Ecuador Dispatches, 2003
We started out the new year with one volunteer, Simon Winch, working on the Eco Ecuador
Project. In early January Peter arrived, and about a week later Brian Teinert, who has
been hired as chief of operations for Planet Drum's projects, arrived to carry on
the work. Peter has been busy organizing the projects in Bahia and introducing Brian to
everyone. On the side, he composed the following dispatches.
In early November Peter returned to Bahia. Several Planet Drum
staffers also decided to go to Bahia and volunteer there. Peter's
dispatches from this trip are listed below.
Index of 2003 Dispatches
[Most recent dispatches at top of list]
Autumn 2003
Dispatch #6, Wild
& “Wild” Encounters
(26 November, 2003
)
Dispatch #5, Pique
y Pasa (Choose What You Like) (22 November, 2003)
Dispatch #4, For
Indoor Use Only - A Meditation (20 November, 2003)
Dispatch #3, Reiterating
the Ecological City (15 November, 2003)
Dispatch #2, Re-emerging
Indigenas (13 November, 2003)
Dispatch #1, Natives are
Harder (12 November, 2003)
Winter 2002-03
Dispatch #2, Revelations in a Cattle Slough
(19 January, 2003)
Dispatch #1, Ecuador
and Planet Drum Undergo Major Transitions (17 January, 2003)
<<<===>>>
Dispatch # I, January 17, 2003
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador
By Peter Berg
This is the last of five straight years worth of work pledged beginning in February
1999 when Planet Drum Foundation was invited to assist in realizing Bahia de
Caraquez’s Ecological City Declaration.
An earthquake and El Nino mudslide ruined municipality in 1998 with fallen buildings,
impassable streets and highways, and 5,000 outright homeless families living on the
sidewalks, the city is now mainly restored. Most split-open buildings have been repaired
or torn down, and some new ones have risen in their places. Dispossessed families have
been relocated in new neighborhoods, some in specially constructed housing. Bright as the
new paint, people seem generally more easy-going and playful as the memory of past
catastrophes inevitably fades.
Unfortunately, the local economy reflects Ecuador’s general impoverishment. Prices
have risen since the US dollar became the standard currency here. As an example that
touches everyone, bread rolls that were once the equivalent of two cents now cost five,
which may seem cheap but represents an increase of two hundred and fifty percent. Wages
have usually failed to keep up or sometimes gotten lower. The local shrimp farming boom of
several decades collapsed through disease and over-supply at around the same time as
Bahia’s natural disasters.
Newly elected president Lucio Gutierrez took office this week vowing "economic war
for a year" to help stop the country’s persistent slide. He has higher than
usual credibility for accomplishing change since he was the former leader of a
military-indigenous peoples-labor union triumvirate whose criticism of International
Monetary Fund demands on the country toppled the president in 1999. Cashiered from his
colonelcy in the army and prevented from taking leadership as "a dictator" at
that time by US support for the vice president’s assumption of the top office, he has
at last come to power through democratic means. Lucio’s recent appointment of
indigenous and socially responsive representatives to several key government posts
indicates that the original rebellion is finally succeeding to some degree and
long-overdue economic improvements could follow.
This is an auspicious time to make an assessment of the effectiveness of Planet
Drum’s various eco-city projects here. The Forest in the Middle of the Ruins erosion
control cum recreational "wild park" in Maria Auxiliadora barrio is much more
visible through the addition of two roadside directional signs and eight numbered markers
to identify native plants described in a self-guided tour map. Community members have been
strong participants by helping to set the signs in concrete and pioneering a new entrance
path with rubble concrete steps. They are an exemplary group judging from the sweep of
ideas that ten of them brought to a meeting in our field office/apartment last week.
Spokesperson Leonardo Maya described guided tours (wearing the new t-shirts emblazoned
with park logos in full color), an information kiosk, classes for children, public puppet
plays, photos and postcards for sale, and a full-fledged museum with educational
documentation of the factors that produced El Nino and the earthquake. Next Sunday we will
start with a prominent painted steel sign five by ten feet with the park’s name and a
directional arrow that will be erected to protrude above the school wall where there is
already a bioregional mural. It will be positioned to be visible from City Hall three
blocks away. A dozen barrio members are expected to help Planet Drum staff and volunteers
transport the sign, set support poles in cement, and celebrate with a fresh ensalada de
frutas tropicales (tropical fruit salad). Publicity has begun with a radio show about the
park featuring barrio residents, and a newspaper account with photos of the new sign is
scheduled. Park maintenance will be minimal now that winter rains have begun: a few
strategic new plantings, clearing paths and dead brush, and finishing the new stairway.
Our future efforts in the park will be mutually developed through weekly meetings with the
community steering council.
A long-neglected aspect of the Fanca Produce composting project for recycling organic
household waste from the barrio of Fanca (along with city market refuse) has just been
resolved. We located a commercial distributor for red worms and ordered 50,000 of them for
delivery hopefully within a week. It will be the first use of brick worm beds originally
built nearly two years ago to create highly enriched compost. Breeding worms will also
begin in earnest. These may eventually prove to be the whole operation’s most viable
activities. Citrus plant seedlings are presently growing and many other fruit trees for
Fanca residents will follow. Building community involvement with waste separation and
compost production similar to Maria Auxiliadora residents with the park is a critical
step. During a Planet Drum staff meeting with Mayor Leo and the Department of Public
Health director earlier this week, we decided that three months of concentrated effort is
needed to create a Fanca community association this winter. Fanca residents have the right
to twenty-five percent of compost production and can use it for everything from a
community garden to grow seedlings for sale. This can be a genuine economic asset for
Fanca’s disadvantaged population if it can be successfully managed by a
self-regulating group of local stewards.
The fledgling project to revegetate roughly six kilometers of eroded hillsides leading
into Bahia de Caraquez with a "wild corridor" of native dry tropical forest
plants is re-energized since the rainy season fully began last week. Planet Drum has built
a shaded greenhouse on the property of the Universidad Catholica near the community of
Kilometro Ocho at the far end of the intended revegetation strip. Two weeks ago we filled
one side of the structure with a compost-rich soil mixture (aiming for equal parts
compost, dried horse manure, rice hulls, black soil, and clay) and seeds of several native
species. Abundant cascol tree seedlings are already coming out. Seedlings previously grown
at Fanca Produce for use in established planting sites were moved here a few days ago to
mature to planting size as well, along with several hundred prepared growing bags in which
seeds failed to germinate. These will now be used to transfer seedlings developed in the
beds when they are large enough in about two weeks. More seeds will follow and continuous
seedling production will occur throughout the rainy season. A new cycle to grow thousands
of plants will take place during the dry season beginning in May, and subsequent seedlings
will grow large enough to be placed into the ground at new sites next winter. Completion
of the whole project will undoubtedly take several years even with increasing numbers of
plantable trees.
The first location for planting will be a hillside with a prominent 100 meter (300
feet) land fault about a foot wide that lies above the greenhouse. Fifty of the seedlings
moved from Fanca to the greenhouse (pelo caballo, "horse hair" named for its
stringy cambium layer) are viable for placing there now, and hundreds of stakes cut from
nearby moyuyo trees will fill in approximately 2 hectares (five acres) of accompanying
eroded hillside. On a survey walk through the site we saw the skeleton of a small,
cross-toothed mammal Ecuadorians call Zorro (fox) that is actually a different species,
tiny intensely blue flowers, a metallic ruby humming bird, and an unexpected long row of
hundreds of moyuyo trees following the watercourse of a creek the way willows might in the
Northern Temperate Zone. It was the single most satisfying event in the two weeks of my
current visit.
