Dealing With Person Mouth

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            I have been asked periodically why we, the sixteen students and three program leaders traveling around the world together as a gap year program, study what we do in the specific countries we find ourselves.  In this blog, I attempt to make it clear why we are studying sustainable agriculture in China, of all places, and give a bit of insight into some of the discussions we are having. 

            The Yellow River is the second longest river in Asia and the sixth longest in the world.  It is considered the birthplace of Chinese civilization.  The fertile water’s periodic flooding of the river valleys created all the right conditions for agriculture.  It is said that agriculture is what gave ancient peoples the leisure time to focus on other aspects of life like developing creation stories, art, dance, etc.; the stuff we might call culture.  Like most ancient civilizations, the Chinese culture was formed around agriculture, and thus food has played a central role in the lives of these people since its inception, arguably more than younger civilizations. 

            However the above point may be argued historically, one thing is for certain: the proof is in the pudding.  The evidence of the role that food has on Chinese culture abounds in many aspects of Chinese society.  A prime example of this is in greeting people.  When walking down the street, the typical greeting is not “Hi,” or “How are you,” but “Chī fàn?” (Have you eaten?).  This is not an empty offer either: walk into any stranger’s home and they immediately push food on you, whether it be some fruit or a bowl of rice and veggies. 

 

口

 

            Another example is found in the written Chinese language.  The above Chinese character is pronounced: kǒu, which means mouth, a classifier for things with mouths (people, domestic animals, cannons, wells, etc), and a classifier for bites or mouthfuls.  This character is omnipresent in China.  You see it over entrances (入口 ), and exits (出口 ), and in combination with many other characters to form words that stand for incisions, openings, windows, import, export, and the list goes on and on. 

            One theory about Chinese written language is that many of the modern characters used today come from characters that were originally pictographs:  the shapes of these characters resemble stylized drawings of the objects they represent.  So it’s easy to see how the character for ‘kǒu,’ one of the more simple characters I’ve come across, literally looks like an opening.  When placed in the context of Chinese culture, a food culture, one begins to realize why so many words incorporate the character for mouth. 

            Recently, the guiding question of one of the seminars that I was facilitating for the students was: “Can sustainable agriculture feed the world?”  In the framework of a dating game that matched up eligible consumers with three prowling producers, we discussed various methods of agriculture (industrial, small-holder, organic) and their ability to feed a growing world population.  Without getting into the nitty-gritty too much, the discussion necessarily drifted towards trying to define sustainability, as we’ve tried to do so many times before.  The inevitable question was eventually posed: Is any system of agriculture really sustainable if it can’t feed the world’s population? 

人口

            As with most of our seminars, we left pondering new questions.  As I continue to reflect on this question of sustainability feeding an exponentially booming population, I can’t help but think of the Chinese characters for population: 人口, rén kǒu, or literally: person mouth.  It makes sense that a civilization, whose very formation of the word population ties people to their fundamental need to eat, and within whose borders contains the world’s largest percentage of mouths to feed, would place a great cultural emphasis on food, and thus agriculture. 

            And yet in the past twenty years, the percentage of the population working in agriculture has shrunk from 50% to less than 25%.  The trend of urbanization and industrialization of agriculture that continues will only serve to decrease this number drastically.  Here in the small village of Xibian, you can barely find anyone (no exaggeration) of average, strong working age (15-40?), and this is the same for most rural farming villages: there is a drain of young, able bodies.  As China pushes for continued industrialization and modernization to keep up its rapid economic growth, most young are found in cities, in schools, learning how to become anything other than farmers.  Fast food is becoming more popular.  Obesity, in a largely very fit nation, is starting to become an issue.  Waterways are filled with the run-off from industrial farms.  The air in most cities is so polluted, face and nose masks have not only become a necessity, they have turned into a new fashion niche. 

            One article we read about the technology of sustainable agriculture came from a textbook on agroecology.  It mentioned that one way of measuring sustainability, which necessitates looking at production over time, is to compare current systems to those systems that have been in place for a long time, and continue to produce high rates of yield.  By this definition, it should be obvious to see that industrial agriculture, which pollutes the local and regional environment, reduces the fertility of the soil, and thus relies on inputs derived from fossil fuels, a non-renewable resource, is not sustainable. 

