The Kichwa / Peace Corps Sustainable House Project

My latest project, concocted along with several Peace Corps Volunteer friends:

We'd like to start a project in a small Kichwa Indian village in the central highlands, a poor and generally neglected area of the country which we think we can really help. This is the same area where we worked on the water project back in April.

We're trying to build a small cabana for tourists, charity workers, and volunteers in order to kick-start a community tourism program they’re trying to get off the ground. More importantly, we’re going to (1) use the cabana as a showcase for lots of interesting low-tech environmental gadgets (bottle wall, solar shower, clean stove, solar bottle lights, etc.) and (2) reintroduce native adobe + straw building techniques. We’ve got the land already, and whatever rent money earned (through tourists, etc.) would go right back to the community fund, which will make a big difference in terms of securing economic sustainability.

While a group of us will be working hands-on on this project over the coming months, my friends George and Julie are our fearless leaders. Here's their project summary:

The Kichwa/Peace Corps Sustainable House Project, to be built in the rural mountain parish of Guangaje, Ecuador will serve as an environmentally sustainable model home for the local Kichwa Indian residents of the region. Through a partnership of Peace Corps Volunteers and indigenous leaders, we hope to both instruct local builders on the practical benefits of green construction, and help kick-start the wider community tourism that could lead to economically sustainable development in the area.

Kichwa Indians are among the poorest and least educated groups within Ecuador's multi-national society, and those residing in the central highlands often live in shocking poverty. The scattered towns of Guangaje parish-- hidden in the mountains and clouds, at an elevation of over 10,000 feet -- receive even less in the way of government or charity aid. Ignorance and indifference has led to environmental degradation of the unique and beautiful paramo ecosystem.

We aim to build a small tourist cabana that will: 1) Showcase various low-tech green building features (rain catchment, bottle wall, solar shower, etc.) features that people in the area can adopt in their own homes, 2) Re-teach traditional Kichwa adobe and straw building techniques, which are in danger of being lost as younger generations increasingly prefer to build with low quality, poorly insulated concrete block 3) Provide a sustainable income source for the town.

Our model home will be used to provide tourist lodging, encouraging the growth of the nascent local community tourism efforts in this spectacular but little-visited area of Ecuadorian highlands. It will also increase knowledge in easy, cheap and environmentally friendly building techniques -- improving quality of life through safer and more comfortable homes, and paying long term environmental dividends to the local ecosystem.

The full description plus photos are on the Global Giving website, which we're using to raise funds.

Here is a breakdown of how donations will be used for this project:
$10 will pay for seeds for a green garden patio
$15 will pay for a reusable dishwater cycling system
$20 will pay for a bottle wall for passive solar heating
$50 will pay for a roof rain catchment system
$100 will pay for a solar shower
$250 will pay for a composting toilet

Should your conscience dictate, click on the Global Giving website to make a donation. Or pass the information along to someone who may be interested in supporting our project. Or, if you're feeling hungry, waltz on over to the kitchen and make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Whatever floats your boat!

San Isidro, Manabí

This past weekend I spent visiting PCV friends in the town of San Isidro, in Manabí province. Manabí is in the coastal region of Ecuador, which does not necessarily mean it is on the beach. In fact, my travel buddy and I rode an hour and a half inland from the coast in a chiva, an open-air bus, to get there, all the while wondering where exactly we were going and whether we were there yet. Dense foliage on either side of the dirt track, which must become impassable during the high rainy season, made us feel as if we were plunging deeper and deeper into the heart of some godforsaken Conradian jungle. Only the few little towns along the way - some of them just clusters of houses, really - gave the lie to this perception; or perhaps provided a modicum of reassurance to a frightening and thrilling truth, I never decided which! Periodically the chiva stopped to let someone off into the growing shadows and ragged dense banana leaves, presumably following a path that led to hearth and home.

We arrived in San Isidro at night, with the black sky and vine-veined hills pressing us close in the darkness. By day, we could see the effects of being at the tail end of the dry winter season: leaves wearing thin coats of yellow dust and bobbing in the breeze; roads that in some places amounted to lumps of yellow sand; streams that ran well below the level they used to, and waterfalls that trickled at a mere fraction of their usual force. But still beautiful, all of it. My friend who lives there cited his favorite thing about his site: He can let his guard down. Girls left their purses lying about in public without fear, and people didn't lock their doors at night. By the end of two days there, my feet were coated with yellow dust from sifting through sandy roads and climbing through dusty bracken in flip flops.