The immediate community that can participate with the revegetation project is
university staff and students, so there will be work-learning classes with them helping to
produce and plant seedlings starting in June when the next semester begins. All of the
land in the intended revegetation strip is privately owned. Property holders who
participate in allowing use of their land have the right to harvest seeds and fruits as
long as they leave standing trees uncut. We still need to contact about thirty more owners
to complete the strip.
Fundamental to our involvement in Bahia has been the vision of bioregionally inspired
city living practices. We have aimed at establishing a working model of this unique
perspective using the vast natural opportunities found here. The Rio Chone watershed,
winterwet-summerdry climate, the offshore blend of Humboldt and Nino ocean currents,
predominantly clay soil, dry neotropical forest plants and animals, and a 5,000 years
running indigenous domestic culture based on farming, fishing, and trading are all
strongly visible and sometimes remarkably intact. City dwelling is powered by fossil fuels
and electricity, informed by newspapers, radio and television, reliant on retailing and
tourist industries in addition to commercial-scaled agriculture, utilizes the option of
plumbing and piped water, and employs a predominantly indoors style. But Nature is still
clearly dominant in the city. A distant electrical power plant fails on a monthly basis
restoring country-style darkness to streets and houses. Water supplies evaporate in the
dry season rendering faucets in household and businesses useless and their owners as
dependent as farmers on cisterns and transported water barrels. Common fruits such as
bananas, papaya, and limes have been nativized and can be seen growing in yards and on
hillsides everywhere. Yucca is a native starchy vegetable used daily for everything from
bread flour to a soup ingredient. Locally caught river and ocean fish, shrimp and
shellfish are consumed amazingly fresh on a daily basis. A significant number of houses
are still elevated on poles, sided with bamboo pounded flat into boards, and roofed with
palm thatch. Direct dependency on native natural systems for sustenance is a continuous
reality.
Planet Drum’s erosion control effort in a barrio which evolved into a valuable
public "wild park", the large organic waste recycling project in another barrio
that keeps polluting waste out of a landfill while providing soil to grow food and native
plant seedlings, and the new massive revegetation effort to resist watershed erosion while
creating a "wild corridor" of harvestable plant products are directly based on
restoring and maintaining natural systems while delivering human benefits. This is not
just urban ecology, environmentalism or natural resources improvement as they are
typically considered and followed. Certainly benefits occur during our process which are
similar to those pursuits, but they aren’t the main accomplishments. The real goal is
to establish a deeply bioregional pattern of practical public activities for achieving
true long-term sustainability. Hopefully, they also serve as examples for duplication
throughout Ecuador, the less developed world, and even the overdeveloped industrial North
which is so badly in need of ecological restoration.
After five years it is clear that Planet Drum’s vision is increasingly linked to
active public involvement. We are making a transition toward turning our existing projects
over to be run by various communities as the final stage of our involvement. Plans for new
projects include a barrio-wide renewable energy system to generate electricity and
retrofit houses for hot water production, and creation of a publicly accessible
bioregional map incorporating natural, archeological, historical, and contemporary human
land use features. Although only in the funding proposal stage, they already feature
inputs from public meetings and will incorporate participation by residents at every stage
of development. Ultimately, they will be run by residents of Bahia.
A final promising transition is knowledgeable and energetic Brian Teinert who trained
in our San Francisco office and is now in Bahia to serve as chief of project operations
for at least a year. Brian looked good on paper, better in person, and is a marvel of
self-motivation on the ground here. He will introduce all future volunteers to tasks and
direct them on a level of continuity that we haven’t possessed before. The first new
addition will be college student Megan Shea who arrives next week to join veteran British
volunteer Simon Winch. We’ve cleared some obstacles to promising presentable housing
to volunteers by signing a new one-year lease agreement with the same generous terms as
before. Rent is split between repairs and cash, but we have already accumulated repair
costs that will last through next September. The roomy office/dormitory is fully painted
in public areas now, the front door lock has been replaced to regain privacy after the
loss of several keys, plumbing will be completely operational by the end of this morning,
and plants in containers are being dotted around to naturalize our space.
Ecuador and Planet Drum are both undergoing dramatic transitions this year, astonishing
changes should become the norm.
<<<===>>>
Dispatch #2, January 19, 2003
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador
by Peter Berg
When contacts are hard to make quickly they often get even harder. That’s the way
Brian found getting in touch with Pedro Otero, an ecologically-minded biologist who
teaches, does water testing as "Peter’s Lab", and is an owner with four
brothers of a significant parcel of badly eroded land. Located in the El Toro Creek
watershed behind Leonidas Plaza, it is one of the larger holdings at 257 hectares (nearly
700 acres) within the stretch of our intended revegetation corridor. Pedro is a founding
member of El Centro de Educacion Ambiental Eco-Bahia and once expressed great interest in
accompanying us on a survey of his place, but over a period of two weeks he seemed to be
unreachable even though his telephone was answered and messages were taken.
People are often unreachable in Bahia. It’s not clear which way an attempt at
communication will go until three or four tries are made. After that a certain wariness of
the inevitable begins to take hold. Five, six, seven attempts and the slog is on. You have
to weigh new factors that come into play here like cultural differences, language ability,
realistic consequences of failure, personal stubbornness, and even heat-derived fixation.
Brian felt compelled to succeed because of the strategic position of the site halfway
along the whole corridor and the great potential future impact of mud flows originating
there. It was becoming an uncomfortably familiar situation and I became anxious about
leaving in a few days without helping him to meet and assess the prospects with Pedro.
Trying unsuccessfully to vault over obstacles in contacting people can produce the most
isolating moments I experience working here. Locals encounter the same problem, but for
foreigners it can create a degree of incapacitation that is a worse malaise than
loneliness.
After close to a dozen attempts, Brian resembled a rescued sailor from a shipwreck as
he blurted with elation about finally reaching Pedro himself and arranging a time and
place to meet. "Where?" I asked. "I think it must be his house. He said you
had been there." "I never was." During the following moment he might have
felt that he was going to be tossed back into the sea. We agreed that painful as it was he
would have to find out where we would meet, and the directions if it was Pedro’s
house. I forget how many tries it took to finally establish that it would be the house and
how to find it. Brian is going to survive in Bahia.
When we found the place at 9AM Pedro was expecting us and also waiting for one of his
brothers named Jose. We were invited aboard Pedro’s well-used jeep and joined by his
highly capable machete-carrying thirteen-year old son. "He is my partner on an
ecological radio program," Pedro explained. Within a few minutes we were jolting
along the rutted road beside El Toro Creek. Appallingly eroded twenty-five feet high
straight-sided banks of the main creek soon became visible on the side of the road.
After a few barbed wire gate stops, we drove through an even worse prospect when
the road itself descended into the deeply eroded canyon of a dry tributary creek. How will
anyone get through this steep terrain with a vehicle when intensifying winter rains turn
all of the ground to mud? When the fences ended Pedro stopped and we began what became a
two hour hike.
It was a completely novel experience from the start where we encountered a side canyon
at least thirty feet deep that terminated abruptly in a semi-circle. Backtracking from it
about twenty feet, I showed Brian how we could experiment there by planting deep-rooting
trees that far away. They would trace at a distance the eroding edge halfway before it
reached what might be a presumed endpoint. We couldn’t totally stop the steep-sided
bank from eroding, but we might be able to halt it before the maximum distance dictated by
the angle of repose about fifty or more feet further than its present position.