            So where does that leave China, one of the first human ‘civilizations;’ a nation of people with a 7000 year-old tradition of farming?  What happens to a nation whose roots are so firmly planted in the soil, whose culture so fully embraces food and the communal act of eating, when there is no longer anyone to farm?  And why would a country with such a rich and sustaining tradition of agriculture, a tradition that has been shown to work, be compelled to change its ways?  The answer must be, in part, that it is trying to adapt its agricultural system to a growing population. 

            And so I find myself in a never-ending cycle of questions, trying to balance the demands of population, culture, and the limitations of our natural environment.  I am reminded of the words of John E. Ikerd, a professor from the University of Missouri, who writes on “Sustaining the Profitability of Agriculture”. 

            “Sustainable systems must be ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible.  All three are necessary and no one or two of the three is sufficient.  A system that lacks ecological soundness cannot sustain its productivity over time, no matter how profitable or socially supportive it may seem in the short run.   A system that is not economically viable will not be employed, no matter how ecologically sound or socially responsible it may seem.  And a system that is not deemed to be socially responsible will be discarded or destroyed by the society it must support, no matter how profitable or environmentally friendly it might otherwise seem to be. 

            “These are the standards of success.  The sustainability game is like old-fashioned pinball.  The only thing we win is the privilege of playing another round.  We can judge how well we are playing the game, but success is a process rather than an outcome – a direction rather than a destination”.

           

            And so we walk into the future, bouncing between issues of population growth, profit, and ecology.  I am inspired by the perseverance of my students, who look for answers but find only more questions.  One can only hope that these questions bounce us continually further in the direction of success, and lead us in some direction capable of handling the necessities of our human civilization. 

Cultural Identifiers

            From a young age we are told not to judge a book by its cover - and yet we do.  We size people up based on their appearance – what they’re wearing, how they’re groomed, how they compose themselves.  This makes life easier for us.

            We call them stereotypes and generalizations, and as much as we’re told we’re wrong to use them, we do anyway.  Maybe we know we shouldn’t use them; we do anyway. 

            As we walk down the street, we use these generalizations to categorize people.  Instead of taking the time to have a conversation with someone to really get to know what they’re like, we use these generalizations to save us time.  

           In some instances, we do it for our own safety, or so we think.  We cross the street in order to avoid this person who’s dressed in the ‘dangerous’ category.  In other instances, we do it to save time or energy, or so we think.  We choose to ignore what some people are saying because they belong to the category of people whose wisdom we think is worthless.  In still other instances, we are attracted to certain people who fit our description of what we consider to be decent, attractive, respectable and wise. 

            As I sat today in the middle of Yunnan University in Kunming, China, I looked at all the different people walking around me.  It was a busy campus, full of students, and busier still with all the tourists who come to admire the fall leaves of the Gingko trees and architecture of the old buildings.  I realized that being in this foreign land, I was stripped of the cultural cheat sheet that has allowed me to save time and energy in my own country.  I was no longer able to gauge who were the ‘creeps’, the ‘youthful rebels’, the ‘hippies’, the ‘business types’, and ‘the normal.’  Without this cultural crutch, I was at a loss of who to avoid, and who to engage.

            I was suddenly aware that despite my buying into that age-old adage, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover,’ I did, constantly, every day in every moment back home.  It is a totally natural instinct, developed in our reptilian brain to help us quickly distinguish between danger and safety.  And yet being here, in the middle of a Chinese university campus, I felt freed of this evolutionary baggage, and for one of the first times, maybe since childhood, really able to walk this world, free of stereotypes, and open to all. 

Connection and Mystery in the Andes

3 Nov. 2013

            It is hard to sit down, gather my thoughts, and put them on paper here in Room 11 at the Hosteria de Anita in Cuzco.  My mind races between thoughts of the past two months in general, time spent in Ecuador, our amazing hike along the Camino Inka to Machu Picchu, and the realization that we leave for China tomorrow.  In these moments, I have to remind myself of the importance of intentional reflection, lest I be swept away by the whirlwind that is the journey TBB West is on. 