The best thing we did, besides partake of the delicious homemade meal prepared for us by one generous local matriarch, was take a trip to the waterfall a ways out of town. It started off with a bunch of us clinging for dear life in the back of a pickup as we bumped and jarred our way up and down the hills on rutted dirt roads--the best beginning to any outing here and the surest sign that it's going to be great fun. A hike to the waterfall became botany class with Nere, one of the three sisters whose mother had fed us earlier. Nere pointed out countless trees and vines along the way. Maracuyá - passionfruit - vines that draped themselves along strings of barbed wire and hung in sheets across the hillside; the ubiquitous banana tree and the rarer mamey; tago palms that drop their nuts to the ground, the hollow ones which you can crack open to find the petrified fruit inside while the ripe ones sit heavy in your palm as stones; a sprawling guanábana tree hiding two tiny, spiny fruits in the crooks of its warped branches; and one yellow, wrinkled cacao fruit (chocolate). This last one she took and twisted off the branch, then cracked open by whacking it against the trunk of a tree to reveal the white, gooey tower of seeds inside. Sólo para chupar, she said, indicating that they were only good to suck on, for the seeds' white outer coating carried a sweet, tangy taste, but the inner purple seed was bitter.

The waterfall was like a secret. It's secluded in a little cave in the earth, hemmed in by hill and treetops; in the middle two pools, one dropping into the other; and at the head, the waterfall itself, pouring down through a narrow rock chute. You can jump into the water from the rocky ledge behind the waterfall, or go down the natural waterslide from pool to pool. I followed two of the sisters up and around to the top of the fall, slipping in flip flops and scrambling through dead-leaved dusty branches to stand whistling and shouting down at the others from the top. On the way back someone jumped and plucked a mandarina limón from the tree, and we sucked on slices as we trooped up the path. Mandarina limón: looks like a mandarin orange, tastes like lime. Good for juice but not much else.

Earlier that day we had gone to see the howler monkeys that live in a stand of trees and bamboo by the river. Los monos aulladores. My friend attempted to call them by howling, and eventually they showed up, because of or in spite of her efforts. Normally the monkeys howl at night, or just before inclement weather hits, or when men are cutting down trees in the forest. The youngest of the sisters, Olartia the petite and precocious, took up a branch and started banging it against a tree to imitate the sound of a hatchet. That got the monkeys riled up so that they were howling and shaking the branches of their tree - so high up you had to crane your neck nearly the full 90 degrees to make out their dark bodies amidst the foliage - and even throwing down branches as if to say, Here, you want to destroy our trees? Well, let us help you!

San Isidro: dusty streets, dusty gardens in bloom, sun-weathered plaza where the clocktower presides. Food, bought or homemade, that will ease you into a pleasant coma. Friendly, ugly dogs. Welcoming, generous people. You don't have to be in this town for long before you can't go anywhere without saying hello to a familiar face or three.

On Sunday - market day, when lots of people come into town from the surrounding countryside - we helped our friends with an HIV/AIDS event and spent all day in the plaza. The sun beat down on us without mercy, and by midafternoon we were spent and listless from handing out flyers and telling people about the free HIV testing offered at the health center. But it was worth it: by the end of the day, dozens of people had received tests and information.

The busride home provided a fresh dose of reality. We were sitting in the first two seats in front of the door for "more leg room," which is code for lots of people falling on you as they board and the bus lurches to a start, and also lots of accidental elbows to the face and lots of hands clutching at your hair for the person sitting in the aisle seat (me), not to mention the number of passing feet that inevitably come crashing down on yours. This particular time I found myself boxed in on all sides, with passengers crushed into the aisle and front of the bus. A few people were standing on my left foot, and a not unheavy child on my right. With my head turned resolutely to one side to avoid touching what from my limited line of sight appeared to be someone's disembodied hand dangling inches from my face, we trundled along. Things started looking up when we changed buses and bought takeout for the second leg of the trip (never underestimate the redemptive power of a huge chunk of well-seasoned chicken).

Coming back to the big city made me realize what a far cry it is from where I'd just spent the past few days. The little town of San Isidro is one of my favorite places I've visited in Ecuador, and I'll surely be returning. Because I didn't bring my camera this time around, and you guys need to see pictures. Yeah...that's why I need to go back; it doesn't have anything to do with the people, or the food, or the beautiful surroundings...you better believe it.

What To Do When Your Gas Tank Runs Out

The gas tank in your kitchen, that is. The one that powers your stove.

Ice cream with a candy bar.

Pitahaya.

It's a fruit.

You eat it with a spoon.

Membrillo! Which is guava paste.

A beautiful marriage: membrillo and salty cheese.

Good ol' orange juice.