Long-lived, deep-rooted ceibo trees in a curved row three or four trees deep could make an
effective defensive barrier against losing more land.
We dropped down to the creek and found skinny cows staring at us. They stood along the
erosion-widened bed of an extremely sparse and slow trickle. Cow and burro manure in all
stages from fresh to dry lay in the water and along the wider muddy sides. I got over my
initial revulsion when I recognized that this would be a good ingredient in a compost soil
mixture for filling holes of new plantings. Special protective measures would have to be
taken fencing them, of course. Soon Pedro began an informal walking lecture by explaining
that the soil was highly saline. It flowed along salty soil that was elevated originally
from the ocean floor by tectonic uplift resulting from the South American continental mass
colliding with the Pacific Plate. He pointed at sodium chloride pellets in the stream bed
and carbonate layers in the mud banks derived from ancient colonies of miniscule
shellfish. Then he began identifying plants whose names I had only heard before (or never
heard): Saman, jaille, and balsamo trees along with estrella grass. Then the
horribly eroded canyon walls of tributary creeks appeared like a desertified Middle
Eastern landscape. Denuded mud mounds rose where the water courses came together. I was
having the heightened sensibility that might come with seeing a beautifully rendered
painting of a monstrous scene, beauty and terror mixed as in Francisco Goya’s
"Saturn Devouring His Children".
Brian separated from us to follow the rapidly walking, rubber-booted, shotgun carrying
younger brother who Pedro described as "verdad hombre de campo" (true
man of the countryside). At a kind of fall line above which cows were unable to scramble and an
increased uphill grade caused stream water to run clearer and faster, Pedro and I sat down
to sketch the whole property and discuss an appropriate revegetation process, specific
plant species, and the outlook for future protection. He began by putting his hands palm
outwards to show it wasn’t possible for him to control the future of land use on this
property inherited from his father. Some brothers wanted to sell and no one could dictate
what new owners might do. The five tributaries that entered the main creek course
through their holdings roughly defined a sub-parcel for each brother, but they
weren’t actually assigned yet. Having said this, he brightened adding that he
wouldn’t sell and stated he wanted to hold onto his fifth. The brother that
accompanied us wanted to farm fruit trees but was conservation-minded about the remaining
part of his piece. Most of the area in sub-parcels two and three could be guaranteed safe.
There is a precedent for family land preservation. The ridgeline zone around the entire
water basin had never been cut and remained an intact indigenous forest. His father had
planted dry tropical hardwoods in a fairly wide semi-circle below there about twenty-five
years ago. Much of this was cut seven years later but it was replanted and those trees
were still there. At the core of the property near the main creek there had been
widespread deforestation, burning, and different types of row farming. It was the most
badly eroded zone.
With distractingly beautiful tropical birds and butterflies flying past, I began to
become inspired about what lay before us. This place was one of the greatest contributors
of water and mud flows through the area where we drove in with its farms, buildings, and
the main highway into Bahia de Caraquez. Those locations had experienced one to two meters
(three to six feet) of mud flows during 1998’s El Nino rains. Two types of erosion
controlling plantings were needed: extension of existing forests downward toward the
creek, and plantings along water courses to shore them up. It would take thousands of
trees and months of labor, untold amounts of individual and space-enclosing fences, and
hundreds of gallons of hard-to-carry water during the dry season (probably using
burros). The harder the work seemed, the more I felt certain about doing it. A rising wave
of elation caused an imbecilic grin to come over my face. Everything done here would have
the biggest payoff in the entire strip. We were ecological lottery winners!
Walking back with the brother, I was shown an oven bird’s nest sculpted from mud,
told about a bird whose loud predictable song at 5:30 AM was a farmers’ alarm clock,
and another that didn’t sing but barked like a dog. "No one has mentioned snakes
to me, " I commented pointing at his shotgun. "The worst is mata
caballo (horse
killer). It doesn’t go after people but can drop a horse." "How big is
it?" "I saw one five meters (fifteen feet) long that was this wide," he
depicted the circumference of a small pie. When Brian and I were walking to the apartment,
I said "Can you believe what we just did? I’m too high, I’ve got to come
down. I can’t think straight if I stay like this the rest of the day."
Cuisine notes. The proportion of starch in a range of forms that is consumed in the
diet of undeveloped world populations runs higher than in more protein-rich developed
countries, but the extent of this in Ecuador must be at the top throughout the world.
Almuerzo lunches at midday featuring a soup course followed by a main dish often contain
as many as seven different kinds including rice, potatoes, bread, yucca, wheat noodles,
corn, and fried platanos patacones. These aren’t just served to field laborers but
appear as inexpensive restaurant fare (at around $1.25 including a juice drink) for office
workers and professionals. Portions of meat and fish are small in almuerzos (although
often larger in the evening meal). Since gradually registering the predominance of
starches I’ve begun leaving three or four uneaten.
On the incomparably positive side, fruits can be equally numerous at breakfast. I have
counted pineapple, banana, papaya, orange, watermelon, maracuya (passion fruit) juice, and
pechiche jam in a morning meal. The degree of ripeness and flavor is outstanding and in
the case of papaya (or locally found naranjilla) unsurpassed. Experiencing how good the
fruit here can be has caused me to healthily eat more of it in general, but I will no
longer look for papaya outside this country. Its dense core flavor and high sweetness defy
substitution elsewhere.
<<<===>>>
Dispatch #1, November 12, 2003
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador
by Peter Berg
The main stage of the ambitious project to revegetate six
kilometers of eroded hillsides directly facing Rio Chone on the road into
Bahia de Caraquez with native plants of the tropical dry forest has begun.
The list of bioregional criteria met by doing this is impressive. These
hills are continuous with the metropolitan area and thus part of the
ecological city vision for Bahia. The particular stretch of land involved
is geologically unstable due to high earthquake and mudslide vulnerability
which makes it unsuitable for houses. Consequently it is destined for some
form of open status which can include restoring native plant and animal
habitat in a "wild corridor". While readying the return of
indigenous ecosystems, revegetation will also greatly reduce the amount of
erosion and mud slides in rainy seasons, especially when the next El Nino
inevitably arrives. The effected land lies above the fairly dense
parroquia (suburb) of Leonidas Plaza threatening homes and businesses of
about 20,000 people, the principal highway into Bahia, and an already
dangerously silted-up river. Most of the territory involved is privately
owned and will require active engagement with landholding community
members who can become participants in the revegetation vision and
hopefully carry on more of the work themselves in the future. Mayor
Leonardo Viteri signed an aval (statement of support) foreseeing improved
public safety, lower public repair costs, economic opportunities from
fruits and seeds that can be obtained without cutting down the planted
trees, and ecological benefits involving soil, native species, ground
water, and aquatic habitat in the river.
For all of its promise this is a much more arduous project
than anyone foresaw at the beginning nearly two years ago.