            Where do I begin?  Do I begin more than 500 years ago, telling the story of a relatively small group of people who through persuasion, cunning, bravado, gifts and diplomacy created an empire that stretched from what is now the middle of Chile to northern Ecuador?  Or do I begin with the much smaller group of 19 students and teachers that happened to be walking along the same path that these Inka carved into the high Andean mountain ridges and river valleys?  I suppose I can only begin where it makes sense – through my eyes and the lenses of my own passions, interests, and curiosities. 

            Beginning at Kilometer 82, at 8,528 feet up, on the floor of the Urubamba River valley, we hiked nearly 45 kilometers, climbing as high as 13,776 ft, and including two other passes at 12,000 ft and 12,916 ft, over the course of four days, finally ending our hike at the famed Inkan ruins of Machu Picchu at 7,872 ft. early on the fourth day.  Trekking through that range of altitude, we experienced a variety of microclimates and associated environments, from Andean grassland (tall, perennial bunch grass), to low chaparral with desert-like flora and cloud forest thick with moss, lichen and epiphyte-covered trees, ferns, and Peruvian bamboo.  Each day was filled with its share of heat and chill, not only from the warming and cooling of the body as we hiked and rested, but as well from the change in altitude and the constant play of the winds, clouds, air moisture and sunlight.  Each ridge crest and mountain pass provided heavenly glimpses of the jigsaw of mountain ranges, their tops rarely visible below the cap of clouds that most always formed around their peaks, and their bottoms joined by the glue of some raging river below.  The saying up there in the Andes goes that if it is sunny, wait two minutes and it will become cloudy.  The opposite holds true as well: as I took in the view from the mountaintops, the condensed moisture that had evaporated from the lush vegetation of the Amazonian rainforest to the north and east of us would snake its way through those river canyons, at times completely blocking any grand view that might have existed only seconds before.  The words of a friend echoed in my mind.  A Catholic priest himself, and as such one who embraces the world of monotheism, he told me one night several years ago about his enlightenment upon seeing this same moving mass of moisture:  “For maybe the first time,” he recalled, “I truly realized why these people would have instilled god-like qualities upon such natural forces.”  For sure, taking moments to view the movement of a thick cloud of white through those mountains, combined with the sheer magnitude and drama of the vistas, I could not escape the humbling feeling of some divine energy at work. 

            Maybe it was just these feelings that inspired a group of people some 600 years ago to build these structures on the tops of these cliffs.  When I gazed upon Machu Picchu itself, precariously perched nearly 8000 feet up on the crest of a mountain ridge, sheer drops to a river canyon to the east and west and steep peaks rising to the north and south, I could not help but imagine the vision that brought this city into reality.  If the view of the ‘Inka,’ or king, of these Quechua people was true, then surely it was a divine vision, as they believed him to be a god in his own right, thus making his descendents gods as well and eventual heirs to the throne.  Looking horizontally along one of the agricultural terraces that make up a decent section of the ‘lost city of the Inkas’ to the eventual disappearance of that terrace into the chaos of jungle, I was awed by the vision that could turn something so wild into something so tame. 

            If the Inkas’ vision and manipulation of the world in which they inhabited was impressive, their knowledge of the celestial bodies and their place in their universe only served to compound their connection to the divine.  As the story goes, Machu Picchu was a sacred site, a holy place at the end of a pilgrimage that began in their empire’s capital, the current colonial city of Cuzco.  Along the way, there are sites consisting of a small number of homes and greater number of agricultural terraces.  These refuges served as places of rest along the route as well as laboratories where they tested the acclimatization of certain species of plants such as coca, maize and potato; plants from the mountains that they wanted to bring down to the jungle and vice versa.  There were also other types of encampments in which spring water and glacier melt were funneled into a series of baths that descended down the slopes, these sites supposedly for cleansing oneself before arriving at the final destination.  At the Temple of the Sun, in the center of Machu Picchu, there sits a rock shaped into the form of a diamond, whose points align perfectly with the cardinal directions.  When the sun hits this rock on the winter solstice, its shadow creates the perfect form of one revered star constellation.

            These stories and explanations of what actually occurred at these sites have of course developed and evolved over time from only bits of information that the Spanish, those conquistadors who colonized these lands, were actually able to collect about this empire and these people.  These settlements were abandoned by the time the Spanish came, adding to the mystery of the Inka and contributing to the desire that archeologists had in trying to find the ‘lost city.’  Because the Inka had no written language apart from khibus, collections of knotted strings that served to tell some quantitative and qualitative message about certain aspects of their reality, much mystery still surrounds this civilization that came to its height in the early 1500’s, just as the Spanish were first landing on the shores of the ‘New’ World. 

