Thursday, June 30th
We had a great time hanging out in the second highest capital in the world — yes, Quito! Second only to La Paz, Bolivia, Quito sits at 9,350 feet…wow! Although there is so much to explore there, it was time to head to our host community, Chilcapamba, where we will be living and working for the next two and a half weeks. Everyone was excited to meet our hosts, Alfonso and his wife Francisca, as well as the children in the village, whom everyone is eager to play with. Alfonso is a very influential community member — he is the UN Representative for Ecuadorian Indigenous Peoples and also the president of the Organization of Indigenous Villages around Cotacachi. It´s pretty awesome that we get to stay in his home and benefit from his wealth of knowledge about the community and surrounding area.
We were welcomed to Chilcapamba with a delicious pig roast accompanied by other local dishes such as mote (a large kernel corn that is boiled down until it´s soft, sort of like mashed potatoes), roasted maíz (more corn!), and boiled potatoes. Alfonso´s property is full of fruit trees, herbs and other crops his family grows. They also have several pigs (including newborn piglets!), guinea pigs, and rabbits that they raise to eat. Yep…they may be cute but they´re not considered pets here. In any case, the entire property is incredibly beautiful and the area is surrounded by green valleys, mountains and two volcanoes — Cotacachi and Imbabura.
After our delicious dinner, several more neighbors and relatives of Alfonso came over to sing us several songs in both Spanish and Quechua. Most everyone in the community was raised in a household that speaks Quechua, and they learn Spanish in school as a second language. It was a wonderful welcome.
Everyone in our group had a great evening and especially enjoyed meeting the local kids whom they played tag and hide and go seek with.
Today, we went on a several hour hike through our community to familiarize ourselves with the area and learn about our main project. Our head foremen, Francisco and Augustín, led us to a valley and surrounding hills to understand their water system and how much of the valley receives water through canals or aqueducts for irrigation of crops, and how the potable water is fed through pipes underground. There are still several areas within the Cotacachi area that do not receive water to their homes because they reside above the main water tank and another smaller tank is needed to feed water via pipes to their homes. What can be a more basic necessity than having running water in your house? We understand that this is a very important project and are excited to help dig the new space for the tank and dig canals to lay piping. We also visited one of their main watersheds that needs reforestation to help filter the water for the community.
One other note: we decided as a group to try what we call a ¨Tech Fast.¨ For three days, we plan to not use our phones or internet as a way to truly integrate ourselves into the community and be less reliant on our phones, which often can be used more as crutches than as tools. Everyone agreed and is happy to take a break from being so plugged in. (Not to mention we don´t have internet access for everyone to utilize at our new home.)
We thank you for your patience and understanding, and for allowing us to be more at one with our experience here. We will still update the blog so stay tuned to hear more about our amazing adventures!
– Jaimie & Blake