Culture Shock, and a trip to Middle Earth

Dispatch by Robert Smith; photos by Robert Smith and Melanie Wood
(Note: We're home now. We were having too much fun and there was no time to blog. But there's still stories to tell about Ecuador, so we'll send out a few more dispatches before we calla it quits.)

Where, when you need her?

I've already mentioned that, in Ecuador, the coin of the realm is the U.S. dollar coin that bears the image of Sacajawea. This young Native American female was Lewis and Clark's ambassador to the tribes they encountered as they took the measure of the land known as the Louisiana Purchase. The coin depicts Sacajawea bearing her papoose and looking backward over her shoulder with a gentle smile as if she’s leading the way and encouraging us to follow.




Last Wednesday I was wishing I had a guide like Sacajawea. I have become painfully reacquainted with how difficult it can be to operate on unfamiliar turf while trying to communicate in a foreign language. Our guides to the pueblito did not speak English. As I reflect on this experience, I’m reminded of the title of Mark Twain’s book, The Innocents Abroad.

 But before we get into that, let’s first share some photos of some young children who were having their first encounter with the One World Futbol:

Melanie with youngsters at the soccer field

That’s Melanie in the photo above, being mobbed by a group of youngsters at a soccer field where we walked to get the kids acquainted with the balls we had brought them. They loved them. And they loved Melanie, too. One or two of the kids played with her fine, blond hair, which apparently seemed quite exotic. One little girl examined it as if she were looking for nits, and tried to create a pony tail. Melanie came away feeling well groomed This was the highlight of the day.

Melanie after a few minutes with the youngsters at the soccer field

Despite the excitement the indestructibles brought to the children, much of the experience gave me an appreciation of just how enormous the challenge is when addressing the needs for communities such as the pueblitos of Valle Chota. One World Play Project has distributed more than a million balls around the globe. However, the world is a big place, and, understandably, only one shipment so far had reached Ecuador. (Ours was the second, I think.)

First meeting with the village representatives

As Melanie and I engaged some village leaders of the impoverished pueblito we visited, we became aware that it wasn’t enough to create a ball that was perfectly suited for such communities—it was also complicated to understand how to present and distribute them in a way that fits the cultural norms of the community. Two days earlier we had visited Quechua-speaking pueblitos with a guide who had an anthropologist’s world view. But in Valle Chota, I came to realize the people who brought us to this remote outpost were more like chauffeurs, than guides. How that situation developed is too complicated a story to tell here.

The stunningly beautiful Valle Chota

Valle Chota is a visually striking locale, situated roughly 150 kilometers North of Quito, and just a few kilometers from Highway 35--the Pan American highway. It is the place where the descendants of African slaves made their home.

Yes, there were black slaves in Ecuador, and I was surprised to find that their owners were Jesuits, who employed this human resource on their sugar plantations and in their mines. (You ask yourself, did Jesuits whip their resentful slaves? There must have been some.)

Against the majestic backdrop of the mountain the homes reveal a hard scrabble life.

Today, much more than a century later, the wealth that flows along the Pan American highway seems to enrich the Highway 35 corridor and perhaps major cities, but it looks like that wealth barely trickles down to Valle Chota.

This home was just outside the gate of the soccer field

This photo suggests development will arrive. The street isn't paved, but the sidewalks are in.

On the other hand, “seven out of the 23 players in Ecuador’s groundbreaking 2002 World Cup squad came from here,” reports The Rough Guide to Ecuador. With that kind of history, and the extreme poverty of the area, this seemed like a good place to share the magic of the One World Futbol.

However, when we distributed the balls, we became aware almost immediately that this was just the gleam on the drop in the bucket. The need is enormous.

After some introductory confusion over how to share the largess, the elders opted to have us take the balls to the soccer field for initial presentation to the children. As an adult led us and some youngsters to the field, our chauffeurs drove off, apparently unaware that they were expected to return us to our pickup point in Quito, 150 kilometers away.

