In a plastic picnic chair I sit,
basking in the shade of the community center where our group was
welcomed a week ago to the small village of Agualongo. The constant
base beat of music remains in the distance, chattering Quichwa
voices, stomping of men shuffling above as they replace the roof,
women cooking Guniea Pig outside the window and children playing hand
games with our students. This is our last day in our home-stay
community where we have been welcomed as family, today we have helped
to transport tiles and poles for today's Minga. Every
Saturday in Ecuador communities often participate in a community
project, each family is expected to be present, in fact if they do
not send someone from the family they can be fined. During the week
the women stay home with children and the men are away working. Our
house is a whirlwind with nine kids from ages one to nineteen looked
after by Laura our smiley and upbeat host mother, her quite and
humble husband Alfredo works at the cement plant over the hill. It
is Saturday when families spend time together, and it is Saturdays
when the men continue to work hard and the women fill their roles of
cooking for the community. Yesterday three of the women we have been
working with slaughtered, plucked and gutted nearly ten “Qui” and
today we have been roasting them along with ava beans,
potatoes and corn (or “choclo”).
Set back in the horseshoe of a small
and flourishing valley our humble village is made up of some twenty
families. The lifestyle is rural, traditional and completely
indigenous. There is a palpable difference in Ecuador between the
Mestizo culture (that of mixed race between Spanish and
native) and the Indigenous groups, the main difference at first
glance is the dress. The mestizos walk with their heads high and
proud, they are well dressed, women strut in tight jeans and
revealing shirts. They own the property, the wealth, the clout, and
they have for generations. The indigenous walk with the world on
their shoulders and the sun stained on their cheeks. The women wear
black velvet toed slip on shoes, a simple wool skirt to their ankles,
wrapped tightly around their waste with an embroidered two inch belt,
topped with a white lacy blouse daintily stitched with colorful
flowers. On their wrists, orange beads, on their neck several gold
strands, in their hair a pony-tail wrapped with a mini version of
their belt, on their head- either a felt hat, or folded piece of
fabric. This is ubiquitous. They step off the sidewalks for the
Mestizos, they carry their babies on their back, bring their cows to
pastures and often walk many miles from their rural villages to town.
We have had the rare chance to live in their homes, cook over their
wood stoves, wrap their children's pony-tails, learn their language
and share in a cultural exchange unlike any I have experienced.
For Science we have gardened with the
women and worked with a local tree nursery, for Language class we
learned Quichwa for several hours, for History we learned from the
locals of how they attained land, how they sustain education, their
rights to water and lasting remnants of the encomienda
industry, Spanish ownership over the native indigenous populations.
Between working with The Tandana Foundation and having a school
curriculum on the road, traveling becomes much more alive and robust,
we are able to dive into juicey conversations and learn things
otherwise may remain under the surface of a typical adventure or
vacation. Tomorrow we leave for the rainforest! Thankful for
cultural interaction and lively Spanish conversations! Sending love
and warmth home!