A homestay in Coffeeland

There is a very particular kind of awkwardness that I believe is only known to guests in home-stay situations and particularly those in smaller towns.  It is the kind of awkwardness that is perhaps avoided in daily life either by the anonymity of a city dwelling, or the presence of ones own family.  It is a funny mix of feeling that one has overstayed ones welcome, that one is somehow crashing a party and not having anywhere else to be.  When work is done and the kids are no longer as cute as they once seemed, a guest is left with a lot of alone time.   But it is not easy alone time.  It is a discomfort explained best by the feeling one gets when rereading Harry Potter for the umpteenth time.  Guilt, at being reclusive. Pleasure at finding something familiar, and then guilt again at not forcing oneself out  the door – a curious feeling.  But what comes of this stomach curdling can be curiouser still. 

A cuter dance

And so I found myself Friday night in the procession of Saint Vincent, the local patron saint who comes out for a moonlit stroll once a year to start off the local three day celebration.  I, an non believing Jew standing one head taller than all, and as much as 2 feet taller than many, in a town of no more than 300 inhabitants, all of whom are related to one another, was walking with over half of them down the candle lit path around town.  I can't say it did much for my regular discomfort in the Jimenez household after all, there were a dozen other Jimenez households walking with me. But I stuck it out all the way back to church and then to the ensuing festivities.  True there were other people all alone (my host family had responsibilities that took them away from me), staring off with nothing to say.  But everyone has the right to be sulky at ones own family reunion. So at first I was a little annoyed that no one in town wanted to talk to me, however, I found that after helping with the beautiful flying paper lanterns and chipping in for some sugar cane alcohol the whole festival became a lot more bearable, if not enjoyable.  The catechism youth group put on at least four dances ranging from the adorable to a mildly inappropriate (at least for 11 year olds) “Gangham style” hip jerker. 

"Globo" or paper lantern launching

Chickens for sale

A few local crooners did some karaoke for us.  The church auctioned off some donated chickens to raise funds.  And a skit about driving while drunk was performed for the benefit of I'm not sure who, considering not a soul drove to the party, the town being far too small.  Fire played a role throughout – my host father was in charge of that, the paper lanterns dotted the sky, fireworks shot up at irregular intervals, and finally there was the “Vaca Loca” or “Crazy Cow” This was a costumed man with about one hundred different sparklers and fire crackers attached to him dancing around the central town plaza.  Needless to say, the kids had been talking about this for days.  And they were quite tired enough around midnight when it finally burned out and the family friendly part of the party came to an end. 

Da me Dale Dole (Bananas)

Thursday June 8th, I left Manglaralto for San Juan, a small town in what is apparently the second largest banana producing region of Ecuador.  Outside of town I met Ngabo, a Peace Corps volunteer, at a shopping mall that could easily have been anywhere in the USA.  The only tips otherwise were signs such as “ordenar aqui” at the KFC, and Carl's Jr.  Ngabo works at Fundacion Dale—a keen reader might note the similarity to Dole, and they would be correct to make the link.  Dale stands for something about helping Ecuadorians, but written in that unmistakable font with a sun shining through the 'a' as it does the 'o' in Dole, and there is no question for whom Dale works.  That said, it is clearly doing good things.  Dale runs free private clinics for workers and families, and has built and maintains two public schools for the communities in the area.  Ngabo does HIV sensitization, which in his region is apparently more of a problem than it is on the coast, among other health projects and student workshops.  He was fabulous, I could not have asked for a better contact or guide.  Upon meeting up we immediately went to one of the Dale schools where Ngabo had worked over the summer, and which is situated deep inside of banana and cacao plantation territory.  Although the school was interesting to see, more exciting for me was the chance to talk to workers on their way out of the plantations or “fincas”.

Unlike in some plantation systems, the fincas in Ecuador do not generally contained whole communities. At least not according to Ngabo.  Rather, the workers live in surrounding communities, some of which are right next to plantations, but one worker we spoke with lives an hour away.  Even though we were right outside the finca, the workers were very forthcoming about work at Dole.  In general they were all agreed that work at Naboa (the other banana company across the road) was far worse.  Unlike Naboa they said,  Dole generally gave out protective equipment when handling chemicals, although not always, and they were all given a variety of work from day to day, something which they seemed to appreciate.  This finca, known as finca Elba, does not have a unionized workforce, however as was later corroborated, the workers told me that another Dole plantation nearby does in fact have a union.  But all they were able to tell me about it was the fact that union dues were deducted at $13 dollars per month.  In one  response to whether they wanted a union at Elba a worker said, “it is just not something that we would have here.”  This however was not their complaint.  Rather, after two minutes of speaking with them they told me about a wage dispute they were having.  Though government mandated minimum wage for banana workers was raised from $292 to $328 at the beginning of 2013, according to the workers, Dole only started the new rate in June, and had yet to pay their back wages.  Needless to say, if true, that would be pretty serious delinquency on the part of Dole. 

