise them for five years. You simply cannot believe the complexity of the work and the patience and fortitude it takes to propagate one orchid, and they grow thousands. A very shy young boy took us around and explained things to us. Afterwards we went into Gualaceo town and had a very nice lunch. The salad was simple and delicious--tomatoes, onion, cucumber, and avocado. It tasted so fresh--I have not eaten vegetables so fresh in many years--maybe fifty. Yum!
The system of building a plaza in the center of the town appeals to both of us greatly. It is usually filled with benches, trees, flowers, and people, providing a spot to rest, talk with friends, a place that is held in common and cared for communally. It is the beating heart of the town, and often quite beautiful. Every town we have visited so far participates in this tradition, going back to Greek and Roman times, maybe farther, as I have little idea of Asian history. In Gualaceo we saw a row of five women sitting on a bench weaving the "Panama" hats, which are actually indigenous to this place, not Panama. They were smiling, chatting and weaving, for the most part without looking at the hat. When they are done, the hats are not quite finished. The terminal ends are sticking out and the hat has not yet taken its final shape. All of that is done in Cuenca. The women were very friendly and pleasant. Vincent took their photos and we began to wander off. A man came up to Vincent and said, "Taking a picture costs a lot of money." So he left as well. It was not at all clear that the man was in any way related to any of the women. It appeared that he was just trying to take advantage of an opportunity, as he saw it.
Finally we visited Chordeleg, "the pottery village." When I was here in 2000, there was much more pottery, and the village seemed a lot poorer. Today, there are more than 70 jewelry shops selling gold and silver jewelry, with some of the most amazing silver filigree I have ever seen, even in the Philippines--a peacock six inches high with an 6x8 inch tail! An orchid plant with two flowers and some buds nearly 18 inches high, and more. We saw some designs which we think fair trade artisans could develop and looked inside the (very ornate) church, which was behind a huge iron grate. The wood carvings on the massive church doors are so lifelike and impressive. It appeared that the addition of the jewelry businesses has brought a lot of capital to Chordeleg. Everything appeared cleaner, brighter and in better repair than it was in 2000, and the giant statue made completely of large pots had been replaced with a more modern one with glass mosaic decorations.
Our guide, Sandra, narrated many stories and legends--the origin of the Cañari people, St. Santiago of Gualaceo, the collapse of two mountains in 1993 that dammed several rivers. The collapse occurred because the two mountains had been severely undermined by digging for gold, silver, rock for construction and other things. This was a purely manmade disaster, with the floodwaters rising to more than 80 meters--some say 120 meters--until the water started reaching Cuenca. The president belatedly ordered the military to dynamite the blockade, which made things even worse than before. We saw a beautiful house constructed of varnished wooden logs--the only one that had survived the flood. How? The owners had four large oil tanks secured to the house so that it floated. It appeared that a giant tree trunk had floated with it and landed in the new front yard! If you want to discover more about it, the flood is called La Josefina and Google will serve up the story without delay.
My teachers have all told me I use the exclamation point too much, and I do. The things we saw today simply require them! By the way, I got a beautiful pair of walking shoes in Gualaceo for $35. They fit and feel like gloves on my feet.
As we left Gualaceo, we told our guide we wanted to try the traditional beverage she had described--a mixture of pineapple and other fruits called "rosero." So we stopped on the way out and each bought a glass. I spied a couple of macaroons (called "cocada" here) in the case that were calling our names, and Vincent and I ate them with gusto. He said it was the best coconut thing he had ever put in his mouth. I might not go that far, but it was very, very good.
After all the sugar, we were mostly in a coma on the way home, but it was a good day. Tomorrow is our last day here, then off to Quito. At the moment we are planning to take the double-decker bus tour. It will be good to get an overview of the whole city and be able to integrate some of the experiences we have had here. We're very glad we did this as an introduction to Spanish and to Ecuador. Wish us luck!
We climbed into a bus with five others and went off to visit these two villages outside Cuenca. I realized with dismay as we left the house that the soles of my walking shoes were falling off. Providentially, I found a rubber band on the sidewalk to hold the worst one on. Not to worry, our guide said, we were going to a village renowned for shoes!
