We turned our gaze
From the castles in the distance
Eyes cast down
On the path of least resistance
It has been 3 weeks since I have moved to the Amazon Basin in Ecuador. This is the beginning of my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Currently, I am living with a family on a 500-acre farm that butts up against virgin rainforest. The terrain is rugged and hilly with a mix if native forest and farms.
Chainsaws can often be heard as landowners chop down trees for sale, or to make way for cattle grazing, which are the two main contributors to destruction of the Amazon rainforest in this part of the world.
The family I live with has about 60 heads of cattle, 50 chickens, ducks, geese, guinea pigs (yes, Ecuadorians eat guinea pigs as a delicacy), two fish ponds, four horses and three dogs.
The house is primitive by U.S. standards. Yes, there is electricity, but it often gets cut off for whatever reason. Yes, there is running water, but not in the house. There is an outdoor shower and an outdoor, multi-purpose spicket. When it rains, the water tank at the top of the hill gets filled with silt and leaves, so the water gets cut off quite a lot.
The bathroom is disgusting. Itīs a wooden shack and thereīs not even a hole in the ground. All the shit just falls into a shallow trench, and then when it rains it sort of gets washed into the river. Everytime I take a dump, all the chickens come running over to peck away at my feces, which is actually quite funny to see when you're ass is hanging above those chickens and they're clucking away contentedly as they devour your poop.
The food here is interesting. Rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, rice for dinner. I canīt wait to live in my own place so I can cook for myself.
It is a poor community consisting of 150 inhabitants, who are mostly Shuar and Saraguro indigenous peoples. Most farms, most graze cattle, and most log the rainforest. Thatīs what they live from. Without logging and cattle, theyīd have no way to buy their daily necessities.
As a Peace Corps volunteer, I hope to steer them away from reckless deforestation and cattle ranching. I plan to establish tree nurseries as part of a wider reforestation effort, and I also hope to help them find alternative sources of income, so that they do not have to depend on cattle ranching in this delicate ecosystem.
I have already ventured into the rainforest several times. The family Iīm staying with owns about 150 acres of rainforest, so I went in there recently to collect seeds for the tree nursery. Itīs not like the rainforest one would imagine, since it doesnīt get very hot and humid here (I'm about 1000 feet above sea level). Plus, there arenīt a whole lot of animals here since logging activities tend to scare them off.
Nevetheless, I have seen an incredible variety of trees and plants, as well as birds of all kinds.
In addition to my natural resource conservation efforts, I plan to give family planning classes, nutrition, and advice on how to start small businesses.
Iīll keep you posted.
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