Me and Henry counting bananas per bunch (about 150)

After lunch we were taken onto a different plantation by Henry Morales, a friend of Ngabo's who is a quality control manager for Dole.  Between raucous laughter fast Spanish and broken yet proud English, Henry led us to the packaging plant of an affiliated finca, in other words, a banana plantation not owned by Dole but whose product is exclusively bought and exported by Dole.  It was a something to behold, and Henry held nothing back.  He insisted I ask him anything and everything about the process.  I spent the whole time trying my hardest to absorb information he was throwing at us a mile-a-minute—everything from how many different fungi can form on the banana, to what sort of pesticide they use on the banana bags.  Unfortunately we only had one hour at the packaging plant and I did not feel comfortable asking about worker-management issues.   Just long enough to get a sense for how banana processing works, and to watch Henry Morales chew a number of managers out for poor practices (I guess that's his job). 

Cuenca 

Ngabo's host family was nice enough to put me up for the night.  The next day we left bright and early—As I write I am in Cuenca relaxing for a couple days before Loja and the coffee farm.

Montechristi Revisited (A little late)

Tuesday the 4^th of June I went back to Montechristi to visit with hat makers.  Unfortunately I was unable to go to the High School in Manglaralto as I had hoped, but rather organized my things, which had gotten surprisingly out of order, to prepare for Montechristi.  And so I left on the 3^rd, Monday afternoon to arrive during daylight and find a hostel because we were slated to leave early Tuesday morning.  A hostel was not so forthcoming.  Instead what I found was a reasonably priced hotel in what used to be an opulent house as far as I can tell.  After changing rooms due to the obviously unwashed sheets and bathroom offered to me, the 80 or so year old hostess, and hotel owner sent me up to my fourth floor room next to the only other occupants, an older American couple on their 4^th year of sailing around the world.  Peering into the second floor which was still apparently private residence I caught a glimpse of a huge grandfather clock, ornate woodwork around the bar, and marble flooring.  Sadly, this old world finery did not extend to the acetic though quirky rooms for rent.  At least the water worked after our hostess turned it on. 

But my hotel was only a side note to the journey—after all I was there to see hat weavers.  For the first time since arriving in Ecuador no one was late.  I arrived precisely at 8:55, my guide, Victoria, the daughter of Bertha the hat shop owner met me at 9:00, and we left in the car mere minutes later.  The car, a blue Hundai was obviously the pride and joy of our driver, a 24 year old law school student.  Though other cars may have sped over pot holes three times the size of those we met, he would slow down to a crawl to swerve past them.  Though the mud is an inevitable byproduct of the rain and dirt covering most any car in town, our driver slowed to a snails pace to avoid the splatter.  Well I had nothing better to do, so we chatted as we moseyed along for about an hour to reach Pile, a town no more than 40km from Montechristi.  It was rural though.  Squeezed between stands of almost grotesque Ceibo tree, many armed cacti and muddy forests is the quaint town of Pile.  Some of the roads were paved, and it obviously seen some development.  In fact, the newly built petroleum refinery in the same province had funded the building of a large school for the training of hat weavers in the art of the all famous Paja Torquilla “Panama” hats.  Unfortunately it was not open when I visited.  Nevertheless I did find my way to suitably ancient hat weaver named Manuel Alarcon. 

Almost eighty, Manuel has been weaving since he was ten years old.  To watch him stitch each of the millimeter thin pieces of straw together I grew almost jealous, understanding that only with years of practice could hands move like that.  And that only having seen the labor of months could he have faith that his tireless work would actually result in a hat—one worth the effort—one worth at least 300 dollars.  Though he sometimes works or worked in his own family garden a few days per week, hat weaving amounts to Manuel's only source of money.  A rough calculation puts his income at 3 dollars a day, not much in a country where a beer is $1.5. According to him, he only weaves the finest hats which take one to three months each, and there are about thirty people in Pile who are doing it.  Even with the renewed interest in the art of hat weaving it is not clear that the lifestyle Manuel has led will be replicated by future generations, after all there are only so many people willing to buy a thousand dollar hat.  Though I suppose only fools underestimate what the well off are willing to spend on fashion. 

Manglaralto, Ecuador and Hats

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.

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

Well Couchsurfing sometimes falls through.  I arrived on Thursday in Guayaquil and promptly plopped myself down with my overpacked backpack in what is commonly termed the Park of the Iguanas.  It lives up to its name:

These creatures are strange and the locals are interested, though perhaps not as much as the tourist I saw who had placed or enticed a number of the lizards on her arms and shoulders.  I got to know this park well, as I would spend 3 hours waiting for my couchsurfing contact to show up though he never would.  After a while I began a conversation with Kari, an older woman who was very clear to give me constant advise about being safe.  She made me nervous enough about the neighborhood to move out around nightfall and find a hotel.  

Beyond the Iguanas, there isn't much to report.  I am getting my bearings here, and hope to get out of the city sometime shortly.

I have a functioning phone if anyone feels the need to call.  The number is +593 09 68093276 

Peru!

