Hostal Macondo!!!!!!

I borrowed a friend's camara to take these minus the family photo, taken by a guy at the hostel.

I'm going to miss the Hostal Macondo soooo much! It is the most amazing hostel ever, I feel like I have been living in luxury and only $12 a night. So worth it to not go to the $4 places for writing ISP and going crazy. 

I'm almost done and just need to watch the documentary another dozen times watching for transitions and bad sound timing - the music keeps moving around and starting in the middle of interview and sometimes the voices go all Kung-fu movie, out of sync with mouths. I really think it was tons harder to do the documentary than writing the paper. I had to write a paper, too, and I thought it would be tough since my Spanish still isn't perfect, of course, but it wasn't bad at all and my advisor really liked it. (She kept punching the air and say "si! si!")

This is my first paragraph:

En este época de crisis económica cuando parece que el mundo capitalita esta en proceso de cambio y la gente le echa la culpa a los bancos, todavía hay unas comunidades trabajando para tener un sistema bancaria local y justo. Hoy el sistema de micro-finanzas es conocido en todo el mundo, especialmente como un sistema designado para comunidades de países en desarrollo. En el Ecuador este modelo se está haciendo más popular recién en las comunidades rurales de la sierra. Julián Hautier, quien trabajaba con una organización de micro-finanzas en Loja, Ecuador, escribió, “El tema de micro-finanzas (o finanzas populares) es relativamente nuevo en el Ecuador, uno de los países de América Latina más atrasado en disponibilidad de servicios financieros orientados a personas de bajos recursos económicos.”[1] Con la adición de unos artículos pertinentes en la nueva constitución, la situación y capacidad de organización está creciendo.[2] Parece que el sistema de micro-finanzas tendrá más y más influencia e importancia en los años que vienen.

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[1] Julien Hautier. Finanzas Locales y Desarrollo Rural: Experiencias del GSFEPP en la Region Sur del Ecuador (Loja: Cooperante CID – GSFEPP, 2005): 14.

[2] La Constitucion.

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AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Cuenca, ISP Madness

We've all been just staying in the hostel all the day, only leaving for five minute snack runs and lunch break, frantically writing ISPs. Mine's going pretty slow but okay, I think. I have to have a written component and then I'm doing the documentary, so it's hard to balance the two, but I'm glad I'm doing it. I just would REALLY like to hang out in Cuenca since I love it and its amazing. I need to get some pictures soon. The picture above is where I am right now and where I've been for the past 50+ hours more or less.

Only 8 days before I go home! That's so crazy, I can't believe it! 

Principal on YouTube!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OcFFpxF0Mk

Watch this!!!! Someone made a couple years ago this in the village I was in!!! I met a few of these women, too. 

Cool picture of Cuenca

I think you have to click on it to see the whole thing, it's a panorama I found on a website.

Back in Cuenca

I am back in Cuenca now where there is internet and cell phone service! I feel like I was in the village for ages but it was only 11 days, which is nothing. I could have spent a lot more time there since I was feeling so much more comfortable towards the end and people were getting really friendly. Some people told me towards the end that they had thought I was replacing the Peace Corps volunteer there and they were sad I wasn't staying to help. They kept asking when I would come back. The last couple days Jessie and I made lunch with two different ladies, and the second one especially was really cool. They made an effort to show us typical food. In my last half hour I stopped by the ladies roasting cuy (guinea pig) over a fire for the fiesta later on that night

, and they asked me if I'd tried it yet and gave me a big plate with some when I told them I hadn't, even though I had just eaten a huge lunch. It wasn't incredibly tasty, but it was cool to eat it right next to the ladies making it. It was sad to say goodbye to my favorite old lady, Justina. 

Jessie (she visited Friday and we left Saturday) and I got back to Cuenca around 6:00 and there were lots of SIT kids at the hostel since its ISP writing week and a few people came to join us at the awesome hostel. So yesterday night we 

all went out to dinner at a really good Mexican restaurant and then went out for a little. Today I got up at 7:30 and got ready and went out to go get a newspaper and read in the main square for a couple hours. It's beautiful, right in front of the New Cathedral, which is soooo amazing. Jessie and I went to go buy some flowers, and I got three huge sunflowers for a dollar fifty to put in my room. My room is really cute and cozy since it's the smallest in the hostel. We went market shopping for lunch and I made Amanda and I really good quesadillas. Later we went to the huge city market with everything under the sun and bought more fresh food to cook over the next couple days. I bought a lot of bowtie pasta since its so cheap, plantains, broccoli, green beans, garlic and honey. There's another market close so I'll probably be doin

g most of my shopping there. It's great to be able to cook here and share the food. Tonight I'm going to go with Jessie to the home for abandoned youth to cook pizza for them for dinner.

