catchup

May 31, 2007 (older entry I typed but never posted. Always playing catch up). I am soooooooo confused. Yesterday as I am leaving the AMWAE office, I am told by some of the women that my counterpart called and said that I am supposed to go with her adentro to one of the Waorani communities with her tomorrow (as in today). In a plane. For a few days…but no one knows for sure how many. WHAT!?=???

I had already had a bad day. It started out when the computer I had been working on (my counterpart’s computer) decided that it would be a good time to break. The monitor was totally dark, and it was virtually impossible to read the words on the screen. Both Noemi and I tried to fix it to no avail. We called in a computer guy who she is friends with…and he basically said it is broken. Crappy timing. I felt really bad, because I was the last one who used it and assumed I would be blamed for breaking it. Instead, everyone blamed the power outage. Actually, there HAD been a power outage. There was a huge bang, and then all the power went out yesterday. I didn’t think it was the fault of the power outage, because the computer worked fine after that...but I wasn’t about to argue, as I had no better explanation.

Oh…this reminds me of the story I started to tell, but never finished about another classic blunder of mine… so, the day after I get back from my big trip to Tiwino, I am helping the Waorani women prepare for the Ambassador’s visit. A bunch of us were carrying plastic chairs down from our 3rd story office to the curb, in order to transport via taxi with our friend, Edison (aka “vecino,” which means neighbor, because none of the women can remember his name). On our last trip down, I closed the door behind me, since I was the last one out. As we loaded the chairs into the truck bed, Sylvia freaks out that someone closed the door to the office, which locks automatically…and her purse and her keys were in there. The only keys to the office, her house…even her bedroom. This, of course, is on the heels of Jer accidentally locking himself out while I was gone…and then somehow Jeremy-rigging a board (aka tool to help enter windows) to climb up and jump through the second story window and rip his favorite pair of pants. I told this story to Sylvia and we all had a good laugh…but it didn’t solve the key problem. It turns out, that she is the only person that has a key to the outside door lock…and the individual office lock (because my counterpart evidently didn’t want anyone else to have a copy of the key)… Quite a conundrum that I caused. In the short term it was eclipsed by the mini-crisis in NAWE when we arrived…and the place hadn’t been cleaned, as was promised. The Ambassador was coming…and the place was, well, dirty. There already exists a little tension between AMWAE and NAWE…which I don’t fully understand all the nuances, but I could pick up on the friction…and the Women of AMWAE were none too pleased to have to clean up for NAWE—almost all of which are men… We worked until almost 8 that night getting stuff ready and dealing with the key issue. I felt really horrible about it all, even though there was no way I was to know her stuff was inside the office. She was just worried about the fact that she wouldn’t have access to her bedroom. Her husband unlocked the front door, but he didn’t have a key to the bedroom door. So, that night I had trouble sleeping because I kept fretting about Sylvia being locked out of her bedroom. The next day I asked her what happened. “Oh, it was no problem, my husband just climbed through the window.” Guess that seems to be a popular thing to do these days.



June 5, 2007
So much to process…where do I start?

I am totally fascinated with the concept of raising money to NOT drill in Yasuni National Park, Waorani territory, wherever…to offset the revenues generated by oil extraction.

My suspicions about the influence that oil money has on the Waorani are slowly proving to be accurate. But it turns out to be much more convoluted than that. It is not just oil money…it is money from whatever interest group. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, right? Today is World Environment Day. It was celebrated here in Puyo with the Festival of Water, orchestrated by noneother than the Science King himself. It was an awesome display of creativity, energy and enthusiasm for protecting and conserving water. The kids were absolutely adorable in their crisp uniforms, as they rattled off fascinating factoids about water pollution. Many had entire speeches on environmental protection committed to memory. It was pretty impressive.

