Be Sage.

Visions of Banos

2011-07-18T13:18:00.000-07:00

Quito → Rafting in Tena

2011-07-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

We left Quito Monday afternoon and headed into the Amazon to the jungle town of Tena. We arrived around 7:30pm, and went straight to a pizza dinner after dropping off our bags. The next morning we were up early to go on our white water rafting adventure. It had rained all night long, so we were unable to do the Class IV rapids that we had originally signed up for. Instead, we did the easier Class III, though due to the rain and high water levels, the guides informed us that it was closer to Class IV. I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but suffice it to say that we all had a ton of fun.

The following is Zack's account of the day...

We were woken up early Tuesday morning in an Amazonian town called Tena. At around 6:45 am we got out of bed and we were about to leave for a river-rafting trip, which we thought was going to be a class IV. After a long night of heavy rainfall, we soon found out that we were only doing a class III white water rafting adventure. The water level in the class IV was too high to raft in. I was a little bummed out but still really pumped up to go river rafting in an Ecuadorian river located in the Oriente (Amazonian Region). All ten of us, plus three random other people, packed into a cramped van owned by The River People, which was the company we were doing the tour with.

After a long but fun drive to the river we got out and began getting ready for our adventure. They gave us these small but warm wetsuits to put on. The wetsuits were not full body wetsuits so we all looked awkward and they were uncomfortable to wear. This guy named Alex from Ireland, who Jay, Jonah and I later met at the hostel, gave us all the rules and tips of white water rafting. There wasn’t much stuff we had to remember. Our group of ten had to split up since a raft can’t hold that many people, so Lindsey, Ben, and Maggie went in one group, and the rest of us in another.

We began our expedition to the river. It was a short ten-minute walk to the river, where our guide, Juan, started telling us the commands he was going to give us. We were on our way and within ten seconds we were hitting big rapids. This was harder than I thought. Rumors were roaming around saying that class III river rapids are a piece of cake, but this was rough. It was hard for me to keep 100% concentration on paddling because I couldn’t keep myself from looking at the stunning scenery in the Amazon. Within those three to five second periods of looking at the landscape, I had others yelling in my ear telling me to keep paddling.

Juan let us do fun activities when the rapids weren’t too dangerous. One of the games was called the Bull Ride, where someone sat at the very front of the raft with their feet hanging off. The rapids hit you very hard and it was hard to stay on. In between these games we got in splash fights with other rafts, where we used our paddles to splash others. Kendall took a bold move and splashed another guide from a different raft. He took it pretty seriously and yanked her with his paddle into the water. For the rest of the rafting adventure Kendall was pretty pissed and had her serious face on. Our guide was a pretty goofy guy and he pulled a prank on us where he said there was a hole in our raft. He had everyone lift up his or her feet and once they did, he shoved William and Jay of the raft.

The highlight of the day was when Juan let us get out of the raft toward the end of the trip and let us float down the river, propelled by the then-more calm rapids. He had us swim back up to the raft but it was very difficult, considering the fact that the rapids were still strong and forcing us down the river. Overall, the rafting experience was great and very fun. I had a great time and this fortunate experience was awesome!

Here are some pictures taken by one of the guides...

It rained the rest of the afternoon, so we all read, played cards, and just hung out. The next morning was more of the same, and that afternoon we left Tena for Banos.

Otavalo and Quito - Shoppers' Paradise

2011-07-08T08:19:00.000-07:00

We left Mindo Friday afternoon and headed to Otavalo, home of one of the biggest and oldest markets in the world. We arrived in Otavalo and headed to our hostel, only to find that, despite reservations and confirmations, they had given our rooms away. Since we’re old pros at this whole traveling thing, and rolling with the punches, we headed out and found another decent, though slightly dirty and smelly, hostel for the night. We went to an awesome dinner, and headed to bed early anticipating our early rise the next morning.

William, Ben, Lindsey, and Kendall took the kids to the animal market super early. The animal market is mostly for farm animals, but there are also puppies, kittens, guinea pigs and ducks. It’s quite an experience. Unfortunately, it is also quite crowded, which resulted in Ben being pick-pocketed and losing his wallet. We made the necessary calls to cancel various credit cards, and all headed into the main market area.

Everyone was assigned a buddy and we had a meeting place and time set up. We all split up and bought sweaters, blankets, hammocks, jewelry, and just about anything else you could think of. We took a break for a delicious breakfast at the same restaurant where we had had dinner the night before, and then resumed our shopping.

Around 2pm, we headed to the bus station and left Otavalo for Quito. William studied in Quito in 2002, and we’ve been there four times since, so we have a few favorite restaurants. We headed to one of them, and feasted on fajitas. The next morning we met up with Lindsey’s cousin, Tyler, who is currently living in Quito. We all had breakfast together, and then made a plan to meet up later that afternoon. We went through another small market, as though we weren’t shopped out. Lindsey had just about had it with wearing yoga pants, so we headed to a local mall so that she could buy some jeans. The fashions here leave a lot to be desired, but Lindsey was a good sport and decided to buy some jeans with lovely glitter on the back pockets. She fits right in now!

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the Parque la Carolina, right near William’s old neighborhood. We then headed to dinner. Lindsey and Ben headed off with Tyler, and we took the kids into a main town square to watch the Ecuador/Argentina soccer match. It was a lot of fun!

The next day, we took everyone into the old part of Quito for an awesome breakfast and to look around. After breakfast, we were showing the kids the main political hub of Ecuador where the white house and congress buildings are, and we stumbled onto a ceremony. We are not able to decipher the purpose of the pomp we were witnessing, but we were fortunate enough to notice that the President of Ecuador had walked right out of the white house to join the revelry. We watched as the flag was raised and the national anthem was sung. It was a really cool, lucky experience.

Bahia→Mindo

2011-07-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Hi there. So sorry for the delay in posts. We’ve had spotty internet access and have been in five cities in seven days! I'll give you the lowdown on Mindo right now, then we'll continue playing catch up in the next few days.

Our last few days in Bahia were challenging, as we did not have running water. Showering, cleaning, cooking… everything became a challenge. As Lindsey mentioned in her last post (isn’t she an amazing writer?), living without running water is an experience unlike any other.

We headed out of Bahia on the eve of Heidi’s 16th birthday with our sights set on Mindo. Mindo is my favorite town in Ecuador. We took an eight hour bus-ride overnight to Quito, where we transferred buses and made the two hour trek to Mindo. We arrived around 10am at the Cabanas Bambu, which is a little piece of paradise. We all hung around, showered, ate lunch, and recovered from our travels.

Maggie and I snuck out about an hour before dinner and headed into town to gather some birthday party supplies for Heidi’s sweet 16. We managed to find candles and balloons. We went into many bakeries and restaurants in search of a cake, and finally wandered into a Mexican restaurant where the people were more than happy to make us a birthday cake. We gave them the candles and told them we’d be back with our group of ten in an hour.

We hung the balloons, the people from the restaurant added some streamers, and we were all set! Dinner was a bit of a disappointment as this “Mexican” restaurant was all out of Mexican food (save three burritos), but we made the best of it. The cake came out, and even said “Happy Birthday” in English. It was delicious. We sang “Happy Birthday” to Heidi at least four times, and we all agreed that it ranked up there with the most memorable Sweet 16s ever.

The next day, we were slated to go zip lining. I’ll let Jonah take it from here…

Zip-lining with a Smile

While we were in Mindo the most memorable activity that we did was zip-lining above a rain forest. We went on about thirteen zip-lines, each zip-line getting slightest steeper and faster than the last. This was my first time zip-lining so I didn’t know what to expect. I am also scared of heights, so completing the course was a small accomplishment for me.

If I could use one word to describe the feeling of being a couple hundred feet above the ground, strapped into a harness, attached to a zip-line in Ecuador, the best word that comes to mind is “sketchy”. There were a few times when I was zip-lining where I would wonder if the zip-line would snap, and I would fall to my death, but I tried not to think about that and tried more to think about capturing and remembering the beautiful scenery that surrounded me while I flew through the air.

After completing the course I felt reborn and accomplished, like I had done a great feat. I was so so, so, so amped afterwards that I was dying to do it again, and was considering applying for a job there. Although neither of these things happened, I was still pleased with myself and with the courageous stunts that I had just executed.

I would love to go zip-lining again and hopefully some time soon, but for now I will just have to look forward to ATVing and white water rafting. And you readers get to look forward to reading about our next adventure. CIAO!

Princess Lindsey Goes to Ecuador

2011-07-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador. We awaken to the crows of roosters. The air is still and hot. The buildings of this small seaside town are pastel and dirt-smeared, like children’s toys. Jumbled and beautiful. Roofless or with slats of corrugated plastic, particle board, tin. Doors made out of scrap or of the finest, heaviest, darkest wood, oiled and gleaming. There are bars on the windows. One such window cages a large white dog with red-rimmed eyes; he lies there day after day, vicious in his sadness. The people, meanwhile, spend all day with their doors wide open, old women haunting the doorways in plastic chairs, children spilling into the street.

Humans are humans here; there’s no denying it. The smells of people surround us. Sweat a fact of life. Dirt settles beneath our fingernails, in between our toes, in the curves of our ears. We let it sit, or force it out with Q-tips. It is a moment-to-moment preference. In the scheme of days and weeks it matters not at all.

The people of Bahia are everywhere, watching us. Two Ecuadorian children, a boy and a girl, live next door to our cheerful pink house; they roam the street like puppies, curious and unconcerned. They wear the same clothes: the boy in shorts that show the ash brown of his knees, the girl in a purple jumper with one button popped over her belly. When we open our front door to the street, straining to fill our small house with fresh evening air, they climb into our stairwell and sit, watching us like a show they’ve snuck in to see. They expect to be entertained. We are a diversion, a break in the endless heatlocked days. We are loud, moving, a traveling circus. Jonah, clowning in his Panama hat and sunglasses and shorts, is pure entertainment to these kids. Heidi’s blond curls amaze them. They ask all our names again and again, practicing them as though they’ll be tested later. They’ll watch us for hours, if we let them. Although we know which house they live in, they seem to belong to no one in particular. At night, when we tire of being spectacles, we shut our door to them; they go home.

Time seems to be suspended here. Our days are filled with basic human tasks: wake, dress, eat. Fetch water. For the first time in most of our lives, we have to think about whether there’s enough to go around. Is there enough water for us to drink, to brush our teeth, to bathe, to flush our toilets? Are there enough breakfast rolls (pan de sal) for everyone to eat one, or two? Are there enough chairs for everyone to have a seat? Such thoughts are effortful and strange.

