Tiempo de Kolla Raymi

Tiempo de siembra. Cuando era adolescente tenía que ir con tractor de mi famila para arar. Había mucha demanda en la comunidad. Todos requerían del servicio casi al mismo tiempo por las lluvias y por los días especiales para sembrar. Las familias esperaban ese día con sus semillas listas y sus walmos para sembrar apenas se haya roturado la tierra.
Recuerdo a una tía de la comuna, que me pidió que me bajara de la máquina para mostrarme especialmente el lugar donde quería que le are su wachos o surcos. Me indicó cual era el surco para el maíz waytarilla, cual el de maíz negro y cual el de canguil. Vi además su kincha, su corralito de plantas, con matitas de ají,  manzanilla, cedrón, y hasta unas rosas en miniatura.
Sentí todo el amor con el que ella esperaba este tiempo para poder depositar la semilla en la tierra, con la esperanza de tener en el maíz sustento para ella y su familia. Para ella era imperdonable dejar algún parche de su parcela sin sembrar.
Nos debemos a la tierra sentimos un llamado tan profundo a cultivar con esperanza; y aunque luego venga la sequía y perdamos la cosecha, con la misma fe insistiremos el shamuk wata, el año que viene, pues no sembramos para lucrar. Sembramos para estar en armonía con la Pacha mama y con el creador.

The person who has inspired me the most

He is my uncle Raul Tasiguano, his life was influenced by the work of the Brethren missionaries in Llano Grande, a village of poor indigenous peasants.
From high school he majored as an agricultural practical bachelor in 1970. He worked for the mission as a promotor for better agricultural practices in Llano Grande.
He became aware that the bus drivers from the mestizo town near to our village were exploiting and committing acts of racism against our indigenous brothers from the  community. He decided to do something about this challenge.
Together with a group of youngsters from Llano Grande he formed a society called Apollo United, in honor to the recently landing of the man on the surface of the moon. they decided to conform a transportation service for Llano Grande in buses owned by indigenous locals.
Immediately, they suffered the attack from the mestizo bus service in collusion with the transit policemen. So Apollo Unido decided to call a strike from Llano Grande in Quito City. As a result of their pacific fight they acquired legal permission to operate, and the mestizo buses were expelled from Llano Grande.
Regrettably, the retaliation from the Calderon bus drivers was fatal. In march 28th, 1971, he was killed during an aggression he and some other leaders suffered when  transiting by a mestizo bus drivers enclave in Llano Grande. for the police records that incident was only another traffic accident.
Thanks to his sacrifice, Llano Grande got independent from mestizo transportation buses and enjoyed from a very respectful service from fellow local drivers.
The commitment of Raul Tasiguano who gave his own life for his hometown compeles me to keep alive his memory and follow his legate.

Pros and cons of living in Ecuador

Ecuador is an amazing country, it is small but its combined location on the Equator line, the Andes mountains and the Amazon jungles provide some  unique characteristics. A hallucinating combination of snow-capes, high sierra, beaches, jungles and even Galápagos Islands, all of this combined with a great variety of vegetable and animal species is very rewarding for the visitor.
Ecuador is the home of at least 13 Indigenous peoples, all of them with its own culture, language and territory, aside with the white-mestizo and the Afro-Ecuadorean peoples. This gives Ecuador the characteristic of a multicultural and multilingual country. As you can deduct from this, in our country there are different cosmovisiones about what is and how to acquire the so called well living.
Immense natural resources like oil, minerals are present in the subsoil, but there is a difference of opinion about exploiting or not them, without harming mother nature and the habitat of no contacted tribes together with very sensible ecosystems.
Enough reasons to live in this beautiful country nevertheless I cannot think about negative aspects for living here. It is not that there are not negative aspects. A lot of fellow compatriots would mention aspects like, corruption, violence, poverty, unemployment; but if you consider, you will find these aspects in the majority of the countries around the world, and it is up to you if you decide to stay or not here.
In my opinion, something deeper is hurting my country. It has to deal with identity. This country has emerged over a base of oppression, racism and exploitation against indigenous population. So we have grown together in the same soul, but giving each others backs. I think the worst part of this conflict is taken by the mestizo people. They come from indigenous and white slopes. And they feel a lack of identity, and when it happens, development processes are delayed.
This conflict is latent and needs to be faced, we must find a way to become really intercultural. Respecting and even loving all different, peoples, a dialogue is needed in order to reach an agreement about the way of reach the well being of our country.
I don't see this problem as a con to live in Ecuador, it is just a challenge you are invited to face with us.

My pet peeves

A pet peeve is something small and relatively insignificant that really irritates you.

Well, I have a lot of pet peeves, I have seen that we Ecuadorians are very accustomed to complain about anything, so for us it is not so difficult to think about something when we are asked  about what our pet peeves are.

Chosen randomly, I don't like when someone asks me an obvious question. Any day I am busy at my desk, I have a lot o papers over the table, I am going through them trying to figure out how to make an entry in the accountancy system when suddenly someone says: Excuse me Germancito!, are you busy? - Argghhh! nooooo!, I am just waiting for a wind to come and blow away all these papers!.

Another thing that annoys  me is when I am driving and stopped in a traffic light, then the light turns green, immediately the driver who is behinds me, honks!. As his unique neuron in his brain were trained to react when watching green light and instinctively directs his finger to push the claxon. 

When stopped in a traffic light I use the mirrors to check what others drivers do, some are texting, others are cleaning the wax of their ears, or looking for something into their noses, as if nobody were watching, when they find what they were looking for, they just roll down their window and using the index and the thumb finger, they propel away the little ball, that suddenly could end glued in your car`s window.

Pet peeves could annoy you without bothering other people. Be careful about your pet peeves, or you would end asthe popular detective from the tv series: Mr. Monk.

My biggest acomplishment

(Well, not my biggest, but just something I feel proud about...)

When you work in the Third World for a public institution only with a contract which can be ended for any reason, you feel vulnerable. The feeling is stronger when a new boss takes on. A situation like this occurred to me in the year 2000.

The new boss removed me from the financial section of Indigenous Affairs Office to the Department of Culture. I was no disappointed because I have been interested in Culture since I was in college. All of a suden I was ordered to travel and visit the Tsa`chila Indigenous people in order to evaluate their challenges and come back with an agreed proposal for cooperation.

If I had told my boss that I was not able to accomplish the task, he would have asked for my resignation. Moreover, I was afraid of conducting a meeting with the Tsa`chila chiefs.

So I accepted the challenge. I remembered I received training about ZOPP, a method to solve problems in a participatory way. I rushed home, prepared materials like cardboard, markers, masking tape, etc. Then I remember reviewing my notes during the 3 hours that the trip lasted in a very hot bus.

I found out the meeting was with 13 leaders from different villages. I took courage and managed the meeting in a friendly way. The chiefs were able to watch their requests written down and pinned to the billboard in a ordered way, from causes to effects, classified by patterns. Then we turned the problems into solutions. They were happy and desired to go back to the villages ans wait for results.

I had to work during the weekend producing something readable and coherent for my superior.

In the next Monday meeting I was so nervous about his reaction to my work. But, nothing to be afraid of, he sent me a congratulation letter that I have kept until now. I acquired my boss confidence by demonstrating my skills.