Feb. 5 - Visiting the Sky People

Today was an early morning as I awoke at 4:30am in order to make it to Huanca Pallaguchi that morning. Tom, Scott and I all piled into the pickup truck to head over to Father Charlie's place. Upon arriving I was certain that I had brought the wrong clothes to travel today. One of the people who was joining us was dressed in a down filled parka, while another was in a one-piece snow suit (which I didn't know they even made anymore). All I had was a sweater to keep me warm...I didn't even have a hat! But honestly, how cold could it really be? (The answer here is a lot colder than imaginable).

Huanca was a 3 hour drive away from Riobamba. After picking up Maria, we drove an hour along the Pan-American Highway before turning on to a dirt road for our two hour drive. As I had been suffering from dehydration over the past couple of days, I had a lot to drink this morning (including some extra coffee to keep me awake) only to find out that on a bumpy road I have the bladder of a 2 year old which made the trip a little uncomfortable.

The drive was absolutely magnificent and included green mountain after green mountain. Of course, there were the obligatory hop-ons (there's no bus, so our pick-up truck was the transportation of choice for many people). Once we got about half an hour into the drive we were high enough that we were actually above the clouds and were able to look out over the sea of clouds, which were broken up by mountainous islands. It was absolutely magical and something I've always wanted to see. It didn't disappoint.

Upon arriving in Ecuador, I have heard about how the Pan-American Highway is the commercial corridor and as you got further away from it, the economic situation of the communities diminishes. This morning I was able to see that. As you went further back into the countryside you would notice how people would slowly transform from westerners to the indigenous people who live in the hills. Huanca is one of those towns, which is struggling, but they are determined to improve their situation, and the first step is a school.

For the past few years, Tom (along with the other people in our group) has been helping the people of Huanca build a school in this small community. I should mention that all the work these communities do is aided by outsiders. People like Tom only act as consultants and help the community when they hit a roadblock. All the fundraising and labour is done by the communities themselves. On average, you can build a good quality school for about $10,000, but this community wanted to go further and have built a large school of about 6 classrooms, accommodation for the teachers and are currently building a cafeteria for the students (the reason for coming out here). All in all, this community has managed to raise about $100,000 to build this magnificent school. In order to keep costs down, lessen their impact on the environment and stay close to their roots, this school (as many are) was built with adobe bricks. These bricks are made from a combination of volcanic soil and grass found around the town, then dried for about 6 weeks. The final bricks are stacked together and covered with a thin layer of cement to create an extremely durable material and great insulator.

While touring the school, I managed to experience first hand the gratitude people have for the help they receive. Due to my lack of Spanish, I was not able to understand the words, but you didn't need to. The tone and expressions these people had was powerful enough to transcend any language. It was enough to convince anyone that their life work should be to help other people. Even though I didn't do anything to help build this school, I left with such a great feeling inside that could only grow stronger by helping. Because of the speeches I heard there I've decided to do more language courses so that I can better understand the people's hardships and understand how I can help them. I left the school with an open invitation to return to help them with the final bit of construction.

After having tea with the community leaders (the main way of showing gratitude is to feed you) we headed back to Riobamba. On the way we stopped at cascading waterfalls to have lunch (which included an apple that came back to haunt me again, and again, and again, and again). Alongside the waterfall we were able to watch some children tend to their sheep in the most interesting way...they threw rocks at them. It was enough to scare the sheep from crossing the road and was the least amount of work for the children to do. A few people also passed us on donkey-back or by foot, walking from one town to another.

Once back in Riobamba we headed over to Father Charlie's place to rest before dinner. From his roof we were able to watch Volcan Tungurahua smoking off in the distance near Banos (30km away). According to Father Charlie, it had blown a new hole in the side and you could see a new eruption every 5 or 6 minutes. After we had all rested we headed off for a unique dinner. Have you ever wondered what 4 Canadians and a French woman would speak in a Chinese restaurant??? ..... Spanish of course.