So this week so far...on Sun after going to Puyo went to the river to watch people fishing. I was imagining a few people sitting by the river with robs but it turned out to be a big community event with 30-odd people with huge nets diving in the river- very impressive. Mon went to the Municipial in Puyo (local gov head office) to the Health and Sanitation dept (ooooh exciting) to pick up some videos to organise this health/video evening. Except after waiting for most of the day it turned out they don{t exist anymore - I suppose its a learning experience! Otherwise been doing more work on the water and quality in the community and generally moseying around :-)
School starts next week for the children, and I might run a couple of activities there. Not sure if that could be rather hard work though...
Last night watched a film in one of the houses with a DVD player (oh yes). Just like home, except for the big bowl of roasted salted ants being passed around rather than popcorn. Spent some time with Lillians aunt while she made chicha, and realised that it is indeed made by women "masticating" (chewing lots) the yuka before spitting it back in and letting the whole lot ferment for a few days before drinking. Mmmmm.
Going to Banos this weekend for a mini-break - its supposed to be pretty with lots of waterfalls and toursity things. And possibly even hot water, you never know.
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Sunday, 26 August 2007
Chickens, dogs and babies. And some water project.
Settled in more now in the village, and got down to a few different things last week. Less of the fiestas (probably a good thing) but have now had a very sad tummy for 9 days and counting. Am now not eating fish, chicken, meat or pretty much anything that isn´t boiled and a safe shade of white...
Anyway, more interesting.. Found the small town Palora early last week. This involves crossing the Pastaza river in a cable car - very exciting when you realise that what you believed to be a nice safe way of crossing heights is now a small precarious hanging basked on what can only be described as a very high and speedy zipline. With maybe 12 Ecadarians hanging on for dear life, accompnied by the obligatory chickens, dogs and numerous babies.
Speaking of babies - a nice thing. One of my friends, Alyssa (aged 15...very young), had a baby a month ago which they hadn´t named yet, and they have decided to call it Hayley! Which makes me happy. Though I think its mainly becuse they couldn´t think of anything else, but its nice that there will be a little Hayley in the Amazon. Full name - Hayley Lilbet Tapia Evatatuca (though I having a feeling that the spelling of Hayley will end up changing by the time the paperworks done).
The chicken at the front door has now been removed (after it lost a leg because I kept walking into it, it was decided to be a bit old. Its now hanging on the wall instead). Ate ants last week, you fry them and eat them a bit like an afterdinner snack. Like peanuts, except you crunch the bones -do ants have bones? or shell - savour the insides and then spit out the rest. They were nice but I couldn´t get over that they were ants. Also had quite a lot of fresh fish (but not any more) - the men like to get up at 5 or 6 and go fishing, and then come back with them for breakfast. Mmmmmm. Also been visiting the rivers lots of swimming and washing (usually with many small dogs and children but no chickens). Yesterday went for a walk in the "tropical parque" - a big ecoloigical project near where I live with one on the boys from the village. He worked as a guide in the jungle for 10 years so knew an enormous amount about all the plants and animals etc. He found some stuff for my (hundreds of) mozzie bites and we visited a sacred waterfall where he has felt lots of good spirits.
Have been working lots also! We spent time cleaning out the filter in the water sysetm - I found out that currently the system was bypassing both the filter and chlorinator, so any water that does make it to houses was basically river water probably plus some rust. One problem is that the filter seems to get dirty enough to clog pretty much every 2 weeks, so am looking into some pre-filtro type mechanisms and ideas to help out there, and hopefully tomorrow we will get the chorinator going again. Also been running lots of tests of the water and then talking to people about the results - trying to raise awareness etc (ie bacteria = not very good, lots of bacteria = very not very good, boiling = very good indeed). Tomorrow should be coming back to Puyo to get health videos for the community to run a video evening on water awareness and stuff (it hopefully will be more popular than it sounds like it should be - not a lot else goes on in the evenings). Will also be holding some more meetings with the water board committee, and planning to get the community together for a day of work where everyone pitches in ("minga") to work on the distribution lines to the houses.
Ok could go on and on, but out of time and written too much anyway. Maybe update a little tomorrow. Or next week. xxx
Anyway, more interesting.. Found the small town Palora early last week. This involves crossing the Pastaza river in a cable car - very exciting when you realise that what you believed to be a nice safe way of crossing heights is now a small precarious hanging basked on what can only be described as a very high and speedy zipline. With maybe 12 Ecadarians hanging on for dear life, accompnied by the obligatory chickens, dogs and numerous babies.