            As I walked the path largely laid in large granite stones and meditated atop the terrace edges overlooking the magnificence of the mountains, I thought about the attraction of this place.  What specifically is it that draws 500 people a day to walk the Inka Trail and another 2500 people a day to tour Machu Picchu?  Personally, I largely felt two emotions: one of mystery and one of connection.  In this age of modern science, in which many of us are attracted to scientific explanation for natural phenomena and have given up a more spiritual search for meaning and direction in life, is there still a part of us that finds a certain peace in the unknown? Is there a subconscious piece of us, deep down in that buried soul of ours, that craves to be enveloped in something we can’t explain?  It very well could be the case that these sites were the settings for life as normal, where people gathered to eat, drink and live out their lives within a culture of limited and well-structured norms and interactions.  Yet we have created fantastical stories to describe the lives of these people that in reality we know very little about.  Pondering these things, I received a certain paradoxical satisfaction knowing that I would never truly know.

            The other emotion I was feeling, that of connection, had to do with my feet walking along a path carved some 600 years ago into the Andean mountains, and walked by a quantity of people the extent of which I’ll never know.  As well, touching the rocks, one placed on top of another in perfect cuts and with sound engineering, and wandering through the different structures in the sites, imagining one laying there to rest, another sitting there looking at the view or up at the heavens, I was immediately transported through time back possibly twenty generations of humanity.  In an age in which youth is so highly desired and age is so quickly dismissed as invalid, where much of the primary forests have been cut and ancient wisdom is disregarded, there was for me a certain satisfaction connecting with a people that lived so long ago.  As each new generation tries to reinvent the world, creating new solutions to new problems that arise rather than look to our past for guidelines that might enable us to live happier, more sustainable lives, these ancient temples reminded me that there is still wisdom to be learned from those that have come before us.  In a time in which change seems so rapid and permanence so fleeting, I felt myself more grounded than ever, my human existence deepening in the temporal direction and stretching its roots back in time.

            .....On the first night, after our late arrival at Camp One (Wayllabamba camp) due to some logistical difficulties of a lack of student ID’s at the checkpoint to enter the park (they are very serious about the logistics of this national park and world heritage site), I sat in the dinner tent, Meg and Tracey sitting across from me.  Tired from a long day of traveling and hiking, each of us stared into the journals in front of us, writing about our day, lost in our minds.  I put my pen down and looked into the faces of the girls sitting across from me.  They both had different looks on their faces.  My eyes panned down to their pens – although I could not make out what they were writing, I imagined them both writing very different words based on very different experiences, even from my own, despite the three of us taking the same steps that day.  Out loud, I wondered what it would sound like for all three of us to share the unique experiences we had each had on this very similar journey, and I was reminded once again that although we are all sharing a very similar outward journey, this trip is really all about the journey within....

A Photo Journey Through Ecuador

Bua, Ecuador slideshow

Thoughts on Goodbye

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10/24/13

“It gives me much pain when visitors leave,” Daniel said, in Spanish.  “They always say they will come back to visit, but its already been close to six years since the first ones said that, and they still have not come back.”

            This afternoon, we will get back on the cattle truck that first brought us to Bua, this time going in the opposite direction.  Charged with new experiences, memories, skills, and perhaps some small trinkets and tokens we have picked up along the way (as well as the remnants of whatever bacteria and parasites may be lingering in our digestive tracts), we will head to Santo Domingo, to catch a bus to Quito, and spend the next few days in transition before we begin the next leg of our journey. 

            As we have been approaching the end of our stay in Bua, I have been thinking a lot about our trip in perspective: how our stay here is only but one part of many in a journey that will take our group of nineteen around the world, and yet, for those whose lives we have come into for the past month and change, their journey ends now.   They as well might be left with new memories, skills, knowledge, trees and trinkets, but for the most part, I don’t doubt that their lives will carry on mostly as before our arrival after we depart. 