A greenhouse needed to be built at the most distant point
from the city on property donated by Universidad Catolica (Catholic
University). It is a bamboo frame structure covered with close mesh green
netting that supplied seedlings (along with some obtained from outside
sources) which were carefully positioned on our first revegetation site of
this project, the eroded hillside immediately above the greenhouse. Since
then the beds have been reseeded. There are presently a hundred well
developed, ready to plant, mixed species of natives left from the first
round, and another thousand sprouts are grown sufficiently that volunteers
Chris Yeager, Patrick Landewe and Ulrike Drevniok are now gently
transferring them from the shallow beds into sleeve-like sacks for further
maturation. The greenhouse has been doubled in size so that during the wet
months usually starting sometime in December more seeds can be placed in
the beds’ cultivated compost, topsoil and clay mixture as seedlings are
taken out.
It has been far from an ordinary gardening operation.
Field Projects Manager Brian Teinert has to concentrate intensely to
sequence the whole process. Native seeds are notably more difficult to
obtain and harder to germinate than domestic agricultural hybrids. They
aren’t found in stores and aren’t just stuck into the ground. Most
require special conditions which can vary from heat and dryness to
soaking. Even then they may simply fail to grow and leave us wondering
whether our cultivated soil is too rich compared to native clay, too
moist, too dry, or a dozen other possibilities.
Within each species seeds germinate over a period of a
month or more, probably for greater adaptivity, whereas hybridized
domestic seeds usually show within a few days. After some of ours
sprouted, were transferred to maturing sacks, and the beds reseeded with
another species, a number of the previous seeds seemed to wait for the new
ones to come up before finally rising among them. The germination season
and duration period also varies for each species. Because it is necessary
to time sowing seeds and growing plants during the dry months so that
individuals will be ready to put onto revegetation sites in the rainy
season, the individualistic and erratic quality of wild species makes
success much more chancy than domestic farming which is notoriously fickle
in itself.
Little information is available for the range of species
and locations encompassed in the dry tropical forest. Some of this work
hasn’t been done before, certainly not on the sites we’ve chosen. As
in North America and other places, cutting down trees and overgrazing
coupled with soil depletion through monocultural farming was carried out
as though everything would magically grow back to its original state on
its own. With few successful examples and so many unknowns, revegetation
with natives is in a constant state of experimentation and starting over.
As a particularly disappointing example, even before beginning the
greenhouse process some seeds sent to us sat in a bus station for a few
days and rotted in equatorial, organism-filled humidity.
After the rainy season comes seven months of drought with
temperatures that generally fall between the mid-eighties and mid-nineties
Fahrenheit. Vigorous plants that were first put into wet winter earth will
soon wither in brick-dry, cracking summer clay if they are not watered
regularly. Most are on inclines of up to sixty degrees so water must be
carried uphill. Respite from repeating the sweating, grunting work of
watering quite as often comes through reusing empty two liter plastic soft
drink bottles which are filled and pushed into the ground beside young
plants to release a trickle over several days. November is the final
drying rack in the biological conditioning process of this unique forest
type. The first hillside plants above the greenhouse have to endure
another month before the rains come to even begin to prove that this
approach to revegetation can succeed.
Walking in stands of trees and brush at this time of year
brings solemn admiration of how life can persist. An absence of leaves
gives away the forest interior’s intimate secrets. Ominous raw earth
slides become starkly visible. Ruined houses and broken animal pens
protrude from a universal brown background. All of the litter of the
previous year is exposed in brash commercial colors. Birds are almost the
sole inspiration for prosperity in the waterless ordeal. Outlined on bare
branches like framed paintings, some of them just arrived from the north:
green with white and black striped wings, light orange, solid black with
electric cobalt blue flashing when they turn toward the sun.
Cuisine note. Eggs being cheap and perpetually
available I set out to make a salad but tried to steer it in an Ecuadorian
direction. Boiled some small potatoes to accompany the eggs, and sautéed
particularly tasty local green peppers with garlic. Combined these with
the usual mayonnaise, salt and pepper. After tasting there seemed a fairly
wide area left for a foundational flavor of Bahian food. Cumin! Served it
up to the whole crew who enthused enough to repeat in the future.
<<<===>>>
Dispatch #2, November 13, 2003
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador
by Peter Berg
From a video music blaring shore side restaurant on the Rio
Chone, the ancient vision of a dugout canoe with two men standing and
throwing circular nets in the distance. It's an accomplished skill for
only one person to sit still in these narrow, shallow draft boats without
upsetting their knife-edge balance. A large diesel engine ferry powers
across the river nearby loosing a bow wave that ominously rolls toward
them, and without seeming to notice they continue standing while the canoe
rises and sinks back.
Sometimes people pass by on the street in Bahia de
Caraquez whose faces seem identical to those on millennias old figurines
that can regularly be found lying on the beach. The fishermen would most
likely be recognizable as originating from those old cultures which
archeologists named Valdivian, Bahian, Caras (possibly the root word for
Caraquez), and several others.
Marcelo and Cheo have set up a laptop on the bar at the
mysteriously named Gordon Blues club and are translating from a bird book
in English to prepare a lesson for high school students. We last saw each
other ten months ago so after first asking what "preen" means
they abandon the pictures of avian species in stiff poses for a
conversational free-for-all. One of the subjects is their cultural
identity.
There are numerous tribal groups in the Ecuadorian Andes
and Oriente (Amazonia) but it is widely held that only a few isolated
native cultures continue to exist on the Pacific shore. An Ecuadorian
anthropologist told me that many more are still here but submerged because
of the loss of language, ceremonies and other characteristics. He felt
that the coast peoples' renowned ability for adaptiveness and trading may
have played a part in absorbing Spanish language, religion, dress, and
economic system so completely. (Their linguistic skill was allegedly
employed by the Spanish conquistadors in dealings with mountain tribes.)
On the other hand many common practices such as small-scale fishing,
gathering native fruits, building elevated bamboo and thatch houses, and
handicrafts production are probably not markedly different than five
thousand years ago. These under the surface tribal identities are not
officially recognized today as are groups like Otavalos in the mountains.
Regardless, the people are still visible enough that the term mestizo when
used locally is reserved for those who have definite European as well as
native origins, and not them. Is it possible that these coastal people
(and those termed mestizo if they choose the native side of their origins)
can reclaim their indigenous heritage and status sometime in the future?
"Claro," Marcelo declares with arms wide in
agreement. Cheo affirms with rapid nods of his head and testifies.
"You should see my abuella (grandmother) from Jama. She's a total
indigena (native)." Jama is also one of the archeological names given
to an early Ecuador coast culture. We exchange stories about how various
native peoples in North America reclaimed their connection with tribal
histories. There are New England groups who were down to only a few
survivors that retained none of their tribal culture. There is even the
peculiarly reversed case of vanished 17th Century Jamestown, Virginia
settlers who seem to have actually intermarried with and become local
tribes-people but still bear the same colonist names today.
"Our ancestors were actually older than most of the
mountain groups who have indigenous status," declares Marcelo.
"What ancient group do you identify with?" Without hesitation he
responds, "Right here. Caras." To make it clear that these
aren't isolated popular attitudes, a day later a woman I met for the first
time answered a question about her family by saying, "We're all from
here." "For how long?" "Always." "A thousand
years?" "Yes." "Two thousand years?" "Maybe
not. No, I can't definitely say that." "You're related to the
ancient Bahian people?" "That's what we are, nothing else."
The massively colonized continents of North and South
America, Australia, and Africa share the phenomenon of large immigrant
populations who often outnumber the original inhabitants. But not
everywhere. In most areas of South America it is the reverse if those with
at least partial native ancestry are included.
