Zamora, Yungpamba, y Trabajo

September 21, 2009
Monday
8:41am, Cloudy 60
Sayausi


Project Update
Our last two posts have focused on travel (Peru and Conejo), but believe it or not sometimes we actually get some work done as well. Here is a little taste of some of the projects (at least the ones with pictures) we’ve been working on for the last few months:

Me
World Map
Over summer vacation I led a group of six or so students (age 5-12) in a World Map Project. Making a World Map is a sort of rite of passage in Peace Corps as many volunteers end up making one at some point in their service. They are usually made on giant surfaces and show all of the countries in the world. However, due to limited wall space (we were given the area above the bathroom sinks to work with) at the school, the world map we ended up making was a slightly modified version. Below is a brief overview of the three week endeavor that was the World Map of Bella Vista de Sayausi.

1.) Attempt to make a square (our first square turned out to be not quite a square).
2.) Paint the entire surface blue (thereby covering up the not-so-square square).
3.) Make another square that was actually square (a level turned out to be key).
4.) Make a grid (56 little squares by 24 little squares, it was nice to just be supervising for all of this).
5.) Number squares and divide big grid into 18 smaller grids.
6.) Practice drawing by grid with several worksheets (to figure out who could draw by grid and who would have more of an assisting role).
7.) Start drawing the continents on the grid (we ended up doing continents plus Ecuador instead of all the countries as our space was limited).
8.) Keep drawing the continents on the grid.
9.) Finish drawing continents on the grid.
10.) Mix paint for each of the continents.
11.) Paint the continents.
12.) Let paint dry.
13.) Touch up paint and let dry again.
14.) Outline continents with permanent marker.
15.) Touch up paint on continents, again.
16.) Decide what to do with the area surrounding the map.
17.) Divide area surrounding the map into seven sections and paint each section according to the color of each of the seven continents.
18.) Draw endangered animals from each continent in the color coded sections surrounding the map.
19.) Mix the paint for the 20+ animals.
20.) Paint the 20+ animals.
21.) Outline the 20+ animals with permanent marker.
22.) Touch up paint for the 20+ animals.
23.) Put labels on continents and animals.
24.) Re-paint the oceans on the map.
25.) Take lots of pictures of the finished product.

So, that was basically what happened in the course of the three weeks of the World Map. During this time there were countless cookie breaks and singing of Michael Jackson songs. Oh, I also left out that before any of this happened, Jairo (a seven year old who was an eager participant every single day of the project) offered to clean out the sink so that the kids could stand in it to reach the wall that we would be working on. There must have been some sort of pampamesa party a couple of weeks beforehand as there was all sorts of soggy, rotting food in the sink. I would also like to point out that Jairo volunteered to help and not once made any complaint about the smell (which was bad) or the texture (which was gross, as you can imagine). So with two tops from cut up coke bottles we scooped up all the filth; me holding my breath and Jairo attempting to sing “Beat It.” Throughout the making of the World Map Jairo liked to mention just how dirty the sink was before we started and what a good job we did cleaning it up.

Lastly, I would love to take credit for how great the map looks, but I was merely the supervisor and my tangible contributions to the map only included a second coat of paint on Antarctica and a second coat of paint on the orange section surrounding the map. Lady, Bryan, Marcelo, Justin, Jairo, and Anita did the grand majority of the work with help from half a dozen other students who showed up for a couple of days during the project. I barely touched it!

The Director of the school has asked me and my crew to do another mural once the school year starts (this one of Ecuador and its provinces) and CEDI (the preschool nearby) also asked if we could do a mural for them sometime this year. Who knew murals would be such a hit?

The Making of a Mapa Mundial



PL-480
Another rite of passage for the Peace Corps Volunteers seems to be the writing of a PL-480 grant. I have started working with a group in Bellavista de Sayausi called the Sistema de Riego de Minas, a group that is trying to encourage people with livestock in the nearby watershed to adopt other forms of agriculturally related income thereby protecting the town’s water source and providing a more sustainable source of income. In June we started working on a PL-480 grant to solicit funding to build a community greenhouse that would serve as a working model for the residents of Bellavista, provide additional fruits and vegetables to the local school for the kiddies lunches, and a small income to the Padres de Familia that would maintain the greenhouse in collaboration with the Sistema de Riego. Needless to say the process is long and trying to schedule meetings with members of the Sistema de Riego is more challenging than you might think. However, we are almost done with the first draft and hopefully in the next week or so we will be able to submit the proposal for initial review.


Garden
I have also started a garden at our neighbors house (apartment living has its drawbacks) and have successfully grown turnip greens, romaine lettuce, and arugula. Our neighbors were of course very interested in these strange looking vegetables as the turnip greens didn’t look like the turnip greens that they grow (and so they called it nabo extranno i.e. foreign or strange turnip greens), the lettuce they decided was the fifth type of lettuce (apparently there are six though there used to be only two), and the arugula was likened to spinach just much more bitter and therefore deemed to be good for the liver. While this garden has some selfish motives behind it (Mike and I love fresh greens), our neighbors have taken interest in what we are up to, they are trying new vegetables, and they even took some of the harvest to the market to sell!

