Beaches and conference

Hello, taking advantage of being stuck in an airport to put up some photos from the last month or so. There isn’t going to be much commentary I'm afraid as I’m not finding thinking coherently very straightforward.

Honduras

Utila - one of the Bay Islands off coast of Honduras

The ferry on the way there

Snorkelling with Marcos, Carlos and Scarleth

Big spiders ( which you probably cant see)

La Ceiba

A real live pinapple growing ( I thought they grew on tress...). There are huge commercial plantations of them near La Ceiba where we were for a Progressio conference.

The beach at the hotel where we had the conference

Juliette and Silvina on the beach

Myriam on the beach

Most of the Ecuador partyDancing the punta

Trip to Pico Bonito foundation demonstration farm

Main Square San Pedro Sula

View from hotel room

The beach in Ecuador - Canoa

Resting after long bus trip

Cycle trip to organic farm through mud

Making chocolate

Amy running

Mompiche

Mark in little canoe

Cotopaxi

Climbing to refuge (as far as we went!)

Talking to farmers

In the last week I've been having a really interesting time interviewing farmers about seeds to collect case studies to use in Progressio's campaign against terminator technology.

Its fascinating getting to quiz people all about their daily lives, how and what they produce, how much they make, what the problems are etc. I love that kind of work. On Thursday I was sitting in the back of a pickup truck travelling back from a little community in the jungle having had a fascinating conversation with almost all the female side of a huge extended family (the men are away doing money work whilst the women farm) and grinning as the banana trees whizzed by, feeling amazed that somehow I was there in that place so far from Edinburgh, and that this was part of my job!

First I spent a couple of days in Cuenca which is high up in the Andes like Quito, but further south. I went round peoples farms and the markets in the city with Juliette, the lovely French Progressio development worker there. I was back in Quito for one day and then headed out to Tena which is low down in the Amazon and a totally different world.

In Cuenca people are growing much the same crops as you'd grow in the UK: root veg, chard, lettuces, kale, cabbages, tomatoes etc (plus some exotic fruits that you couldn't manage in Britain and guinea pigs for meat, chickens and lots of medicinal herbs). People's land looks a lot like market gardens or allotments in the UK- small plots with a real mix of produce. The people work hard all day everyday in the fields.

Agroecological producers at market in Cuenca


In Tena, people's farms looked to me like jungle. It wasn't till they pointed individual crops out to me that I could see yucca, cocoa, coffee, plantain, bananas etc. and various medicinal and sacred plants. There, it is hot and steamy and the people were very laid back. They told me that they basically work when they have to and in groups- when something really needs doing they set a day and everyone puts in a concerted effort for a morning or a day.




Nelson Ramon Mamallacta Alvarado at his farm near Tena

They welcomed me into their houses and cooked for me and were the ideal anthropological subjects/interviewees, being willing to talk about every detail of their lives in huge detail.(In Cuenca in contrast we stood outside or under people's porches in the rain, but were never invited in and people answered my questions politely and willingly in a few sentences then stopped to see what else I wanted to know).

The famous stereotype of closed mountain people versus open gregarious jungle/coast people seemed to hold very true. Amazing what the climate does to people- arriving in Tena at 10pm it was hot- I was sweating sitting still in a t-shirt and looking out the bus windows it was a real culture shock to me to see people out in the streets eating and laughing and joking, women in hotpants and strappy tops, men in shorts, some without t-shirts, everyone with bare feet or flip flops. Lots of bare skin and lots of lounging around in the open, laughing.

The other huge contrast with Quito was hearing the constant noise of insects and birds- the air always seems to be humming with life. Waking up to a cacophony of bird racket made me realise how fews birds you hear in Quito (and being eaten alive by insects made me love how few bugs there are in Quito).

Now I'm back in Quito, in the office its strange writing the interviews up- the realities of people's worlds here are so far away from London and the UK government and the EU and the people who might hopefully read the little stories I am writing and think briefly about the impact GM seeds might have on these people's lives. Most of them had no idea what 'genetically modified seeds' were let alone terminator technology.