In the mornings we wake early and prepare for work. William plays reggae or rock music over the speakers, nudging the volume louder until the boys are pulled out of their beds. We slather our bodies in sunscreen and bug spray, arming ourselves against the elements, trying to keep some of this Otherness out, to achieve some sense of normalcy. We pull on our dirty work pants and sweat-stained shirts, lace our boots. We girls tie our hair up in kerchiefs. Then we meet our fellow volunteers at the Planet Drum house around the corner from ours, walk to the bus stop or to the day’s site: most days to the greenhouse outside the university, one day to a hillside on the edge of town, one day to a tract of land far outside the city limits.

On the day of the hillside visit, we hike to what’s called the Rock Garden, although it looks more like the ruins of Pompeii. Crouching on the broken slabs of concrete and rock, we learn that this is where the mudslides occurred in the El Nino storms of 1998. I try to imagine it: the painted concrete houses bright as cakes, sliding down the slope as on a river, crashing finally to pieces in this bowl in which we sit. Trekking the trails around the Rock Garden, we find more evidence of destruction: concrete slabs that once supported the weight of living rooms, concrete stairways that jut out of the dirt, crooked as teeth. Beneath the green fronds of a tree, we find one bleached bone. Orlando, our cheerful Ecuadorian guide, tells us casually that it could be human, people died here. Even with this bit of news the horror is not quite real. It has been suffused by time. Thanks largely to the work of Planet Drum, trees have grown up here, root systems, greenery, even the usual weeds. We do our small part; Kendall and the boys machete trails while Jaime, Maggie, Heidi, and I water baby trees and gather seed pods that Planet Drum will plant next season.

The leader of Planet Drum is an American man named Clay. Each morning, before we start work, he gathers us for a speech. He speaks like someone who hasn’t faced a deadline in a decade. He cannot be hurried. Everything is done in small stretches of time, with a deliberateness that makes us itch. In my impatience I can’t help thinking, Where is the technology? What is the action plan? When will it be done? But there are no bulldozers here. There is only Clay, and his troop of young and earnest volunteers; there is (terrifyingly) only us. Of course, by the end of our two weeks we will begin to understand that none of this will ever be done. This is a world these people have created; this is a way of living.

On the day of our visit to the distant tract of land, a bit of jungle nestled between hillsides which Planet Drum hopes to turn into something of ecological benefit (in my cynicism I do not catch exactly what benefit that would be), we learn that we’ll be using machetes, all ten of us. I have my own healthy fear of pocketknives and kitchen cleavers, so I have been dreading this day since before the trip began. In the middle of the path we are hiking, we stop and select machetes from Orlando’s bag. We don’t know how to hold them; with their dark blades and plastic hilts they are toys or murder weapons, one or the other. I hold mine as far away from my body as possible, scenarios of accidental violence whirling through my brain like in one of those cartoon flipbooks they sell at Disneyland. (Oh I wish I were in Disneyland, where every food tastes like sugar and every ride has a safety belt!) I can’t stop myself from thinking, thinking, thinking. Then Clay drops whetstones in the dirt and the world becomes elemental again: water is poured over our hands and over the blade and the stone, and crouching in the dirt we try to do as Orlando does, the flat of our palms pressing against the flat of the blade, rasping the blade against the soaked stone until our shoulders ache. We are not used to this, our bodies tell us immediately. When the blade is done, its edge gleams silver. When we spread out, begin to cut into the brush, swinging our blades against the green resistance, we think we will maybe, possibly, most likely chop off our own feet.

Then, one of us does. Or nearly. We think. I see it happen: as Heidi swings her machete downward, the blade falls from her hand. She cries out, she hobbles. William, beside her, yells, “She’s hurt! She’s hurt.” All I can see is her falling into his arms; all he can see is the blood. I turn to Jaime, who is just up the path, and with the way she looks when she sees it’s Heidi who is hurt, you could not tell me that Heidi was not her own daughter. She cries out. We run to Heidi, lay her down in the dirt, she is sinking into nature now, there is no more space between it and us.

Jaime cries, then makes herself stop. Heidi shakes, trying not to cry herself. William and Ben fashion a tourniquet from two bandannas to stop the bleeding. After the initial shock we see that nothing vital has been cut; she will be okay. But the truth is this incident has shaken all of us, not only because we care about Heidi but because it is so apparent now what nothing we are, with what exquisite ease the metal sinks into the flesh. In the days following, as Heidi is stitched and bandaged, as “machete” becomes a gentle running joke, I will not be able to stop seeing it: the flash of blade-edge through the white flesh of her ankle, through layers of skin and fat, before clanging against the bared white bone. It makes a sickening noise in my imaginings, it echoes. “It could have been any one of us,” we say. “It was an accident, a fluke.” To those of us with less anxious temperaments this seems to be a comfort.

After the incident with the machete, some of us make the decision to stick to seeds. This is not so treacherous a job. We gather the seedpods, collect them in a bucket. At the greenhouse we sit on plank benches and pry them open, one by one. The work is boring. Our minds turn off. As we are no longer thinking, the discovery of a row of clean brown seeds, exposed as we peel back the dried husk of the seedpod, brings us enormous satisfaction. For three or four hours a day this is all we want in life: to peel back a dead-looking seedpod and find life inside.

At noon or one, our daily work completed, we return to Bahia. We visit the internet café for a glimpse at the outside world which, strangely enough, goes on without us. Or we change into swim suits and play in the ocean. Its waves are rough; it batters us. We eat fried fish, shrimp with rice, Coke from glass bottles. Later, sandy and exhausted, we return to our small house, take showers that are satisfying only in the sense that they remind us that actual showers do exist, somewhere. We can remember them distantly. They’re back at home with our makeup and hair dryers, with the incredible luxury of our real lives, our foggy nights in Mill Valley, our locked doors, our mothers, our soft beds, and clean feet.

Stop Complaining and Give Yourself Over to the Experience

2011-06-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

This week of work was productive to say the least. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we worked at the greenhouse. Planet Drum currently has 20 volunteers including our group of ten, which is a record number for them, so we accomplished quite a bit. At the greenhouse there are three main tasks: cutting and preparing 3-liter bottles for saplings, making the dirt concoction that goes in the bottles, and preparing seeds to germinate.

Bottle cutting is the worst task, in my opinion. The bottles often have unidentified liquid in them, the bees circle, and it’s generally boring.

Dirt mixing is the most physically taxing task. Over the course of the week we made ten triple piles of dirt. That means that in each pile, we include three buckets of compost soil, six buckets of regular dirt, three buckets of sand, and three buckets of rice shells. We then mix the “ingredients” together, along with a healthy amount of water, until it is all integrated.

After the piles of dirt are thoroughly mixed and wet, we use it to fill the cut bottles. With the ten of us working, we could finish off a pile in no time.

Finally, there is the task of seed preparation. Depending on the seed type, the methods vary. One type we worked with was guachapeli. For these, we just had to peel open the seed pod and fish out the seeds. Another type, the name of which escapes me right now, required that we crack open the pod with a pair of pliers in order to reach the small seeds inside. The last kind, algorobo, we soaked overnight, twisted and cracked open the outer casing, soaked them again, and planted them, casings and all.

Over the course of the three days, we prepared materials for over 700 trees!

Tuesday and Thursday were another story. Tuesday we went to the site called Bosque Mediano de Las Ruinas (Forest Amidst the Ruins). The ruins in question are the remains of people’s homes left over from the devastating mudslides of the late 90s. This area of Bahia was condemned because of the danger, and was Planet Drum’s first site for planting trees. William and I recognized many trees that we had watered and tended to in years past. It was very cool to see the once tiny trees growing taller and stronger.

Heidi, Maggie, Lindsey, and I spent Tuesday collecting the algorobo seeds that we would germinate later in the week. Heidi’s leg was still not 100%, so we opted for the easier of the tasks. The rest of our hard-core team spent Tuesday machete-ing new paths for next year’s batch of trees. This literally means that they went to an untouched hillside and started hacking away. They were all quite proud of their labors, and Clay deemed that machete-ing was Jonah’s calling in life.

Thursday, those who wanted to (Ben, William, Maggie, and Jonah) returned to Las Ruinas to finish their paths. The rest of us spent half the day walking around Bahia collecting more bottles, and the rest of the day collecting pechiche seeds. All in all, the work has been good. We only watered one day, which is a shame, because, though taxing, it is gratifying work. Still, in some way or another we contributed to the lives of thousands of trees, and that is good stuff!

We ended the week attending a going away party for Jack, a long-time Planet Drum volunteer. We danced, we ate, and we had an awesome time!

We are all eager to begin our travels over the coming weeks. We head out of Bahia tomorrow to our first location, Mindo, where we will celebrate Heidi’s 16th birthday!

Until next time…

Patacones

2011-06-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

This is probably the last blog on which you would expect to find a recipe, but I thought it would be fun to share the recipe for the one Ecuadorian thing I cook while I’m here. Patacones are savory plantains, fried and then fried again in hot oil. They are one of my favorite coastal Ecuadorian specialties, and I learned how to make them (along with my trusty assistant, Maggie) two years ago when we were here.

Ingredients:
6 green (unripe) plantains
canola oil (about an inch in the bottom of a pan)
4 limes
salt to taste

The first step is perhaps the worst. You score the peel of each plantain three times from top to bottom, and then peel them. The peel is very sticky, and your hands will likely remain sticky for the rest of the day (particularly if you are in Ecuador and have shoddy access to soap and towels. :)

Next, you cut each plantain into four to six rounds depending on the size. You want each piece to be an inch to an inch and a half long.

Place the plantain pieces into the hot oil on the stove in one layer. You will likely need to work in batches so as not to overcrowd the pan. Cook for 3-4 minutes per side, being careful not to burn them.

Then, take them out of the pan and put them on a plate or another flat, clean surface. Let them cool enough so that you can handle them, and then take each one and smoosh it (Kendall is using the bottom of a bowl) from the top until it is about a half inch tall. Repeat this with each piece.

Next, take each flattened piece of plantain and put it back in the hot oil. Again, take care not to overcrowd the pan. Fry for one-two minutes per side.

Finally, remove the plantains from the oil and drain them. While they’re still hot, squeeze the lime juice onto them, and season them with salt to taste.