I just cleaned out the remains of the first cosecha (harvest) and replanted with more arugula (yum!), more strange lettuce (a mesculin mix), sugar snap peas, greens beans, squash, chives, and kohlrabi. We’ll see how the neighbors react to those (assuming they grow)!

The Fruits(or Veggies) of My Labor



Mike
Busy as always at Parque Nacional Cajas, these past few months have been more critter filled than previous ones.

Baby Deer
A month or so ago a dead baby deer was found in a well. Recently dead, dead by drowning, and preserved in the icy waters of Cajas, Mike and the other Biologist Pancho decided to try out their taxidermy and butchering skills (Mike observed how to stuff a fox at the local university a few months ago).

Mike and Pancho skinned, cleaned, and upon Mike’s suggestion grilled a baby deer (Mike also brought home two bags of baby deer meat and has since made venison stew, roasted ribs, and has plans to roast the baby deer leg that is still in our freezer). An amusing side note: the park staff reacted to eating deer the same way most gringos react to eating cuy for the first time, “Gross! I can’t believe people actually eat this. I really can’t believe that I’m eating this.”

The stuffed deer will eventually be displayed in the museo that Mike and Pancho are working on.




Dead Condor
A nearby resident of Cajas called in to say he had spotted a recently dead Andean condor and so Mike and Pancho made plans to hike out into the middle of the park to find out which of the six individuals that inhabit the park it might be, and to get this lovely specimen for display in the up and coming museo.

However, the caller was vague about the location (we think he may have wanted a condor specimen of his own) and so the trek to find the dead condor was eventually abandoned…I guess that means no condor stew, too bad.


Sapos
The Park recently approved the construction of a frog hatchery to counter the rapid decline of the park’s amphibian population. So, Mike went out along with the park guards to learn how to capture the frogs and what happens to them in the nursery once they are captured.




Aves
In June there was a group of ornithologists from the University of Stonybrook working on a dissertation project in Cajas. They were setting up mistnets to catch and tag birds for four full days as part of a four year study (coming down once a year for four years). Mike, being the skilled biologist that he is, was invited to help out with the study which meant for four days Mike and this group of ornithologists (two Ecuadorians, one Colombian, and one gringa) sat around tagging cute little humming birds, a mochuelo (an Andean pygmy owl), and all sorts of other pretty little birds that fell into their nets while enjoying the beautiful (and exclusive) area of Mazan, an area that is off limits to tourists as it is a place for scientific studies and, I guess, Peace Corps Volunteers (I have been luck enough to visit Mazan and it really is quite beautiful).




Some Sort of Survey and a Map
Mike’s major project for the past few months and in all likelihood for next several months is the making of a reporting system for the parkguards to fill out while they are patrolling the the park. The information gathered from this system will serve as a tool to monitor park flora and fauna as well as aide in park management and direct future studies to be done in Cajas. Part of this project involves meeting with a bunch of computer programmers in Cuenca, so it’s a pretty fancy.

Additionally, Mike is working to redesign the park map to make it more tourist friendly i.e. to make the map useful as its current state is rather pathetic and doesn’t do any good for any tourist. This also involves some sort of fancy computer program and a really nice printer that died last week.


Let’s Go for a Walk
Just so everyone knows, on a nice day (i.e. small to no chance of hail storms) it is not unusual for Mike and Pancho (the other biologist) to decide to go for a hike: yup, just a hike. It’s a work day, but it’s nice out, so let’s go for a walk. Last time this happened, the two of them ended up finding a dozen horses in the park and had to heard them out of the park, on foot, for 3 miles of mountainous terrain. So, don’t worry it’s not all work and no play (if you count grilling deer and playing with birds work).


Life in Ecuador Update
And of course, there are still a lot of other little things going on that don’t fall specifically under the “work” category but more in the “general goings-on” category. Enjoy…we certainly did!

Zamora
Last week we and three other volunteers took a trip south and east to check out Parque Nacional Podocarpus. The park entrance is located 8km up a washed out dirt road, outside of Zamora (the first automobile reached this “city” in 1962), a city two hours southeast of Loja which is 5 hours south of Cuenca. So, if you followed that at all, we traveled the farthest South we have yet to be in Ecuador i.e. seven hours south of Cuenca, and dropped down into the Amazon basin.

We left early Monday morning, and after descending more than 6,000 vertical feet, were in the park by four o’clock in the afternoon. Upon our arrival in the park (which required a half hour hike uphill in the warm, humid climate) we immediately changed into swimsuits and headed to the nearby swimming hole i.e. a beautiful, yet cold, river surrounded by jungle on all sides. The lower part of Podocarpus (where we were) is made up of the last few hills that the icy Andean water has to wind through before reaching the Amazon.