Yum. Just...yum.

Midservice Flash Mob

Remember how I talked a little bit about our Peace Corps Midservice Conference a couple weeks back? And I mentioned a flash mob?

Flash mob: A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, artistic expression or—in rare cases—violence. (definition provided by wikipedia)

Our flash mob was not organized for the purpose of violence because, um, this is the Peace Corps - get it? If we were called the Violence Corps, then a violent flash mob would make sense. Maybe. ANYWAY, our flash mob was 100% peaceful, and given that we did it at the PC-Ecuador training center and our audience was a handful of other volunteers and PC staff, I guess the purpose would have to be dancing, plain and simple. Check it out.



Choreographer: J-Fast
Camera Equipment provided by: Brent
Camera Operator: Shantonu
Director of Photography: George ("Zoom in on Mike, zoom in on Mike!")

Screenshots from My Life

Some of these have to do with hygiene: I apologize in advance. But what can I say? It's all part and parcel of my daily life. And as your self-elected representative of Ecuadorian culture and the Peace Corps experience, it is my duty to share them with you. (Still, I'm so, so sorry...) You can click on the images to see a larger version. Then again, you might not want to. I'll leave it up to you.

First up: I ran a 10k!

Also: I had a blister under my toenail! It really hurt!

Next, I skyped with my sister and it put her to sleep.

Then - I ran a 5k!

After which I skyped home and witnessed a parental hug:

Followed by my brother, The Don:

Finally - my lab results came back: no parasites!

Yaaaaaaaaaaay!

All part of the daily grind.

A Sembrar!

Raise your hand if you're tired of hearing about the garden project.

If your hand is raised, you might want to skip this post.

We left off having successfully built the beds and filled them with a nice, fertile mixture of soil and leaves. At the following workshop, we started by adding one more element to our soil mixture:

Humus (mature compost). It came from earthworms. Which is why there's a drawing of a gigantic earthworm on the package.

We mixed the humus in with the top layer of leaves/soil and then we had to water everything. This took awhile.

In the meantime, some of the ladies started peeling off the outer layers of some green onion bulbs to prepare for planting.

Then came the fun part. First, we measured straight lines down the beds using string...

...and then - THEN - after weeks of promises and building beds and building fence and more promises, we finally, Finally, FINALLY PLANTED!

We planted with seeds, bulbs, and plants, and now our garden has onion, bell peppers, squash, and turnips.

It was a momentous occasion, and it marked the time when our watering regimen began in earnest. And, I'm happy to announce, the group really stepped up and took responsibility. With the help of the health center next door, the garden gets appropriate watering and care in between our weekly workshops. Things are growing!!! Green things!!!

And on that jubilant note, I take my leave. Until next time, fellow gardening fiends!

*a note on the title of this post: sembrar = "to plant"

The Day I Didn't Run a Marathon

The Day I Didn't Run a Marathon, aka The Day I Ran a 10K, was today.

Admittedly, I do not have that much racing experience, with only three races to speak of under my belt. Still, I noticed some key differences between racing in the States and racing in Guayaquil.

1 - Nobody else in the city, other than the runners themselves, seemed to have been alerted to the fact that there was a marathon going on this morning. This made for lots of angry drivers sitting and honking their horns at the traffic cops and runners. Very angry; lots of honking. If their aim was to spur the runners on to clear the streets sooner, it certainly worked with me.

2 - I'm not sure whether people cut so many corners in the States when running a race? Can anyone confirm?

3 - English-speakers stand out. Met some other PCVs, some women from Chicago, some US Consulate workers, and a Guayaquileño couple who split their time between here and New York.

4 - In the States, you are less likely to be woken up at 3am the morning of your race by your neighbors, who have decided to hold an impromptu dance party and turn their music up so loud that your bed vibrates to the bassline.

Other than that, racing here is quite similar to in the States. You get up at an ungodly hour and meet up in a trance with a bunch of other athletes in the dark; there's a hum of excitement and energy as everyone waits for the race to begin; there's water stations; delirious running thoughts; the thud of your feet on the pavement and the rhythm of your breathing; there's people you pace with and people who pace with you; there's the final kilometer...er, mile...and at the end, the swag and the refreshments and the port-a-potties, and the rush of endorphins and feeling of accomplishment, accompanied by sore muscles, and the sitting on the grass and taking off your shoes to rehash the whole race with friends, continued over a bowl of tuna stew.

Okay, maybe not the tuna stew part, but the experience always ends with food, right?

And when you tumble into bed after lunch, you can feel satisified that you have Accomplished Something that day, so a nap is completely justified.