Back in Pambilar

For the fourth time since I started working with the Awá Federation I had the chance to go to the Pambilar community in the Esmeraldas province this week. I came along with a good group of Awá leaders, sustainable agriculture specialists and two técnicos from the Altropico foundation. This was all part of the MIES Esmeraldas project, just like I had participated in Guadualito over a month ago. We had three busy days of workshops both with adults and youth on many different topics: managing cattle, pigs, chicken, tilapia fish farming, wimal bee and environmental education. Overall it went very smoothly, there was good participation from the community members as well as folks from Río Bogotá and Balsareño who were also invited. I certainly learned a great deal about animal husbandry in the Awá territory. It is quite different from raising animals in the sierra or on the coast mainly because of biophysical and cultural reasons. The Awá is an indigenous group living in the woods as hunters and gatherers and eventhough many families already have chickens, pigs, a few crops and cows, they are not “campesinos”. For instance they hardly ever grow crops for the sole purpose of feeding their animals. It is mainly a subsitence agricultural system in which they eat everything they have and the few leftovers if any would be fed to the animals.

This phenomenon of “campesinación” or becoming farmers over being hunters and gatherers is a delicate transition. The communities themselves asked for this project during past general assemblies so no one can be blamed for conditioning them into giving up their traditional way of life. The trade off however does raise a few doubts about the sustainability of this change. Top of the list of doubt comes the cattle: how could comunities could possibly protect their native forest and increase cattle ranching on their land at the same time? That is simply impossible and we all know what will happen next. I truly fear that returning to the Awá territory 20 years from now will be the result of untapped habitat destruction for the economic gain from timber and cattle ranching. The end of civilization. It’s both sad and fascinating the be witnessing this social-cultural shift. Frigntening signs of that come from the modern way some Awá are fishing: using dynamite and barbasco poison that contaminates the rivers.  They obviously use rifles for hunting game.

The health leader, Umberto, and I gave the environmental education class to a large group of almost 40 youth. The main topic: the forest. Obviously the kids knew much more than I do about it and aced through each activity. They were quite shy so it was great to have 3 other Awá adults to co-facilitate the workshop and speak in Awapit when necessary. The kids were certainly much more confident speaking in their own language than in Spanish. We did a bunch of dinamicas that to break the ice and Awapit was very useful to get their full participation. I mainly played a facilitators role, sitting back giving suggestions and letting the Awá health promoters actually run the show. Umberto later told me that he felt much more confident to run these workshops after the two sessions in Guadualito and Pambilar.

We all suffered on our hike back to the panamericana under a blazing sun. The worst part was getting back to my waterless home in Lita. Water runs about 6 hours a day on average so I keep full buckets at all times to mitigate the long hours of drought. Despite all that I found the village to be quite festive this weekend. The campaign for the national general assembly and the new constitutional president had something to do with that. Lita’s president on the other hand better get his act together as the machines he promised to build the new Mira bridge last week never showed up. Many people I speak to tell me he’s a good friend but that he cannot be counted on when most needed. I was really hoping that the air of campaign would accelerate the process. Thank goodness for the Awá teacher in Baboso who is taking the matter in his own hands ordering the material needed and mobilizing workers to get the job done.