So, during lunch I picked up El Comercio, Ecuador’s major newspaper to check out their coverage of World Environment Day. I was impressed with the number of articles dedicated to the theme, actually. Lots of tree planting activities (including a minga involving 1,500 people planting 10,000 trees waaaaaaay up in the paramo---the grassy, high altitude areas) and the release of census data of the population of the Galapagos (19,184 permanent residents…a number that has come under much scrutiny because it doesn’t include the seasonal workers and the impact they have on the fragile ecosystem). The Environment Ministry even took out an entire section of the paper to explain its strategic plan and other major projects it is undertaking. But it was an article in the regular section of the paper that most caught my attention. It has to do with a “bold, audacious” plan by environmentalists to help protect one of the countries biggest and best parks from oil exploration by symbolically “selling” barrels of oil. The “buyer” agrees to keep the oil in the ground, and gets a certificate (a la the adopt-a-rainforest campaigns of the 80s and 90s) of ownership of the barrel of crude that is then kept in the ground. The money raised would be put toward protecting the parks and helping the indigenous populations. This general idea was floated by President Correa earlier this year when he called on the international community to compensate Ecuador for lost oil revenues in exchange for protecting one of the most biodiverse areas of the world…Ecuador’s Amazon basin. The amount of money per year is pretty staggering. But, when you consider that one of the places on the planet that is MOST important to conserve in order to combat global warming is actually most at risk of being exploited for a product that only exacerbates the problem…how can we, as a global community, say “no, sorry Ecuador we can’t help you out.” Go ahead and raze the rainforest for massive oil extraction…and in so doing, kill one of the best natural defenses to global warming we have left… Ohh…I am just so cynical and frustrated right now. I have not been able to discern whether Correa is super serious about this proposal, whether he was just floating a trial balloon, or whether it was pure political posturing. In any case, it is an intriguing proposal to think about nonetheless. I sent a bunch of emails to my enviro contacts to try to find out more. The word on the street is that some groups are trying to connect President Correa with Al Gore. I am hoping to be able to get an invite to that meeting. What better place to have it, than in Yasuni park…

So, according to the paper, this buy a barrel of oil campaign has been put forth by Accion Ecologica. I asked my friend Noemi (who is the accountant for AMWAE) what she thinks or knows about this particular enviro group, and she launched into a fascinating and frustratingly complicated tale about why she didn’t really like them. Most of her angst had to do with the accounting of the funds that were exchanged… Evidently, Accion Ecologica was paying the previous AMWAE president directly (instead making a general support donation to AMWAE, who would then use it for general support purposes, which would include paying the AMWAE President’s salary). At this time, Accion Ecologica was waging a fierce campaign against Petrobras, Brasil’s big state-owned oil company. Interestingly, AMWAE rejected every Petrobras accord that came before them at that time…including an offer to donate land for the AMWAE President, an offer that was supported by the rest of the Waorani women. So, in not so many words, Accion Ecologica´s direct payment to the AMWAE president ensured that AMWAE would unequivocally say no to any contracts, deals or even donations related to Petrobras.

On one hand, it is almost brilliant what Accion Ecologica did. I mean, it seems that they were playing the same game as the oil companies…or the lobbyists in D.C. for that matter. You grease enough palms…

Evidently, the women voters of AMWAE were not too fond of this direct payment to the President setup. This issue turned out to be one of the main reasons the President was not re-elected, launching the accent of the current president, my counterpart. It appears that it is back to business with Petrobras. After all, “how else will the rest of the Waorani eat, or buy clothes, or...live?”

It is truly amazing to think about, that until just a few decades ago, the Waorani were living as semi-nomadic hunter gatherers, using spears and blowguns to hunt in the dense Amazonian rainforests. Or, as the missionary in “Beyond the Gates of Splendor” described it, they were living in the “stone age.”

While other cultures evolved from over the course of many centuries, the Waorani have essentially have had to leap directly into the 21st century, without any Cliff’s Notes. The dramatic changes in their culture (often forced upon them---no thanks in part to the undue influence of evangelical missionaries and oil companies)… have made them unduly reliant, and in some cases totally reliant upon first the missionaries…and now the oil companies.

(please note, that these reflections are solely my own and based upon what I have observed thus far working and learning from the Waorani in Puyo and Tiwino plus what little I have read. I reserve the right to expand and-or modify these thoughts over time, as I undoubtedly will do over the course of my 2 years here).

So…most of the Waorani are dependent upon the oil companies for medical care, education, food, and of course soccer fields…everything, really. It was not the state or the province that constructed the bathrooms in Tiwino; it was Petrobell. The same could be said for just about every other pound of concrete and inch of water line in the town.

I have observed that whenever the Puyo-based Waorani leaders want or need to travel to their communities…they type up a very formal letter to one of the companies which asks for funds for very specific things…like 30 gallons of gas, 100 pounds of rice, etc. to support their trip. It is expensive to go “adentro.” Some communities are accessible by road. Some are accessible only by airplane or canoe. Many trips take multiple hours or many days, depending on which mode of transport is available (including walking). Expensive endeavors, whichever way you go. Someone has to pay. And that someone is usually an oil company. Hell, I think my entire trip to Tiwino and all the food served was compliments of Petrobell.

So, when Petrobras, Petrobell, Repsol, or fill-in-the-blank oil company comes knocking on the Waorani door (the same door that they paid for, in some cases)…what’s a Waorani to do?

I am having a really hard time getting all of this worked out in my brain… on one hand, I feel like, hell yes the oil companies should be pay. Pay big. After all, they make a mint down here. But making them pay the communities has created their own set of problems. Or at least the way it is currently structured. I don’t know what the solution is. There obviously is no simple solution otherwise someone smarter than me would have figured it out by now.