It was a beautiful journey up and out of the city, everything so green from the rain. We stopped first at a workshop where they make ikat fabric. It was so startling to see a process completely similar to the one I first saw in Laos, here 11,000 miles away. The techniques came with the first inhabitants. Amazing to think that they are so ancient. The second incredible thing is how much work goes into this fabric. They take cotton thread and wind it around and around between two slender sticks until they have a good amount, maybe a foot in height and 18 inches in width. Then they take fibers that they have stripped from the agave plant and wrap them tightly around various small sections of the thread so that they will not take up dye. Most of the dyes are made from natural things, like black walnut, indigo, tiny parasites of the cactus, seed pods, coal and much more. Making the dyes takes up to three weeks. The dye bath takes days, then all the agave strips must be untied, as many as 50 or even more for one batch. It makes my head spin and my eyes roll back in my head to think about it.
AFTER all this is done and the thread dries, it is threaded onto a loom, both the regular standing kind and the backstrap are used here. It can take three days or three months, depending on the fineness of the thread and the complexity of the pattern, to weave the cloth. Then a weaver makes a complex pattern by tying the fringes together in tiers. They do no exporting in this shop, everything is sold in country, and usually to buyers who come to them. We saw a wedding gift which was more than 100 years old hanging as a display, with the words "Republic of Ecuador" woven into the cloth in reverse, that is, the letters were formed by open space rather than thread. We asked if they have patterns or anything to help them, and they just tapped their temples. "It's all up here." I remembered the woman I met in Laos who said, "Show me a pattern, and I will be able to weave it for you." How they get a few blobs of white on yards and yards of thread to form birds, flowers, chickens--anything--is beyond me. My brain just was not constructed that way!
Afterwards, we visited an orchid farm. I spied right away a sign directing us to: "Respect and protect the trees and flowers. They are the hope of an environment in danger." It is a really beautiful and tranquil place, with waterfalls, fountains and a swimming pool (empty at the moment). They have more than 5,000 varieties there, four of which they have created themselves by cross-pollination. Five people pollinate the orchids by hand, harvest the seedlings and raise them for five years. You simply cannot believe the complexity of the work and the patience and fortitude it takes to propagate one orchid, and they grow thousands. A very shy young boy took us around and explained things to us. Afterwards we went into Gualaceo town and had a very nice lunch. The salad was simple and delicious--tomatoes, onion, cucumber, and avocado. It tasted so fresh--I have not eaten vegetables so fresh in many years--maybe fifty. Yum!
The system of building a plaza in the center of the town appeals to both of us greatly. It is usually filled with benches, trees, flowers, and people, providing a spot to rest, talk with friends, a place that is held in common and cared for communally. It is the beating heart of the town, and often quite beautiful. Every town we have visited so far participates in this tradition, going back to Greek and Roman times, maybe farther, as I have little idea of Asian history. In Gualaceo we saw a row of five women sitting on a bench weaving the "Panama" hats, which are actually indigenous to this place, not Panama. They were smiling, chatting and weaving, for the most part without looking at the hat. When they are done, the hats are not quite finished. The terminal ends are sticking out and the hat has not yet taken its final shape. All of that is done in Cuenca. The women were very friendly and pleasant. Vincent took their photos and we began to wander off. A man came up to Vincent and said, "Taking a picture costs a lot of money." So he left as well. It was not at all clear that the man was in any way related to any of the women. It appeared that he was just trying to take advantage of an opportunity, as he saw it.
Finally we visited Chordeleg, "the pottery village." When I was here in 2000, there was much more pottery, and the village seemed a lot poorer. Today, there are more than 70 jewelry shops selling gold and silver jewelry, with some of the most amazing silver filigree I have ever seen, even in the Philippines--a peacock six inches high with an 6x8 inch tail! An orchid plant with two flowers and some buds nearly 18 inches high, and more. We saw some designs which we think fair trade artisans could develop and looked inside the (very ornate) church, which was behind a huge iron grate. The wood carvings on the massive church doors are so lifelike and impressive. It appeared that the addition of the jewelry businesses has brought a lot of capital to Chordeleg. Everything appeared cleaner, brighter and in better repair than it was in 2000, and the giant statue made completely of large pots had been replaced with a more modern one with glass mosaic decorations.