The European national cultures that colonized parts of
other continents are based in places that were also inhabited dating back
thousands of years ago, but for the majority of their homeland citizens
today there isn't a separation between national identity and cultural
identity. The exceptions are ethnic cultures such as the Basques who
reside in both Spain and France, and people who consider themselves
unassimilated members of other national groups. Mixtures of cultures
occurred with these ostensibly homogenous nationalities as they do
everywhere. For example, Romans made dramatic fusions with other people in
all of the areas of Europe where "Romance" languages are spoken
today. Those mixed Roman and Gallic origins aren't bothered about in
France or elsewhere. Aside from ethnic groups there isn't an equivalent of
indigenous tribal status, or those termed mestizo.
Some contemporary South Americans reject mestizo
categorization and accept a native identity instead. When asked whether he
thought the future direction of Mexican society would be left or right,
the celebrated poet Octavio Paz answered, "Indigenous." Leading
Mexican spokesperson for bioregionalism Alberto Ruz lived near Mayan ruins
in Yucatan as a child while they were excavated by his archeologist
father, connecting with that heritage in ways that he continues to
celebrate and promote.
As a gringo working in Bahia de Caraquez to help create an
ecological city, there is constant awareness that the ultimate outcome of
these efforts obviously lies with people who live here. Is being
indigenous rather than mestizo part of that?
Jacob Santos is owner of the Bed and Breakfast Inn, a
civic leader, and Director of the Museo Banco Central (Central Bank
Museum) in Bahia de Caraquez. He is knowledgeable about the remarkable
range of artifacts and archeological information housed in the museum and
has guided people to the rich Chirje site nearby. Because of his
exceptional access to the early history of the region, I wondered what he
thought about contemporary connections to it.
"Mestizaja (mixing) of free blacks, natives and
Spanish took place on the coast, but when you talk about mestizo, who
wins? It's really the Spaniards for the last five hundred years. Their
language, religion, way of life. That's why people talk about slavery not
being eradicated in Ecuador. Bondage still exists.
Perhaps the local indigenous identity can't be completely
revived at this time but people can find roots and a cause. For example,
the names of ancient groups are just archeological designations usually
taken from the places where artifacts for different cultures were found.
We don't know enough about the earlier people to understand them yet. They
had good knowledge about pottery, navigation, astronomy, metal handling,
water management, and obviously they were good ecologists because they
lived in harmony with nature.
That would be a beginning. People should start to identify
with local ancestry and culture rather than imported cultures such as
Spanish, European or American. There is proof that we have had occupation
of the Chone River area for thousands of years. Living in a given area for
a long time gives ethnic groups the sense of belonging. On the coast of
Ecuador, Guayas [to the south] is very flat but here in [the State of]
Manabi we have hillsides all over the place and that gives a different
horizon and attitude. Finding true identity is a long-term commitment and
has to do with divorcing yourself from external influences such as
consumer attitudes and feelings of superiority.
I descend from them. I don't know exactly to what degree
but I have features that are found on some figurines.
When things are going well people don't care what they're
called because they are content. We are now going through a process of
upheaval because people don't have enough personal resources, there aren't
enough jobs. We need to find answers so people are asking who we are and
who do we want to be."
It's not too far a reach for at least part of the answer
to be indigenas.
Footnote. In the time that I've been writing this there
have been numerous news stories about emergent indigenous political
movements in the Andean countries of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Recent
toppling of governments and uprisings related to oil production as well as
other economic issues led by native groups are seen as indications of the
future political direction in the region.
<<<===>>>
Dispatch # 3, November 15, 2003
Bahia de Carquez, Ecuador
By Peter Berg
It has been nearly five years since the Ecological City
Declaration in Bahia de Caraquez and there have been many developments and
changes. These have overwhelmingly been for the better and are too great
in number to describe fully in a short space. One major difference is that
the mutual exuberant feeling of hopeful optimism that prevailed on
February 23, 1999 has been transformed over time into personal absorption
with individual projects. Large or small, all the activities aimed toward
the ecological city goal have their own unique and detailed features. They
continue to grow in separate directions and become more different from
each other as they progress. Each one requires financial support which is
close to non-existent locally and difficult to obtain from other
Ecuadorian or international sources, especially in the case of relief
related aid so long after the El Nino mudslides and earthquake of 1998.
Most groups are in the same position as Planet Drum with our revegetation
project that could be readily expanded several times if funds were
available.
Without easy communication and assistance between active
groups, the vacancy of support could become a Petri dish for fostering
discouragement, complaint or disillusionment. While traveling from San
Francisco to Bahia to work and plan for the upcoming year, I made some
notes about my own doubts and feelings of estrangement from other
eco-ciudad groups in Bahia. What is the real state of the eco-ciudad? What
needs to still be done and how? What can be gained? For the latter there
is an inspiring list of possibilities: ecological, social, economic,
individual, physical conditions, educational, consciousness, culture, and
public information. Having originally pledged five years of Planet Drum
involvement that is coming to an end, I decided to try to get answers
during this visit before expending more energy and funds in pursuing
further directions than we have already begun.
Jacob Santos helped by offering his restaurant for a
meeting and putting the following announcement into well-written Spanish.
Some participating groups were consulted beforehand about the contents and
I delivered it to a dozen more.
______________________________________________________________________
INVITATION
BAHIA ECO-CIUDAD ANNIVERSARY DISCUSSION AND SOCIAL
GATHERING
Thursday, November 13, 8 PM
Bed and Breakfast Inn Restaurant
We have a grand occasion to celebrate next year, the
fifth anniversary of the Eco-Ciudad Declaration for Bahia de Caraquez in
February 1999. All of the groups and individuals who participate in
helping to build an ecological city can be proud of what they have done.
We need to discuss and plan how to show our satisfaction and pride, and
what we hope to do in the future.
This discussion will be informal and offers the
opportunity to state what you are doing, hear news about other projects,
and express yourself about eco-ciudad conditions.
There will be free refreshments and time to have
person-to-person conversations. Bahia de Caraquez has benefited
economically, culturally, educationally, and socially from five years of
eco-ciudad work. It can see even better times with our enthusiastic
support.
This invitation is going to many organizations, and you
can help by informing those you know to come as well.
Please come to show your continued desire to see Bahia
become a fully ecological city!
Cordially,
Friends of the Eco-city
Fourteen people showed up representing at least eight
organizations including many of the original supporters, a good showing
for less than a week’s notice. We sat informally in a circle with Jacob
as an unobtrusive facilitator. It was reassuring to hear some people speak
out immediately about the need to work together regardless of specific
outcomes. On the question of what day the fifth anniversary should be
celebrated, the Declaration date on February 23rd or as part of
Environment Day in June, there were nearly as many reasons for picking one
or the other as speakers. Eventually we settled on the actual
commemorative day. As might be expected after frustrating experiences in
seeking assistance from a financially strapped city government, there was
considerable venting of disappointment from several people. We agreed to
bring specific proposals for municipal aid to the next meeting which will
be held at the same time and place in a week. Ideas for the celebration
will also be discussed then.
The mutualism that initiated the ecological city was
partially resurrected in just two hours. It’s obvious that we need to
act as a lobbying interest group rather than count on full municipal
support, but that isn’t far from the original situation five years ago.
The then-mayor infuriatingly put off signing the Declaration until about
twenty-four hours before the Ecological City Celebration was to begin.
We now represent an interest group that can include
everyone from parents of school children to drivers of three-wheel pedaled
taxis who wear T-shirts emblazoned with "Ecologico Triciclo".