Speaking of babies - a nice thing. One of my friends, Alyssa (aged 15...very young), had a baby a month ago which they hadn´t named yet, and they have decided to call it Hayley! Which makes me happy. Though I think its mainly becuse they couldn´t think of anything else, but its nice that there will be a little Hayley in the Amazon. Full name - Hayley Lilbet Tapia Evatatuca (though I having a feeling that the spelling of Hayley will end up changing by the time the paperworks done).
The chicken at the front door has now been removed (after it lost a leg because I kept walking into it, it was decided to be a bit old. Its now hanging on the wall instead). Ate ants last week, you fry them and eat them a bit like an afterdinner snack. Like peanuts, except you crunch the bones -do ants have bones? or shell - savour the insides and then spit out the rest. They were nice but I couldn´t get over that they were ants. Also had quite a lot of fresh fish (but not any more) - the men like to get up at 5 or 6 and go fishing, and then come back with them for breakfast. Mmmmmm. Also been visiting the rivers lots of swimming and washing (usually with many small dogs and children but no chickens). Yesterday went for a walk in the "tropical parque" - a big ecoloigical project near where I live with one on the boys from the village. He worked as a guide in the jungle for 10 years so knew an enormous amount about all the plants and animals etc. He found some stuff for my (hundreds of) mozzie bites and we visited a sacred waterfall where he has felt lots of good spirits.
Have been working lots also! We spent time cleaning out the filter in the water sysetm - I found out that currently the system was bypassing both the filter and chlorinator, so any water that does make it to houses was basically river water probably plus some rust. One problem is that the filter seems to get dirty enough to clog pretty much every 2 weeks, so am looking into some pre-filtro type mechanisms and ideas to help out there, and hopefully tomorrow we will get the chorinator going again. Also been running lots of tests of the water and then talking to people about the results - trying to raise awareness etc (ie bacteria = not very good, lots of bacteria = very not very good, boiling = very good indeed). Tomorrow should be coming back to Puyo to get health videos for the community to run a video evening on water awareness and stuff (it hopefully will be more popular than it sounds like it should be - not a lot else goes on in the evenings). Will also be holding some more meetings with the water board committee, and planning to get the community together for a day of work where everyone pitches in ("minga") to work on the distribution lines to the houses.
Ok could go on and on, but out of time and written too much anyway. Maybe update a little tomorrow. Or next week. xxx
Sunday, 19 August 2007
Much jungle
A lot seems to have been packed into the last week! Finally made it to the village (nobody turned up to meet me in the local town, so after 1hr sitting in the bus station with the taxi drivers I managed to get on an appropriate bus. The journey was interesting, with the whole bus emptying at one point to clamber over a precarious bridge to get on a new bus at the other side. And once arriving at the bus´s "destination" - middle of nowhere with lots of trees-, hanging around for a bit before following a boy "¿Santa Ana, si?" into the middle of even more nowhere. But it turned out the village was just around the corner, and once I arrived the people there were lovely.
I´m stating with a family just outside the centre of the village. The accomadation is basic - washing in river, earth floor, lots of fresh air and a dead chicken hanging in the front door (I think leftover from a festival) but actually really comfy, and I have my own room with a bed etc. The family have two children (well three but the eldest lives somewhere else), aged 4 and 9, and they like me a lot for no apparent reason.
I´m not sure that this was the best week to start working. It turned out that this week there was a three-day festival in the next town, so on Tues after a community meeting everyone headed down to that, and then again on Wed...Very traditional - a Catholic priest first blessed the festival, and then lots of ceremony for the new village priest to be ordained. Lots of tambours (drums) and trad clothes, and dancing, and especially the local drink -"chicha"- which is a fermentated corn drink that I can really only manage a little off. Unfortunately scary little old ladies passing round buckets of the stuff don´t believe you when you say this, and then it is traditional to tip the remainder over the persons head. We then spent the night in that village, and I didn´t smell great the next day.
