“en grupo somos fuertes; solitos, no somos nada.”

(in group, we are strong; alone, we are nothing.) these words were spoken to me by alberto androngo, the first indigenous teacher in ecuador and national director of bilingual education, as well as leader of the bilingual education movement and leader/participant in several indigenous activist groups. this weekend, during my service/field research in turoco i had the privilege to interview this man who exudes wisdom, who has the most interesting eyes i’ve ever seen, with a weathered face and a thinning braid characteristic of the indigenous men here. we talked theology of liberation, bilingual education, migration and identity. i could have spent hours with him. but he did ask trudie and i to come back in 2 weeks to give his grandkids an english lesson, so i’m sure i’ll have the opportunity.

this was, by far, the highlight of my very beautiful weekend, but other highlights included:
*making halloween masks with the older kids (sharing a bit of cultura estadounidense) and seeing their amazing creations, hearing them say “trick-or-treat!”

*playing the old arteaga games with the kids during recess, including “a la catonga” and “pata, alita, picito..” and learning some new ones, like “agua de limón”

*making over 100 rolls and other forms of bread with maurita’s family for el día de los difuntos (all soul’s day aka the day of the dead)

*walking all over rural ecuador with raul, trudie, and erin, absorbing the beauty of the volcano tayta imbaburra and raul’s gran cantidad of knowledge…learning about the kichwa women’s lives have been changed by microenterprise, how important mingas (community shared work) is to the social and physical development of the community, about kichwa cosmo vision and care for pacha mama (mother nature) and cultural conflict in schools

*learning important lessons, for example, as we were walking in the countryside with raul, it began to thunder and i began to make a face and say “eek!” thinking “ugh, i don’t want to get soaked!” and shortly after, raul took us to the river and began to tell us about the long walks the community has to make to get water, their stuggles with drought, etc. i believe he was discretely trying to tell me, “don’t dread the rain, it’s a gift!”
*other beautiful story from raul: one of the way people greet here, if one is in their yard and the other is walking down the path, is that the one walking will say “prestame el camino” and the other will respond “sigue, no mas.” (“lend me the path” “of course, continue on!”…and raul told me it in kichwa, which sounded even more beautiful, but ive forgotten it). they say this as a recognition that all paths are formed by community work (the minga). que hermosa!


well, i tried to keep it short. this weekend i go to a research station deep in the amazon jungle! cuidense mucho, amigitos!

p.s. all my latest photo albums can be found here.