Rachel Esbjornson's blog http://studyaway.plu.edu/blog/101/atom/feed 2006-12-10T18:31:27-08:00 Death as hope http://studyaway.plu.edu/node/433 2007-01-22T14:29:50-08:00 2007-01-22T14:29:50-08:00 Rachel Esbjornson We came to collect the stories of those affected by oil development in an attempt to give voice to the voiceless. Now back in Quito my note book sits next to my keyboard full of these voices and I´m not sure what to do with them. These are not happy stories, with fairy tale endings. They are not stories of the privileged, of those that have access to a future of hope.

]]> We came to collect the stories of those affected by oil development in an attempt to give voice to the voiceless. Now back in Quito my note book sits next to my keyboard full of these voices and I´m not sure what to do with them. These are not happy stories, with fairy tale endings. They are not stories of the privileged, of those that have access to a future of hope.

This afternoon as I tried to rest away the fatigue of travel, the tears I had been holding back for days came out at last. I cried for the families that have lost children to leukemia. I cried for a land that has been raped of its beauty, health and community. I cried because I want to make life different for the people and land we were blessed to spend time with, but know I can´t because the poison has already entered the rivers, land, and skin of those affected.

Our last few days in the Oriente were spent in Coca and its surrounding communities. Signs of oil development are everywhere. Almost every road you travel on is followed by pipelines, many old and rusted but still being used. We visited a stream used by a family to bath and drink, poking sticks into its bed we released oil which floated to its surface. Two members of this family are battling cancer. We drive to a well currently being operated by Petroecuador. A family´s home is only yards away and sits on an old waste pit. They moved here two years ago without knowledge of what lay beneath the soil. Thick tar-like oil seeped in small patches from the ground. A dragonfly lay black and dead in a nearby ditch full of rainwater.

Almost everyone in this region is a colonist, they are not native to the land as the indigenous communities we visited are. As a result oil has left deeper wounds for these people as they do not have a land or community built into their history to offer them an added protection, or as we found hope.

When asked what their hope for the future is, all but a few answered that "we have no hope, our only hope is to die." Such words fall heavy, yet need to be heard.

These are a people not devoid of life. They are not communities of the walking dead. Laughter and smiles come with ease and light up faces in their entirety. What is it that gives these people the strength to continue living? It is not hope. Life it seems has a power that extends beyond hope and has a powerful grasp on the world that even among death offers joy.

We asked for messages to return home with. One has been for the people of the U.S. to stand in solidarity with the people of Ecuador who have been affected by oil development and accept the reality of their situation. For me this means to join with them in their grief for a while, but then to move beyond and into life. Ecuador has not just offered me a notebook of sad stories to return home with. There are also memories of all the beautiful languages, landscapes, peoples, faiths, and cultures I have encountered and been privileged to walk among.

In three days I will find myself again in the states. I am excited, nervous, and sad-- but ready. I just hope I can bring back the stories we´ve gathered and do them some sort of justice. How this justice will manifest itself I have yet to discover.

I send my love to all of you at home. Thank you for following our journey.

Rachel

]]> Adios Rio Aguarico http://studyaway.plu.edu/node/330 2007-01-16T16:04:37-08:00 2007-01-16T16:04:37-08:00 Rachel Esbjornson This afternoon we said goodbye to Rio Aguarico. A river that for generations provided the communities we visited with much of their life’s sustenance. Each evening I watched women wash clothing along its banks, families bath, and both men and women attempt to catch fish. This river

]]> This afternoon we said goodbye to Rio Aguarico. A river that for generations provided the communities we visited with much of their life’s sustenance. Each evening I watched women wash clothing along its banks, families bath, and both men and women attempt to catch fish. This river
has seen much, both pain and joy. Yesterday we rejoiced at the sight of a fresh water dolphin surface out of its waters for an instance and then dip back out of sight. And later I rejoiced at the break from humidity and heat that the river gave me as Kate and I swam about remembering our childhood water games played with siblings while watching the Secoya community’s children above stream from us make up their own. As short a time ago as three months, this river felt its waters mix with toxins from a small oil spill just a few miles away and carried the bodies of dead fish down stream. People must now rely on rain water or wells for their water source. Yet at times even the rain falls black from the clouds of smoke that are emitted from oil wells burning off excess toxic gases.

Yet our group saw very little of this sort of hellish scene that has all too often passed through this area and if I wanted I could have imagined I was on just another ecotour. The impacts may not be seen but they are still felt by the people we talked with. All of us left these communities with the recognition of HOW central the Rio Aguaruico is for these subsistence cultures.

