Reun-IAN and Rio Verde

Upon returning to Baños, we realized we had both on the same night dreamt of running for our lives from an exploding Tungurahua, a week before the evacuation!!! Talk about Claire-voyancy! We`ll be sure to post any foretold disasters on the blog in the future. But the volcano wasn`t all bad....

It brought us back to Quito, where we reunited with our international amigos at Casa Bambu, a hostel that seems to grab you and makes it tough to leave the capital city. The biggest reunion yet came that Tuesday evening, when Ian, Ryan`s roomate, lived up to his word and arrived to spend a week with us during his own travels through Central and South America. It was a week of unplanned perfection which began with fiestas and parillados (BBQ´s) at Casa Bambu and ended with us back in Rio Verde to begin our month of volunteer teaching. The week was a much-needed reminder of our beautiful friends and family, as well as an opportunity to show Ian the best of our home for the past two and a half months. Between heavenly hikes and high altitude beer pong, cook-offs and concerts with compañeros, the short stay was over before we were ready to say goodbye. However, seven days were better than nothing and we split paths with Ian as he traveled to Argentina in search of work teaching English; us on the other hand, began our job that very next day.

Despite many materials and weeks of anticipation, we could have never predicted how the first week would go. Upon arrival we had the slightest hesitation about the prospect of living under another family´s roof at our age and after having graduated college. But our worries were immediately extinguished by their generosity and warm hearts. Polivio, his wife Luisa, and family take genuine interest in us and are so great at giving us the respect and freedom we deserve as adults. The apartment-style living situation allows us our own cuarto con baño privado (room with private bathroom) and door of entry to come and go as we please, as well as provides us with a communal kitchen to interact with the four families that share the living space. We are also fortunate to live with a small number of our students, including our host ñaños (brothers and sisters) and cousins who have taken interest in learning guitar and acting as guides on nature excursions around the area.

Speaking of which, we forgot to mention that Rio Verde is the ideal location for two nature-loving Oregonians (don`t worry, it`s a safe 20 miles from Baños!). Endless layers of clouds dance between steep mountains; intersecting rivers and numerous waterfalls careen through narrow passages to collide with the Rio Pastaza`s brown and white churning water. The pueblito (small town) is home to roughly 1,300 residents, all of whom are unbelievably amable y tranquilo (kind and peaceful) because of having been raised amidst such scenic surroundings. We find it impossible to adequetly describe the various natural wonders of Rio Verde. Among them the ¨Garden of Eden¨ and ¨Pailon del Diablo (Ecuador´s most famous waterfall)¨ are two of our favorites places to unwind with quality journaling and pleasure-reading after a long day of teaching.

The students... oh the students..... Each week is divided between three schools in two towns: El Placer, appropriately named ¨the Pleasure¨ as most families have at least 6 children (one with 13!), La Escuela Puerta Dorada in Rio Verde, and la Guardaria (daycare) our ¨favorite¨ part of the week. The estudiantitos (little students) do not hesitate to envelop us in a borrage of hugs every morning when we arrive. A chorus of assembled ¨good morning, teacher!¨ or ¨Profe, profe!¨ compete for our eyes as we arrive at 7:30. At any given moment, a five-year-old is pulling our shirts from behind, a 12-year-old wraps completely around Ryan´s waist, a seven-year-old offers Claire a soggy breakfast cookie with one hand while the other clings to her leg, and a curious nine-year-old pets Ryan´s blonde arm hair and searches for his remaining unoccupied fingers.

The first week was beyond successful: We initiated mask creation for all grades from Kinder-7^th, resulting in monkeys and cats of vivid colors prouling around both towns after the dismissal bell rings. We hope the students also gained an understanding of the English language, having used games and songs to review colors, animals and computers. Perhaps by the end of the month we will have also allowed them a broader perspective of the world, slipping in lessons that include nature conservation tecniques (¨Your trash goes in the garbage can!¨,) as well as cultural differences (¨Not all of what you see in Hollywood movies accuratly portrays the U.S.¨). However, not all was completely successful: Our attempts at teaching English to a group of 25 energetic three and four-year-olds proved frustrating this Friday afternoon. A needed break for the poor teacher, the hour and a half-long locura (craziness) makes us so glad for the weekend.

Last, but certainly not least, wonderful new friends have been easy to come by. Chats with neighbors delay arrival to any destination around town, with five-minute walks taking upwards of an hour between dozens of ¨buenas tardes¨ and sonrisas (smiles). The artesanos (artists), who set up shop above the entrance of the main attraction, make a meager living off their beautiful jewelery and handbags. We enjoy afternoons sharing music and travel tales with these international amigos. Two young Argentines also welcome us into their home, the restaurant that they manage (which doubles as a living room and jam spot) and overlooks the raging Pailon del Diablo. The mix of mellow music and rushing water compliments the amazing food they dish up, a much-needed break from the typical (but delicious) Ecuadorian beans and rice served at ¨home¨.

