An Epiphany...or Two...

So I got back from the Cloud Forest last night and I can definitely say that the last four days were eye-opening, to say the least. We left early Saturday morning and drove about four or five hours to the Cloud Forest of Intag. While it was a very scenic drive, the last hour or so also happened to be one of the most frightening of my life (which actually is not saying much, since I don´t think I am too much of an expert on dangerous roads, but whatever). The Cloud Forest is called such because it is, essentially, like the rainforest only located at a very high altitude in the mountains. There are literally drifts of cloud floating just over the treetops, which makes for a gorgeous view but one hell of a terrifying ride when you are in a giant, creaking bus attempting to maneuver up incredibly narrow, muddy, unpaved roads in the mountains, with nothing but open air and cloud outside your window. I was literally clutching my armrest for most of that ride up the mountain on the way there, but on the way back, slightly more relaxed, I took tons of pictures out of the window of the bus and will attempt to post them sometime this weekend.

Eventually, we arrived at this very rural school, nestled amongst the mountains, where we all tumbled thankfully from the bus and into the cool, moist mountain air. At this point, we had to tie all our belongings onto the backs of horses that we waiting for us, as the bus nor cars could really proceed any further. Once all our belongings were secure, we set off, hiking down a winding, muddy, rocky trail through the woods. We hiked for about an hour before we finally reached the remote but absolutely gorgeous farm where we would be staying.

The farm, located in the heart of the woods on a mountainside, was all built by hand by the owner, Carlos (originally from Cuba) and his wife, Sandy (an American). Carlos is the executive director of DECOIN, an anti-mining and conservation group that has been working for years to protect the Cloud Forest from the mining companies that have been trying to move in, despite the local community´s protests, and begin a copper mine that would completely devastate everything there.

I have to say, meeting Carlos and the other members of DECOIN that talked with us was possibly one of the most humbling and inspiring things I have experienced thus far in my life. It was like the tale of David and Goliath come to life: this tiny community of people trying to fight against this giant mining company with enormous wealth and questionable morals. And after viewing actual footage of a standoff between the community and the mining company´s hired guns, I was also reminded of a line from a movie, something like, "This is what always happens when people without guns try to stand up to people with guns."

Essentially, the story behind the Cloud Forest, DECOIN, and the mining companies goes like this: besides the enormous wealth of biodiversity present in the Cloud Forest (the plethora of species of plants and animals there, including many endangered and endemic species), there is also, unfortunately, copper. And even though the copper in the forest in only 0.7% copper (LESS THAN 1%!!!) and 99.3% waste products (most of which is incredibly toxic and from which it would take the ecosystem centuries to recover), industrialized countries are apparently so hungry for copper to make, as Carlos put it, "a lot of crap that we don´t really need," that they are willing to devastate an entire ecosystem and way of life to get at it. The reason I say way of life is because, in addition to the immense wealth of plant and animal life in the forest, there is also the pesky problem of the forest´s native inhabitants, many of whom live in the tiny community of Junin. Should the mining move forward as the companies want, this community would be forcibly moved away from the forest and their entire way of living would be destroyed.

So, the mining companies (most recently one called Ascendant, which gets its money from Canada but whose headquarters are located in Colorado) began by saying, "Oh, we will do whatever the community wants us to do" but when the community overwhelmingly told them to get the hell out, the mining companies responded by saying, "well, we are going to start our mine anyway." And thus began a system of intimidation, bribery, violence, and threats, all to get at the miniscule amounst of copper in the Cloud Forest.

Carlos told us about receiving death threats, about the mining company buying police, prosecutors, and judges to bring phony charges against him in an attempt to murder him in jail (apparently, when Lenore told us at the beginning of this program that, "in Ecuador, the police are not your friend," she was most definitely right). He told us about, while he was forced into hiding, the police came to his house, completely trashed it, and intimidated and threatened his wife and son.

We also got to talk to a girl about our age who has been active with DECOIN since she was fourteen. Incredibly shy and soft spoken, she told us about her experiences fighting the mining companies to try to preserve her home in Junin and her community. What was even more amazing than listening to her, however, was the constrast of our discussion with her and a video Carlos later showed us about a confrontation with the mining company where she was present. In the video, trucks full of hired guns were sent by the mining company to set up an exploratory camp in the forest. They were stopped on the road by a group of unarmed civilians and right at the front of the crowd was this same small, shy, soft spoken girl, yelling louder than anyone at the paramilitaries to "Get out! This is our home! We do not want you here!" Even when the hired guns fired at them and shot them with teargas, they refused to move out of the road. It was one of the most inspiring things I have ever witnessed.

What I found amusing, while watching this video, was that right before the video of this confrontation was shown, we watched footage of a meeting between community leaders and the top executive of the mining company. At the meeting, the executive insisted, "We do not support violence or intimidation, we would never do that...LET OUR ACTIONS REPRESENT US." This last part almost made me laugh out loud one I had seen the footage from the confrontations between the unarmed villagers and the paramilitaries.