            This juxtaposition, of a group in motion, with the capacity to move around the world so freely, entering and exiting a background of people living, and working hard to live, fixed in their setting for the unforeseeable future, seems to me, when I give it thought, a somewhat cruel, in-your-face exposition of our power.  Aside from the obvious fact that we have the money to propel ourselves around the world, there is the less noticed fact that we our mostly embraced by the governmental bureaucracies that govern the flow of people into and out of each country that we visit.  Even if one of these Tsachila were able to save enough money to buy a plane ticket to the United States, our customs and immigration departments would no doubt make it quite difficult for an economically poor, rural farmer to actually gain permission to enter our country. 

            And so, as Daniel asks me if I will return, I have to hold myself back from asking him to return the favor.  My mind reactively makes my tongue want to say that after my visit to Bua, it is now his turn to come visit me.  Yet I only need a few seconds of mediated thought to make it register in my mind that this is not possible.  “I would love to come back and visit,” I say, imagining some day in the future when I come back with a loved one, a new spouse, a family member, to show them these places where I’ve walked and introduce them to my family of friends around the world.  And whether it is the pull of true friendship or the feeling that my return might in some way repay a debt to these people I have acquired due to my mobile freedom and cancel this ounce of guilt that I have for having this freedom, I feel in my heart truth when I reply that I would love to return. 

            I temper my words with a dose of realism, informing Daniel that there is no way I could have predicted, after thirty years of life, that I would have found myself in Ecuador twice in one year, let alone once, my words implying a certain mystery to my life’s path thus far.  And although Daniel will no doubt continue to live much a sedentary life, most likely working the rest of his days and dying in the community where he was born, he recognizes the meaning in my statement, acknowledges the mystery of life, and echoes my sentiments that it might be too much to guarantee a return visit.  I add his email address to a pocket notebook, he mine to a loose paper napkin, and with this exchange, the more realistic possibility of future contact.  And so, with the bonds that we have formed over the past month so delicately held in the throes of life’s great mystery and the miracles of modern technology, we exchange hugs and a goodbye, and looking into each other’s eyes, acknowledge this moment of affection and friendship for what it is.  

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As some may have noticed, I have not been blogging as much as normal on my expeditions abroad.  As we venture into new places in the coming months in the eastern hemisphere, with cultures quite distinct from my own and those I've traveled in before, I will no doubt have more thoughts to share with the world.  Until then, and through that time as well, I encourage you to check in on the student blogs.  Many of the students do a fantastic job of summarizing our activities and adding their own questions and reflections.  This might be a good way of keeping track of the timeline and getting a different perspective on our trip.  The link below is to the TBB student blogs.  The group I am traveling with is TBB West.  Enjoy!

TBB Student Blogs

One of our first group activities.  Mindo, Ecuador

Toucans, from afar.  Mindo

From the 2nd floor balcony of the eco-lodge. Sunrise.  Mindo

Cascadas de la Reina.  Mindo

Butterfly pupa.  Mariposario.  Mindo

To Be A Tiger

           A solitary incandescent light bulb cast its faint yellow light on the brown thatch ceiling of the A-frame building from which hung my hammock. Like the other four nearby hammocks, mine bordered one leg of the L-shaped space that served as a meeting place for the people of the community, and now for our group. The light contrasted sharply with the darkness surrounding us, and although it was not especially bright, it drew the attention of my eyes.

            It had been a long day thus far, and it felt good to finally put my feet up and take a deep breath.  The travel from Quito to Bua de los Colorados had gone smoothly: beginning at 9am with the short bus to the bus terminal, the transfer with all of our luggage to the public bus, the transfer to the cattle truck, and finally our arrival at the cultural center Shinopi around 2pm. 

            Once there we were greeted by Don Alfonso, head of the cultural center and the group of families involved in the cultural tourism/reforestation project here in Bua.  He was barefoot, and wore a black and white striped skirt that stretched from his waist to just above his knees, tied at the waist with a colorful band of silky fabric.  Around his neck was wrapped 6 or 7 more colorful bands that hung down his chest like a tie.  The rest of his torso was naked.  His body appeared strong and healthy, and looking at the scars on his arms, I imagined run-ins with snakes and accidents while working the fields. His hair, black and cut short around the sides, was longer on top, dyed in the traditional Tsachila fashion with an intense red dye produced from the achiote plant, mixed with some gel-like substance to give it a hardened, bowl or leaf shaped appearance on the top of his head.  Our group, together with seven local families, gathered in the meeting space and Don Alfonso stood in front of us, at first speaking in Tsafiki, the traditional Tsachila language.  The students seemed mesmerized by this man standing before them, addressing them in a foreign tongue and dressed in strange vestment.  Soon he began to address us in Spanish, giving many thanks to us for being here, to our families for allowing us to come, for the different organizations that had helped to bring us together.  He then talked a bit about our involvement in the community and how it positively affected the lives of those in the community.   He finally gave a brief introduction to the seven families that were gathered before us, introducing each family by the head of the household. 