Civic budget meetings and an election are coming up. Hopefully, pulling
city officials and agencies along will also help unify us in where we want
to go.
<<<===>>>
Dispatch #4, November 20, 2003
Bahia de caraquez, Ecuador
By Peter Berg
Of all the differences between living here and in San
Francisco there is one that creates a paramount necessity. It is the
millimeter close proximity of organisms that use the human body for their
own purposes and other natural effects. This slim space eventually becomes
a factor in most activities if not a near obsession.
There is a hospital quality about life in highly
industrialized countries that isn’t so apparent as when it disappears.
Entire populations live almost as they were Bubble People within
transparent plastic domes, sealed off from injurious contact with
potentially detrimental species or natural elements. Society in these
countries takes on the responsibility of exterminating or otherwise
warding off influences that might harm or annoy its citizens. If for some
reason public measures fail there is a huge inventory of poisons, sprays,
traps, electric zappers, high pitched noise producers, filters,
humidifiers, air conditioners, and other ways to privately adjust natural
environments. Bubble People are usually unaware of the wealth of organisms
and spectrum of environmental variations looming beyond the distant
guarded perimeter.
Ecuador manifests a strong presence of natural forces even
in the cities. The most urban of them, Quito, was heavily dusted by
volcanic ash for days two years ago. Other municipalities have more
continuous interplay with multiple wild elements. Rural places are awash
in them. The contrast between industrial civilization insulation and
equatorial exposure is so striking that it lifts several important issues
to consciousness. Which way of life is more desirable? Which is more
expensive? Which is more costly to the biosphere? Which is more realistic?
The following examples of daily occurrences here aren’t
meant as cautionary or negative appraisals. Hopefully they’ll frame some
of the most pressing questions that are raised.
Amid the abundance of life on the equator, mosquitoes of
several types are so common and unavoidable that they are treated as
expected company. Swarms are problematic because thirty or forty bites on
the face and neck or even an arm is a distractingly irritating experience.
Otherwise everyone seems to tolerate a few itching bumps at all times. One
variety’s bite stings fiercely for fifteen minutes and then subsides.
Yesterday the downstairs ice cream vendor called them "tigres"
(tigers) and claimed they have stripes. Another leaves an irritation that
lasts several days and causes uncontrollable scratching. All can become
infected.
The act of drawing blood by female mosquitoes to feed its
eggs may incidentally impart other life forms that take up residence
within the blood stream or tissues. Malaria and dengue fever are the most
common, carrying out a full cycle of reproduction over several weeks in
feverish prostrate victims. Many people who live here have had one or the
other, malaria being easier to contract and the high fever of dengue more
serious to endure. Brian’s stay is less than a year so far and he has
had both.
Walking barefoot or even in sandals around animal wastes
invites niguas to bore undetected into feet, a favorite spot being between
toenail and skin. Niguas lay an egg sack preferably in a
hidden place that can grow large and difficult to remove. Brian informed
us about them a week ago, explaining that they should be credited with
some of the missing toes and fingers of people around town. He became
expert at removing niguas from several other people after ridding himself
by making a small incision and squeezing. No more than a day later Chris
began hopping on one leg examining the bottom of the opposite foot. He
pressed both sides of a bump and forced out a round pink egg sack.
The impact of ordinary natural elements such as the sun is
also magnified. When I visited San Vicente by river taxi for a celebration
commemorating three years of independence as a separate canton (county)
from Bahia de Caraquez’s Canton Sucre, it was mildly breezy with a
typically overcast November sky. On the main street in San Vicente a
grandstand held at least twenty dignitaries including the mayor, his
French wife, and the Captain of the Port. They rose when the Ecuadorian
flag appeared at the head of every marching group in a long parade that
while only head high featured salsa dancing knee-high booted school
cheerleaders performing extraordinary routines, stilt walking costumed
boys, and solemn processional groups of teachers and artisans. The sun
came out at some point and I admired marchers who kept pacing in place
when they halted in the growing heat. Keeping a place on the unshaded
sidewalk with spectators pushing from all directions held most of my
physical attention, until I began to feel a mild floating sensation.
Sunstroke comes fast here, so I was compelled to walk back to a boat while
I still could. On the way ice-cold perspiration dripped into my eyes and
my head began to throb. Lightness was now lifting and tipping me toward
the ground. The pier gangway was a tiresome puzzle requiring totally
focused thought. After I stumbled on board and sat in the first available
place, I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until we docked fifteen minutes
later. At a riverside restaurant I asked for water on the way to a chair,
and when seated put a spoon into a mustard jar on the table to test the
need for salt. It was as sweet as a banana. The whole round trip was
without exertion and lasted only two hours, but heat exhaustion had come
as close as the floor. Such an extreme reaction might have just been my
own disposition except when Cheo caught up the next day he told of
head-throbbing dizziness following the parade that forced him to sit down
in the shade.
There are countless similar and more severe incidents.
People who live here don’t dwell on them in the same way as foreigners
who out-horrify themselves relating painful personal experiences and
stories of misadventures. Taking an appropriate level of responsibility
for one’s well being is hard-won for most Bubble People and talking
about consequences is obviously part of the preparation. Then come
decisions about whether to put on sunscreen, use mosquito repellent, brush
teeth with bottled water, omit salads, take malaria pills, wear long
sleeve shirts, forego sandals for shoes, check yourself for ticks, put on
a hat, carry a water bottle ...the list can become very long. Some
considerations about taking various precautions are personal
susceptibility, whether or not there’s time to get sick (if untreated
the typical local gastro-intestinal condition usually consumes three
days), and attitudes about living here authentically. Everybody draws a
line somewhere.
Here’s a final image to highlight the contrast. Someone
who recently arrived decided to go along with Chris and Patrick when
Marcelo led a trek to see howler monkeys. It was at least four hours in
and back through brush and wooded country that included an unusually humid
coastal forest. Good hiking shoes were called for but she only had sandals
and some new white tennis-type shoes carried as a last resort. Inevitably
the time came when they were needed because of scratches from thorny
branches and she noted ironically that there was a warning label: For
Indoor Use Only.
<<<===>>>
Dispatch # 5, November 22, 2003
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador
By Peter Berg
When I first heard "pique y pasa" (pronounced
pee-kee pah-sah) it was used in a traditional way to describe how to go about
buying something when there were different items of all kinds offered. Not
a single-minded hunting trip for just one thing or at best a few things
where the range of possibilities is finite and it’s a matter of how much
you have to spend. This is a more experiential, hypothetical, exploratory,
and unpredictable style that might have parallel origins with the
wondrously wide-open type of weekend markets that exist in Latin
countries. Practically anything can be found there, plumbing supplies to
live animals to jewelry to personal services such as haircuts. None of
those things may be there next week so pique y pasa while you can.
The phrase is used for many more activities now. When
buying things it can also carry the meaning of "spend what you can
afford" or "just look around". Extended beyond the market
to dating it can connote playing the field. In a restaurant it can refer
to reading over and selecting from the menu. (In Guayaquil there is a
popular chain of home delivery restaurants named Pique y Pasa.) In fact,
at this point the expression has its own life and can be activated to
cover nearly any situation.
Here are some short takes on Bahia de Caraquez and
developments to retain its ecological balance with the Rio Chone
Bioregion. You are invited to pique y pasa.