The water system in the village is interesting- from what I can can its a good design. The main techinical issues are the distribution lines to the houses, and a very quickly clogging slow sand filter. One of the main problems is also to do with funding for running the pump. Most people have little newly-built bathrooms with a sink and toilet, but with no running water. Most people also seem to use river water for drinking, but they do always boil it first. Though when water is running through the system, I think they´re happy to drink that without boiling, which probably isn´t a great idea. Next week I will start running tests on it all, and the people in the village who´ve I spoken to seem really interested in that (or just polite, not sure). I´m basically working with the woman in the village who is in charge of the system, with also time to run my own work. I think on Wed we´ll be heading back here to Puyo to collect some films and equipment to organise a film night covering water health issues in the village, so that should be interesting (the village organisers seem pretty up on this kind of work, but I don´t know if it filters down to everyone else).
Yesterday I spent working with the community to move rocks from one place to another place (I would carry 2 pebbles, little old ladies would stroll past with six boulders) - they´re planning to build pools for fishing. It was hard work but I enjoyed spending time with more of the people, and after work everyone had lunch together - very social! My spanish is improving but it is infuriating for me, though eventually I can usually work out what I want to say! Also learning a (very) little Quichwa - the indigineous language which most people speak in addition to Spanish, as a lot of people are from the Quichwa tribe. There are two other volunteers in the village at the moment, but I haven´t seen them that much (one in working with an ecologist and is away a lot, and the other is leaving on Thursday). Its very very interesting here - although the village are used to having volunteers, Santa Ana is most definately its own community with volunteers welcome to stay rather than being in any way "for" them.
I´m stating with a family just outside the centre of the village. The accomadation is basic - washing in river, earth floor, lots of fresh air and a dead chicken hanging in the front door (I think leftover from a festival) but actually really comfy, and I have my own room with a bed etc. The family have two children (well three but the eldest lives somewhere else), aged 4 and 9, and they like me a lot for no apparent reason.
I´m not sure that this was the best week to start working. It turned out that this week there was a three-day festival in the next town, so on Tues after a community meeting everyone headed down to that, and then again on Wed...Very traditional - a Catholic priest first blessed the festival, and then lots of ceremony for the new village priest to be ordained. Lots of tambours (drums) and trad clothes, and dancing, and especially the local drink -"chicha"- which is a fermentated corn drink that I can really only manage a little off. Unfortunately scary little old ladies passing round buckets of the stuff don´t believe you when you say this, and then it is traditional to tip the remainder over the persons head. We then spent the night in that village, and I didn´t smell great the next day.
The water system in the village is interesting- from what I can can its a good design. The main techinical issues are the distribution lines to the houses, and a very quickly clogging slow sand filter. One of the main problems is also to do with funding for running the pump. Most people have little newly-built bathrooms with a sink and toilet, but with no running water. Most people also seem to use river water for drinking, but they do always boil it first. Though when water is running through the system, I think they´re happy to drink that without boiling, which probably isn´t a great idea. Next week I will start running tests on it all, and the people in the village who´ve I spoken to seem really interested in that (or just polite, not sure). I´m basically working with the woman in the village who is in charge of the system, with also time to run my own work. I think on Wed we´ll be heading back here to Puyo to collect some films and equipment to organise a film night covering water health issues in the village, so that should be interesting (the village organisers seem pretty up on this kind of work, but I don´t know if it filters down to everyone else).
Yesterday I spent working with the community to move rocks from one place to another place (I would carry 2 pebbles, little old ladies would stroll past with six boulders) - they´re planning to build pools for fishing. It was hard work but I enjoyed spending time with more of the people, and after work everyone had lunch together - very social! My spanish is improving but it is infuriating for me, though eventually I can usually work out what I want to say! Also learning a (very) little Quichwa - the indigineous language which most people speak in addition to Spanish, as a lot of people are from the Quichwa tribe. There are two other volunteers in the village at the moment, but I haven´t seen them that much (one in working with an ecologist and is away a lot, and the other is leaving on Thursday). Its very very interesting here - although the village are used to having volunteers, Santa Ana is most definately its own community with volunteers welcome to stay rather than being in any way "for" them.