            After a savory lunch of soup, rice, chicken and salad, we walked, together with the gathered families, down the dirt path behind the dining space (the other leg of the L-shaped space: a compacted dirt floor with simple wooden tables around the side and benches made of balsa wood as well as individual seats made of logs standing on their end) to a cleared area acting as the nursery.  Alfonso gave a demonstration on how to plant trees, showing us the depth to safely insert each baby tree into the hole: not too deep, not too shallow.  Afterwards, we gathered in a large circle, extranjeros (foreigners) on one side, Tsachila on another.  Alfonso walked around the circle, pronouncing the names of each family as we called to the previously chosen students to go over and meet the host family they’d be living with for the next five weeks or so.  It was an awkward meeting of cultures, as students and families alike pushed through their nervousness to greet each other.  They would be sharing houses together, sharing meals together, sharing work together for the next five weeks. 

            From what we’ve been told, the Tsachila people are a shy, non-confrontational people.  Traditional hunter-gatherers in small family units, they have been forced to adopt a more sedentary and social lifestyle as their territory has been reduced and they’ve been exposed to an encroaching agricultural society.  Most of the eight families have hosted students in the past, but only for about the past five years or so.  One can only guess the thoughts and feelings that both the U.S. students and the Tsachila people will have throughout this experience. 

            Afterward, we shuffled into three cattle transport trucks and headed down the road back toward where the families lived.  Jessie, Sam (the in-country project manager) and I tagged along in order to visit each of the houses and make sure that the students staying there were safe and comfortable.  One by one we dropped off the students and said goodbye.  After two weeks of being together every hour of every day, it was hard in a way to give them away.  A part of me wanted to coddle them, to be there in case something were to happen or to answer questions, to be there to help guide them in their curiosities.  As we left one house, I heard one student ask, “What do we do?”  Some of the houses had a flat screen TV, but for the most part, there was no technology for the students to enjoy: no tv’s, no internet, no iphones.  Most of them would have to learn a new language f they wished to verbally communicate.  As it was, most of them would settle in that night being able only to communicate in gesture.  The 6pm sunsets and the lack of external entertainment will no doubt force the students either to interact with each other and the families, go to bed early, or dive into the content we are working through.

             Last night after returning to Shinopi, we spoke with Don Alfonso under the dim yellow light to the background of a chorus of crickets and frogs.  Don Alfonso has a vision for his community, for the Tsachila nation.  It involves the preservation of his culture, and the preservation of the environment.  Much of this vision, in my eyes and from what I´ve gathered so far, has come from knowledge and foresight he has gained from outsiders – people that have come to his community and shown him the value of their culture, the inherent value in a healthy ecosystem. In a way, his vision is about maintaining autonomy; having something here that the younger generations can inherit as their own, instead of going to work for someone else in the cities.  In this way,  I question the authenticy of a culture that seems only to be gaining resilience as a consequence of outside influence, or only as a prospect of financial solvency.  
            I have been able to identify so far many assumptions and generalizations that I have held and made personally about indigenous cultures worldwide.  My experiences with indigenous cultures in Mexico and Guatemala seem so far to contrast somewhat drastically with my experience here in Bua thus far.  I have much yet to explore; some questions linger from before, and some new ones present themselves:
      Is there something truly environmentally sustainable in the life vision of indigenous peoples, or has it only been a lack of resources or technological advance that has limited their capacity to break the natural laws of competition that seem to keep all species in balance?
      What are the essential characteristics that define a culture?  Can a culture retain itself simply by maintaining traditional clothing, music and language, or are there more essential characteristics that define a culture?  For example, we go to the zoo to see tigers.  What we see at the zoo are tiger forms for sure - beautiful four legged creatures that have amazing stripes and penetrating eyes, whiskers, fierce roars, and ferocious appetites; yet isn´t the tiger more than that?  Tigers are hunters, forest dwellers, wild creatures that stalk their prey at night with an agility and precision unparalleld in the predator world.  I ask then, is what I see in the zoo truly a tiger, or has it lost its essential tiger qualities?
     

