All the time we spent in Esmeraldas we practically were talking: talking with the nun, the kids, missioners, boat driver.
I wanted to write down some points of the two most interesting conversation we had in Santa Maria with the nun from Costa Rica and the locl guy (whose name unfortunately I do not remember.
The Nun
not sure whether she was a nun or just missioner, but she called her collegues 'sisters'. However, she was wearing jeans and, apart from the cross on her chest, nothing would tell she works for Catolic church.
She came to Ecuador first time almost 20 years ago, when she was young missioner. She moved a lot with her work (they can ask for transfer), so spent some time in Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, India and UK (learning English). Now for the last 6 years she lives in Santa Maria working as English teacher. Her collegues (there ae 5 of them in total) are from all over the world: Mexico, Portugal, Spain. They are involved in various areas of community life: working in the hospital, visiting other communities.
She says that within these years that she saw Ecuador changing, Life here change a great deal: from one hand, it became better: schools and hospital are being built, in Santa Maria, for example, an agricultural colledge teaches kids to be an agronoms. From the other side, the river is being polluted, so fish is not edible, but it is the main source of nutrition for the communities; forest disappears, people, although being educated, cannot really apply their knowledge to produce more/better vegetables; very few of them can move on from the community.
Food supply is one of the major problems in this area: there are no roads, so all supplies are delivered by river, which is expensive. There is no drinking water, so in some houses there are tanks that collect rain water and then filters are used to purify it. Local diet is rice and platanos, fish from the river (although it is polluted).
Our couch in Esmeraldas was saying that the coast is generally poorer than sierra, mostly because people are lazy and they are not interested in cultivating different type of products, rather then platano and yuca when people in la sierra are more flexible). Also normal life cycle of local products is longer: if one can gather 2 harvests a year in sierra, cacao, for example, needs -3 years before it starts prodcing fruits. This is also a reason, why on the coast people eat less vegetables: they do not grow them, the ones brought from la sierra are expensive.
In my opinion, developing argriculture in this region is not an option: agriculture requires land, land is covered in the forest. Agicultural Development would cause deforestation. This is a vicious circle really.
The nun also could not offer a decision for the poverty problem in the area.
While we were walking around the village, local girl caught us up and started asking questions. She said that she do not speak English well, but her brother does and she would like to practice. So she promised to come by after dinner and bring us some coconuts. This is how we met our second source of the information. 'The local guy whose name I do not remember' was her brother
He graduated from the agricultural colledge in the village and then studied reforestation in Esmeraldas, worked a lot on the coast in the bar waiting tourists and traveled around the country. Now he is back due to some family issues.
In the village mainly is populated by Afro-Ecuadorians, but there is also a small community of local tribe called Chachi. The guy is from mixed family: his mother is Afro, his father is Chachi, he has 10 brothers and sisters (from what we understand, on his father side). Hos father lives with another woman now (from what I understood, his mother has died). His family was one of the first mixed families in the village, so they had quite a lot of problem with discrimination from both sides. Now this is not an issue.
In general, the guy was asking a lot about racism in other places of the world. People in la sierra, he says, discriminate Afro population a lot. From the other side, our couch was telling us that they are also treated differently on the coast: they are considered to have more money, so they usually get different prices on the market.
Living in the community is easy: to build a house takes a couple of days - all village would come and help you, they work (mainly on wood cutting plants) until midday, play football afterwards, dance salsa in the neighbourghood village in the disco. People start early to have kids and families are big: 10 kids is a norm. We have seen so many of them in the coast! (Well, in la sierra tambien).
Nevertheless, the guy wants out. He is considering going to Scotland (no idea why), but I am afraid I put him down a little bit. His big family lives all over Ecuador: his sister lives in Esmeraldas, brother studies in Quito.
To be honest, I was surprised to meet such an intelligent and quiet man in such a remote place. Seeing this type of things makes me angry: there are so many smart, talented people around, but they cannot use their potential as they do not have opportunity to study, to show themselves, to get out of their way of living. Of course, they are not always want to get out, but the one who does still are not able to do it. In Ecuador even now most of the people of the middle class are from Spanish or mixed origin. It applies to all Andean countiries, even Bolivia with their indigenous president. Conquest continues.