We´ll be sure to post again before we finish teaching in mid-March and begin our trek through southern Ecuador and into Peru, to ascend Machu Picchu by way of the 4-day-long Inca Trail! And then home early April, just in time for spring.

For photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/clapoma/QuitoAgainReunIANBaOsRioVerde

Amazon Volunteer Adventure

We´re in Baños again... which could only mean one thing: out of the jungle. This time, our Amazon trip brought us north up the Rio Napo (one of the major tributaries leading to the Amazon River) to a small community called Mondaña, where we spent two weeks volunteering with the Yachana Foundation. An organization dedicated to preserving its 3,600 acre reserve, teaching local kids important sustainable agricultural and tourism skills, and providing healthcare to the community, Yachana was a perfect place to offer our hands. Much had changed since Claire´s last visit as a tourist in January, 2004: the Yachana Technical High School, built 2 1/2 years ago, now hosts 160 students who have been elected as leaders of their small communities to attend the school and return home with many new and valuable skills -- skills directly applicable to their way of life.

But some things remained the same. Delfin and Juan, the two guides with more information than an Amazonian encyclopedia, still lead groups of tourists young and old (mostly old) through dense rain forests, on bird-watching expeditions, grub-munching (yes, actual grubs) cooking classes, and on river floats. We spent the first few days getting adjusted by joining in on the fun with a group of 15 honorary grandparents from the midwest on their tours. We were also fortunate enough to join Tom, the reserve´s conservation manager, on a 4-hr trek through some of the area´s only remaining primary rain forest. The reserve hosts the highest diversity of plant species, remaining undisturbed during years of detremental agriculture, and which results in a dense and towering upper canopy... and plenty of fist-sized creepy crawlers! (It´s amazing how accustomed you become to the constant barrage of mosquitos, flying cockroaches, bullet ants and bizarre spiders.)

The ¨fun¨came to an abrupt stop and the ¨real work¨ began when we transitioned to spending our days at the colegio (high school) with 15 to 23-year-old students. We expected to help out by teaching english but were surprised to find that need was already met by five fantastic english teachers, each of which was committed for long periods of time (anywhere from 10 weeks to 2 years or indefinitely!) and also specialized in teaching their own brand of ecology or sustainability. At a loss for how we could contribute to these efforts of volunteers from around the globe, we were reassured that our presence with the students was invaluable; simply offering the students a different perspective than they knew from their reality of growing up in rural Amazon was a tremendous offering.

By the end of the two weeks one could hear the guitar riffs of Bob Marley and Ben Harper echoing from various corners of the colegio; we taught them song lyrics during two of their english class periods to live guitar, and many others took interest in learning such different music styles during their free time, watching Ryan intently as he strummed to a skank beat. Our other contributions included creating innovative silkscreen designs for the new Yachana t-shirts and introducing recycled paper-making techniques that Claire gleaned from her years in mom Daisy´s at-home workroom.

Elvis, a student in quinto curso (junior year) said it best: ¨Nunca me olvidare como me ensañaste atonar la guitarra, Ryan.¨(I´ll never forget how you taught me to tune my guitar, Ryan.) The ¨king´s¨ guitar had remained out of tune in anticipation of a tuner arriving from Quito in a month or two. Robert, a Mondaña Community local and a natural-born leader, was by far the most motivated student. He took Claire´s brief mention of paper recycling and ran with it, constructing and collecting the necessary equipment (a screen with wooden borders, a ¨sponge¨ made out of a foam mattress, the one functioning blender in the community, which happened to be his mom´s, and even his own t-shirt to dry the paper on) in one afternoon!

We left by canoe as the sun rose, returning once again to ¨civiliation¨. Among all of these jungle memories we forgot to mention our amazing week in Quito and Otavalo for Claire´s 23rd, which was spent with great new friends (Raul from Mexico and Phillip from Germany, aka ¨German Deacon¨ (note the photo in album); our pals Flannery, Abbey and Stewey who we met in Quilatoa, and who hooked us up with English teaching materials for Rio Verde -- THANKS GUYS!!! -- ; and simpatica Gaby, our friend Jesse´s Quiteña gal from his year abroad).

For photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/clapoma/OtavaloQuitoAndAmazonVolunteeringWYachana

Who´s Trail?