Enjoy!

Heidi´s Hello...

2011-06-22T18:59:00.000-07:00

Hello from Ecuador! As you’ve probably been reading our blog posts you should be pretty caught up on the events that have taken place during this trip so far. We’ve been working really hard for the Planet Drum foundation, performing tasks like shelling seeds, carrying heavy jugs up steep hills, and machete-ing through forests, in addition to participating in bioregional classes with local students, all of which have taken a small toll on team Sage. But working for Planet Drum has only been one of the many struggles we’ve overcome.

I know you’ve all heard about my machete mishap. After being carried up a hill for about a mile on a makeshift stretcher, we were driven on a rickety truck to the hospital for further care. When I got to the hospital the doctors began working right away. The iodine they used to disinfect my wound was in an old Gatorade sports bottle, and the alcohol came out of an old lotion bottle… sketch. But nonetheless my wound was disinfected and stitched up in less than 30 minutes. Since leaving the hospital, it has been healing swimmingly thanks to doctor Ben, who has been re-dressing it daily and keeping it clean and heavily coated with Neosporin.

Another tough trial has been sharing a living space with so many boys. Our bathroom is particularly disgusting; it has become a neglected, soupy mess of dirty water and boxers. I am amazed that following a “refreshing” shower a person could pick up a shirt off of the damp floor and put it on themselves. But I guess boys will be boys. I highlight refreshing because our shower is a pipe spewing cold water out of a cistern. On another note, Ecuadorian food has been a challenge that I have yet to overcome seeing as I’ve resorted to eating Kraft macaroni and cheese for many meals. Well I’m checking out for now. See you all in a few weeks!!

Happy Father´s Day from Canoa, Ecuador!

2011-06-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

As usual, we escaped off to Canoa for the weekend. The food was great, the beach was better, the weather cooperated and we all got burned to a crisp, the boys' attempts at mischeif were to no avail, and we are all back in Bahia on the verge of collapse. (Fun yes, restful nope.) Hopefully a good night´s sleep will have us ready for another week of work.

What started as an ordinary day...

2011-06-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Hi all (this is Jaime). Today started out just like any other. We woke up, made breakfast together, and went off to meet the rest of the volunteers for work. Today we went out to Planet Drum´s land about 45 minutes from the house. We rented a truck, piled in the back, and took off. As always when we rent a truck down here, the ride was an adventure. Lots of ducking to avoid tree branches, and holding on for dear life. We finally made it to the land and hiked in the rest of the way. The plan was to clear a trail so that a truck could get through eventually.

Clay gave us all a machete tutorial, carefully explaining the safest and most effective methods and motions for clearing branches and small plants. We spread out on the trail and began our work. I was taking pictures as there weren´t enough machetes to go around. I was impressed because all of the kids picked up the technique very quickly, and were clearing quite effectively.

I soon took over for Lindsey, and about fifteen minutes later, I heard Heidi scream, followed closely by William saying, ´´She´s hurt! She´s really, really hurt!´´ I saw a LOT of blood, and I panicked, to the point that I started crying for a second, but less than ten seconds later, after giving myself a stern talking to, I calmed down, grabbed some bandanas and bandages, and ran to Heidi´s side. William was applying pressure as we talked and came up with a plan. Heidi had chopped at something with a downward motion, and the machete had slipped out of her hands, and hit her on the lower left leg. Her leg was sliced cleanly to the bone. We cleaned the wound the best we could, covered it with a bandage, wrapped it with the bandanas, and kept it elevated.

There was no cell phone reception where we were, and our truck wasn´t due back for two and a half hours. We decided, after getting the bleeding under control, that we had two options. One was to carry her out of the site (about a mile, uphill, and then another mile to the road) where we would flag down a bus, go to the edge of town, transfer to another bus, and go to the hospital. That option would have most likely taken longer, and been much more taxing than the other which we evenutally decided upon. We decided to get her comfortable, wait the two hours until the truck was due back to get us, and then carry her the mile uphill. Heidi was a MAJOR trooper throughout. She was so brave--more brave than I would have been for sure. Clay and one of the other volunteers took their pants off and fashioned a stretcher. We all took turns carrying Heidi up the hill, and we finally made it to the truck.

We got her to the hospital. William stayed with her (his Spanish is far superior to mine), as did Zack, and I ran back to the house to get Heidi´s passport and insurance information. I was gone for maybe 20 minutes, and when Maggie and I arrived back at the emergency room, William, Heidi, Clay and Zack were sitting outside waiting for us! The hospital was fabulous. The doctors took her right in, numbed her up, cleaned out her wound, and gave her two stitches. And it cost not one cent!

I´ll let Heidi write another post from her perspective, but suffice it to say that she is a champion and we´re so proud of her. She´s hobbling around town, but otherwise just fine. In fact, we just found out that she acheived straight A´s for this past semester so today wasn´t all bad... go Heidi!

Sage Service Project 2011: Introductions...

2011-06-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

The Gist: Sagers Return to Bahía
Estamos en Bahía de Caraquez otra vez! For you laymen, that means we are in Bahía de Caraquez again. This is year four of Sage’s service project, planting, watering, and restoring Ecuador’s native tree population. This year we brought a group of rising juniors: Jonah Amargi-Levy, Jay Hopelain, Zack Tolpen, and Heidi Williams. Thus far, they have been troopers while traveling and assimilating into the Ecuadorian lifestyle. The OG boss tycoons, William and Jaime Heaps, brought along the field-hardened tutors: Ben Di Pardo, Lindsey Johnson, Kendall Olsen, and myself, Maggie “the magpie” Heaps. I need to get a tougher nickname…

Day One: Sweatiest Jetsetters Ever
Day one was a rough 24 hours. We left Mill Valley at 4 a.m. and made our way to Atlanta. From there we flew to Guayaquil Airport and then sat/slept/drooled for 5 hours in the bus station. At around 5 a.m., we departed for the last leg of our travels—a 6-hour bus ride to Bahía. By the time we schlepped our gear through the door, we were sweaty and exhausted to say the least. We spent the rest of the day setting up our new digs, mosquito nets, beds, kitchen accessories, etc. Going to bed that night I thought: mattresses on the floor never felt so good.

Day Two: Work Begins
Though the first night the kids dreamt of dancing machetes, the first day of work was by far the easiest. We cut plastic bottles for transplanting saplings, seeded guachepeli pods, and worked around the greenhouse. Machetes were nowhere to be found. The kids came back to the house confident and proud. This Ecuadorian business seemed to be cake…what sad, pathetic fools. That night they filled their naïve bellies with rotisserie chicken and patacones. Muy delicioso!

Day 3: Our Ridicule Doesn’t Phase Them Anymore
If the first day of work was cake, the second day was some evil rusty nail-filled eclair of hellish origin. In short, it was hard. Today we watered for the first time. In case you haven’t followed our blog in the past, watering entails hiking precarious cliff sides, toting gallons of water tied to deflated bicycle tires. If you’re a wuss you carry two, if you’re hardcore or French, you carry eight. Admittedly, the majority of the time I continued seeding guachapeli, but everyone else watered masterfully and left the site looking like an army of Rambos.

After work we all cleaned up and attended our first bioregionalism class taught by the one and only Ramoncito. A group of 40 middle schoolers meet twice a week and learn about the interrelationships among man, animal, and plant. We joined the fun, bumbled our way through Spanish, and somewhat faked learning of our own. Afterwards we played a game that involved running and attacking one another. I took pictures so I really didn’t understand what was happening. From the look of the pictures, neither did they.

-THE MAGGINATOR (?)

La casa verde con las bioregionalistas...

2010-06-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

Friday we rode in Chino’s truck pretty far South down the beach. We were dropped off in groups of two to collect plastic bottles that will be used to plant the saplings until they go into the ground in January. It was amazing to be on a beach so far from any civilization... but sad to see the effects of all the trash that we can produce. In all, the six of us volunteers collected 36 HUGE bags full of bottles. I’m not looking forward to cutting them all.

Friday afternoon we were back with the Bioregionalism classes for field trip day. We accompanied Margarita’s group to the green house to help them carefully transplant a bed of guachapelis into bottles. Orlando gave them a great lesson on everything that goes into planting trees, and then gave them very clear instructions on what they would be doing. They had to fill the bottles with the pre-mixed soil (dirt, compost, and sand), make a hole in the soil for the tree, carefully dig up the saplings from the seedbed, and then plant each tree in a bottle. All told, they transplanted about two hundred trees. We had fun working with such a great group of kids!

Miercoles...

2010-06-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

Wednesday we got a bit of a reprieve because of the US World Cup game. We had a fun day at the Planet Drum house, first watching England beat Slovenia, and then watching the United State take on Algeria. However, about halfway through the second half of our game, in typical Ecuador style, the power went out. Clay has a friend on the other side of town who still had power, so we took off running through the streets of Bahia to try to catch the end of the still-even game. When we were halfway there, the friend called back to say that he, too, had now lost power. We ran to several other locations to no avail, but then a kind woman in a random storefront found the game for us on her television. About two minutes after we sat down, the United States scored. It was awesome!

Wednesday afternoon William and I went to the Bioregionalism class with the local students. Three students who have been a part of the Bioregionalism class since the first year we came to Bahia are now assistants to the teachers of the classes. It’s cool to see them take on a leadership role, and we were glad to be able to spend some time with them. We taught a small group, in our best Spanish, about Estuaries and tried to impart on them the responsibility that each of them has to take care of their local environment. I think they got it.

Machete Work

2010-06-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

Tuesday and Thursday were spent doing machete work at several sites. While watering the trees is definitely the most physically taxing task, machete work can be a close second. On Tuesday, Orlando brought us to two sites. Both sites were in pretty good shape – not too many weeds, vines, or other trees impeding on our trees. William and I were impressed to see how large some of the newly planted trees were. It’s amazing how much the extra rain has helped the trees thrive this year. We covered the two sites in about three hours and headed home.

Thursday was a wholly different story. It was super sunny and very hot, with little breeze to cool us off. We headed out to the largest site, which has over 500 trees. This site was in need of some major clearing as the trees were literally being strangled by the vines and tall grasses. Even the paths along which the trees were planted were completely overgrown, so we had to machete through just to get from tree to tree. The pictures below will show you a little of what we were dealing with. In the first picture, if you look very closely, you can just make out a little blue stake. This is the indicator that there is, in fact, one of our trees in all that mess. The next pictures show some of my mad machete skills, and finally the tree that I saved from the jungle. Rinse and repeat several hundred times, and that was Thursday.

