Thermal healing...

When you arrive in Oyacachi you see the houses and the people, you will walk to the river and nothing else will really grab you. It is like being in a B movie without a soundtrack; beautiful, but kind of boring if you are not participating. But stay a while, plan on it so you can relax. Pay for three days, not one. Why not? It is still under 20.00 USD. Then you have time to chat and ask the questions you have.

I think that you will find restaurants, that will open for you if they know you are comming, and what you want, and with how many people. You will probably be staying in the large wooden hotel with four stories and a view of the whole valley. There is also no doubt you will learn about the hot springs...

Across the river from the village, there is a gorgeous nook. It is dripping with climbing vines that explode in pink flowers as big as your fist. These suspended firecrackers in reds and pinks are always accompanied by small black, green or yellow irridescent hummingbirds. This is where in the 1930's, long after the independence of Grand Colombia from Spain, the first mestizo visitors to Oyacachi encountered the thermal hotsprings of the village. At that time there were one or two small natural ponds. Bubbling up from the rocks came the extrordinarily hotwaters, and the villagers would come after the work day to wash before returning home.

Although this ritual hasn't changed, the hotsprings have. After the access road to the village was built, the hotsprings were developed quite quickly. Now a large cable suspension bridge helps visitors to cross the river. The architect who designed "Las Thermas de Papllacta" was commissioned to develop the thermals in the village. Tourists say they recognize the curvy feminine masonry walls stained by the iron and magnesium rich waters, as well as the emaculate gardens and paro-thatched gymnasium. Although the local villagers contributed the latter two, not the architect.

This is how they look today, gorgeous even with clouds and rain. The waters are at 47C and rich in Mg, Ca, Na, and Fe. You can tell it is raining by the raging river...the same one I have been trying desperately to measure discharge on.

On the lucky days...when I manage to catch a ride for one of the legs of my daily data gathering (up to the control or down from the control) I actually have some daylight time and energy left for myself. On these days I go to the pools "Las Piscinas" as the villagers call them. It is nice to get there at four (when I took the pics) and shower, then soak and watch the people arrive, families comming all together to bathe, infants, adolescents all the way to grandmothers and grandfathers. Also a very hot spot to "vasilar" = flirt and expell pent up hormones. The pools are generally ringed with earlier bathers as the young men arrive. They walk slowly... muscular, with hard faces but eyes excitedly looking below the badass eyebrows and half closed lids, their heads are thrust back... With this mix of elation and conceit they come down the stairs, reaching deeper and deeper waters. Then they casually naturally reach down and splash their chests with water.

Women and girls (myself included) are much more likely to drop in quietly from the wall and quickly submerge, or start to chat with cousins neighbors and sisters. They calmly continue talking, apparently oblivious to the handsome roosters strutting and damply flashing around the pool. But they are watching .....

Not every young man is extroverted and flirty...here is one of my friends in his kitchen....very shy even with his brother taking the pictures.

Speaking of heating qualities and being warm, the stove (fumeless stove of the things that escape my camera post) is back. Unfortunatley it has re-surfaced for some of the saddest reasons. A friend's father in the village has been diagnosed with what I understand to be a form of lung cancer or chronic respitory infection. But this is a little ironc since the village is Evangelical (protestant) and therefore smoking, alchohol and other drugs are not allowed so how did this otherwise very healthy medium aged man become so sick? Some of the regular readers probably already know.... the nice warm cookhouses. This man has been cooking for decades in a small, unventilated, smokey cookhouse and can now barely breathe. So all the appparent effects of smoking cigarettes...lung cancer and/or emphazema where caused by naural wood smoke.

I passed on the manual for the stove to my friend and tried to explain as best I could the sonstruction process I witenessed with two kinds of mortar, cutting of bricks to maintain perfectly exact dimensions, constant measuring and importance of sealed long chambers in the stove. Unfortuately not until I wanted to pass on the information did I realize how incomplete the manual was...With NO references....so you start your search with nothing not even a standardized name for the type of stove....All this on top of the fact that my friend can barely use a computer and a google search is pretty much out of the question.......almost garuntees he will not be able to construct the stove...So I do the search in the Netherlands in English then Spanish, and try to print new better complete directions. The concept I believe is a very hot insulated low oxygen burn....