Here's a link to a site with our hostel. I don't think it has its own page. http://www.hostels.com/hostels/cuenca/hostal-macondo/4620

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294309-d315501-Reviews-Hostal_Macondo-Cuenca.html

Oh also, the pictures on this one are just random from the internet since I still can't use my digital camera. 

Friday, May 1, 2009

Today was my last full day here, which is pretty sad since I’ve really gotten attached to the town. I’ve only had a week and a half here, I’d have liked to have had more time. It’s a really interesting place in lots of way. They have more community organizations than most anywhere – they have a women’s cooperative with a garden and a communal bank, there’s an artesian group that sells the paja toquilla work at markets, the cooperative that I worked with that’s kind of a local banking system that specializes in small-scale loans, and there’s the local government, and I never found out much about them but there are church things and a potable water committee. Migration is a really big deal here and the town is mostly women by a lot since so many of the men have left – actually most of them went to Danbury, Connecticut, and nobody’s sure exactly why except that’s where other people from Principal went first. The Peace Corps has been here for eight years, so that’s an interesting example of how the Peace Corps works in a place like this – a good example I heard was one of the first volunteers taught them how to make apple pie since this is such a great apple growing place. They’ve been trying to promote themselves as a tourist destination, without much success so far, but they’ve been working on defining trails and adding signage and promotion with tours. A mining company has been wanting to mine here and the community’s been resisting it since a mining company has been working at a nearby town and has ruined their river, their water supply. They are very into natural farming, but it’s more because they don’t have much use for pesticides than any yuppie organic thing.

Jessie came to visit today and we went to cook lunch with a family. We were there for about four hours. The actual lunch was just potatoes and rice and lettuce with a good dessert of apples cored and filled with suger and butter and roasted, but then later I came other for dinner and the soup was ready. That was with mote, beans, and a peanut broth. The mother had just came back from the Oriente, where the jungle is, and brought back a lot of fruit, so they gave me some really good oranges. 

Thursday, April 30, 2009

I’m getting down to my last days, and Jessie (from the SIT group) is coming to visit tomorrow so today was my last day solita in Principal. I still have a lot to do tomorrow and I set up two cooking things for Jessie since she’s making a cookbook so we’re going to make lunch with two ladies Friday and Saturday and hopefully they’ll make traditional things. The lady on Saturday, Señora Cecilia, is supposed to be the best cook in town. Jessie’s making a cookbook of Ecuadorian recipes from Ecuadorian women and including their personal histories for her independent study project. I’ll finally get some real meals, which will be really nice since I’m starting to get my appetite back. I probably still have a parasite, but its not bothering me so much anymore. I just want to eat a lot of chocolate and potato chips.

I’ve been having really good days, especially since I finally met the Peace Corps volunteer here, Anna. With her I’ve been able to see a lot more since they see me as her friend rather than a random American girl with a camcorder. Today the ladies were making chicha (a traditional corn-based alcoholic drink with apples) in huge witch cauldrons since there’s a fiesta this Saturday night, after I leave. It was really cool to see – they just have the cauldrons over an open fire and throw in all these apples and corn stuff and cane sugar and whole plants for seasoning. They stand around it, stirring with big beams, and the smoke goes everywhere. They gave me some to try when it was ready, and it was pretty good, really chunky since they hadn’t strained it yet. It has to stand around for a few days to ferment before it becomes alcoholic.

Today a few people have asked me about the swine flu, and I hardly know anything about it yet. I understand it’s a big deal, but I’ve been here in Principal without television, internet or newspapers, so I’m in the dark. I played with these two girls I met on the street for about two hours tonight, and they were nine and eight and had already heard about the flu, but all they really knew was that it scared them. Evidently sometime yesterday they reported a suspected case in Guayaquil, the biggest city, and that’s only about four hours away from here. I don’t think I’m much more likely to get it here than in the States though so it’s not something I think I should worry about.

I’ve been hanging out on this old lady’s porch a lot. Her name’s Justina and she’s “more than eighty” and she’s lived here all her life and almost never leaves. She’s always on her porch weaving a hat or getting the pajas (the straw things) ready, so I can usually count on her being there if I don’t have anything else to do. She says everything with the diminutive, it’s really cute (like manzana – apple – would be manzanita, casa – casita, pequeña – pequeñito, etc.). It’s actually apple season here and Principal is a big apple producer, and I’ve been given so many apples by random people, it’s amazing. Usually it’s just one or two but I’ve also got to pick some and bring back a bag. They are all natural – they never use pesticides or anything here. The farming here is really interesting. Most people live in “town” and walk out to their farms everyday and some of them are pretty far away, way down the valley. Most people have cows. I’ve been walking a lot on their paths (they mostly just use footpaths since they walk everywhere, but there are gravel/dirt roads in town for cars), and they are always amusing that I’m just walking. They always ask where I’m going.