Some additional pictures from our Machete-ing days below...

Bienvenidos a Ecuador... 2010

2010-06-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Upon arriving to Bahia we weren't sure what to expect... The last time I had spoken to Clay, Planet Drum's Resident Director, he sounded as though he was in need of some volunteer help. Coupled with the fact that the foundation had just moved houses in Bahia, we were a little concerned about our Ecuadorian friends. However, we arrived to find a huge new house, vast numbers of volunteers, a new Planet Drum Employee (Orlando... he's incredible), a Bioregionalism Education program that has grown to nearly twice the size that is was in years past, and amazing reports about the state of the revegetation project. Needless to say, there was nothing to be worried about... Planet Drum's Eco-Ecuador projects were as sharp as ever.

So far this year, Planet Drum has planted over 3000 trees in and around Bahia. Many of these trees are ones that were germinated by last year's Sage thugs. As this year is an El Niño year, Bahia had an exceptional rainy season and the revegetation sites are seeing survival rates well above 90%. The trees all look very strong and have grown much faster than the trees that were planted in years past. The larger trees have more developed root systems to get through the dry spells, so we can expect an exceptional survival rate through the dry season as well. This is all good news for the trees!

The weekend before our first day of work, Bahia got some unexpected rain, thus eliminating our need to water. Jaime was very thankful for this, though there was still ample work to be done. We headed out to the greenhouse with our troop of Planet Drum amigos and fellow volunteers and got going on our various tasks. A good portion of the time was spent weeding the nursery beds and preparing 2 liter bottles for tree transplanting to come later this week. Nothing remarkable to mention in our first day, but we are happy to be getting into the swing of things.

Mindo (as described by Samwise)

2009-07-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

For the last three days, we spent our time in the small, cloud-forest town of Mindo. For an amazing start to our time in Mindo we caught a “cab” to the “hotel” (by cab I mean some random guy’s truck, and by hotel I mean a run down hostel with no cell phone reception.) Because of the state of the grimy Hotel Bambu, the whole group was a little bit confuzzled, but we soon discovered that there was not one, but two “Bambu’s” in Mindo—one being a hostel and one being cabanas. If you had seen the first one you would appreciate the difference a little bit more. For starters, this place looked like it was about to fall down and secondly, from what I heard, the bathroom looked like someone was recently killed in it. So after a nice awkward sit for some, and a hike into town to fetch another cab for others, we were off to our intended place of residence. When we finally arrived at the right place, it was dark and seemed a little scary, but it turned out to be, in my opinion, the best place we have stayed thus far. There was a nice combination of pool and ping pong to rest our tired, travel-worn minds.

After settling in for the night, we got up the next morning and were off for a high-flying adventure at the zip lines. Although I had been force fed zip lines on my previous trip to Costa Rica, it was a fantastic experience. The view from above got better and better as we climbed up the impressive mountainside. As we hiked to higher lines we were free to experiment with different variations of flying upside down or bouncing or some other cool and ingenious way of getting across the valley. Then as we reached the highest lines, we zoomed at astronomical speeds, and the forest blurred beneath our feet.

For the rest of the day we played many games of pool, pong, and cards (I also managed to finish Harry Potter, represent!) Just one day after our high-flying adventure we were off for another exciting activity: cliff-diving. When we got there, we saw a small, old man that I swear could talk to butterflies due to the lingering butterfly that seemed to live on his face. For our first plan of action, the boys all jumped off a small waterfall into some freezing cold water. After that, some of us, “the thugs,” decided to take it up a notch and we jumped off the ledge above the waterfall and truly plummeted into the water below. It was awesome.

After a few more hours of hiking and lollygagging around, we started back. So when we finally reached the entry to the park, we were more than ready to catch a cab back to the hostel, but apparently the gatekeeper lady had no money left on her phone (even though we had just seen her make a call) so we were forced to face the long trek home on foot. Luckily however, half-way down, we were met by a large dump truck that was more than happy to give us a ride. Despite our gratitude, traveling down a dirt road in the back of a dump truck meant being tossed around the back of a hard truck bed like ragdolls.

After another long night of cards and campfires, pong and pool we awoke to breakfast and a delightful shower, which was half cold, although everyone else insists it was good for them at the time. The third day was not as extreme as the previous days but was still a fantastic experience. We left the hostel after breakfast to go to see a beautiful array of butterflies and orchids. At the butterfly sanctuary, there were so many different butterfly species that everywhere you looked you were sure to be blown away by some new and cool looking thing.

As we exited the small butterfly garden, a woman walked up and informed us that entry was $6 a person. Though she had just seen John walk out, we still “decided” not to see the butterflies after all…The orchid trip was even thriftier however because nothing was in bloom, so we legitimately decided not to partake. But overall the trip to Mindo was personally the best place we have gone so far. The only thing I would recommend is to bring lots of bug spray.

-Sammy

Otavalo

2009-07-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

On Friday night we bussed it north to the small Andean market town of Otavalo. Otavalo has been an important trading post since pre-Inca times and the indigenous people are known for their world class weaving and craftsmanship. The big market day is Saturday and we wanted to be there early to avoid the busloads of tourists who would inevitably arrive from Quito.

We woke up at the crack of dawn to visit the animal market on the edge of town. The market included dogs, cats, pigs, guinea pigs, ducks, goats, turkeys and the national bird, the chicken. The conditions for the animals at the market were not ideal and I’m sure that PETA would have something to say about it, but all in all it could have been a lot worse. After the market we headed back into town to get shopping. The plan all along had been that we would do all of our souvenir and gift shopping at the Otavalo market, so we had been holding out on buying anything the whole trip and were ready to go. We broke off in to groups trying to cover as much ground as possible. When we reconvened we compared our wares and bragged about any deals we were able to make, of which there were many. Apparently Zak likes to shop, but I’m not sure he is the best haggler, although that probably says something good about his empathy for our Otavaleño hosts. In the afternoon we got out of town with our bags full of hammocks, sweaters and jewelry of all sorts. The trip was short but sweet, and well worth the visit.

Two Days in Tena

2009-07-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Tena in the late afternoon, settled into our hotel, Los Yutzos Dos, and were promptly directed to an Ecuadorian pizza joint called the Bella Selva (or the beautiful jungle). Though this place did not offer the best pizza we’ve ever had, it was by far the best pizza we’ve ever had in Ecuador, and thus the thugs were quite pleased.

After a quiet night of some much needed rest, we woke up, had breakfast, and head out for an all day rafting trip on the Jatunyacu River, a tributary to the mighty Amazon. Both Jaime and I, in all our dainty and demure glory, were a little hesitant when we were promised “big waves” due to high tide. The trip was classified as a 3+, and on a scale of 1-5, we had little idea what that meant, but big waves seemed to be pushing that + into ++ range or quite possibly a 4.

Once we were all geared up in snug blue life jackets and ever-chic helmets, we set out with our guide Victor, and four other rafts closely behind. The other rafters made up an eclectic group, some of which were older, fellow Californians, and more of which were snot-nosed, jerky teenagers of unknown origin. (Our snot-nosed, jerky teenagers were far more tolerable). Anyway, the water was freezing, of course, but aside from a couple of capsizing scares we all seemed to be enjoying ourselves. As you can imagine, the views of the Amazon rainforest were nothing short of spectacular.

About halfway downriver we stopped for a waterside lunch, and shortly thereafter were lead into an internal lagoon, wherein the guides painted our faces with a variety of natural, skin-soothing mud (or so they claimed).

The second half of the river was very much the same as the first, stunning view after stunning view. Our rowing coordination certainly improved, and we got a collective kick out of witnessing the other, lesser thugs, flip their raft… what lame-os.

The next day was less eventful (apparently rowing in unison takes a toll on your body, even for the young’ns) so we lounged around until our bus trip back to Quito. It was disappointing to leave the Amazon, but our time in it was undeniably unforgettable. All in all, the rafting was a great success, and we can all say that we’ve personally battled the infamous Amazon River, or at least a small piece of it.

Blogging Baños

2009-07-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday night, we said farewell to Bahía and boarded the night bus to Quito. We switched buses in Quito to head through the mountains down into Baños, arriving Sunday morning. Bleary-eyed, we stumbled into a café near our hotel for some breakfast. William, Zak and I were thrilled to see the Wimbledon final on telelvision in the café. We got to see the fifth set, which was awesome. We also all got to eat bacon, which we had all been craving for weeks. Mmmmm, bacon.

Baños is well known for its natural hot springs, so after breakfast half of the group headed off to the (apparently not-so) hot springs, while Spenser, John and I went to another of Baños’s attractions, a spa, to have massages. Apparently the hot springs were not only not hot, but filthy and overflowing with people, so William, Maggie, Zak and Sam didn’t end up staying for long. Sunday night we had an early dinner and turned in early.

Monday we got up and headed out. We rented some buggy/go-kart type things and took off on the Routa de las Cascadas. Our first stop along the route was at a bridge where people were doing bridge jumping. Our resident adrenalin junkie Zak headed up on to the bridge, ostensibly to check things out, and the next thing we knew he was strapping on the harness. Moments later, I watched with quite a bit of trepidation as our darling student, the life of whom with which we had been entrusted, jumped off of a perfectly good bridge into the gorge below. In typical Zak fashion, once was not enough, and he immediately ran up onto the bridge and did it again… backwards.

All seven of us, thankfully all in one piece, hit the road and continued on our way. We saw many beautiful waterfalls along the way. We finally arrived at our destination, The Pailón del Diablo, which is an amazingly beautiful waterfall. We hiked in about a mile, and ventured out onto the bridge to see the falls, which William and I had done last year. After that, on Spenser’s suggestion, we paid the dollar entry fee and hiked up a bit further. We were able to stand on platforms at the base of the powerful waterfall, which was amazing. We then shimmied through a small cave (I’m not sure how John and Sam, our two 6’2” guys, fit through the tiny crevice) and ended up, very wet, behind the waterfall. It was really fun!

Wet and chilly, we headed back to the buggies and made our way back to Baños. This time, Zak, my chauffer, and John found that they were able to make the buggies fish tail in the mud, which resulted in us all being covered in said mud (do we have a theme, here?). They had a great time, though, and it was worth it.

