Well, as I expected in this generally
unplanned adventure of mine, everything is taking longer than I had
hoped and yet still somehow coming together. For instance, Friday I
went to the school here in town (Maglaralto) to meet Ramiro, who is
the Agriculture coordinator for the high school. And on Monday I'll
be returning to shadow a class of his. Why am I in a small town on
the coast of Ecuador in the opposite direction of my planned
trajectory to the mountains you might wonder? Well, I feel very
comfortable with this Yale group here, and they are having on a daily
basis the very conversations about development projects as I hoped
they would be having. Today (Sunday) for instance we spent all of
dinner talking about using data and a good understanding of the
community to create realistic and worthwhile goals for their time
here. There is such an interesting breadth of experience and
idealism in the group that the conversation takes on a mix of advice,
experienced conversation, and radical rethinking of the project. The
angst about what they are doing is well placed and I think they are
taking all the steps necessary to address it. Still this is not my
project, and as much as I like it here, I am not getting to pursue
what I came to South America for. So it is definitely time to move
onward and outward.
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| Weaving a hat's border in Montechristi |
Saturday, while the Yale team was doing
productive things I went to Montechristi to find some hats.
Montechristi “Panama Hats” are known throughout the world for
being the finest straw hats in the world, made from a palm-like plant
and woven by hands taught from one generation to the next. I sat on
a bus for almost 4 hours to go no farther than 100 miles (126km).
The bus stopped at every single little town along the way. Arriving
around 10:30 or so, and then went about looking for hats. I wandered
up the hill, passed the steep incline of shops each filled with hats,
various woven chairs, wooden sculptures and chachkes. But none of
them screamed, “I am a Panama Hat shop” or perhaps more
appropriately “Yo soy una tienda de Sombreros Paja de Torquillos.”
So I continued up until a very random person asked if I was looking
for hats. I was looking, and he knew where to bring me. We visited
three different stores selling real hand made straw hats. They are
very beautiful closely woven things--floppy, malleable but definitely
sturdy.
And perhaps as such, it is not surprising that each one
takes between one and three months to make. Indeed, though these
stores have people working on the hats, they are only doing the last
3 or 4 days of work, which is simply finishing the border and then
ironing it out. In the countryside someone else spends the better
part of the month or even up until 3 months weaving the majority of
the hat, and someone else altogether goes into the forest to find,
harvest, and dry the palm leaves. Needless to say, it is an involved
process, which brings together many members of the community. I
bought two hats, a male and female model. The female one may end up
being a present, but with the view of potentially selling these
masterpieces of weaving I have determined to examine first hand this
whole process. To that end I will be returning there on Tuesday to
visit the countryside with Victoria, one of the shop owner's
daughters.
Tuesday being my first steps away from
the comfort of this beachside, I will then continue on hopefully to a
Dole banana plantation, or at least its health center where a Peace
Corps volunteer has been working for the past year. From there I
will be passing through Cuenca on my way to Loja where I will work on
a coffee farm for a week before leaving the lovely country of Ecuador
for a life of bus rides and adventure, but mostly bus rides until I reach Bolivia
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