Tomorrow I have to do everything I haven’t gotten around to yet, like filming a tour of the town and making sure I have clips of people saying the basic facts about the cooperativa since I obviously learned most things just talking to them without the camcorder. I also have one of the lunches set up for tomorrow, and Jessie should be coming around 10:30. She’ll stay in the hostel with me.

By the way, Mommy and Daddy, I saw a map today that had Principal on it, so you might be able to find it on a map if it’s a detailed on of Ecuador or of just this country, Azuay. It’s a little southeast of Cuenca. Find Cuenca and then Chordaleg and follow that road a little further. 

From Principal: Saturday, April 25, 2009

Today was my fourth full day in my village, and I left for the first time for a couple hours. I visited Chordaleg, where they make silver and gold jewelry. This morning I went to a cooperativa meeting about how to govern a cooperative and legal things they have to know. They prepared lunch for everyone, so that was the first real meal in four days, which was nice. I’ve been eating stuff from the little shops like bread and potato chips. A couple days ago I made marmalade with the cooperativa and got to bring some home, so I’ve been having a lot of bread and jam. It’s blackberry-apple and they had to make it really sweet to satisfy the sanitary certification people for a reason nobody understands. It’s very very pretty here even if I’ve been kind of moody and really exhausted. Yesterday after lunch (bread and jam) I walked down to the river and got out on a rock and read for a while. 

From Principal: Wednesday, April 22, 2009

I’m going back to writing entries on my computer, putting them on my jumpdrive, and posting them when I can get to internet.

I decided to spend the next week and a half in a little town to make a documentary on their micro-credit organization (cooperativa), so I’m staying here in Principal, close to Sigsig and about an hour and a half from Cuenca. It’s really small and gorgeous, right under an inactive volcano called Fasayñan. It actually has a hostel since there are some awesome hiking trails around, so I’m staying in the hostel – it’s called Hostal Anabel. I was looking at some hiking info and they look amazing, some are to mountain lakes and to the top of the volcano, I’m definitely going to try and do as many as I can. Some are overnight hikes, so I can only do those if I can borrow a tent and sleeping bag, and I have to hire a guide or it’s not allowed. The hostel is empty besides me, which is perfect for me for now, and it will be fun if some other guests come. Evidently there’s been an American Peace Corps volunteer living here for the past two years, so I’m going to try to find her soon.

When I first decided to move from Cuenca I was really excited since it seemed like such a good idea for my project and the place is incredibly beautiful but then yesterday I was kind of depressed about it. Cuenca is amazing and it’s a lot of fun to be with the other students from my group working there. There are five of us in Cuenca, so we met up almost every day. Three of them are living in an amazing colonial mansion hostel for $10 a night, with indoor and outdoor courtyards and wireless and a kitchen, right in the colonial center, called Hostal Macondo. I’m going to live there with them for the last week while I’m editing the documentary and writing, which I’m very very excited about.

Anyway, once I got here last night I got pretty excited again, but it’s still kind of hard to imagine how this will work. I went to the cooperative this morning at 8:00, like I thought I was supposed to, but they told me this woman I’m meant to talk to wasn’t there yet so I should come back at 11:00. I’m still a little confused whether they’ve ever had a foreigner working with them before - I’ve heard they have a while ago, a European student collecting information for a thesis. And I’m worried about becoming a nuisance rather than any help, so I’m going to be very careful about that. I hope I can start filming soon, but I want to make sure everybody’s cool with it first.

By the way, I can’t find my camera battery charger so no pictures for a while. I’m pretty sure I just left it in my Quito room somehow, but that was pretty stupid. So I bought a $22 Kodak automatic camera with film!!!!! I was going to just get a few disposables but this will be cheaper overall and I’ve always liked film more, even though I know digital makes a lot more sense. I hope it works all right, we’ll see. I can develop them in Cuenca and scan them when I get home.

Also, I don’t get cell-phone reception here, which tells you how remote this is since everywhere in Ecuador has cell-phone reception since everyone has cell-phones. I think there is a phone booth place that I can call from. I’m pretty sure there are no internet cafes here, but I can take a bus to the nearest town (about 45 minutes) every once in a while. The church here has a loudspeaker on it, and it seems like they communicate with the town with it, so who needs cell-phones or internet?