The whole time we had been hiking, William, Maggie and I had been trying to talk ourselves into jumping off the bridge on the way back. While I desperately wanted to do it, I was pretty certain I would never be able to bring myself to actually climb up on the railing and jump off the bridge. William and Maggie thought they could though, so when we arrived back at the bridge, William strapped on the harness and climbed up onto the railing. (William here… As a child when I would do stupid things with my friends, my mother would always ask me, if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? Well, apparentally the answer is no, though I think I might regret the decision until I find another bridge to jump off of. That, however, cannot be said for Maggie or John who also decided to take the plunge.)

Everyone still in one piece, we headed back to Baños, cleaned up in the blissfully hot showers (been a while since we had hot water) and spent the afternoon shopping and reading. We went to dinner, and, still not recovered from the overnight bus ride, again headed to bed early.

We’re heading out of Baños today, and going into the Amazon to the town of Tena. I’ve never been into the rainforest here, and I’m really looking forward to it!

D-d-dirty, Dirty

2009-07-04T16:33:00.000-07:00

This post will be short on words, and heavy on pictures, for reasons that should be apparent. As you might recall from last year, one of the field trips we took with the students in the bioregionalism class was to the mangroves in the middle of the river. I was particularly excited to take the thugs there, and kept the muddy adventure as secret as I could, since last year we embarked on the trip without even knowing that we would get wet, much less covered in mud.

As can be expected with teenage boys, things started off relatively mild, but quickly went down hill and we ended up much messier this year, but we had a great time. And now, some pictures:

What a Tangled Web We Weave

2009-07-04T16:31:00.000-07:00

Dario’s talk included the following action demanding stories that provide some insight as to the reasons that he believes local permaculture farming is so very important.

Allow me to explain this very convoluted paradigm that, if I am able to properly explain it, will have you fuming. Let’s start with farmer Jorge, a cattle farmer. Each year the number of cows in his herd grows as the birthing age for cows comes before the slaughtering age. Farmer Jorge needs more land for his larger herd, but much of it is forested. He then approaches campecino (poor worker) Raul and offers him the opportunity to grow a crop of corn on his land, provided that he clear the land of trees. Raul would happily jump at the opportunity, but lacks the start up funds for such an undertaking.

This is where things get ugly (er). Raul is approached by a branch of a large, multinational company (usually a subsidiary of Monsanto) and told that he will make $15 per 100 pounds of corn he can grow; plus today is his lucky day, he can use Monsanto’s seeds and pesticides in exchange for $800 worth of his product. Raul can grow 10,000 pounds of corn per hectare, so he will make $1500 if he plants corn on one hectare of Jorge’s land. Corn only takes four months to grow, so Raul thinks he has struck gold. As promised, the Monsanto subsidiary gives him the seeds and the pesticides to start his crops. He cuts down the trees on Jorge’s land, usually via slash and burn techniques, and plants the crop. Four months later, lo and behold, Monsanto tells poor Raul that the corn market is saturated, and corn is only going for $6 or $7 per 100 pounds, not the $15 he had been promised. Since Raul owes Monsanto $800 worth of product, but has only produced $600 or $700 worth, he is now indebted to his generous seed providers, and has to grow corn again the following year. To further compound his problems, when a piece of land is cleared via slash and burn, it is only viable for one growing season. Farmer Jorge gets his cattle some more room to graze, and Raul needs to move on to a new piece of forest. Thus, more land is cleared of trees, and the cycle continues.

The corporate profit arises when the corn is shipped to Mexico, Argentina, Chile, etc. where corn is out of season and Monsanto can sell it for that $15 per 100 pounds. They run the same scam on farmers from those countries when corn is out of season here in Ecuador, and you guessed it, charge the Ecuadorians $15 per 100 pounds. So, what is the net of this promiscuous little cycle we have? Every year more forest is cleared for a season of crops, every year another campecino is enslaved by Monsanto’s scam, and those of us lucky enough to receive the food that is produced by this system get to enjoy our pesticide ridden, cancer causing commodity.

Another quick example that Dario told us about surrounds my favorite Ecuadorian fruit, the maracuya (passion fruit). He told us that passion fruit sell for four cents a piece, or 20 cents per pound. That means that a farmer has to sell 2500 pounds of passion fruit to make $500. To grow 2500 pounds of passion fruit, a farmer needs at least 2 hectares, and has to plant using monoculture methods, which strips the land of its nutrients. Meanwhile, those passion fruit are exported and shipped thousands of miles to the United States, where they are sold to distributors, and then supermarkets, and finally to the consumer, for roughly $10/pound. All the money we pay does not go the farmer, but all of the middle men. Furthermore, we again are eating a substandard piece of fruit that has been grown at the expense of important ecosystems. Dario insists that if people could step outside of these corporate systems and return to locally grown food, the consumer could pay less for a better product and the producer could earn more for his product. This also means no more huge monocultures because the farmer could make as much money as he did before with far less plants. Maybe there is something to this whole slow food thing…

One last note: in perhaps my most rewarding moment of the trip, as we were walking away from Dario’s presentation, Spenser said something along the lines of, “That talk really opened my eyes. I really get it now.”

And that’s what it’s all about.

Down on the Farm

2009-07-04T16:17:00.000-07:00

Friday, instead of work, we took a trip to a nearby organic, permaculture farm called Rio Muchacho. We toured the farm, ate an awesome vegetarian lunch, and then sat and listened as Dario, the owner, explained to us some of the very real, very serious issues that Ecuador, and indeed the rest of the world, faces as a result of what he refers to as food trafficking, or the food mafia.

The farm was started 30 years ago by Dario, who recognized the impending desertification of this stretch of land just off of the Pacific Ocean. This micro-climate is unique, as it is where the El Nino and Humboldt currents meet, creating a transitional zone between dry and moist terrain. For this reason, the region contains a rich biological diversity only increasing the importance of protecting this fragile climate.

With this in mind, Rio Muchacho takes a sustainable approach to farming. They rotate their crops to ensure that they do not deplete the soil’s natural resources. They also have cows, pigs, horses, and guinea pigs, whose excrement is used as a source of excellent compost. On the farm, the workers and volunteers use composting toilets (William has finally, I think, convinced me that we can build one or two into our theoretical house someday without it being gross), as well as solar power, and many different grey water systems.

One of the more interesting systems they had, which I had never heard of, was what they referred to as the bio-digester. This was a fascinating contraption that consisted of a giant black rubber bladder. Into the bladder they fed pig excrement, which then sat for a period of time. Over time, the methane gas fills the bladder, Once it expands, they open nozzles that feed the methane gas into giant plastic bags, and then into tubes that feed into a holding tank. The gas is then burned to heat the shower water for the tourists who stay at the farm. The leftover…stuff… in the bladder is drained into tanks, and is excellent, albeit very powerful, fertilizer. They dilute it 10 to 1 with water and then spray it on the plants. Ok, that’s a lot of information about a very small part of our day, but I’m always amazed at eco friendly methods of doing pretty much anything, including, in this case, dealing with pig shit.

Another fun part of the tour was a walk to El Arbol Gigante, or the Giant Tree. It’s an enormous tree on the farm’s property that resembles a banyan tree. They call it matopalo, which roughly translates to stick-killer, because the tree takes over its surroundings and strangles other trees. Zak, William and John quickly set about climbing the tree. Zak got the highest and was quite pleased with himself. It was a fun time as I played photographer from the bottom.

After the tour and our amazing lunch, we sat down to talk with Dario. He explained to us in a very succinct and understandable way the problems that plague Ecuador surrounding the farming and food industry. The problems hurt the forests, the soil, the quality of the food, the farmers, the consumers (even those of us as far removed as the US), and just about everything in between. We’ll discuss the talk in a later post as it requires some explanation. -J

Haven´t You Always Wanted a Monkey?

2009-07-04T16:11:00.000-07:00

Quick post, just to show off Ramon’s adorable eight-month-old howler monkey, Pancha. Pancha came to class with Ramon on Wednesday, and then came over to the house for a little snack. Ramon is fostering Pancha, whose mother was killed by hunters six months ago. He will take care of her for the next 18 months until she is breeding age, and then he will attempt to find her a mate and release her into the wild.

She was utterly adorable and a big hit! -J

Breaking Groundbreaking Ground

2009-07-02T16:46:00.000-07:00

In the past year or so the Planet Drum Foundation purchased some 60 hectares (appx. 150 acres) of spiney dry tropical forrest near Bahia on which they plan to establish a Bioregional Sustainability Institute. They hope that proactive students will apply and use their land to study a wide array of ecologically relevant topics from sustainable building design and development to revegitation. For any student who is self-motivated and interested in doing something a little different, this is the opportunity of a lifetime.

Today we packed up a truck with bamboo and headed to the land with the idea that we would build a camping platform for future students. That being said, today´s work was the first attempt at breaking ground on the new land so it was not as easy as we thought it would be. When we arrived at the access road to the site, we found that it would need some work if the truck was going to aviod rolling off the side of the mountain. All smiles, the thugs broke out the pick-axe and shovels and got to work widening the road. Once we got the road ¨truck-worthy¨, we headed down the mountain to the site where we kicked back and had some much deserved comida.

After lunch Clay found a level area to lay down a campsite and half the team started clearing back the brush and digging post holes. The other half of us got to work cuting the bamboo and putting together the frame of the platform. Roughly 5 hours later the platform started looking right, but we were unable to finish the project because we had forgotten to bring a level. That being said, we got the difficult stuff out of the way, and Clay should have an easy time checking our work and filling in dirt around the posts. It was a fulfilling task and we are grateful to have been able to contribute in our small way to Planet Drum´s progressive Bioregional Sustainability Institute.

Living Off the Fat of the Land

2009-06-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

With our second week of work behind us the group had a solid weekend of activities planned. On Friday we made our way to Canoa, as promised, and spent the evening living the Canoa lifestyle. Relaxing on the beach was the first priority, but inevitably trees were climbed, cards were dealt, played and ruined, ping pong games were dominated by our resident Pete Sampras and we all basked in the relative luxury of Canoa’s own Hostal Bambu. On Saturday morning the thugs and I headed back to Bahia to get ready for Saturday night’s excursion to La Gorda.