Besides hearing talks from Carlos and members of DECOIN, we also went on an extended hike through the forest to better understand what exactly these people have dedicated their lives to protecting. Our guide led us through huge, ancient trees and twisting vines and across waterfalls and streams. He stopped every so often to identify various medicinal plants and tell us about their uses (my favorite was the "Sangre de Drago" tree, which bleeds a red liquid when cut...very cool!), everything from herbs to treat an upset stomach to berries used to make antibiotics. And while the wildlife we saw was limited to lots of BIG bugs (mainly millipedes), we did learn about the very shy and VERY endangered spectacle bear that lives in the forest, as well as the many exotic but also very shy birds there, as well.

In all, we spent four hours on our guided hike through the woods and I spent another hour or so on my own. But from my time in the woods, however limited it may have been, I came away from this experience with one thing clear in my mind: this forest absolutely must be saved. And if all the members of DECOIN and the community of Junin are even half as dedicated as the woman we talked to and Carlos and his family, I know they will succeed.

My experience in the woods led to a few epiphanies, the first of which is that I believe I want to pursue volunteering with an environmental conservation group for my Independent Study Project for the end of the semester. Secondly, it reinforced my interest in environmental conservation and its impact on human societies (I thought that, after my international environmental politics class last semester, which was both the most challenging and rewarding of my college career so far, that I might want to pursue such interests). As a result, I am now pondering law school and the possible study of international environmental law in my future. I am not saying it is a certainty, but this experience has at least introduced me to something I feel very passionately about and think I may want to pursue in the future.

I have also had a few other epiphanies since being here in Ecuador, regarding the things I was thinking about doing after graduating this December. While I now think I may have a direction as far as my future studies are concerned, this experience so far as thrown into question some of the things I had thought to pursue between graduation and grad/law school. However, what I have also realized since coming here is that that is okay. If I do not end up doing the Peace Corps or even doing Teach for America, it is okay. I realized that I was looking at those things as more of a way to put off my future and deciding anything about it; they appealed to me because it gave me something to say when people asked what I was doing after graduation, when in reality, I had not thought much about what each of those things really meant (nor what volunteering in those organizations meant, since both, as I have gradually been learning, have very real flaws). I have been pondering that a lot more recently (hey, one of the benefits of not having a laptop or my iPod: LOTS of time to sit and think while in my room at night) and, while I am not entirely decided one way or another on either Peace Corps or Teach for America (I will probably still apply, because it could not hurt just to apply), I have realized that it is OKAY not to do either of them. It would be okay just to work for a year or so and have some experience living on my own, since I still firmly believe that I do not want to jump right into grad school (the main advice I have gotten time and again from people is to get some real world experience under my belt, outside of school, before going into grad school). Regardless of what I do, I do not nearly feel as much apprehension about it as I did before. The future is no longer this huge, scary thing looming before me. I have a lack of laptop, iPod, and cell phone access, replaced by an excessive amount of time for reading and self-reflection, to thank for that.

I have no doubt I will be thoroughly embarrassed later on when I read back on all the self-reflections that I just wrote for anyone to read. I will probably wish I had just shut up and kept it to myself, but it is a pretty big thing for me to have realized all these things. And while I may change my mind completely later on, this is my mindset as of now. And it feels pretty good to be here.

ANYWAY, one last thing that was rather profound and also pretty upsetting while in the Cloud Forest, though completely unrelated to the whole mining thing: as I have already written, there are stray dogs EVERYWHERE here. And the campo (countryside) is apparently no exception. Carlos and his wife alone have five or six dogs, but theirs are all well cared for and fed. However, there are many people who do not feed or care for their dogs here very well. My host mother told me once that there are no stray dogs in Ecuador, just dogs with owners so poor that they worry about feeding their family before their dog. Lenore told us that many say it is better, if your dog has puppies, to drown the female puppies rather than allow them to grow up in the campo, where life will be miserable for them. I did not want to believe her, but after this weekend, I think maybe she might have been right.

For one, every female dog we see around, including Carlos´dogs and the other female dogs in the campo, have all obviously had numerous litters of puppies. This is because neutering and spaying dogs here is not really normal and reserved only for the wealthy, as it is an expensive proposition for the average Ecuadorean. This means that female dogs here have litter after litter after litter of puppies, whether they or their owners want it or not.

Also, we had the experience of befriending a tiny female puppy this weekend, who apparently followed us to the farm when we hiked in. She was incredibly friendly and sweet, but also so thin that we wondered how she was still alive. Carlos and Lenore told us that puppies do not make it to her age in the campo without owners, so she had to belong to someone...just someone who apparently did not feed her. I resisted feeding her anything from the table when we ate, because I thought that might make it worse, since she would then think she belonged with us when we could not keep her. However, pretty soon the sight of the poor thing was too much for all of us and we were all feeding her bits of food at every meal.

Unfortunately, the second day we were there, an old woman and man showed up at the farm--the little dog´s owners. Carlos told them about how we had befriended their dog and had been concerned at how thin she was; they literally laughed at us silly gringos for pitying their dog and feeding it. Then, after tying a rope around its neck, they dragged the unhappy little thing up the hill and back to their home, wherever it was.

Sorry to have posted such a long, reflective, and somewhat depressing entry. I like nothing better than to write self-deprecating and hopefully humorous anecdotes of my experiences here and hopefully, the next time I write, it will be much more amusing. I also hope to post all my pictures, including pictures of my host family and the Cloud Forest, sometime this weekend.

Until next time, ciao!

-Alex

P.S. You can visit www.decoin.org to learn more about their work and how you can help. :)