Many of the people we spoke with want to maintain their culture and way of life, to pass it down through future generations. They tell us their fear is that they will lose it, but that their hopes lie in the possibility that they will find ways to preserve it. One Seconyan community has created a wildlife reserve they hope to use for an ecotourism project. Others maintain bilingual schools for their children. However, every community we visited has moved away from what was a largely land bases subsistence economy to one that is based on cash. They have had to in order to survive. The fish are gone, the helicopters that fly daily overhead have scared away the forests animals, their water source is contaminated, and new diseases have entered their communities that their shamans do not have the knowledge to cure. They have to make cash some how to now buy the food they once got from the land, to pay for wells for clean water, and to bring in doctors.

I hope that these communities are successful in protecting their way of life, that it does not continue to be sacrificed for the rest of the worlds desire to continue growing its cash based economies. I leave feeling blessed at having been able to once again make my way though the Amazon Rainforest and to have been able to talk with the people that dwell within its boarders. This is a beautiful and yes, at times dangerous land. May we recognize its worth and not further cause it harm.

Thank you Secoyans, Cofans, Sionas for sharing your homes and stories with us.

]]> Out of Quito and into the Oriente http://studyaway.plu.edu/node/236 2007-01-11T20:09:20-08:00 2007-01-11T20:09:59-08:00 Rachel Esbjornson We have arrived in the Oriente. This morning we flew out of Quito's high mountain climate down into the heat and humidity of one of Ecuador's largest oil towns, Largo Agrio. Signs of oil development are virtually every where and already I feel I have seen so much.

]]> We have arrived in the Oriente. This morning we flew out of Quito's high mountain climate down into the heat and humidity of one of Ecuador's largest oil towns, Largo Agrio. Signs of oil development are virtually every where and already I feel I have seen so much.

It is 2:30pm we have just been taken to the site of an old oil well. We clamber down a forested slope just yards away and Robinson, one of our guides, opens up the ground with a large stick. Just inches below the surface Robinson pulls up soil soaked in oil. I grab a clump of earth and move it between my finger tips, I drop the dirt, in my hands is left a dark oily residue. This oil is left over from the Texaco era and the spill that has left in these soils an oily sheen probably occurred close to twenty years ago. Texaco, a U.S. oil company, basically started up the oil development in Ecuador but left behind what many say is the worst oil disaster in the world. One lawyer we talked to a couple of weeks ago called it South America's Chernobyl, with more than 30 times the amount of oil having been spilled in Ecuador then was spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster. Only meters from us is the Rio Tye where we just saw people bathing and swimming. When it rains, where is this oil drenched soil taken?

We get back in our van and continue to make our way to comunidad Guanta, a colonist community. I look out my window to take in the views of the forest and notice we have been following small pipelines for quite sometime. We pass another oil pump and then a truck used for transporting crude. Soon we stop at the gate of one of Petroecuador's (Ecuador's national oil company) pumping stations. Making our way to the edge of the pumping station we see a burst of flame rising among some of the tree tops. The flames are coming from large smoke stacks that burn the gas from the large nearby oil pit. The pits are unlined and the water is a dark, thick, oily, black. This is not an old pit. This is not from the Texaco era. These practices are being used now. Jose, a thirty year old Quichua activist who is acting as our main guide, tells me not only will this oil seep into the ground but when it rains the oily waste water will flow over the pits where it can more easily run across the land.

Around 4:30pm we arrive in cumunidad Guata and talk with a family of six colonists who have been affected by oil development. The mother and grandmother have developed a skin fungus, which the mother says doctors say is caused by bathing in contaminated water. Only 50 meters away is an oil well and they tell us it's spills have contaminated the water they depend on for drinking, cooking, and bathing. This family has "no esperanza" or no hope for any good to come of oil development. Oil has not helped them, they only farm and do not work for the oil company and you can tell they are tired of the problems oil has caused for them.

You have to start asking yourself when you spend a day like today. Have I ever seen anything like this at home?

Yesterday we interviewed the Deputy Chief of Mission and an economists at the U.S. Embassy in Quito. The government of Ecuador they claimed has done a poor job of responsibly managing its energy sector and making sure safe and appropriate practices are used. I do not doubt this, everyone in Ecuador talks about the corruption this country faces and it has been way too easy for companies to pay their way out of the problems they have caused. Yet I start to question what responsibility the U.S. has in making sure it's own companies use ethical practices. I would say we could have and should do much more. Always we leave such interviews with more questions and the issues become more complex. Who is at fault for what has resulted in this public and ecological health emergency? Is it the U.S. companies, Ecuador, the U.S. government, or those of us who lead lifestyles dependent on oil? I know there is no fully correct answer to these questions, but I think the point is we need to question because all too often we don't. Start at home. Start questioning why we are relying on a natural resource for our energy needs that has (and continues to) result in the violation of human's right to clean air, land, and water. A resource that is resulting in the extinction of plants and animals that are dependent on healthy intact ecosystems for a home and is largely responsible for our current global warming crisis. Then start to act.