But the learning will do me good eh?? To understand so I can then properly teach and share the information and resources......

Paisajes, Landscapes

One day I was looking for the Thomas who does the announcements on the loudspeaker in Oyacachi and passed the door of the subcenter of health...it's a crowded place when the doctor is in town...a woman was standing with her daughter waiting to be attended, and I asked her if she had seen Thomas...she said no. When I inquired as to what was the matter she said her daughter had sever cramping and they were waiting for medicine. Causually I mentioned that I had Ibuprofen and did she want it? She suddenly became very passionate and said "Por Dios!" Literally this mean Please for God. So I walked quickly back to my house and got the pills, "six is good..." I thought, "because she will want to take some later as well." When I returned they were gone but the doctor was free. I asked where they had gone? He said they left with painkillers and they could have more tomorrow. I said "ah,...then they wont need these" He said "No no no. They can have more tomorrow..."

Never did it occur to me that these wonderful people could poisen themselves with Ibuprofen if given the chance. I come from a culture and family that understands the valors and possible consequences of Ibuprofen, a cheap readily available painkiller. Take a little every 4-6 hours as needed. Eat something with every dose to avoid liver and kidney damage. I just never thought that this woman could, and would, take ALL of the pills I gave her at once. Naive, I am.


Here is the old local health center and the newly constructed one. The new health center is very impressive and was constructed by the villagers...but I understand they are still having staffing issues. Again the problem where no one wants to live in Oyacachi, very unfortunate considering the terrible need.

The station above is a cold and empty place but it is also beautiful. The woodwork is gorgeous but the silence is un-nerving. Especially on cloudy days when the solar cells cannot charge the battery, and there is no soft whine. On these days obviously the radio won't work...and the Guarda Parques cannot communicate with the other stations in the 3700 square kilometer park. All of this adds to the sad ominouness of cloudy days when the silence is large....Those days especially, we start when we hear the far off buzz of a moto or the scratch of car wheels on the gravel road. No other human sounds pass. One cloudy misty day, I saw benados mating...I think. How beautiful! Then they dissapeared in the paro grass and mist.

But on some days...special days...Oswaldo has his harmonica out on the desk. These days are different. Here he was filmed by a friend who was learning how the camera works. Try to apreciate the sound more than anything visual, but it is nice to have some idea what it looked like there...



Salve Faccha is more lonely, becuase almost no one passes...no one. There are 8 guards who do rounds on the drinking water emprezza for EMAAP-Q. That's all. For 8 days, then 8 days off. Lots of time to think......

There is a plant called sumpfo that grows in the Paramo where it is extraodinarily cold and wet. It likes precipices of rock, corners basically where enourmous quantities of water pass in clouds. We would make herbal infusions of it. You really feel when you are trying, with icy blue hands, to clutch the cup of steaming sweet liquid.

Here are horses that belong to Gloria. How beautiful. Just roaming around paramo...grazing and being beautiful.

But when you go to Oyacachi take care.... When you are invited..."Vamos a ver ganado" this means lets go to look for the cows. You will be taking a small path that is filled with mud to your hips, as you dodge spiny vegitation for 3 hours in minimum. I had a love hate relationship with the grasses because you need them to hang on tofor dear life as your feet slip in every direction...but they will also slice your hands deeply, and this apart from the fact that they are filled with water that will leave you sopping wet for the rest of your day. Then you arrive at the bottom of the glacial valley to sludge through swamp at least to your knees as your companera yells in a shrill "keeeeeeeeech keech keech keech keech!!!"
The cows will slowly gather around you...

When you have finally seen all the cows...you can hike back up the valley to where hopefully your ride is still waiting. It's burly. You have been warned. But you will love the views.

Bus......