The youngsters gain acquaintance with two of the indestructibles -- Ganador, and José.

A few hours later we would be returning to ask the pueblito fathers what became of our ride. One of them accompanied us to a bus stop. The good news was that bus rides are very inexpensive in Ecuador. It was a 2.5 hour ride out by car, and a 4.5 hour ride home, and we arrived in the middle of a torrential downpour.

At the bus station, a pedestrian rushes across the street being pounded by torrential rain, while others stand under shelter, anticipating arrivals of taxis.

 At the Quito bus station we braved a cats-and-dogs downpour to pile into a cab just long enough to discover the ride was going to cost $20. Then we piled out again, back into the downpour. The next driver charged us $8 and we were back at our home stay by 9 p.m., about 10 hours after we set out.

The next day, at Middle Earth, we came across a potentially better resource for bringing the indestructibles to Ecuador.

The visit to Middle Earth

Well, OK, it’s not middle earth. Mitad del Mundo actually translates to “Half of the world.” But Middle Earth is so much more colorful. It’s soft of Tolkeinesque.

At Mitad del Mundo, abroad promenade leads to the monument to the equator.

Ecuador is named for the equator, which runs right through the country, including through Quito, or at least one of its “burbs.” Buses transport tourists to Mitad del Mundo, where they line up on a yellow strip about as wide as their shoes for the obligatory misleading photo – the actual equatorial zone is about five kilometers wide, covering the equatorial valley called Lulubamba. Nevertheless tourists (like Melanie, pictured below) like to do the toe-to-heel high-wire gesture to demonstrate -- misleadingly -- that they are precisely on the equator.

Melanie atop Mother Earth's hemisphere tatoo.

The location of the equator was actually delineated by the French Geodesic Mission in the 1730’s, to determine whether the world was rounder at the poles or the equator. By the time their work was complete, another team had already determined that the earth is flatter at the poles.

Not to be outdone, the French left this monument to their research and opened a gift shop. That’s the gift shop in the photo immediately below. It’s held up well over the past two and a half centuries. (Well, OK, maybe I'm stretching the truth a little on this point.)

From atop the tower, a view of the gift shop bestowed on Ecuadoreans by the French whose scientific acumen told them the best place to situate a future tourist trap. Note the thin yellow line leading right up to the door. Those guys thought of everything.

At 8146.325 feet above sea level, most tourists choose to reach the top of this tower via elevator, and then just take the staircase down.

Wlson paused to read the information in this fancy-schmancy kiosk.

Oblivious to the tall gringo almost pictured next to her, this security guard struck a pose with Wilson. Note the truncheon in her right hand. No-one messes with her.

But just to be sure, a military helicoptor flew circles overhead, keeping an eye on me and Melanie.

Atop the tower, Wilson took in the view of mountains and volcanoes. To the northeast of this tower lies Pululahua Crater, one of only two inhabited volcano craters on earth.

This emblem carved on into the north side of the monument represents a Toesa, an antique French measurement instrument used by the Geodesic Mission. 

Regarding that cultural clash...

At the gift shop, we made a phenomenal introduction. Standing at the door, providing guidance, was a gentleman named Manolo Perez. (Sorry, no photo. We had totally exhausted our batteries.) I commented on Monolo's excellent English. Well, it should be excellent. He moved from Quito to Indiana when he was 15 years old, spent his work life in Florida, and retired back to Quito six months ago to pursue work as a photographer.

And Manolo loved Wilson.

Enroute to Mitad del Mundo we passed a distributorship for Chevrolets. Remember that Chevrolet is the prime sponsor for One World Futbols? And Manolo, as a U.S. citizen had the phone number for the U.S. Ambassador, because he is in the process of arranging his social security payments.

And One World Futbol Project has distributed 45,000 of those futbols via U.S. embassies.

Hmmmm. The worst thing that can happen is that we don't at least try. Where there's a will...

Next dispatch: The surgeons of Portoviejo.

Love,
Robert, Melanie
and Wilson