We Are The Journey

   The group was finally all together: 19 of us, who'd be traveling together for the next eight months around the world, sharing work, learning, fun, emotions.  For now, excitement, joy, departure.
   For me, relief, peace, arrival.
   We are all together.  It is finally here.
   Ecuador, to which we'd arrive in only hours: an afterthought.  The rest of the incredible places and people: still a dream. 
   We are the journey.  As individuals.  As a group.  19 faces, mine included, still against a backdrop of multi-colored lights whizzing by.  We are the journey.

     2013. 29. Ecuador.  A new year, a new age, a new adventure.  A dewey decimal system formatting for my life?  With the new adventure comes new people, new places, new languages, new experiences, new tasks and new challenges.  One of these challenges, as always, is to stay connected to friends and family back home, or abroad, wherever they may be, and wherever that is for me.  I therefore proceed into another period of bloginess to help stay in touch with those people I love and cherish, and to those I don't quite as much, and even to strangers who in their attempts to learn interesting things about "rainforests," "conservation," "permaculture" and "Chris Morales," while typing keywords into internet search engines, find me, and my attempts to say hi to the world.  To keep up with the novelty of my life, I have updated the title of this blog.  As I will not be anywhere close to a bicycle for at least the extent of Ecuador's rainy season (through May) I hereby update the title of my blog from 'The Bicycle Diaries' to 'The Jungle Diaries' (at least until I come up with a better name).
     Despite a strong internal motivation to stay put in a place, to grow with the land and develop a strong knowledge of and respect for it, to live with a people and develop a long-lasting community, I have found myself again far from the grassy hills, oak/bay/madrone/redwood forests, seasonal streams, roaming deer, and all of my friends and family of California.  My decision to come to Ecuador, difficult as it was, was motivated by two factors: one, an incredible opportunity to learn ways in which I can live more harmoniously and with less impact on my surrounding environment; and two, a bit more selfish I must say, the opportunity to do this in an environment I have never spent much time but always enjoyed being in - the rainforest - tucked into the northwest coast of a continent I have never been, surrounded by a new culture which provides further opportunity for growth.
     So I now find myself an understudy for the next several months of the current reserve manager and intern coordinator at the Jama-Coaque Reserve, managed by the Third Millennium Alliance (www.3malliance.org), until I take over the position in April for the following 18 months.  The Reserve is not easy to get to:  it requires a six hour bus ride over the western Andes cordillera down to the small but bustling shrimp packing town of Pedernales, a well-coordinated truck or bus ride south along the coast about 45 minutes past shrimp ponds bordering the shore on the west and cleared hills and plains to the east, a truck ride or walk along the flat and meandering dirt/gravel road and across several streams that leads to the small community of Camarones, and finally the hour or so hike uphill, currently in mud and sludge six inches to one foot deep (because of the recent onset of the rainy season), into the headwaters of the watershed of Camarones, until one arrives at the Bamboo house, the center of 3MA operation.
     The bamboo house is entirely open air, with eight bedrooms of various sizes, several patios for lounging, eating and reading, and a well-equipped kitchen.  The house is located on a steep slope, and surrounded by a fenced in area developed into a palatable food forest and kitchen garden.  The food forest is filled with trees at various stages, many still just experimental, which produce all sorts of fruits and legumes.  These trees include guaba, guayabana, papaya and banana (which I recently learned are not actually trees but plants, being annuals with no woody material), mango, avocado, citrus, soursop, breadfut, uva de arbol, uva de playa, achotillo, macademia, cacao, coffee, and many others I cannot remember or pronounce correctly at this moment.  There are beautiful year-round streams, with waterfalls of differing qualities bordering this fenced in area somewhat, and scattered throughout the rest of the reserve, which totals just over 1000 acres now and is dissected by a system of somewhat navigable trails that continue to rise into the hills, going from moist forest to wet forest to cloud forest as you continue to rise up until you reach a ridgeline which signals the top of the watershed and the eastern boundary to the reserve.