One day when I arrived in Cayambe, a Saturday...I was totally late and I missed the Oyacachi bus by like an hour. It turned out to be one of the best things I have ever done.

Here in the Cayambe Pichincha/Napo region there are some strong movements...one of them is Leftist Labor and the other is Evangelical.

After realizing how late I was in Cayambe I got a room in a hostal $6, put down my bag and started walking the town. I wandered back to the place where the bus would leave the next day...it was dark lonely and quiet. For me walking at night is not such a big deal...I see women and men in Quito with their bags slung over their stomach not back. These are my tricks...

1. Walk with confidence
2. Carry hardly any money
3. Be intelligent, alert and have a plan
4. Know where the police are
5. If you feel unsafe you probably are in danger...go where there is a significant population of women and children.
   

But it also helps that I am medio tall and of a bigger build. However Size is definately not everything and I sure as hell don't know how to fight...a gentle football game is enough to scare me.

Anyway near the bus stop I found a place called El Colliseo which is a indigenous evangelical meeting place of grand proportions. They were selling food for 1.50 I got a mountain of cow stomach and rice and egg with aji and salad. Not bad....
Church people are generally not stingy with food...money is another thing but food, that they consider a basic human right..

There was a group of conservatively dressed women probably 15 women, tending the kitchen and one man who was considered in charge. I was gently watched and exactly after my last bite a woman came to wisk away my plate and clean what was one of the limited spaces, for the next patron of the church. It is a forceful gesture from a beautiful, small, strong woman.

One of the women cooking was with me at the door and was extremely convinced that I should enter the coliseo...much more so than I was, being the only gringa in sight.

Of course eventually slowly I went in with a group of people and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible about it. Once inside I found William Parion the president of the community, already there watching the festivities. I introduced myself and then the next time he passed he smiled energetically. Later with good luck I also found Edgar Parion my neighbor and he indicated where exactly the bus would leave from.

Later I drank something with milk, sugar, and choclo(huge white maize) from a thin plastic cup that wrinkles and almost collapses in your hand when you move it. To acompany the milk chocolo drink we ate "pan" which is bread in English, but folks from the US will know it as frybread. This was the main alimientation of Native Americans after conquest of Indigenous lands. Limited ammounts of flour of questionable quality arrived as a gift from the government that had stolen the territories of Native Americans.

Here is an excerp from a paper in the US where I live...

'Games notes that fry bread is more a survival food than a native tradition.
"In the concentration camps called reservations, the agents woul give you flour, " Games said, "and that's what you used to make fry bread."'

-Food for the spirit
~Bart Ripp
Tacoma News Tribune

Really sad eh?

Anyway I bought a bike in Cayambe and it is really cool. I hope it will make the daily commute to the station a little easier...But I think I will paint it ugly white, same as we do in Holland eh? Makes its less attractive to steal...


The next day after my religious experience...I made it to both the market and bus. The market in Cayambe runs throughout the week, for anything you could possibly need that walks flies or squaks. I got up super early and left to bargain...but who wants to bargain at 7AM? You have the whole day to sell your goods, why deal with a single gringa? Still I walked around until I found what I wanted....potatoes; small, purple and cheap. I bought from a woman from Ibarra, we were talking for about 10 minutes, when suddenly a man yelled in our direction "Papas, Papas Catoooorce!" at just the right time. So I ended up getting out of there with a huge sack 50kg of potatoes for 15 bucks. Astonishingly cheap. But you are 12 blocks away from where you need to be with 50kg of potatoes. So you hire a bike cart and the man pedals and ride on top of the potatoes. Really fun. Of course later my neighbors taught me that 10 (0.20 USD cents a kg) is more reasonable but hey you gotta be happy about what you can get.

Cayambe has a really well organized transportation coop. They will never overcharge you...and they do a damn good job at getting you where you need to go.