La Gorda is the fondly named cabin owned by Ramon, a local high school chemistry teacher and Planet Drum bioregionalism guru. The cabin is located on a deserted section of beach roughly 20 minutes by car to the south of Bahia that can only be reached during low tide. Our party was joined by some of Planet Drum’s other volunteers, students from Ramon’s bioregionalism class, and Bahia’s native son… the one and only Cheo. (To those who know him nothing more need be said, and for those whom do not the words comedian, caretaker, teacher, vagabond and gorilla come to mind.) So we gathered some food together, rented a truck to drive us down the beach and headed off to the fat. After getting our things situated some took to the beach for a game of soccer while others of us went for a hike on the mountain. For better or worse I chose the mountain hike and after an unfortunate fall spent the rest of my weekend fishing some 73 cactus spines (and counting) out of my now infected hands. I think I broke a finger too, but honestly it pales in comparison to the cactus spines and I promise forgo all future laughs that would come at the expense of one Wile E. Coyote. I feel your pain brother.

Surrounded by vegetarians, vegetable pasta was prepared by candlelight and the group made short work of it, though John characteristically expressed a hankering for something more. As we sat in the darkness we sent bad vibes in the direction of our two female companions who, right about that time were sitting down to another fine meal in Canoa. Yes, they stayed in Canoa, and we all resented them for it. After bonding over our hatred of Jaime and Maggie, we set up a bon fire on the beach and I became John’s personal hero when I broke out some hotdogs for a late night fireside snack. A somewhat rough night’s sleep later, we started Sunday off with another, thankfully less eventful, hike down a dry riverbed where Ramon pointed out much of the local fauna and pre-Columbian artifacts to our ignorant eyes.

The final and most memorable activity happened to be Cheo’s forte. We waded out into the shallows of a rocky area offshore where at Cheo’s direction we found and collected as many oysters as we could get our hands on. The Gorilla then hammered the oysters away from their rock anchors, explained his culinary intentions, and we jumped on a truck back to Bahia. Back at the house our Ecuadorean teachers shucked and de-shelled the oysters, mixed them into a batch of lime juice, red onions and tomatoes and concocted the most delicious ceviche that I or any of us have ever tasted. The thugs were proud of their newly acquired foraging skills and declared the weekend to be yet another success. Five more days of work…

Hanging with the Boys

2009-06-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

I’ve always considered myself to be a guys’ girl. Growing up with two older brothers has taught me, if little else, to be tough, and so I’ve generally lived my life and directed my aspirations to somewhat coincide with a more masculine spectrum of behavior. All through high school, if I knew of a sport I likely played it. As a child, I ate worms with the best of them, and I don’t think sand in my bathing suit has ever brought me to tears. However, Ecuador has forced me to reflect on this persona I’ve seemingly cultured. If you had told me, a mere two years ago, that I would be dropped in the midst of Ecuadorian wildlife—fighting fruit bats, squishing cockroaches that could double as mobile coffee tables, avoiding scorpions and snakes with the use of a machete, eating fried pig feet—I would have laughed at you, and then gotten my nails done.

So today is day eleven in our Ecuador experiment. It started no different than the previous ten: twenty-five school bells chimed at 7 a.m., thirty minutes later the wise words of Jay-Z stirred us with our official wakeup call, eggs, pan de sal (the closest thing we have to a croissant), hiking boots on, and we were ready to go. However, just as we were sun-blocked up, bug-sprayed down, and heading out the door, Clay uncharacteristically met us on the porch—just behind him, a work truck overflowed with two vats of water, endless jugs, and the eerily cheery faces of our fellow volunteers atop the lot. As if we had any choice in the matter, we hopped on.

Though initially, our bumpy, unconventional transit evoked hayride-esque enthusiasm, after taking countless thorny branches to the face, the nostalgia of it quickly subsided, and we found ourselves at the daunting base of the steepest site encountered thus far. Clay promptly started siphoning water from the vats into our milk jugs. Once the frenzy of jugs and bike tires was full, and properly capped, I, along with our uber-enthusiastic crew, found myself weaving my way up the overgrown mountain—naturally, with machete in hand, sweat atop brow and betwixt boob. Yes, I said betwixt…and boob.

The day was long and hot, but successful. Not only did we all work on our most radiant of trucker tans, but the trees we were tending hadn’t been visited in a full year, and were understandably neglected and thirsty. By one o’clock, each of us had made several trips up and down the mountain (some more than others…holla Johnny) and the trees looked manicured and happy. Our ride back was equally bumpy, and we were more than ready for a plentiful lunch.

If I’ve learned one thing in my time in Ecuador, it’s this: when in a restaurant, ask questions. Aside from my standard Mexican restaurant vocab (carne, pollo, frijoles), I know very little of the intricacies of the Ecuadorian diet. Typically, we go into one of the dives along our street and order one of the two almuerzos (special a.k.a. cheap lunches). Today, we did just that, however as the waitress was slurring through our options, the only thing we really recognized was the word pork. I don’t know about you, but I have rarely come in contact with a pig part that I didn’t find delicious. Naturally, the group felt the same way, and we dove in headlong with our pork selection. What then arrived on our plates was somewhat of a fried mystery. We thought, maybe we hadn’t heard pork, but this thing is fried and when do bad things come in fried form. Our mystery was solved when another English-speaking eater changed his order from the one we were picking through, to the other, which was basically a cinnabon of mashed potatoes and tuna. “Pig feet,” he said, and people quickly stopped picking.

Once our collective horror subsided, we attended yet another eco class. Some of us learned about the Terrestrial ecosystem, while others of us collected drool in their laps. As always, the meeting ended with a game, and it basically went like this: blind-folded person in the middle, everyone else holding hands and rotating around that person, blindy yells stop, points to a random person, they have to say Buenos dias in a disguised voice, and the middle person has to guess who it is. After a few rounds, Sam was in the stew pot per se. Blind folded, we started rotating around him and then Ramon got all of us to walk away as Sam was yelling and pointing to no one. In writing it doesn’t sound as funny, but making an ass of Sam is not only easy, but hysterical.

After mountains, pig feet, and tomfoolery, we hosted a bar-b-que for all of the Planet Drum folk, and some of the eco class chicos. We had hamburgers and hot dogs, and if you looked really closely, you could see patriotic tears in the eyes of each one of our thugs. I have to admit, the ruffle potato chips had a similar effect on me. Ultimately, a good time was had by all—cards were played, hacks were sacked, and we even managed to satisfy our vegan friends with our very own patacones.

So, it’s been an interesting and enlightening ten days. My nails, once groomed and clean, now resemble the brightly painted, heavily chipped buildings that make up Bahia. I have embraced my outdoorsy side, and feel even more fit to hang with the guys. Lucky for me (and Jaime), I have another three weeks with five of them.

-Mags

A Canoa...

2009-06-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we took a small ferry boat across the river to Canoa for some beach time. I´m not sure if you recall our mention of Canoa last year, but it´s Jaime´s little piece of paradise in this otherwise rough terrain.

I think the thugs also enjoyed the many subtle ammenities that they are all missing while roughing it with us. It was such a good time that we had to promise to return next weekend.

So week one is under our belts. As I have said, work has gone well, we´ve battled and beaten our first bout with Montezuma, we´re all still in one piece and the thugs have had some well deserved R and R. As for next week... we´ll keep you posted...

Mr. Hayman´s Yesterday

2009-06-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was an interesting day in so many different ways. Our story started as a happy one. After work, at around three, we met up with some Ecuadorian students in a nearby park, and learned about the natural ecosystems and ecological set up of their country. We started by playing a “fun” name memorization game which was absolutely horrible, because not only could I not understand their names, but I didn’t understand anything they were saying, at all. Bottom line, Spencer, John and I each had to dance, one at a time, in the middle of a circle of kids chanting “Baila! Baila!” After that interesting experience, we split up in groups and started on a worksheet that was entirely in Spanish. For me, this wasn’t as difficult because I was blessed with Sophia, a bilingual woman from the U.S. However, as I scanned the area I noticed that John was in a group of four or five Ecuadorian girls (what a mac daddy) but anyway, I saw that they had somehow convinced him to participate and read the sheet aloud. Now, he is only a little bit better at Spanish than I am, which basically means that he can say close to nothing. All of the girls were laughing at him, which I thought was quite amusing. After answering all of the questions on the sheet, the groups got back together and we played a more physical game, also entirely in Spanish, but it’s ok, I scraped everyone.

Our story takes an interesting turn when on the way home we spotted a shady man, with no shirt, and a machete. Upon closer examination, we realized that he was yelling profanity at a house and was, what seemed to us, trying to kill the “puta” in the house. This was very interesting to me because, being from Mill Valley, I don’t exactly see people wielding machetes and trying to kill there ex- girlfriends or whoever. As you could probably expect, we didn’t stick around there for long, due to the danger of being decapitated by a crazy, shirtless Ecuadorian.

After work, class, and the machete man, we decided to eat at what seemed to be a fancy restaurant by Ecuadorian standards. The food was definitely good, but what unfolded at the house was definitely not good. We got home after an oversized dinner and proceeded to rest our over worked minds. At around four in the morning I was woken up by Spenser, claiming to hear some unusual noises. I realized that it was none other than John, extracting his dinner through his mouth. For those of our many readers who don’t catch my drift, he threw up. And as an ironic sequence of events unfolded, one by one, everyone in the house started feeling really sick. It started next with Zak, who yacked, and then finally got to my boy Spenser. Will, Jamie and Maggie were not feeling so hot either, making me the only lucky one who didn’t get sick. So when we woke up in the morning, I expected the worst and it was pretty close to it. I figured that John, Spenser, and Zak would not head off to work, but it turned out that the only people that headed off were William and myself. So naturally, after tending to the needs of our sickened companions, we headed off to a relatively simple day in which we just watered two smallish, but steep sites. After that, we went home expecting to have a chill day, but that is entirely impossible in a house of so much commotion.

After returning from the internet place, and talking to my beloved brother and sister, I noticed smoke in the upstairs of the house and realized that Will was attempting, pretty unsuccessfully, to extract the bats that have claimed the house as their own. After a good thirty minutes of loud noises, loud music, and a smoked out house, here I am explaining the fantastically fantastic last twelve hours. Gotta love it. Oh and if anyone is wondering, everyone is feeling a lot better, but they are all sleeping or relaxing somewhere around the house. YEEEEDER!!!