     To any biologist or person fascinated in the diversity of life, the reserve is an exciting place.  The insects, ants, beetles and bugs provide a constant backdrop to life at the reserve.  They are everywhere, most of the time, providing a soundtrack to life, especially at dawn and dusk, and especially when combined with the calls of the endless amount of frogs and toads.  The birds, which begin their sweet cacophony at dawn and don't quit till dusk, vary in size and color and are magnificent to watch.  I marvel in the vividness of their feathers and the creativity of their design, especially the hummingbirds.  The monkeys, though not often seen, are often heard.  There are two kinds at the reserve: howler monkeys and capuchin monkeys, and on the two large hikes I have been on so far, I have been able to observe these agile primates in their element, swinging from tree limb to tree limb, picking at the fruits of tall canopy trees and interacting with each other and their young.  And lurking somewhere throughout the forest are the other mammals which share the land with us, the pig-sized rodents, the large raccoons, the wild pig, and of course the wild cats, the jaguars, the pumas, the jaguarundis, and the rare and endangered ocelots.
     Also lurking is the fear that often goes with being in an unknown environment, of the bugs and animals that are out there to get you; there are definitely tarantulas the size of my hand, and several different types of poisonous snakes, and ticks the size of a tiny freckle (no lymes disease though), and mosquitos (though they don't seem bad at all to me) and all the crazy looking beetles that you think will saw off your toe in the middle of the night if it happens to slip outside of the mosquito net, and all of the parasites and other microscopic organisms that we separate ourselves from as best we can in those 'developed' parts of the world.  This fear tends to fade as you familiarize yourself with your surroundings, learn how to obtain clean water and ensure food is grown and cleaned properly, learn where certain snakes hang out and how to protect yourself,  and learn that most bugs don't care at all for human flesh or blood.
     As there is no electricity at the house, electrical appliances are kept in check only by the batteries that operate them, which ends up limiting the types of appliances found to the occasional camera and flashlight at night.  At night we cook, eat, clean and read by candlelight mostly.  The meals are beyond anything I can have imagined.  Since there is no refrigerator, all ingredients are raw/bulk and fresh, brought in weekly from Pedernales and supplemented by what is growing around us (banana, papaya and yucca harvests occur frequently).  Cooking is something shared by many, with a schedule of head chefs for lunch and dinner made weekly, and many choose to take the time cook delicious meals, sometimes with dessert.  Those that don't cook, clean.  It is amazing what can be done with just a simple four burner stove fueled by a propane gas tank, and metal boxes that go on top to act as mini-ovens.
    Water is everywhere.  The humidity, though not worse by far from places on the east coast of US during the summer for example, gives everything a certain dampness, which mold tends to cling to and grow on.  Certain clothes I have given up on early at ever having a chance to be worn outside of the reserve again.  Others I keep tucked away in bags where the air can't get to it.  We usually get a good downpour at least once per day, sometimes it extends throughout the day and night.  The largest amount of rain I've measured so far was about four centimeters.  The temperature has been consistently in the mid-70's, and though it may only go down by a couple degrees at times, it brings a surprising chill to it.  The skies are just plain gray.  Supposedly it will get to a point in the rainy season (which is the summer technically, with warmer weather) when there is a downpour followed by clear skies and booming sunshine which provides the perfect climate for lush growth.  I look forward to seeing the sun there sometime soon.  I miss the sunshine, and I miss the stars and the moon.  It reminds me just how much I tend to orient myself to these celestial bodies.
     So for now this is my setting.  I will observe how Ben, the current intern/reserve manager, runs the place and manages the people, taking notes and thinking about how I might want to tweak things in my own style for the future programs.  I will learn about the plants, the trees, the birds and the bugs. I will learn about permaculture.  I will learn about Ecuadorian culture, and try to immerse myself in it as much as possible.  I will think seriously about humanity and our place in this world.  And once every week or two I will escape to the ocean, find a little town, with some good sand, some good waves, some decent internet, and hopefully a nice sunset, and connect and recharge for my next immersion into the jungle.  Pictures are posted in new slideshow to the right.  Many more to come...