A little girl of about five years with a totally satisfied
grin rides in the middle of the passenger seat in the back of an otherwise
empty triciclo pedaled by her father. It is late afternoon so they are
probably headed home. She is likely so delighted because she wears the
driver’s several sizes too big cap that is kept out of her eyes by two
fingers holding the brim. It could be a charming scene as old as the first
triciclos here except that the cap reads "Associacion de Tricicleros
Bahia Ecologico Fundada el 10 de Agosto del 2002 (Ecological Bahia
Association of Three-Wheel Drivers Founded on August 10, 2002).
At a formal ceremony in the Municipal Theater attended by
many city agency staff members, barrio leaders, and independent eco-city
groups, the city/canton government unveiled its new recycling oriented
solid waste collection system. It has been a long passage that began with
the Eco-City Declaration nearly five years before and has involved notable
evolutionary steps such as separating waste at the main market and then
building Fanca Produce to collect market and household organic wastes from
a single barrio to manufacture compost. The new program will carry this
activity to the entire canton.
The El Alcalde (Mayor) Dr. Leonardo Viteri made a
compelling speech linking the sustainable practices existed in his boyhood
to Bahia’s present condition of poisoning soil and water with garbage.
He explained the limited role of his office and city government and
summoned the famous pride of Bahians to carry out what needs to be done on
a family and school wide basis so that they can join other recycling
cities around the world and become a model for Ecuador. Since the meeting
was called for six in the afternoon and he has medical office hours from
four onward most days, he was still wearing green top/white bottom scrubs.
The mayor was followed by a comedy routine set around a
group of young people who threw trash on the stage and stood silently
afterwards in a row to be teased, rebuked and instructed by two
street-flashy dressed clowns. When the teenagers left the comics developed
jokes involving the audience, panel of presenters, various city barrios,
and cultural attitudes in general. One had mannerisms that combined brash
little boy with swishiness. They staged a "battle of verses"
exchanging funny lines. The high school-looking Queen of Bahia wearing a
tiara and wide sash of office was brought on stage to dance and be wooed
with poems. Two audience women were brought up so that the comics could
show off truly ornate salsa dance steps. It was a model event for how to
make recycling interesting in South America.
Planet Drum Foundation was thanked from the stage and
asked to continue helping the city. Along with most others there we
received a "diploma" in gratitude for our assistance. I sought
out Nicola Mears and Dario Proano who originated the market organic waste
separation system, and the mayor’s wife Michelle Monceau who helped
write the Fanca Produce grant proposal with our recycling expert Amy
Jewel, congratulating them for their role in establishing those important
steps on the long road to this goal. (The original full-scale proposals
can be found in the Recycling and Eco-City
Plans from a few years ago featured elsewhere on this site.)
Chris and Patrick have been remarkably versatile and
productive volunteers in the few weeks that they’ve labored at jobs as
tough as hacking trails and as gentle as transplanting seedlings. Together
they hauled compost to the Universidad, watered hillside plantings, built
the greenhouse extension, developed paths to water future plants, made
screens and plumbing repairs to the apartment, and even tore down an
outhouse that was an obstacle on a new trail in the Bosque park.
Considering the self-motivated style of these two, I probably left out as
many or more tasks as have been mentioned.
For a going away event I suggested renting a river taxi to
see Isla Frigatas (Frigate Bird Island), Isla Chorazon (Heart Island), and
upstream stretches of Rio Chone. There were thousands of pelicans, frigate
birds, sea gulls, cormorants, and other species nesting on a bright green
island that is whitened in spots with sheets of droppings. The main island
and those nearby represent a sanctuary that epitomizes the abundant
natural provision in this bioregion. Wary birds made a cloud of
wings when we got close that seemed as dense as a bee swarm. Upriver we
encountered a father and son team silently fishing from a dugout canoe,
closely diving pelicans and cormorants, and a new silt island bare of
vegetation but entirely covered with hundreds of aquatic birds. Everyone
except myself and another person who had to get back next embarked in dugouts
for a tour of Isla Corazon’s truly exceptional mangrove restoration site
and educational center to see first-hand aspects and exhibits about the
invaluable role of mangroves as nurseries for a vast range of river and
ocean life.
Last night there was a despedida (farewell party) for them
at Gordon Blues where new friends celebrated over beer and cana drinks,
shrimp and several types of fish grilled with garlic sauce. They left at
sixish this morning for Guayaquil to visit a native seed source at Cerro
Blanco Reserva and pay for our next order on their way home. If we had
more like Chris and Patrick the time to complete revegetating hillsides
would be cut in half.
When Brian and I left the first meeting about how to
celebrate the upcoming fifth anniversary of the Eco-City Declaration, we
resolved to develop a wish list of things desired from the municipal
government. Some of them could be useful to all other groups such as
participation of the Department of Environment and Tourism in our planning
sessions, and some like assistance with revegetating hillsides were
specific to our projects. Our thinking was that if all the non-government
groups did this and their desires were assembled together as a
single document it would be a statement of ecological goals and a kind of
platform.
The second meeting (they will hopefully be held every
Thursday night from now on) was extremely productive in terms of ideas
raised and discussed for the celebration. Some suggestions were a paseo
(ride around town) in buses and triciclos to see open houses of active
groups, connecting with the mangrove restoration organizations whose
International Mangrove Day falls a week later to make a continuous
week-long celebration, involvement of school children at every level,
talks and panels on subjects such as native birds and alternative energy,
and others. Brian read our wish list and encouraged everyone else to write
one.
Working class and artisan groups such as Arte Papel
women's
recycled paper making collective, the president of Eco Bahia Triciclero
Association, and residents of Maria Auxilidora have been invited to all the
meetings but none have attended. I’m not sure what this means. They may
feel intimidated by heads of companies and city agencies who attend, or
not feel they have anything to add any ideas. They may not care what
develops as long as they have an opportunity to participate in the final
event. I went around announcing the next meeting and inviting them again.
If they don’t show up the next time Brian will inherit this nagging
task. It may be that he eventually has to accompany them to show that we’re
in earnest.
Patricio Tamariz is in town for a short time from teaching
sustainability in Guayaquil. He and I will go to the Department of
Environment and Tourism next Monday morning to seek their involvement in
the anniversary celebration meetings and suggest that they show leadership
for getting local, national and international media interest and
publicity. They’re more apt to listen to Patricio because he has had
experience working for the national agency that has the same name.
The term "globalization" referring negatively to
economic, political and cultural domination of parts of the planet and
its people by other people and technological forces has obvious value and
should be retained for many reasons. Where it breaks down is in accepting
the rapidly reconstituted quality of personal worlds. I went to Canoa
beach on an overcast day that promised few surfers, swimmers or towel
loungers. Soon there is a conversation in English with a local girl whose
ancestry is Chinese-German. This is remarkable enough, but someone is
visiting just now who is Turkish-German, would she like an
introduction? "No, I’m too self-conscious in
German." We talk of other things and say goodbye. (Without
knowing it I have acquired the worst sunburn on the back of my legs since
childhood even though the sun never came out.) At the Bambu bar run
by exceptional Dutchman Joost whose wife is African-Ecuadorian from
Esmeraldes I meet the Turkish-German and pass along the fact that there’s
an Ecuadorian who is part German. To cover the Chinese part, I recite
¨The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter " by 9th Century Chinese poet
Li Bo, translated by American Ezra Pound from an Italian translation by
Fenellosa. Although none of this would have been possible a century ago it
is becoming common now. Gobalization needs another word to describe how
our individual worlds are eclipsing each other.