After this I got to the bus and after hefting the earthy potatoes into the luggage compartment with help from the cyclist, I boarded to find my buddy sitting in the back of the bus already at 7:30AM. He introduced me to his friend who is also in Quito at the carpentry school. Oyacachi has a different dynamic...even when the teenagers go to Cayambe to have a good time, buy things and divert themselves....they are awake at 6,7,8 AM and go to the one bus from their community before it leaves and sit there, conversing with friends and neighbors...almost singing to each other "Eeemanaja?" How are you..."Aleeeja." Good. They go to the bus and sit in it...its a foreign idea for me...sit in a vehicle when you will not be traveling anwhere in it. I go to the bus to go... I was totally confused when my new friends got up and left the bus as we started to move... they still had business in Cayambe but came to the bus...as if they were closer to their home and more comfortable. This is unique, to sit and talk to each other then leave.

I guess its the same reason why I put in this video. It's just nice to have friends that recognize you. We are social animals.

It's still cold....

This video shows some of the typical weather and patterns in Oyacachi valley...Cold it is.
August 25th and the dead of winter. I write this from my room in Oyachachi, and that is the problem...you have to get up every seven to ten minutes to wave your arms and beat your legs. Two pairs of pants, three shirts, one sweater, one had an a full face gora, but the events are so vivid I have to write. So we'll see how clear this post ends up being....

I have been living in Oyacachi alone for the past three days. I am not very impressed with myself, three days and already a little crazy... I understand why the folks at CESA only stay for a maximum of 2 nights, even though they are being payed. But other than everything ocurring at half speed due to the comatose cold-effect, everything is good. I say its the cold... although I sometimes get scared that I have forfeited many brain cells because of all the trash burning fumes, smokey cookhouses and the lax attitude towards smoking in public places here inn Ecuador. But like I said earlier...Latin America is proff that sanitary lives are not necessarily the most fun.

Basically been gathering data....But that sentence is deceptively simple. For example, see above. Oscar left for several weeks with the keys to the station...so I had no way to get in. The irony is it's so damn cold that we wear pasamontanas which are buglar hoods, yeah you understand. But the picture was taken by Eouvany the Park Ranger who helped me install the well. Therefore we'll call this legal...

It is genuinely an up hill strugle. It is kind of hard to admit but even now I am struggling to get all the equiptment together and at the site atthe same time...alonng with all of the social obligations and difficulties of getting a reular field partner (or any field partner for that matter) for the stream gauging...discharge....which is really important for my research (hi Roel if you are reading : S ). Basically no Ecuatorian that I know wants to spend this much time in Oyacachi [because...1) it's so damn cold 2) no cell service 3) no internet 4) very little variety and availability of food(trucha or trucha, y manana lo mismo)], and everyone who lives in Oyacachi has a overtime job already. But I get what I get...its just not safe to do it alone.

So yeah, the process of getting data...get ready. It is about a 600m vertical from my bed to were I collect my data and make my measurments. That differential occurs over about 8km. Out of the four data days I have so far, I have walked to the control station two of them; still gruesome. Here is the stolen google image taken with my camera. Its Burly...I walk from the right to the left...North is up.

Nice ! things just got a lot warmer psycologically. My landlord just put on techno and offered calientarte. That means going out back to the smaller seperate kitchen house (cookhouse). So as I head out the door I find friends. We are six people out in the street, three casually speaking to us from the window in the second level. They are two brothers and their cousin. Here in the street, the aprentice veterinarian of the community is telling me very audibly that every girl or woman that walks by is his novia. Now to the cookhouse.....to calientartme con amigos and probably eat some really good food. What luck for me eh?

As a last note here is some of the propoganda that EMAAP-Q has going in Quito...more on this later. The significance to this is that this is the only drinkable water in Quito...that which comes from bottles. EMAAP-Q only supplies undrinkable water....Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

Broken cameras and the alphabet in Kichua

Que Triste eh?

Yeah the camera is lying open, after surgery, in the sun....I've taken out the batteries, the chip, all the screws and the electrical innards are exposed...here ñ in the intensive care unit (TV repair shop in Cayambe where I borrowed the screwdriver) things are not looking good....

Went fishing in the rain in Salve Faccha and then a few days later made the same hike through Paramo in the rain. Hmmmmm....

