No gracias, no quiero casarse contigo

What a month it has been. I survived living in the middle of nowhere for a few weeks; I survived a couple of killer illnesses; and I survived countless annoying encounters with creepy men who wanted to marry. Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly my favorite month in Ecuador so far, but it certainly was interesting.

For my Independent Study Project, I traveled out to a pueblito (emphasis on the “ito”) called Santa Rosa. To get there, you take a bus from Quito for 3 hours; then you take a ranchera (usually sitting on the roof or hanging off the back) on a dirt road for 3 hours; then you hike up a mountain for 2 more hours. It’s in the Choco, a tropical rainforest on the other side of the Andes from the Amazon. It’s always warm (usually quite hot) and rains everyday like clockwork. The area is beautiful: rolling hills covered in lush rainforest. So in that sense, Santa Rosa was wonderful.

On the other hand, the entire town – a two hour hike from one end to the other – was only home to about 15 families. I lived on a cacao farm about a half hour hike from the “town center” which consisted of a chapel, a few houses, and a “store” that didn’t even sell water. Living truly in the middle of nowhere can get quite lonely; there’s just nothing to do and no one to talk to.

Not everything about it was bad. I actually enjoyed living without electricity – reading and writing by candlelight is actually quite calming. I didn’t mind having to bathe in the Chalpi River at first, but after a while the novelty did wear off, and I missed even my cold Quito showers. And I didn’t mind using the hole in the ground outside as a bathroom, until of course the chickens began to use it as a fortress from which to launch attacks on me in the middle of the night.

For the project, we interviewed just about everyone who lives in Santa Rosa (which turns out not to be that great of a feat) about their perceptions and opinions about mining. After about a week, we decided to add an economic portion to the project, and began doing interviews about the economics of agriculture. We also collected water samples in various places which were tested for heavy metals back in Quito.

We also traveled to Corazon, a “nearby” town where there is an active underground gold mine. We tried to talk to the people there about their lives and their opinions of the mine, but just about everyone we encountered was wary of talking about it and no one allowed us to use a recorder there. But we were lucky enough to get a tour of the gold mine. We were even able to walk around through the tunnels underground and toured the processing facility. We also saw the water “treatment” area, where the waste water is mixed with HCL and hydrogen peroxide and then “cleaned by the sun and the air.” We were able to sneak a water sample from one of the treatment pools, which turned out to contain a 16,000% higher concentration of lead than legally allowed in the U.S. by the EPA. This is the water that then gets pumped to a nearby river as well as the town for drinking water. MmmMmm, delicious.

During the couple of weeks I spent in Santa Rosa, I had several interesting conversations with my homestay father about mining. I was told the day I was sent to live with him that he was one of the few pro-mining people in the community. Ana, my work partner, lived with his brother who was also pro-mining. Over the next couple of weeks, I was amazed by how interested he was at everything I told him about mining. He had no idea that mining happens anywhere but in Ecuador and he had no idea was living in the middle of a mining concession that’s open to exploration for the next 28 years. I never actively tried to change his mind – I knew that wasn’t my place. But the more we talked, the more anti-mining he became. On one of my last days there, he asked me how to fight a company if/when they came to mine in the area. If nothing else comes of our work or our project in Santa Rosa, at least I know I had an impact on one person.

By the end of our project, we realized what an opportunity the town has to benefit from its agriculture. Almost everyone there grows cacao (chocolate beans), but no one gets a fair price for it. When we arrived, both ends of the road were out and it was impossible to transport anything anywhere but by hand. The State actually fixed the bridge on one side the day before we left, but still only one family in the whole town owns a truck to transport goods to Quito. Most carry it on their backs or on mules 2 hours to take a ranchera to Pedro Vicente Maldonado where they sell it at 72% of the world price.

The people of Santa Rosa are poor, but their lives are rich. They grow most of the food they eat on their own farms, and they spend their days outside in a beautiful landscape and climate. Their wellbeing depends on the quality of their environment, not the price of their goods. However, if a mining company were to approach them with a handful of cash to sell their farm, some would do it. In fact a few months ago, it almost happened. Gold was found in the Chalpi River and the closest farmer agreed to sell his land to the company. But other farmers in the surrounding area said no. A rift occurred in the community. Some wanted to protect their land, their health and their way of life. Others looked at the $40,000 offer, thought of the $2,000 they originally paid for the farm, and saw it as a good deal.

If the people of Santa Rosa got fair prices for the crops they produce, this offer may not have been so enticing for the interested few. We proposed that they organize a cacao cooperative, with shared transportation to market and no middleman in Pedro V.M. They could even get higher than average prices by forming an organic co-op, since no one there uses fertilizer or pesticides anyway. Unfortunately we didn’t live there long enough to help them get such a cooperative off the ground; we can only hope they take our idea and run with it.

Over the last few days, our program took us to an old hacienda in the cloud forest south of Quito. We spent most of the time doing presentations about our projects. We also did a minga one day, and my group built a sandbox for a local school. We also had several sessions about re-entry into the U.S. and reverse culture shock. I didn’t realize until then how close it is already to the end of my semester in Ecuador. It’s been incredible and it went so fast. I still have a few weeks left to travel around South America (which I’m really excited about), but I’m starting to realize how much I’m going to miss Ecuador.

I have several funny stories that have accumulated over the past month, but I’ve written enough for one entry. If you want to hear about assassin chickens or marriage proposals, just ask. I’ll be back in the States soon to tell them in person!