Our guide, Sandra, narrated many stories and legends--the origin of the Cañari people, St. Santiago of Gualaceo, the collapse of two mountains in 1993 that dammed several rivers. The collapse occurred because the two mountains had been severely undermined by digging for gold, silver, rock for construction and other things. This was a purely manmade disaster, with the floodwaters rising to more than 80 meters--some say 120 meters--until the water started reaching Cuenca. The president belatedly ordered the military to dynamite the blockade, which made things even worse than before. We saw a beautiful house constructed of varnished wooden logs--the only one that had survived the flood. How? The owners had four large oil tanks secured to the house so that it floated. It appeared that a giant tree trunk had floated with it and landed in the new front yard! If you want to discover more about it, the flood is called La Josefina and Google will serve up the story without delay.
My teachers have all told me I use the exclamation point too much, and I do. The things we saw today simply require them! By the way, I got a beautiful pair of walking shoes in Gualaceo for $35. They fit and feel like gloves on my feet.
As we left Gualaceo, we told our guide we wanted to try the traditional beverage she had described--a mixture of pineapple and other fruits called "rosero." So we stopped on the way out and each bought a glass. I spied a couple of macaroons (called "cocada" here) in the case that were calling our names, and Vincent and I ate them with gusto. He said it was the best coconut thing he had ever put in his mouth. I might not go that far, but it was very, very good.
After all the sugar, we were mostly in a coma on the way home, but it was a good day. Tomorrow is our last day here, then off to Quito. At the moment we are planning to take the double-decker bus tour. It will be good to get an overview of the whole city and be able to integrate some of the experiences we have had here. We're very glad we did this as an introduction to Spanish and to Ecuador. Wish us luck!
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
January 28 Ora Pro Nobis
The end of our schooling is drawing near and we are flogging the books to learn as much as we can. Today was cool and overcast, with a bit of rain in the afternoon (a torrent at one point, but we were inside!) In the morning, Yadira and I had an extensive discussion of how to ask questions of the artesans. I asked her if she thought I had a chance at communicating with them at the level of my Spanish, and she said yes. That was comforting. She took me this morning to a shop where the "Panama" hats are made from a long grass called pajatoquilla. They are not Panama hats--are and have always been Ecuadorean. However, when the Panama Canal was built, the engineers, who had previously been working in Ecuador, were wearing these hats and everyone wanted one of those "Panama" hats the canal engineers were wearing. They are to all intents and purposes nearly indestructible.
It was fun to go through the little museum and see how the hats are made, mostly in the homes of indigenous women hereabouts and then finished (ironed, trimmed, etc.) in the shop. As we were leaving the shop, we espied an indigenous woman sitting on a sofa in the anteroom weaving away on a small pajatoquilla basket. Yadira asked if we could watch, we asked a few questions about how she had started in this trade. She had been taught in a convento of priests 30 years ago when she was quite young. It seems to have been an effort of the church to provide work for poor indigenous people. At this point, her whole family including in-laws are making a living weaving the straw.
As we were starting to go, a businesswoman in suit and high heels came through the front door and the weaver said, "Buenas tardes," good afternoon. The woman did not reply, snapped at the weaver that she would not be paid today, even though she had delivered her finished work previously. The weaver protested, but the woman did not listen. The weaver had the last word though--all she said was, "Don't be mean," to the departing back of the employee. This whole exchange was very upsetting to Yadira and to me as well. I was glad I had resisted the impulse to buy anything in this shop.
The weaver seemed to take it in stride, though, with a philosophical shrug, but this kind of poor treatment is the reason fair trade was started 70 years ago, and the reason I continue with it today.
All the way back, Yadira and I continued our discussion of prejudice and injustice that we began on Monday and concluded, as before, that we must give respect to all people.