-Sammy

Smells Like Teen Spirit

2009-06-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

The past two days have been difficult but fulfilling. The guys have jumped right into the mix taking on watering as well as some of the duties at the greenhouse. In all honesty, they have been amazing. Today John, Zak, Spencer and myself spent the majority of out time watering one of Planet Drum’s bigger sites. As you can see from the pictures, the site is currently a corn field. Hillside planting is a major problem in Ecuador because trees are cleared to create the space. This practice leads to erosion and desertification. If that isn’t reason enough to reconsider the practice, the primary crop is corn which yields little sustenance for the amount of energy that goes into its production, requires pesticides and must be replanted year after year.

Jaime, Maggie and Sam joined some other Planet Drum volunteers mixing soil, and transplanting seedlings into plastic bottles where they will grow until they can be planted next rainy season. The trees that we are all working with include Guachapeli, Jaboncillo, Ceibo, Algorrobo and other native species. The Planet Drum Foundation makes a very prideful distinction when they say that we are ‘revegetating’ the once healthy hillsides. They use this word, rather than ‘reforesting’, as the latter is commonly used by oil companies, paper companies and the like when they attempt to justify their own suspect practices. Unfortunately, reforestation usually consists of monocultures of trees, planted to reach a quota. Planet Drum strives to revive diverse ecosystems in the hopes that they with thrive perpetually. The guys are taking in the big picture and also appear to have a sense of pride in their hands on role. We couldn´t be happier.

When the Thugs Cry

2009-06-14T15:25:00.000-07:00

After more than 24 hours of travel via 2 flights, 2 bus rides, and a short hike, we have arrived. Yes, our trip included being tested for Swine Flu and other possible diseases. Yes, our overnight bus of choice was cancelled due to today’s election. Yes, we negotiated hard and found our way on to another bus. Yes our hard negotiated bus trip included an unexpected change of buses in the capital ‘S’, Shady-McShady bus station in Puerto Viejo, and yes, the thugs got a little whiney along the way.

But enough complaining… we are here and we’re ready to roll. After our 7 am arrival, we spent the early morning hours getting our things in order and our new digs settled. Around noon we all downed our first bowls of chicken-part-soup and took to the beach to play soccer with some local kids. So far, I think everyone is in agreement that this summer project is going to be one to remember.

Sage Summer Project 2009 - Introductions

2009-06-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

Sage is again headed to Ecuador, this time with a new crew in tow and a renewed air of excitement. This year, Jaime and I are happy to be joined by Maggie (our third wheel and younger sis), as well as a gang of highly motivated thugs from Marin: Zak Bohegian, Sam Hayman, Spencer Labay and John Ott. The guys are all regulars around the office and should make a good team as we head out into the cuts of Bahia. If you don't sense our trepidation to take four teenagers abroad for a month it's only because I think they'd be able to smell the fear from a mile away. Never let thugs think they have the upper hand. Anyway, as I was saying, everyone is eagerly anticipating the trip. We are again joining the Planet Drum Foundation on their reforestation projects. Clay, Planet Drum's Ecuador point man, set us up in an amazing little house in downtown Bahia that will serve as a good home base and a place to relax after the morning work. I guess that's all you need to know for now. We'll keep the blog updated as best we can so you can follow the mayhem that is the Sage Summer Project 2009.

Final Impressions...

2008-07-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

As our time in Ecuador wraps up, I am left feeling both exhausted and extremely gratified. I am so glad that we had a hand in everything from cleaning up Bahia, to planting new trees, to watering over 2000 trees, to interacting with a very aware and inspiring group of teenagers.

I found myself feeling very deflated at times. Here we are, working our butts off, to plant and water a few thousand trees in this tiny little town that no one’s heard of in this tiny little country that few have heard of. Is it worth it? Are we really making any difference? But then, isn’t that always the argument? If everyone thought like that, we would have a very stagnate, very un-advanced culture capable of progressing very little.

As clichéd as it may sound, I keep finding myself thinking that if everyone just took the time to do something small, something on the ground, in the trenches, it would go SO far to solving the many challenges facing the world today. Believe me, I know that William and I are extremely lucky that we are in a position to take off for a month to go do something like this, and I don’t claim that we could achieve world peace, or end world hunger, but with just a little time and energy, we can all make a big difference.

-J

Black Sheep Inn

2008-07-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

During our last few days in Ecuador, William and I went to Quito, Chugchulan, and Banos, before finally making our way to the airport in Guayaquil to head home. Of particular interest to us during this trek was a little hostel in the mountains that William had stayed in (and come home raving about) during his semester abroad in Ecuador six years ago, called the Black Sheep Inn. This picture was taken from one of their composting toilets. I hope that gives you some idea of how amazing this place is.

From their website: “Black Sheep Inn aims to provide a comfortable, educational experience for guests, teaching them about the local area, local customs and Permaculture, while contributing to and improving the local community and the natural environment. Our goal is to be a leader in environmental stability and ecotourism."

We had a really amazing time here. Black Sheep is very off the beaten path. We took a four hour bus ride on windy, bumpy, dirt roads to get there, but it was very worth it. The surroundings are so beautiful and peaceful, and it was a perfect place to unwind. From their building practices, to the awesome vegetarian meals from their gardens, to the composting toilets, this place was a shining example of how green living can be just as luxurious and comfortable as a less sustainable lifestyle.

Some Final Reflections or A Solid Rant?

2008-07-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

Ecuador’s natural resources, as is the case with many undeveloped countries, have been exploited by both the industrialized world and the Ecuadorean people for too long. The short-sighted use of their resources has contributed to the vast poverty with which the nation struggles. That poverty is also contributing to further mismanagement of the country’s resources and therefore bolstering a tragically perpetual cycle. Having seen this paradigm first hand, Jaime and I were inspired by the very simple foresight practiced by the Planet Drum Foundation in Bahia.

In November of 1997, the el nino phenomenon caused substantial mudslides in and around Bahia de Caraquez leading to the deaths of 75 people as well as the displacement of an estimated 14,000 others. The rampant deforestation seen all over Ecuador and other Latin American countries, coupled with the ill-advised farming of steep mountainous terrain, seem likely contributors to the unfortunate ‘natural’ disaster. I think it is safe to say that the mudslides might have been prevented had the locals been living in harmony with their surroundings as Peter Berg’s (Founder of Planet Drum) bioregionalism promotes. Not to completely excuse the Ecuadorean people, but the perpetual cycle of poverty in Ecuador does not foster the foresight that was needed in this case. However, the Planet Drum Foundation’s efforts go a long way towards filling that gap.

In volunteering with the foundation, we were not completely aware of what we would be doing in Bahia and at first watering a bunch of trees didn’t seem as sexy a job as maybe we had hoped for. Upon further consideration however, we were able to see the many benefits that our work would have. Beyond the obvious boon that trees equal oxygen, the reforestation project serves as a bandage that will start to heal the damaged landscape and the roots of the trees will protect the people of Bahia from the dangers of another mudslide. Moreover, the maturing trees jutting up from a once clear-cut and barren slope serve as a reminder that it is now time to think about the consequences of our actions and have that very necessary foresight that might allow us as a species to endure.

It may be that I am over proselytizing the implications of our little summer activity, but as we spent time working with the children of Planet Drum’s bioregionalism class it was hard not think in terms of the big picture. Fortunately for us all, the afternoons with the kids always left us overcome by hope. The kids’ understanding of the environment, and their place in it, leaves them somewhat dumfounded by many of the things that the generations before them have been lulled into doing. I use the word lulled because the negative implications of the way many of us live are terribly obvious with a second of reflection. These kids see the big picture without any effort at all, but for whatever reason, we have been putting that second of reflection off for a very long time. It is that reflection that the Planet Drum Foundation offers the people of Bahia de Caraquez... reflection, understanding and action. It was an honor to play our small part.

Soya Hope...

2008-07-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we went to a rural community about 30 minutes outside of Bahia along with some of the Canadian volunteers. The community leader took us on a brief tour around the town, showing us the schools and a few other landmarks. This community plants organic soybeans, and makes many products from the soybeans, including yogurt, tofu, and “soy meat”. The people there obviously take much pride in their community, which is very inspiring.

We spent a few hours helping them transplant some mahogany saplings that they had been growing. As you can imagine, the mahogany tree is one of the most hunted trees, as its dark hard wood is very valuable. We planted about 100 saplings in the ground, and we planted about 200 seeds that would soon germinate and turn into even more saplings. We had a lot of help from two little boys who were very cute.

After working, we went into one of the farmers’ house where they had prepared us a lunch which, with the exception of the rice, had all been grown on the farm. We had a delicious pumpkin soup with cheese in it, and a soy meat cake (quite delicious, actually!) with rice and beans. We also had two kinds of juice from fruit grown on the farm... lime and passion fruit (my favorite!). It was a great experience to visit this inspiring town of people who really care about their surroundings, and have organized to help their entire community.

From Canada With Love

2008-07-07T12:56:00.000-07:00

This week we were joined in our work by three different groups of Canadian high school students volunteering with the Children of Ecuador Foundation. David Oldham and his sister Catherine founded the organization in the fall of 2004 and have made great strides by their support for the education of Bahia´s children. While in Bahia this past week, and in addition to their other projects, the volunteers generously donated many man hours to Planet Drum´s reforestation efforts.

The sheer man power of the group made this a very productive week for us. We really appreciated their help!

Our Creatures For a While

2008-07-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

The following is a photo essay of sorts, documenting the many living creatures that we´ve come across during our time in Ecuador. We are constantly amazed by all that we encounter.

This is a giant Ceibo tree. We plant these trees around Bahia, and when they´re small, they´re little more than a green stick with lots of red thorns (pretty cool to look at, but we both have many cuts on our hands from them!) This is what they look like around 100 years old, and they can live as long as 1000 years. We like the prehistoric look of them a lot. The coolest thing about them? During dry season, when they lose their leaves, they´re still able to photosynthesize the sun thanks to their green bark.

This is a tarantula that I thankfully spotted in our pile of compost as we were shovelling it into a bag into which we would later stick our hands. A little alarming!

Some chickens... bok bok

This is a tree that we came across in downtown Bahia one night. Its upside-down-hanging flowers open only at night when they are pollinated by the many fruit bats living in the tree. We´ll have to get back to you on the name of the tree, but we thought it was cool.

This is the biggest grasshopper either of us has ever seen. It was HUGE, and apparently is quite a common sight around the Planet Drum greenhouse. Scare me!

This is a frog in a hotel lobby. Ribbit.

An ant carrying a large leaf. Crazy, right? William thinks I´m silly for posting this... ¨American ants do that too.¨

This is a rice field (patty? paddie? pady? We can´t be expected to know everything) that we saw while visiting the countryside.