]]> working with their hands http://studyaway.plu.edu/node/187 2007-01-10T08:23:06-08:00 2007-01-10T08:23:06-08:00 Rachel Esbjornson Kate and I have just left Rio Muchacho, an organic permaculture farm we have been doing volunteer work at for the last week. My last morning at Rio Muchacho was spent clearing a garden plot of weeds and dried corn stalks to prepare the soil for planting. The day was the hottest it had

]]> Kate and I have just left Rio Muchacho, an organic permaculture farm we have been doing volunteer work at for the last week. My last morning at Rio Muchacho was spent clearing a garden plot of weeds and dried corn stalks to prepare the soil for planting. The day was the hottest it had
been since my arrival and sweat poured off my face, arms, and legs watering the rich soil beneath my feet. After about twenty minuets Oscar(one of the farm workers), Ian (another volunteer), and I decided to take a break in the small patch of shade along the edge of the field. While watching large beaked blackbirds pick at the soil for freshly uncovered
insects we spoke in spanish about our home cultures. Unlike my home town in Montana where the majority of the people I graduated with left to go to school else where, in the community of Rio Muchacho most people do not leave. They stay to farm, to the work the land and continue to be a part
of a community they have known their entire lives.

At home those who do not leave home are often viewed as some how less successful, and a bit less knowledgable than those of us who have left. Lately I have been thinking a lot about knowledge and place. What is the depth of the knowlege that the men and women I have worked with on this farm have of their own home? Of their land and of their community? I think
we need to recognize and honor this type of knowing. A knowledge that comes from working daily with your hands. I can´t but help think this sort of work has to create an intamacy with a place that results in a deep knowledge of your home. I find myself desiring this sort of knowledge and
wishing I better knew my own home.

]]> Starting Questions http://studyaway.plu.edu/node/91 2006-12-10T18:31:27-08:00 2006-12-10T18:31:27-08:00 Rachel Esbjornson Today I stood on a hill over one of Ecuador´s highland towns, Otavalo, and drew the scene before me in my sketch book. Steep curving young lush mountains patch worked by farms surround this northern highland town. Grey icy white clouds added depth and texture to the sky and hung around the bases of distant mountains.
Two years ago I spent an afternoon in this town, which holds one of South America´s biggest artisan markets, with 15 other PLU students as a part of PLU´s J-term environmental literature class. I have returned to explore further what captured me on my first visit. I´m taking things slower, staying in places longer so that I can catch the things I missed before.

]]> Today I stood on a hill over one of Ecuador´s highland towns, Otavalo, and drew the scene before me in my sketch book. Steep curving young lush mountains patch worked by farms surround this northern highland town. Grey icy white clouds added depth and texture to the sky and hung around the bases of distant mountains.

Two years ago I spent an afternoon in this town, which holds one of South America´s biggest artisan markets, with 15 other PLU students as a part of PLU´s J-term environmental literature class. I have returned to explore further what captured me on my first visit. I´m taking things slower, staying in places longer so that I can catch the things I missed before.

I´ve been in Ecuador for five months now, studying Spanish at one of Quito´s language schools. Time has truly flown by and I can´t believe I´m almost done with my language school. Next weekend I leave for the coast to work on an organic permaculture farm to learn some hands-on skills in sustainability. In January I will start doing research with Kate Fontana and Dr. Bergman on how oil development has impacted indigenous communities in Ecuador´s Amazon rainforest region.

Oil has left scars upon this country in the form of ecological destruction and human health and rights violations. From 1970 to about 1992 thirty times more oil than was spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster has been spilled in Ecuador. Oil companies have dumped billions of highly carcinogenic waste from the drilling process into unlined pits, swamps, streams, and rivers. Sadly Texaco, a U.S. oil company, is largely responsible for much of this ecological and human health disaster.

As I have already written friends at home the question that daily chases after me is: "how can we live more socially and environmentally responsible lives then we have been?" Lives which honor both human and non human life. While I´m here I want to learn more about how the way people in my country are living is affecting others beyond our boarders. I hope to start discovering the road to my ever persistent questions about ethical living. Already I have some ideas. Consume less. Reduce your consumption of oil. Purchase locally. Base your ideas of success not on money or material possessions but on your relationships to other and the earth. I´m sure my upcoming work on the organic permaculture farm will offer me more.

Thanks you Ecuador for a wonderful eyeopening experience so far, I´m looking forward to the upcoming weeks!

Cheers and peace to all,
Rachel

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