Well the upside is this is an opportunity to buy something better....but every student knows you have to be careful with your money...especially overseas.

The first day I was living here alone I remember I walked to the control and everything was badly planned. I walked to the control and made my measurements. The harrowing hike in the cold used to take me one hour and 45 minutes...now I am down to hour 15 but that still makes me huff. That first day I walked down most of the way and then some tourists picked me up for the last bit. I am learning to really appreciate tourists; they are almost always in a good mood and spending money. Here most of them are Ecuadorian. They are generous and want to share their good time...so picking up a gringa ranks high on their list of things to do.

Anyway I made it back to town way way past la hora propio de almuerzo...that means you walk to the far side of town to the last place with food and get served two tiny potatoes in watery soup with the last bones of the chicken and get charged two dollars for it. It's hard to smile and be happy about it.

I was sitting there sucking the bones, as a person who prefers vegitarian food, when I started to study my companeros. One woman was lively, talking to everyone and looking at me every so often. She gradually started to talk about god. She turned out to be from an Evangelical group in Quito and she had bunches of glossy magazines full of god stuff to buy. I sat there and watched her sell a bible written in Espanol to a young man who told her he couldn't read it. $25!, more than three days hard wages where we are, and he can only read Kichua. I was really frustrated and felt like she was preying on him. Really a gender reversal...

For my first three days in Oyacachi alone I was regularly invited to the cookhouse, and this is still the case (dios solo pagi = thanks to god...that's how we say thank you...). The cookhouse is a really honest place.

The first time, a Sunday night I thought that the restaurants where just taking their time in opening...so my new friend and I took a walk all over Oyacachi. She was all the time hinting that my landlord doesn't have a novia. We made a very obvious stop at the section of town where they are constructing new houses and she made sure to point out where all the family lived, as if it was my family. Then we went to the cookhouse where a minimum of three generations come together at a time. We ate platano boiled with panela then drank the water with bread. The women were wearing red ponchos. Gloria sang the National Anthem in Kechua, then I sang slipsliding away. She calmly took off her rubber boots and I saw she wasn't wearing socks. The general opinion is they are an unnecessary expense. And by now I have actually stopped wearing them as well. Less trouble with out them We watched the fire die and then went to Nelson's room to listen to techno and look at a book of doors. He is carpenter. They eat differently, in a very refreshing way. It is natural to enjoy food.

I had bought sardines thinking it was a good idea...then realized I didn't have a can opener. This made things tough. I asked Adelida if she had one and she said yes, took the can from me and began to chop it open with a knife. I felt extremely silly, and she impressed me greatly.

When you enter your eyes water as you adjust to the fumes, the single plank wooden walls are black with decades of smoke. You sit down on one of the two long simple benches and just let the smells and feels roll over you. It is a calm beautiful smokey place.

First I guess it is important to understand that only 2% of the population in Oyacachi doesn't have cows. For example, after a meeting with the organization of the ganederos, Thomas and Jop, the two who came, where hanging out in the gravel road while we walked by saying things in Kichua. Later I asked my companera what they had said...."I'll be waiting for you on Sunday when you come, I'll have butter and fritta." This means that Thomas would first milk the cow and make butter, then kill it and fry it in salt. Really a different come on than flowers and cocolate (though milk products are still involved), but this is how we do it in the Andes.

It's the really the most beautiful thing and the hardest thing to be here, under the streetlights and watching the soccer games in galoshes, the portaleches, the women carrying milk vegetables and a child at the same time, the life go by. But at the same time you have to watch yourself...you know what I mean? Me intiendes? WE are privileged, WE can leave when WE want. We are moviestars, we have options, degrees, student aid and money. A different color of skin and way of life. Try to think for yourself. Try to watch for when you slip into exploiting your privilege.

The Alphabet in Kichua...pronunciation below..

A CH H I K L LL M N Ññ P
a cha hacha e ka la lea ma na nya pa

R S T SH U W Y Tsa-Tza
rra tsa ta sha ooo wa ya Tsa-Tza