The Nun
not sure whether she was a nun or just missioner, but she called her collegues 'sisters'. However, she was wearing jeans and, apart from the cross on her chest, nothing would tell she works for Catolic church.
She came to Ecuador first time almost 20 years ago, when she was young missioner. She moved a lot with her work (they can ask for transfer), so spent some time in Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, India and UK (learning English). Now for the last 6 years she lives in Santa Maria working as English teacher. Her collegues (there ae 5 of them in total) are from all over the world: Mexico, Portugal, Spain. They are involved in various areas of community life: working in the hospital, visiting other communities.
She says that within these years that she saw Ecuador changing, Life here change a great deal: from one hand, it became better: schools and hospital are being built, in Santa Maria, for example, an agricultural colledge teaches kids to be an agronoms. From the other side, the river is being polluted, so fish is not edible, but it is the main source of nutrition for the communities; forest disappears, people, although being educated, cannot really apply their knowledge to produce more/better vegetables; very few of them can move on from the community.
Food supply is one of the major problems in this area: there are no roads, so all supplies are delivered by river, which is expensive. There is no drinking water, so in some houses there are tanks that collect rain water and then filters are used to purify it. Local diet is rice and platanos, fish from the river (although it is polluted).
Our couch in Esmeraldas was saying that the coast is generally poorer than sierra, mostly because people are lazy and they are not interested in cultivating different type of products, rather then platano and yuca when people in la sierra are more flexible). Also normal life cycle of local products is longer: if one can gather 2 harvests a year in sierra, cacao, for example, needs -3 years before it starts prodcing fruits. This is also a reason, why on the coast people eat less vegetables: they do not grow them, the ones brought from la sierra are expensive.
In my opinion, developing argriculture in this region is not an option: agriculture requires land, land is covered in the forest. Agicultural Development would cause deforestation. This is a vicious circle really.
The nun also could not offer a decision for the poverty problem in the area.
While we were walking around the village, local girl caught us up and started asking questions. She said that she do not speak English well, but her brother does and she would like to practice. So she promised to come by after dinner and bring us some coconuts. This is how we met our second source of the information. 'The local guy whose name I do not remember' was her brother
He graduated from the agricultural colledge in the village and then studied reforestation in Esmeraldas, worked a lot on the coast in the bar waiting tourists and traveled around the country. Now he is back due to some family issues.
In the village mainly is populated by Afro-Ecuadorians, but there is also a small community of local tribe called Chachi. The guy is from mixed family: his mother is Afro, his father is Chachi, he has 10 brothers and sisters (from what we understand, on his father side). Hos father lives with another woman now (from what I understood, his mother has died). His family was one of the first mixed families in the village, so they had quite a lot of problem with discrimination from both sides. Now this is not an issue.
In general, the guy was asking a lot about racism in other places of the world. People in la sierra, he says, discriminate Afro population a lot. From the other side, our couch was telling us that they are also treated differently on the coast: they are considered to have more money, so they usually get different prices on the market.
Living in the community is easy: to build a house takes a couple of days - all village would come and help you, they work (mainly on wood cutting plants) until midday, play football afterwards, dance salsa in the neighbourghood village in the disco. People start early to have kids and families are big: 10 kids is a norm. We have seen so many of them in the coast! (Well, in la sierra tambien).
Nevertheless, the guy wants out. He is considering going to Scotland (no idea why), but I am afraid I put him down a little bit. His big family lives all over Ecuador: his sister lives in Esmeraldas, brother studies in Quito.
To be honest, I was surprised to meet such an intelligent and quiet man in such a remote place. Seeing this type of things makes me angry: there are so many smart, talented people around, but they cannot use their potential as they do not have opportunity to study, to show themselves, to get out of their way of living. Of course, they are not always want to get out, but the one who does still are not able to do it. In Ecuador even now most of the people of the middle class are from Spanish or mixed origin. It applies to all Andean countiries, even Bolivia with their indigenous president. Conquest continues.
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