The decisions of some international meeting on biodiversity about whether to permit the commercialisation of terminator seeds seems on the one hand utterly irrelevant to producers who are thinking at the level of growing enough to eat and maybe a little more to sell to be able to buy other bits and pieces...But then on the other hand, the possible impacts are chillingly relevant and its scary to think how little decisionmaking power or influence these farmers have over the big decisions whose impacts will eventually reach them.



If you're interested you can see some video clips of interviews

Feeling very small

This morning I woke up terrified when an aeroplane flew overhead because I mistook the vibrations for an earthquake. After the earthquake in Lima last Wednesday, traffic rumbling by or even the vibration or my mobile phone keep making me jump...

It was my first earthquake and was pretty scary even though I was in the nice part of Lima where buildings are built to withstand earthquakes. In Miraflores, after 2 minutes of quaking we were all basically OK – people shaken rather than hurt, a few broken windows, possessions and damaged roofs.

For thousands of people elsewhere in the country it was devastating. It was 7.9 on the Richter scale and left over 500 people dead, 1500 injured and 35,000 buildings destroyed. As always the poorest suffered most, with flimsy adobe or makeshift housing collapsing and people being left out in the cold with no power, water or communications. Aid efforts are underway but reconstruction will take a long time.

Everyone I know in Peru is fine but when I left at the end of last week people in Lima still could not get in touch with their families in the worst-hit areas.

It was one of those experiences which makes you feel very small, insignificant and vulnerable- and it makes you reevaluate what's important. In the mayhem and stress immediately after the earthquake in Lima, everyone’s top priority was getting in touch with loved ones. The day after there was an atmosphere of fear mixed with relief and on the streets a real sense of solidarity - a wierd friendliness amongst strangers that comes from having survived something together.

If anyone wants to donate to relief efforts, the Peruvian consulate in London has details.

Adjusting to Lima

The sky is not always grey… hard to believe in Lima at this time of year. I’ve been here a week and the fog has been constant. It’s hard to imagine months on end of this whiteness…

Going from sunshine to fog is not the only thing that takes some getting used to in the journey from Quito to Lima. If inequality is striking in Quito, in Lima it is overwhelming. The shiny wealthy districts of Lima and the ‘pueblos jovenes’ are like different worlds. The ‘young towns’ are the areas on the outskirts which for decades have been established by a flood of migrants (fleeing terrorism or rural poverty) who squat the land and set up rudimentary shelters. Then, if they manage to stay, begin turning them into new neighbourhoods and with streets, brick houses and eventually water and electricity. Parts of Miraflores (rich neighbourhood in the centre) feel like Milan or some other wealthy European city.

It really hit me one lunch time when I was sitting in Miraflores in a trendy wholefood organic vegetarian restaurant which wouldn’t be out of place in London, eating a US$ 7 lunch and sitting under a ludicrous patio heater, whilst reading statistics saying that over half the population in the country is classified as poor (living on less than $2 a day). Only 15% of the economically active population have adequate employment according to the UN…etc.

Politically things also seem pretty grey here. In Ecuador there is a lot of political optimism at the moment. The new left wing President Rafael Correa still has high opinion poll rating and is living up to some of his manifesto promises. NGOs and social movements are working to prepare candidates and proposals for a new assembly which is to rewrite the countries constitution. And there is some hope that it could change things for the better

In Peru on the other hand, the president Alan Garcia’s popularity has plummeted. For the last 4 months protests have overtaken the country. The economy is booming but the wealth is not trickling down to the people who need it and many seem to feel that the president’s priorities lie with the demands of foreign mining companies, the armed forces, the USA, and the market rather than the poor.

The government is pushing ahead with measures which favour extractive industries and foreign companies at the expense of local communities and NGOS also fear that he is trying to restrict the power of civil society and clamp down on opposition. For example a new law requires NGOS to register with a body which has the power to shut down those which are not working towards ‘the goals of the government’. NGOs say this violates the constitution including in respect of the right to freedom of expression and association. There is also a new and frightening amendment to the Penal Code which gives the armed forces and national police impunity from criminal prosecution if they cause injury and death in the performance of their duties.

Lets hope that the sky is not always grey…

seeds

This weekend I went to a really interesting and positive event: a seed saving fair run by a network which aims to save and recover indigenous organic seeds and the ancient agricultural knowledge that goes with them.