Valuable excerpts from ¨The Gringo Trail¨ by Mark Mann, a book we found which seems to parallel our adventures. We highly recommend this book to any fellow traveler and anyone who would like to get an interesting and poetic description of a journey through South America. The author has also done his research, demonstrated by his thorough knowledge of colonial and indigenous history and extensive bibliography…

El Oriente (the rainforest of Ecuador)
¨For the next four days Delfin and Laureano showed us the jungle. They showed us trees. Trees as wide as a house. Hollow trees big enough to sleep inside. Parasitic trees that grew around other trees and eventually strangled their host. We swung Tarzan-like from gigantic hanging vines and swam in warm, muddy rivers full of dead branches and rotting leaves. We canoed down tiny streams, ducking under fallen tree-trunks, with vegetation arching over from the banks to create a living tunnel of plant life. On the ground, beneath the shady canopy of large trees, the forest floor was surprisingly open and easy to walk through. Finding your way was a different matter.
´Don´t you ever get lost?´ I asked Laureano, after we´d spent a morning following him through an endless maze of apparently indistinguishable trees.
´Yes, sometimes. But sooner or later, I always come to a tree that I recognize. Like that big one there. Just as you recognize buildings in the city. THEY all look the same to me.´¨

¨Electric-blue butterflies as big as my hand danced past. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the forest´s leafy ceiling like beams illuminating a Gothic Cathedral. Ants´ nests as big as cars sent out giant tentacles of busy leaf cutting workers; insect motorways that radiated from the central megalopolis of the nest, clearing paths through the tangled debris of fallen vegetation on the forest floor.¨

¨I felt as if we´d entered a vast lung; warm, damp and organic, pulsating with life.
´This is the world center of biodiversity´ Mark enthused. ´There could be a million different life-forms within a mile of us – all fighting, competing, living off of each other, living in symbiosis with others. You name it, and it´s probably out there somewhere, close by. Every conceivable evolutionary strategy – there´s a plant or animal or insect doing it around us now.
´Imagine the world mapped according to consciousness. Every life source registers a point, brighter or weaker depending on how complex it is. People, animals, insects. Even a plant is conscious, in a sense. It reacts to its environment, and that´s all consciousness is, at a basic level. The capacity to absorb and respond to stimuli. All around us – millions of little points of consciousness. There can hardly be a single spot on the planet more conscious than here.
´So this, ´ he concluded with a flourish, ´is the center of life on earth.¨

Quito
¨Quito stretches like a finger along the central valley of the Andes- what Alexander Von Humboldt called the ´Avenue of the Volcanoes´. About 12km long, it’s rarely more than two wide… In dimly lit side chapels, poor Indians knelt in silent supplication before impassive, blue-eyed portraits of Jesus, Mary and various saints, all drawn in the image of the people who had enslaved them.
The Old Town was full of Quechua faces. Short Indian men in felt hats and woollen ponchos struggled uphill, bent beneath the weight of huge sacks. Indian women in their voluminous woollen skirts and pork-pie hats tended little pavement stalls.¨

Sierra
¨The town´s buildings were mainly the plain concrete boxes, typical of Ecuadorian Andes. Steel supports protruded from flat roofs in anticipation of imaginary stories to come.¨

Bus Travel
¨[The bus] was another battered crate with no air-conditioning and windows that either didn´t open or didn´t close. The seats had been unscrewed and moved closer to allow extra rows to be inserted and more passengers crammed in. To young boys rode shotgun, hanging out of the door and touting for passengers at every stop.

¨Women held babies clamped to one, or both, nipples. Chickens poked their heads forlornly through holes in cardboard boxes. A piglet curled up in a basket under one seat. The roof and the isle and the gaps under the seats and the luggage racks and every other available space was stuffed with bags and boxes and colored bundles of food. Children wailed and a criollo pop cassette blared out. The back window was covered by a lurid life-sized transfer of the Virgin Mary. A glittering silver strip on the windscreen above the driver read ´God is my co-pilot.´
´So that´s God¨, then, ´I said, pointing to the slumped form of the fat co-driver, who was snoring loudly in the front passenger seat. ´I somehow imagined someone a bit more impressive.´
´Wouldn´t it be safer to let Him do the actual driving,´ Mark mused. God groaned and farted in his sleep. The driver crossed himself and muttered a prayer. The ignition made a few painful, chalk-on-blackboard screeches and sputtered into life. Diesel smoke billowed behind us. We were off.¨

¨Another night bus, this time from Potosi to La Paz. The bus rattles along, shuddering over the bumpy surface. These night journeys are merging into one continuous, interrupted dream. Always the same. Waking and dozing in fitfull sleep, ambient techno music on my walkman, legs jammed against the seat in front. Everyone twisting and turning to get comfortable, contorted bodies in rows of seats, always a crying baby somewhere. Outside, shadows of dark hills, more sensed than seen. Isolated buildings, solitary lights - how lonely they feel in the cold black of the altiplano.¨