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by VT-Ecuador Semester students…

Another day of work at San Clemente.
Indigenous community at the base of Imbabura

Community Update… by Marion Lang, Semester Scribe This week we went on an expedition to the highlands of Ecuador. We traveled for about 3 ½ hours on a bus and arrived in the community of San Clemente. We were all tired and hungry when we arrived but had a wonderful welcoming into the homes of the various families we stayed with. They cooked us delicious meals and gave us very comfortable beds to sleep in. We worked there for two days helping plow with oxen and to plant corn and plowing with oxen. We also embroidered our dress shirts while we were there. It was fascinating to learn from these people and to see the intricate designs they had taken a year to embroider on their own shirts. We went from San Clemente on our group solo for two nights. We walked up hill for a couple hours and eventually found an empty shepherds shelter where we spent the night. We had a good time chilling by the fire as dinner was cooking though I think many of us felt uncomfortable sleeping there as it was quite damp and felt like the shepherd was going to return soon and this made many of feel uneasy. We rose very early the next morning, and it was still dark and the lights of the city below us were to glittering. We walked up to an abandoned house where we left Charlie and Donovan, who were both sick, to sleep for the morning while we climbed Imbabura. It was a beautiful climb with some spectacular views of the surrounding valleys and mountains. We climbed at a very good pace and it seemed as though we were shortly near the summit when we reached some rock walls. Many of us climbed straight up to the summit over these steep rock faces. It was a really fun scramble and was also somehow satisfying. We had a victorious snack on the summit and then headed back down to the abandoned house for lunch. After lunch we set off on our next adventure, which was to cross a ravine and climb a mountain called, Cubilche. We were all looking forwards to camping by a lake on the summit. The ravine was hard to cross, as it was very steep on both sides. Emil and Abdala went down ahead of the group to see if they could cross it. They ended up managing to cross it, but meanwhile a local guide told us there was an easier crossing down the ravine. We decided to look for this other pass and told Emil and Abdala to walk down their side of the ravine where we planned to meet up with them soon. We ended up walking for a couple hours before finding the route across. By the time we found it, it had been pouring rain for the last hour and due to really thick mist, we could not see more than 10 feet ahead. In all the mist and the confusion of echoes, we had lost Emil and Abdal? and had no idea where they were. We decided at this point to find the nearest town and try to call to the cell phone that Abdala had. We walked for another hour or so in the rain until we came across a bus stop with a small store, a payphone, and a welcoming family. We tried to call Abdala but had no luck and we all became a worried because we had no idea where they were and we knew the only food they had was tuna. We were lucky that we came across such a kind family who let us use their spare house. We slept pretty well with the company of several sheep, who shared our dry house. The next day, we took a bus to Zuleta where we met Marcea, Michael and Thomas who seemed relieved to see us. We rested at German’s (a native of Zuleta) house in Zuleta and we were delighted when Emil and Abdala arrived a couple hours later, tired after walking about 15 km to meet us in Zuleta. It was really good to see them safe and well and to be together as a whole group again. German is a leather master and he taught us to make our leather covers for our main lesson books. It was wonderful staying in his house, as his family was really welcoming and we enjoyed some really good music with him. Staying there, we slaughtered a pig which was really interesting. It hard to watch the pig die as it has so many similar characteristics to those of a human. However, it was amazing to watch the process and to see that the pig knew she was going to die as soon as her legs were tied together. It was as though she was ready to die and the struggle seemed to be only bodily. After she was dead we dipped her in boiling water and scraped the hair off the skin. We cut out the organs and prepared the oven for a whole night of roasting. After it had cooked for a night, we had a huge pork feast the next day. It was incredible to eat the pork straight off the pig, as it still had its head and legs etc and we could really see exactly were the best pork comes from. It was an excellent learning experience to see the entire process and all the work and the sacrifice that goes into eating pork. We left the next day on another adventure over the mountains to Otavalo. We walked up will for a couple hours until we spotted a lush green campsite. We set up a nice proper camp and had an early night and slept well under the bright moonlight of a nearly full moon. We woke up early the next morning and were all ready walking downhill towards a bus stop as the sun rose. We walked for a couple hours and then had a short bus ride to Otavalo. In Otavalo, we dropped our big backpacks off at a friend of Thomas’s house and set off to enjoy the market of Otavalo. We enjoyed bargaining and most of us were successful in our deals and managed to buy Christmas presents for our friends and families. We left the market in the afternoon and traveled by bus back home to Palugo. It was a truly interesting expedition and I think we all learnt a lot about the lives of the various people who welcomed us into their homes. When we returned we worked on catching up on academics and we are also preparing for our next expedition which is to the jungle. We had a catastrophe yesterday. When our beautiful clay oven collapsed as we removed the rock and sand mold from within. It was very disappointing as we have spent hours working on the oven. It was also terrible realizing we would not be able to bake all the bread, pizza, and cake we were looking forwards to. We decided to rebuild it however, and we are building our new oven with adobe bricks and filling the cracks and covering it with mud. We are hoping to be done with this oven in a couple days. Throughout the rest of the week we will be working on several projects which include; figuring out and building the kataraft which will transport us down the rivers of the jungle, baking and processing lots of food for our expedition, working on drums, felting and finishing our clay bowls. It will be a busy a busy week and on Thursday we will leave for our expedition to the jungle. Again we will not have access to a computer, and the next update may not be until around the 13th of November. Aprendamos Kichwa… por Abdala Calapucha KICHWA Español ENGLISH Alli puncha Buenos dias Good morning Alli chishi Buenas tardes Good afternoon Alli tuta Buenas noches good evening (good night) Pakrachu Gracias thank you Environmental Tip by Nadino… Salvemos nuestro mundo: por NADINO C Soy un salvaje y no comprendo lo que el hombre destruye nuestra tierra y mas aún no comprendo por que soy un hombre indio, pero yo amo y defiendo mi tierra. Ecuador es un país lleno de vida y pulmón del mundo pero la gente no valora lo que tiene, yo he andado por muchos lugares pero nunca he negociado la dignidad de mi tierra, por que mi selva no esta en venta. Hay una sola opción para salvar nuestro mundo y eso es proteger. El Español para la semana… por Ari, EL GURU! Estamos terminados con nuestra primera expedición y tenemos muchos cuentos. Por ejemplo, un noche, cuando estábamos se durmieron, un borrego dijo –Baaaah- y Eric dijo en repuesta, -CALLATE CHARLIE-. Un otro cuento de la expedición es el tiempo cuando Charlie trató de arar un campo en San Clemente con los bueyes, y se equivocó. Estaba tratando de tirar dos bueyes arriba una colina. Fue una expedición épica.