Sunday, 12 August 2007
Last Post in Quito
Again, the title says it all really. Been spending the week doing more spanish, and also travelling around to some of the places outside Quito. Last weekend went up to Otavalo, a market town about 2/3hrs from Quito, and is the place to buy artisan-type handcrafts. I bought a hammock, and we had some nice typical Ecuadoran food (chickens´feet and all), and then went for an explore to find the sacred Kichua waterfall - La Cascada de Peguche - site of "ceremonial bathing" during festivals (and also a popular picnic spot). It was a great walk, as soon as we (myself and my friend Marie from the school) walked out of Otavalo we didn´t see another tourist for 5 hours, and it was beautiful (see the photos, now up on facebook). Especially since we took the scenic route (I was mapreading). The journey back to Quito was even more exciting- we managed to squeeze onto the last two seats on the bus, which meant hanging on next to the driver while he texted, sang overtook on uphill blind corners, and told us how he was tired since he´d been driving since 3 that morning. It wasn´t very relaxing.
It was a huge fiesta night in Quito on Thursday and that was good fun - 10 de Agosto is possibly the founding of the city (or something similar) and the whole Old Town was open with festivities until 2am, with each old city square having different entertainments and much merriment. School at 8.30am on Friday was less fun.
This weekend Cotopaxi was abandoned in favour of Papallacta, a highland town famous for its hot springs and spa. Much more relaxing and very very pretty (except that it rained and the cloud came down, but apparently the views are great otherwise). Lounging around in 40 degree thermal spas for the afternoon wasn´t too bad though, really. Went out on Sat night and ended up salsa dancing until the early hours (I can salsa!). My head hurt a little this morning, but it must be due to the altitude.
Off to jungly tomorrow, maybe update next weekend... xxx
It was a huge fiesta night in Quito on Thursday and that was good fun - 10 de Agosto is possibly the founding of the city (or something similar) and the whole Old Town was open with festivities until 2am, with each old city square having different entertainments and much merriment. School at 8.30am on Friday was less fun.
This weekend Cotopaxi was abandoned in favour of Papallacta, a highland town famous for its hot springs and spa. Much more relaxing and very very pretty (except that it rained and the cloud came down, but apparently the views are great otherwise). Lounging around in 40 degree thermal spas for the afternoon wasn´t too bad though, really. Went out on Sat night and ended up salsa dancing until the early hours (I can salsa!). My head hurt a little this morning, but it must be due to the altitude.
Off to jungly tomorrow, maybe update next weekend... xxx
Saturday, 4 August 2007
A full week...
Busy week! Lots of espanol, and also travelling around Quito and surrounding areas. Went to the President´s House (it was meant to be educational, but had to have a tour guide in rather fast spanish and most of it went straight over my head). Did get a photo of me with some official-looking (and very good-tempered) palace guards. I´ll work out how to upload photos sooner or later. Also went to the very big central museo, with lots of shiny inca gold, many many pots, and a lot of very graphic religious paintings. And no shruken heads.
Yesterday took the "Telerifiquo" -its a ski-lift cabin!- up to the mountains on the edge of Quito and walked up around there. You could see all the other peaks too, including Cotopaxi (might be next weekends trip) with its snowcap. Very thin air, which makes me slightly dubious about tackling Cotopaxi, which I think is at about 5800m, 1000m higher than we were already.
Also managed to make it out for a couple of evenings which was fun, mainly with people from the spanish school and in Quito´s "Mariscal" district - Quito´s new town and basically the place where the tourists and backpackers end up. They all pretty much speak excellent english, usually as a fourth or fifth language, which makes things easier for me but makes me feel a little inferior. Also been attempting to source some bits and pieces for my kit to take out to the jungle - looking for an industrial-size bottle of methanol with a very limited vocabularly is challenging (did it though! at least I think its methanol - "alcohol desnaturalizado con metanol" sound ok?)
Yesterday took the "Telerifiquo" -its a ski-lift cabin!- up to the mountains on the edge of Quito and walked up around there. You could see all the other peaks too, including Cotopaxi (might be next weekends trip) with its snowcap. Very thin air, which makes me slightly dubious about tackling Cotopaxi, which I think is at about 5800m, 1000m higher than we were already.
Also managed to make it out for a couple of evenings which was fun, mainly with people from the spanish school and in Quito´s "Mariscal" district - Quito´s new town and basically the place where the tourists and backpackers end up. They all pretty much speak excellent english, usually as a fourth or fifth language, which makes things easier for me but makes me feel a little inferior. Also been attempting to source some bits and pieces for my kit to take out to the jungle - looking for an industrial-size bottle of methanol with a very limited vocabularly is challenging (did it though! at least I think its methanol - "alcohol desnaturalizado con metanol" sound ok?)
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