Since Mike and I didn’t have a tent we stayed in the “main” office in the room where the park guard on duty usually sleeps. Remember, to get here you have to walk a half hour into the jungle after taking the landslide covered dirt road for an hour from a city that is still waiting for a paved road to connect it to the outside. Luckily, the parkguard wasn’t staying that night, or the next one, so we would have the office to ourselves….kind of. The park office, or more aptly put small rickety cabin in the middle of a tropical forest, was literally crawling with all sorts of critters as soon as the sun went down. We were very appreciative that the parkguard left us his mosquito net and we made sure to tuck it in really tight!

The next day we went for a hike in the morning up to the Mirador (and when I say we hiked up, I mean we hiked up, and up, and up). Being sufficiently soaked with sweat, we headed back to the river after the hike. Then, being sufficiently cooled down we went for another hike that followed the river farther into the surround forest.

Zamora is known as “The City of Birds and Waterfalls.” This second hike we went on certainly proved the aforementioned slogan. We saw tons and tons of birds and almost as many waterfalls. Needless to say it was a gorgeous hike.

Not surprisingly we were again soaking wet from the hike and headed off to a different swimming hole with notably warmer water. This swimming hole was small but included a waterfall that you could dunk your head into to get pounded clean. After basking in the waterfall and drip drying in a patch of sun, we snacked, ate dinner, made smores, and then went to bed, trying not to think about (or listen to) all the critters that were scavenging for our fallen crumbs.

Our last morning in the park Mike and I hiked back up to the Mirador, returned soaking wet, and headed straight for the river.

When we got back to the cabin a couple of Ecuadorians from the Ministerio de Turismo had arrived and were thrilled to see a group of gringos lounging about. As such we were invited to star in their government sponsored video promoting tourism in Southern Ecuador and Northern Peru. The project (Peace Tourism) is in collaboration with the government of Peru to make up for the fact that the two countries, until quite recently, were at war over a small piece of forest not too far from where we were camped. It took a little over an hour for them to get all the shots they wanted of us posing with orchids, taking pictures, and hiking with our big gringo backpacks. They promised to mail us a copy of the finished product, and even better, they gave us a free lift back into Zamora.

Back in Zamora we grabbed lunch with another volunteer who lives there (we were going to get the local specialty: frog legs, but upon seeing the cost opted for hamburgers instead) and then hopped on a bus heading back to the cool mountain breezes of the sierra.

Waterfalls, Birds, and Mucho Màs


Leafcutter Ants I

Leafcutter Ants II

Leafcutter Ants III

Leafcutter Ants IV


Yungapamba
This past weekend I was invited to play in a soccer tournament in Yungapamba. The captain of the pink team that I play on in San Miguel de Sayausi knows the son of a guy who wanted to sponsor a women’s team in this tournament and so that’s how Mike and I ended up in Yungapamba i.e. a hillside in the middle of nowhere.

So my teammates, their cute little kids, myself and Mike left early Saturday morning in a pickup truck taxi that took us to a market in Cuenca where this sponsor bought us shoes and where we got on a private school bus to take us the rest of the way.

When we arrived in Yungapamba we were given our uniforms (pants, jersey with our name printed on the back, warm up jacket, hat, and socks) which we were told to immediately change into (on the bus of course) before we headed to the actual site of the fiestas of Yungapamba.

An hour or so after our arrival there was a procession, followed by dancing, followed by the Sport Inauguration. The Inauguration, as we have seen before, involved each of the teams marching accompanied by their madrina (cute girl all dressed up) and then standing in rows while the judges picked best uniform (which we won and were therefore given twelve beers as a prize) and the best madrina (our madrina did not win). Shortly thereafter the games started.

We won our first and only game on Saturday 2-1. Then we sat around and watched the men’s soccer team that was also sponsored by the same man who sponsored our team (a supposed multimillionaire of Yungapamba origin but who now lives in Guayaquil). By then it was close to four in the afternoon so we piled into a pickup truck for the two hour sunset ride back to Sayausi.

Sunday morning we were back in Yungapamba by nine o’clock in the morning for the first of what would be two games. We won the first game 5-0 and the second game 1-0 to come in first place and win $70. We then piled back into the pickup truck to make it back to Sayausi to play in yet another game (the red team in Ingapirca de Buenos Aires de Sayausi). Then, after scoring three goals in my third game of the day, I pretty much collapsed from exhaustion.

Soccer-mania...In the Middle of Nowhere



Chuspi
Chsupi has also been working on a few things over these past months and we thought we would share her accomplishments with all of you. Behold, the amazing Chuspi!



Catch

Catch II

Intercept

Intercept II

Kick

Kick II

Kick III

Attack

Hunt, Catch, and Eat

Dàme la mano

Dàme la mano II

Read

Read, Chuspi, Read

Write

It`s Hard to Train a Cat