I am waiting for the beans to cook. They will be spicy, slightly chewy and hopefully delicious. They are probably going to be our last cooked meal in South America, so I hope they turn out well. We are staying at a very nice hostel called the “Blue House” with one of the best possible views of Cuzco. High up in the neighborhood of San Blas, we found this place, where most people seem to be staying for over a month, at around 11pm the day we arrived from Bolivia about a week ago. Cuzco has treated us well. We have decided to budget big time again and so aren't allowing much splurging anymore—gone are the days of cabanas and fondue. However, after Machupicchu which we did the cheap way (more on that below), we did treat ourselves to pedicures and full body massages (you can't beat $15). Oddly enough we got into a religious art mood and spent the second day here looking at paintings and wondering about archangels. This was of course accented by the immense Inca stones lining the streets, and inflected by our reading allowed of the Golden Compass trilogy, which we recently finished, over coffee and hot chocolate.

So I said we went to Machupicchu the cheap way. That means that we only spent $100 each. But in order to avoid more costs, we woke up at 3:40am to leave Cuzco for Santa Theresa which took us over harrowing roads. Caitlin and I were separated on the van and so we were unable to sleep for fear of waking up in an angry woman's lap—a distinct possibility. So, exhausted, we walked the 2.5 hours to Aguas Calientes at the food of Machupicchu and stumbled half crazed half dazed, into a nice looking hostel at around 2:30pm. Food was so expensive in Aguas Calientes that we had prepared and brought enough food for all of our 6 meals while in Cuzco. We ate the second of what would be many avocado on bread with cheese sandwiches and fell promptly asleep before 7.

Waking up at 3:52 the next morning we trekked to the base of the mountain where the Inca ruins actually are located. There we found the line of 100 people just like us hoping to be the first 400 to the top and so be allowed to climb Huaynapicchu, the mountain so famously depicted in every picture of the site. We were told that the buses would start leaving at 5:30, and walkers could start at 5:00. We were nervous. We thought we might not make it. At 4:50 we were let over the bridge and allowed to start the climb. It was like a cross country race. The staircase up was narrow, slow people could keep you back for long enough that the buses might pass and leave no chance of getting there in time. We ran. Thirty-nine minutes of knee splitting, and thigh dragging latter we made it to the top—no one had passed us. And so it was that we raced up a mountain (600m up) in order to be given the priveledge of climbing another mountain! We did it happily. It was a really fun time in a beautiful place—even if the tourist tax is extravagant we couldn't help notice how much less like an amusement park Machupicchu is than the Iguazu falls. Unbelievable.

Today we leave for Lima—one more 20 hour ride ahead!

Chicken

It is always fun to walk into a place functioning so utterly under its own power that you are looked over as merely a curious and perhaps uninvited stranger. No one really notices you. The taxi people are not constantly calling over to you, the ladies on their piles of goods aren't yelling “papito, caserito, que vas a llevar!?” Caranavi is exactly that place. If however, the foreign visitor is an unnecessary addition to their society, the economy is not wholly divorced from the foreigner's world. Coffee, cacao and coca make up this town and region's most formidable and tasty products. They of course export most of these goods, in one way or another, remember of course that the USA consumes most of the world's cocaine, a sizable portion of it's coffee, and I don't think I need to even mention chocolate, thus we play a large part in making this place work. Other than these cash crops, the fertile Yungas region produces all sorts of tropical fruits and vegetables for the large La Paz market. Yet all this agricultural activity is apparently eclipsed in the town of Caranavi by the hegemony of the fried (broaster as they say here) and roasted (al spiedo) chicken joint. Each shop seems to do so inexplicable well, that none feel the need for variation well. By some unknown fascination for this, the most common of all foods, Caranavi is able to support hundreds if not thousands of chicken restaurants, and yet boasts not a single pizza parlor, or even an egg burger stand (not so uncommon in the rest of Bolivia)! The imagination does not stray far here in the beautiful semi-tropics. The discovery of the revolutionary grilled chicken, it must be stated for the sake of honesty, has resulted in the popping up of a few shops dedicated that particular chicken formula. And if you should want something other than french fries and rice under that piece of chicken, you are in luck in the Yungas, Plantains grow rampantly, and fried pieces of the platano may be an allowable substitute for fries. What more could you ask for? That night we ate fried egg on a pile of rice. Yum.

We arrived with the intention of visiting an acquaintance's farm plot not too far outside of town. He grows high quality coffee for export and consumption in his shop in La Paz. Having placed fifth I believe at the “cup of excellence” for all of Bolivia, I take it his coffee is good (Caitlin corroborates). Sadly we have such a limited time here that when transportation fell through, there was no way to guarantee the visit. We left. Wanting to stop in on Coroico, the destination of the “deadly road in America” and a tourist haven on the way back to La Paz (for the last time). You could not imagine a place more different from Caranavi. In short, no fried chicken. We are currently staying at an idyllic set of cabañas located above town called Sol y Luna. I imagine that this is close to paradise without, but with bugs. We splurged; I hope that slpurge doesn't result in malaria.