Hope you enjoyed! I´m sure there´s more to come.

Some Recent Additions

This guy was hanging around in the green house. When we started watering he tried to stay hidden, but after a while he decided that he clean enough and took off.

This picture was taken in the midst of a swarm (not sure if that is the right language) of butterflies. It doesn't really do it justice, but you get the idea.

Another Lizard... Lizzzzzzz! (???)

The mother of all moths... 'nuff said.

A Puerto Lopez...

2008-07-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

In using our time down here to the fullest, last weekend we decided to travel again. Saturday morning, we traveled South down the coast to a town called Puerto Lopez. We stayed in an amazing hostel there called Hosteria Mandala. A couple (Swiss and Italian) own this place, and have overlooked nothing. We even had a comfortable bed, and a clean bathroom, which was a total treat! These pictures are of their extensive gardens, which are meticulously kept.

On Sunday we got up early and took an hour and a half boat ride out to an island that is a national park called Isla de la Plata, which is commonly referred to as “The Poor Man’s Galapagos” due to the fact that it is home to much of the same wildlife as the Galapagos Islands. On our way out, we saw many humpback whales, as they travel north for the winter (remember, we’re in the Southern hemisphere!) mating season. It was really neat to see so many whales. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get any good pictures because the ocean was very choppy. This was the best we could do...

When we arrived at the Isla de la Plata we did a 5 km hike around the island. The weather wasn’t great, but we had some great views along the way. The highlight of the island was the blue-footed boobies, which were everywhere. They were really adorable. We also saw frigates in the throes of mating season, which is why the males show off their handsome red pouches under their chins, and some masked boobies who were sizing us up from the moment we arrived at their nesting area.

A little politics on the side... While we were touring the island, a discussion broke out on the state of Ecuador´s national parks.(It got very political, very quickly!) The island´s entrance fee of $15 (a sizable sum of money considering that the average meal costs no more than $2)is paid to the ministry of finance. Some of the money is then dispersed by that department to the ministry of tourism, who then disperses some of the money to the individual parks. This system is very unpopular amongst the population of Puerto Lopez and more specifically, its tour operators. While the redistribution of funds gets them flustered, it is the disappearance of that money as it moves through the perforated system that really gets them going. Even more disheartening is the lack of avenues by which the people of Puerto Lopez can try to redress their grievances. However, there is a buzz of hope in hearts of the people. This is a historic time in Ecuador´s history, as President Raphael Correa has prompted the nation to rewrite its Constitution. What is to come is obviously still unknown, but the people are on watch for the possibilty of a more inclusive and democratic design.

All in all it was a great trip with tons to see. I´ll save the stories about the broken down boat on the way back from the island for another day... DON´T WORRY... WE MADE IT TO LAND EVENTUALLY!

Bioregionalism Field-Trip

2008-07-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

We haven’t talked much yet about our work with the kids down here, so I thought I would dedicate this post to that. In addition to its reforestation efforts, Planet Drum has also started a bioregionalism class with local kids. The classes meet after school on Wednesdays and Fridays, and follow a curriculum under which the kids learn about different eco-systems and the life cycles and symbiotic relationships within each.

Bioregionalism has three principal objectives:

1. Restore natural systems and areas.

2. Use sustainable practices to satisfy the basic needs of people such as food, water, energy and housing.

3. Support the reestablishment of areas with native flora and fauna.

Once the kids have covered the basics of bioregionalism, they go into greater detail in the following areas: Land ecosystems, flora, soil, marine ecosystems, estuaries, and birds.

Wednesdays, the kids meet in a local park with a Planet Drum teacher to learn a piece of the curriculum, and then Fridays they go on a field trip of sorts that demonstrates what they learned that week. Well, last week was the estuary (where river meets ocean, so it’s a mixture of fresh and salt water) week, and so we went to the estuary here, and ventured out into a mangrove in the middle of the river. It was muddy. Really, really, really muddy. We jumped off the boat and were immediately up to our knees in mud. William took these pictures thinking this was as bad as it was going to get. Little did he know...

As we walked around the island, looking at different plants and animals, we got deeper and deeper into the mud.

At one point, as you can see, I was in mud up to my hips. I literally could not take a step, so one of the kids gestured to me to crawl, so crawl I did. It was quite an experience, to say the least, but we had a lot of fun. The kids are great, and are really knowledgeable about the environment, which is really heartening to see.

Growing Native...

2008-06-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

To give you an idea of the process of reforestation, I thought I would do a little write-up (with pictures!) explaining things from beginning to end, in terms of one particular tree, the algarrobo. The people of Planet Drum have done a lot of research, and know that these trees, among others, will thrive in this arid environment, and can live on the hills (they are STEEP!). They are also focused on planting only those trees which are native to the coast here, which is great. First, we go around town and collect seed pods from existing trees. We crack them open and then soak them for several days. We then go to the greenhouse, where we shell the pods to get to the individual seeds. The pods smell terrible after soaking for several days... a smell that stayed on our hands through a few showers! After we shell the seeds, we plant them at the greenhouse to allow them to germinate.

The soil is a mixture of compost, sand, and dirt. The sand is necessary because without it, the dirt would get too compacted, and would impede the roots. The picture to the right is of the germinated seeds after just one week(I know its not much, but its a start).

The sprouts are then transplanted into these three-liter bottles, which we spent the morning collecting around town. Some of them are quite disgusting, but it’s nice that we can both clean up the city and collect something useful all in one go.

The sprouts are kept in the bottles until rainy season begins again in January. They can get pretty large in the greenhouse while they’re waiting out dry season. Finally, the trees are transplanted once again to the various sites. Our job after that consists of continuing to add a compost mix to the bases of the trees, cutting away any impeding plants, weeding around the bases, and watering just as much and as often as we can (with gallon jugs also collected from around town)!

The Other Side of Things...

2008-06-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

For all those who might join us on future summer projects, please know that it is not all hard work. This weekend we relaxed in the beautiful beach town of Canoa. It was well worth the week of work, and we are hopeful that next weekend´s excursion will be just as fun.

We are also rewarded with this beautiful sunset each and every evening. So, its easy to look on the bright side of things down here.

That being said, we are back to the daily grind and without any electricity until 2:00pm every day. Again, I am hesitant to make things sound bad, but no electricity means no water, and well... that stinks.

SO ANYWAY, work has been good so far this week. We have continued cleaning up several planted sites with the help of some new volunteers. We´re keeping our spirits high and doing good things. For as much hard work it is, and as jarring as it can be to live down here, things are pretty good! We are both thoroughly enjoying the food, too, (minus the various animal parts, says Jaime) which is always a plus! As I said, look on the bright side.

End of Week One

2008-06-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

Week one is done! We have seen lots of Planet Drum´s revegetation sites around the city. They have done an amazing amount of planting and erosion prevention projects on the hills of Bahia and surrounding neighborhoods. We have been trying to keep pace with Clay as we work to maintain the sites that they have established, and germinate seeds for future sites. We´ll try to put together an explanation of how the process of getting a tree into the ground here actually goes from start to finish. This week has been a ton of work, but we have learned a lot and will have the next two days to recuperate and nurse our wounds (read bug-bites).

Here are a couple of pictures of the greenhouse where all the germination and cultivation of saplings takes place.

This is a picture of a street corner in the center of Bahia. Every night at six o´clock these birds settle on the wires here to sleep. The people say that they are migratory birds from California and that they come down to Bahia every summer.

These pictures might just sum up the past few days. Jaime has been a good sport, but when this picture was taken, I think she was basically a broken woman. Tired... Utterly filthy... and hitchhiking in a pickup truck back to town.

Its good to have a weekend... See you next week!

Some Pictures as Promised...

2008-06-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures. I hope that you find them somewhat enlightening as to what the heck we are doing down here. Also, I think Jaime wants / needs the accolades. She is totally out of her element.

In this one Jaime and Clay are breaking up Algarrobo seed pods that we will germinate and plant in the greenhouse sometime next week.

First day of watering... We had to fill these milk jugs repeadetly and carry the up the hill to the trees. I hope they are grateful, the trees that is.

Second day of watering... Notice the gatorade looking water... Delicious. We set up shop at a new site that needed a major overhaul, so we spent most of the morning clearing away vines and invasive species with machetes.

I ought to start carrying a sword around the office.

Hasta... Los Heaps.

Sage Summer Project 2008

2008-06-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, Jaime and I have traveled down to Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador for the first of our (hopefully) many summer service projects at Sage. The trip to Bahia was OK (read slow and bumpy) and we found our new castle with little trouble. So far it seems like we have our work cut out for us, but the people have been wonderful and patient while showing us the ropes. Today, along with Clay and Jaime (actually pronounced correctly), Jaime (Mrs. Heaps) and I carried numerous milk jugs filled with agua up onto the town hillside to water the many trees that Planet Drum volunteers have been planting all year long. It was an arduous task, but a necessary one for the good of the local community and the planet in general. I will try to post some pictures as soon as I can so you can get a better feel for what´s going on. I think I speak for us both when I say that there were times when I felt like the hills were going to kill me. Fortunately, we completed our task (just day 1 mind you) and our bodies will thank us in the long run for the needed exercise. We miss the office already, but we are proud of the steps that we have taken to give this volunteering thing a shot. We´ll keep the posts coming as frequently as possible.... Hasta Pronto!

How cool is Annie's?

2008-03-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

After filling the Annie's people in on the infamous scaling project, they sent us a package of delicious snacks to munch on. Our students are thrilled... thanks Bernie!

Annie's Shells & White Cheddar

2008-03-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago one of our staple students was given the assignment to scale any three-dimensional item up or down. This project proved to be a major event around the office. The subject of the misadventure would be a box of Annie's Shells & White Cheddar; delicious, and quite popular, as we have learned, among our many Marin students. After some deliberation, the student was talked DOWN from literally un-doable proportions to scaling the little box up by a factor of eight. It is safe to say, however, that even with the dramatic compromising... she won. Five days and untold man hours yielded the biggest box of Annie's Shells & White Cheddar ever.

A good friend of ours respectfully noted... "I love that some school project out there was satisfactorily completed by making a gigantic macaroni box." We will readily admit that after the math part was done, the artistic side was very time consuming. Putting the merits of the assignment aside, the whole office is proud of our accomplishment. We hope Bernie likes it too.