Learning by Doing

Guadualito is the only Awá community that can be reached by car. A road going from the notorious city of San Lorenzo to a place called El Pan cuts right through this small, isolated Awá land. They are surrounded by African palm plantations that dump a bunch of chemicals in the three rivers that run through this part of the territory. Very little native forest remains and most of the 1,800 ha belonging to Guadualito is now secondary growth. It was with great interest and curiosity that I finally visited this community to give an environmental education class to the local kids. This is all part of a massive project funded by the ministry of economic and social insertion (MIES Esmeraldas) which also includes workshops on health & nutrition and animal husbandry. As I was working with the kids, the adults were in workshops on cow, pig and Wimal bee (a non-stinging bee specie) raising.

The children of Guadualito are an adorable bunch and a lot of fun to work with. They gave a lot of attention and participated actively throughout the workshop. I was fortunate to know the local teacher well as she was part of the environmental education workshop we did in Ibarra in December. The FCAE health leader also helped out with the session so we easily managed the 28 participating kids. We chose a main topic El Bosque (the forest) as it connects directly with all the essential elements of healthy life. First we brainstormed on the perfect recipe for a healthy forest which they then drew; we then played a game about different animal species living on land, air and water; the last activity was an outdoor investigation of 2 square meter parcels that they drew and from which they derived three questions of their choice. The kids seemed to really enjoy working in group and I was glad we could include the last activity as it was taken from the workshop the local teacher and me participated in. The lesson went really well and we will plan another date to follow up and give a charla (talk) on health & nutrition, hopefully next month. There is even a space behind the classroom where we can start a small school garden and have the students plants a few crops. Should be a lot of fun!

In the meantime the adults received their cattle. It was somewhat chaotic but hilarious at the same time. When the truck arrived packed with exhausted animals that hadn’t eaten in 2 days and travelled all night long squashed against one another, they simply opened the doors right in the middle of the community (not a fenced area!!!), most of them running away immediately in the direction they came from. What followed was a comical mixture of “maybe we should’ve been more prepared and had ropes handy?” and “maybe we should’ve counted them first before we released them?” and a bunch of guys running after their animals. They were lucky as many of the cows and bulls returned towards the community and were caught rapidly but by the time I caught my ride out of Guadualito, there were still several animals on the loose.

In the weeks preceding these events, the Awá education department (DEIBNAE) called me up so that I can assist them with an urgent matter: help legalize a bunch of students 6 months away from ending their “ciclo básico” so that they can receive legitimate certificates. This turned out to be a mess. After a brief meeting with them and a fellow from the education ministry we decided to draft a contract between the two high schools operating in Baboso that would unify them. One is legally recognized (La Paz) and the other is not despite 3 years of operation (Ampara Su). Through this unification, the students of both institutions would be under the umbrella of La Paz’s legitimacy and receive legal documents when graduating. I helped draft this “convenio” along with all the staff of the department so I feel somewhat responsible with what follows. The DEIBNAE called a meeting with all the stakeholders to analyze the situation and the drafted contract. The director of the NGO Tierra para Todos which manages the illegal Ampara Su school immediately took a fit when he read the contract, exposed everything his NGO has done for the Awá in the last 3 years, threatened to legalize his school through the Hispanic education system and took off before anyone could reply with a tear in his eye, followed by three of his co-workers. One part in the contract particularly troubled him; it mentioned that the name of his school “Ampara Su” would be taken over by “La Paz” as part of the legalization process. His pride was obviously hurt and couldn’t be reasoned. It was a fiasco.

The DEIBNAE was very clumsy not to share the document prior to the meeting and not introducing the clear objective of the meeting: legalize the group of 10th graders about to graduate. The director of the NGO made a fool of himself being ridiculously immature and irrational in front of all the parties involved. He was extremely disrespectful almost to a racist level towards the director of the DEIBNAE, interrupting him constantly, never giving a chance to reply to any of his arguments. This is the way he is. He constantly imposes his method developed unilaterally. As a politician, he thinks strategically to position himself as a Good Samaritan for indigenous communities. His NGO operates throughout the Awá territory helping building schools, bridges and equipment – a very necessary and noble action indeed – however they often avoid coordinating with the Awá Federation and make them look bad whenever they can. They try to demonstrate the Federation’s inability to take care of their own leading to internal divisions in the communities, those for and against the FCAE president. It is clear that the NGO director and the FCAE president dislike each other; the former even intervened in the Awá presidential campaign for another candidate, an ally of his, to be elected.

Next week, I am returning to Ibarra and will find out the latest on this delicate situation. In Guadualito I had a chance to speak with the coordinator of the La Paz high school and he told me that legalizing the group of 10th graders was a very simple process: the DEIBNAE can issue legal certificates for the “ciclo básico” themselves; it’s a question of will. Not having all the information and understanding all the politics of intercultural bilingual education in Ecuador makes it difficult for me to grasp what is the right thing to do. I am simply putting the pieces together bit by bit. Doña Filomena and I should also be looking into selling Awá art at the famous Otavalo market on Saturdays. Hopefully it will be feasible to have a table and sell their products to the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit the market each year. Awá crafts really stands out from the predominantly Kishwa and Quechua products of the market so it may attract avid indigenous art collectors. This would be a positive conclusion to a troubled albeit fascinating first month of the year.