<<<===>>>
Dispatch #6, November 26, 2003
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador
By Peter Berg
There are now six
revegetation sites strung like beads
on the river-facing eroded hillsides leading into
Bahia de Caraquez. One within sight above the vivero
(greenhouse) at Universidad
Catolica is fully planted
and has thus far survived the
summer drought. It can
serve as a walk-through
demonstration of the general
process and a specific model of
controlling land
subsidence on the face of a
downhill swale.
Nearby is a
gnawed-to-the-ground dairy farm where cows
and goats previously devoured some
of our experimental
plantings. This was a primary
source for nearly
two-meter high mudflows at
Kilometro Ocho that sealed
off the road into Bahia for more
than six months after
the 1998 El Nino rains. Its
near-total dusty
devastation holds an unusual
opportunity to show three
different types of land
rehabilitation within a single
vista: creek head waters
protection, streambank
stabilization, and ridgetop forest
expansion. Most of
the land is in pasture that must
be retained, so
careful choices of species and
locations along with
strong fencing is absolutely
necessary.
Next is the deeply
carved interior of El Toro (The
Bull) Creek Basin. A description
of erosion and
mudflows emanating from here,
which was the worst
along the entire stretch of
hillsides, is in an
earlier report titled
“Revelations in a Cattle
Slough”. At question now is the
choice of native
species between the demands of
effective revegetation
and the owners’ desires
involving a section that is at
least two-fifths of the total
area.
Two adjoined
properties follow heading toward the city
near the two hundred and seventy
meters high Pan de
Azucar (Sugar Loaf) hill with
sixty degrees pitched
sides. The sixth site is closest
to Bahia and dense
with houses, the quiet although
slide-imperiled Jorge
Lomas barrio of Leonidas Plaza.
Pan Azucar’s worst
erosion was revealed to Brian and
myself during a walking
investigation this morning. We
had heard that winter rains turned
the entrance road
at the base of that steep hill
into a deep creek,
leaving a heavy layer of mud for
many meters on both
sides. Following a path toward Pan
de Azucar, a rivulet
emerged with V-shaped gullies
entering from both
sides. Its banks quickly steepened
and became more
sharply angled as we passed piles
of freshly cut poles
and noted water bottles left in
crotches of branches
for use by loggers during return
visits to collect
poles after they dried and cut
more. A large butterfly
with completely orange
knifepoint-tipped wings landed
on the path and halted us in
fascination. A bank more
steeply angled than before ended
the path and offered
a wide creek bed to follow. Now
inclines on the sides
became more severe and no plant
growth older than last
year’s flood could be seen for
several meters above
where we walked. The trees higher
than that line dated
only from after El Nino five years
before. But far
above them was what appeared to be
relatively
untouched dry tropical forest with
widely diverse
trees on parts of Pan de Azucar
that were probably too
steep for loggers to climb. We
appraised the recent
trees for future plantings as
mainly Fruitillo and a
few scattered Algorrobos. Fruit
bats can be counted on
to sow Frutillo in their
droppings, but we’ll grow
more Algorrobos in the greenhouse
since they can
obviously tolerate steep grades
here.
The gouge’s
character changed within a short distance
to arroyo size with numerous cuts
like the one we had
just been walking along slicing
ten meters into the
weak clay soil on both sides. An
unknown emerald
colored bird teased through
branches ahead and
disappeared. The arroyo became a
broader canyon where
there was enough of a clearing
through the tree canopy
to see raw slides on the hillsides
that were
unquestionably the true source of
such a large
quantity of fast water. Most were
more than sixty
degrees and unplantable. We would
have to settle for
putting trees at their toes along
the bottom of severe
drops to slow water flows down.
Probably most of the
raw soil showing all around us now
would erode away
eventually, but could be made to do so gradually over
years instead of in bursting
surges of mud.
The canyon narrowed
and stopped where uprooted logs
from above had become jammed into
a dam. On the other
side we saw another watercourse
had formed and that
our channel was merely diverted
around the jam. It
could be spread out and slowed in
the future however,
by piling in more snags from
deadfall trees. Turning
around in the same spot we saw
exposed roots of young
Ceibos effectively holding back
the banks. It was
confirmation of what had only been
a theory to grow
and plant ceibos some distance
back from the
cliff-steep bank edges
The stream bed soon
became as shallow as a broad road
and finally ended. Broken pieces
of logs and branches that were abandoned at the end of their tumultuous
fall
after a ride downhill in sheets of
cascading water lay
everywhere. Ready-made material to
build mud-stopping
dams.
As a sign to stop at this point,
the furtive bird from
mid-journey reappeared. Nothing
obstructed our
sightline to its bare branch perch
and there was a
luxurious amount of time to slowly
get out binoculars.
Raven-sized, still except for a
foot-long black tail
folded up into a straight line
like a fan twitching
from side to side. Insect catcher,
I thought. The top
of its head was bright turquoise
and the beak bright
yellow. Sharply drawn black lines
surrounded the eyes
and slashed down the cheeks
similar to a Peregrine
Falcon. Emerald green body, dull
ivory colored
stomach.
We were wonder-struck that it wasn’t a
parrot. Jumping to a branch below
it waited for
another exhibitionist minute
before leaving us in
pursuit of an unquestionably
singular and dramatic
life. On the walk back we talked
with two women and a
machete-carrying boy collecting
humus from under
Algorrobo trees in puffy full bags
to use as mulch for
flowers around their house on the
entrance road that
was inundated every year.
#
It was already an
unusual day but there would be
another notable episode in the
afternoon, this one
having direct repercussions for
communities as well as
hillsides and ecosystems where we
work. The Bosque en
Medio de las Ruinas park in Maria
Auxiliadora barrio
has for most of this year had a
tree-poacher
responsible for felling and
leaving the stripped bark
from more than twenty Frutillos.
He was seen stealing
tools and was easily identified
because of blue facial
tattoos as someone living with a
family at the end of
the ridge above the park. Several
sets of pried out
steps and some painted signs that
were previously
missing were also assumed to be
his work. Most
recently, Ulrike was working on
the ridge when this
suspected one-man crime wave ran
toward her shouting
“I need a woman!” and pulled
at her clothes. She
pushed away, ran to where Brian
was working, and asked
to be accompanied back to our
apartment.
Brian’s subsequent
formal complaint to the police
hadn’t been acted on for a
month. Barrio people have
had problems with the same person
and asked us to
intervene on their behalf as well,
so today was slated
for finally solving the problem of
what to do next.
With direct confrontation ruled
out because of our
foreign status, Brian decided to
go to the City
Attorney to make a copy of the
complaint for another
try elsewhere and I remembered
that the Captain of the
Port has an office in the Ecuador
National Armada
(Navy) building. Similar to Air
Force control of
airports and air traffic in
Ecuador, the Armada
maintains jurisdiction over sea
and river ships,
shipping and ports such as Bahia.
This can be extended
to certain public works. In fact,
the sign at the
entrance to the Bosque warning
that tree cutting,
theft and damage is punishable
through fines or jail
is signed “Captain of the
Port”.
When we described the
dilemma and presented a copy of
our complaint, Captain Jimmy Pozo
Fierro decided on
immediate action. A uniformed
sailor went to the house
and gave tomorrow morning as a
deadline for Crime
Wave’s appearance. Regardless of
any personal or
social considerations, our
volunteers can’t be
threatened. This appears to be the
only effective
option that Planet Drum Foundation
and the community
have to protect the park for both
trees and ourselves.
<<<===>>>