Vincent and I had a nice lunch in the place YuYú had brought us to on Saturday and then went with Carlos to the modern art museum. Carlos switches back and forth between English and Spanish so smoothly that I think he must have both sides of his brain working at once. We really enjoyed the paintings that were there--and there were three patios as well! The building had seen many uses in its long life, just prior to the installation of the museum, the last previous being as a sanatorium for alcoholics. As in all the former colonial countries with which I am familiar, alcoholism is a huge problem here, and the inmates were punished cruelly in many ways, including being dunked in a cold bath before dawn. We thought about this as we walked back--how universal is this story: powerful conquerors destroy the civilization of those they conquer, then are in turn destroyed by someone else.
We continue to do what little we can to change ourselves, change our thinking, change our actions so that we can contribute as much blessing to the world as we possibly can. Eventually we hope, small things will add up. We remembered Martin Luther King, Jr.'s saying--"the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice."
Ora pro nobis in Latin is "pray for us." We welcome your kind thoughts and prayers as we prepare to visit and interview artisans about their struggle for the basic goods most of us have taken for granted all our lives. Carlos said about the indigenes struggling to live under Spanish rule, "We cannot imagine how much pain they dealt with--we have never worked so hard, nor felt so much pain." God bless us all and help us to change this tired old world which is nonetheless so beautiful and fresh in each morning, despite all the harm we can do.
It was fun to go through the little museum and see how the hats are made, mostly in the homes of indigenous women hereabouts and then finished (ironed, trimmed, etc.) in the shop. As we were leaving the shop, we espied an indigenous woman sitting on a sofa in the anteroom weaving away on a small pajatoquilla basket. Yadira asked if we could watch, we asked a few questions about how she had started in this trade. She had been taught in a convento of priests 30 years ago when she was quite young. It seems to have been an effort of the church to provide work for poor indigenous people. At this point, her whole family including in-laws are making a living weaving the straw.
As we were starting to go, a businesswoman in suit and high heels came through the front door and the weaver said, "Buenas tardes," good afternoon. The woman did not reply, snapped at the weaver that she would not be paid today, even though she had delivered her finished work previously. The weaver protested, but the woman did not listen. The weaver had the last word though--all she said was, "Don't be mean," to the departing back of the employee. This whole exchange was very upsetting to Yadira and to me as well. I was glad I had resisted the impulse to buy anything in this shop.
The weaver seemed to take it in stride, though, with a philosophical shrug, but this kind of poor treatment is the reason fair trade was started 70 years ago, and the reason I continue with it today.
All the way back, Yadira and I continued our discussion of prejudice and injustice that we began on Monday and concluded, as before, that we must give respect to all people.
Vincent and I had a nice lunch in the place YuYú had brought us to on Saturday and then went with Carlos to the modern art museum. Carlos switches back and forth between English and Spanish so smoothly that I think he must have both sides of his brain working at once. We really enjoyed the paintings that were there--and there were three patios as well! The building had seen many uses in its long life, just prior to the installation of the museum, the last previous being as a sanatorium for alcoholics. As in all the former colonial countries with which I am familiar, alcoholism is a huge problem here, and the inmates were punished cruelly in many ways, including being dunked in a cold bath before dawn. We thought about this as we walked back--how universal is this story: powerful conquerors destroy the civilization of those they conquer, then are in turn destroyed by someone else.
We continue to do what little we can to change ourselves, change our thinking, change our actions so that we can contribute as much blessing to the world as we possibly can. Eventually we hope, small things will add up. We remembered Martin Luther King, Jr.'s saying--"the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice."
Ora pro nobis in Latin is "pray for us." We welcome your kind thoughts and prayers as we prepare to visit and interview artisans about their struggle for the basic goods most of us have taken for granted all our lives. Carlos said about the indigenes struggling to live under Spanish rule, "We cannot imagine how much pain they dealt with--we have never worked so hard, nor felt so much pain." God bless us all and help us to change this tired old world which is nonetheless so beautiful and fresh in each morning, despite all the harm we can do.
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