The event was down in a valley just outside Quito. I started the afternoon feeling depressed after foolishly deciding I'd do some alternative tourism and spend my morning wandering around two of the towns in the valley. They were both strung along a main road thick with traffic and fumes, and flanked by a characterless strip of Kentucky Fried Chickens, McDonalds, Supermaxis (Tesco equivalent) and other chain stores. Once you got off the main road there were huge expensive houses with correspondingly huge dogs and even huger gates - the rich commuter belt for Quito.

But, a wander up a long dusty track took me out of the town to a a totally different world (a bit like stumbling upon Redhall walled garden for any Edinburgh folk). There were traditionally built adobe wood frame houses and trees covered in grapefruits and a buzzing gathering of people from all over Ecuador who had bought baskets of seeds to exchange, all lovingly saved, dried, wrapped and labelled.

As the afternoon went on people organised themselves into stalls from the different areas of the country and set out little displays. People wandered round asking questions and getting to taste weird and wonderful fruits and vegetables and learn about unfamiliar seeds.

My favourite was the aerial potato which looks like an angular potato, and apparently tastes quite like one, but grows in the jungle hanging from creepers.



I did some interviews with the farmers their about why they save seeds and heard some sad stories about the local crops which have now disappeared because people have lost the practice of saving seeds and market pressures and bribes/incentives from agribusinesses have started them on the path of buying hybrid seeds.

There were also lots of hopeful stories though about how people are now grouping together to improve things and it was amazing to see so many people getting enthusiatic about little hand-wrapped envelopes of seeds carefully labelled with the date, altitude and variety.

The interviews will hopefully be used as part of Progressio's campaign against terminator technology, the GM suicide seeds which are modified to be sterile, preventing farmers from being self sufficient by collecting seeds to sow next year, and ensuring that they become dependent on big agricultural companies.

It's great to think of little pockets of enthusiastic people tucked away behind the Kentucky Fried Chickens working on alternatives and protecting what they have.

I work in development

I have been thinking lots about what it means to be a 'cooperante' or development worker as compared to being an NGO worker working on lots of the same issues in my own country. Although a lot of the topics, problems and ways of working are the same, the politics are very different and a little uncomfortable at times.

Until now I have always been in the very comfortable position of studying development and criticising it from the outside, but now I now work in development. I feel like that transition somehow happened without me quite realising it.

Before arriving here I had somehow been thinking that I was continuing doing the same kind of communications and campaigning work, just in a different country. And in some ways I am, but the change of location from Edinburgh to Quito and from North to South also has a lot of implications.

I don’t think I had fully made the connections between that move and all of the politics of all the history and power relations of Development. (Being part of a UK development organisation with a clear agenda and power base – one of many forces trying to shape and change things here).

It is funny seeing myself through others’ eyes – imaging the stereotype I fit into for different groups of people I meet as they try to place me. Taxi drivers for example figure me out in 3 questions: “where are you from?”, “How long are you here for?”, “Ah you must be working for some charity or other – orphans maybe or the environment?”.

Trying to explain what I do to them makes me feel like a nice, idealistic little white girl naively imagining I can save the world. The jargon I inevitably slip into in my explanation “development”, “sustainable environment”, “civil society participation”, “advocacy at an international level” seems quite a long way from their reality as they begin their night shifts.

And I think a lot of people I meet from local organisations see me and my gringa face and see money – a possible connection to a development organisation in the UK and its funds. It is also amusing how frequently people feel they have to apologise after criticising northern consumers, lifestyles, companies and culture as they remember that I am there – as if I am representative of all things evil, exploitative and capitalist. (Not a position I often found myself in in Scotland!).

Mountains

Hi I haven't been great at writing this the last couple of weeks but I thought I'd start by putting up some photos and then I'll write something soon.

These are of Antisana National park where I went camping and walking last weekend.

Depressing climate change fact to accompany beautiful pictures: yesterday I read that the that the Antisana glacier shrunk 7-8 times faster during the 1990s than during previous decades. Run off from the glacier is one of the main sources of Quito's drinking water.