Fighting greed and drinking Coke

Been working on getting Hidro Intag recognised as a "donate-able" organization, I won't go into details but it has been a little struggle to find sources of financial support for the Ecuadorian project. Without any base or office in the US and therefore no EIN number, proving that its activities are legit and non-profit haven't been easy (no one wants to give their money to some dodgy office in the middle of nowhere). I will speak about it more in a different blog. However, this is on a different topic.

Water is the base of life but we are starting to run out of the drinkable stuff. Many (pessimist and "Realists") already talk of future water wars, well better be ready than sorry I suppose, but hopefully we (optimists) will get together and sort things out. Many countries have already resorted to expensive alternatives such as recycling and desalination, some just refuse these and are drink their own piss (Australia), and others well simply can't afford it, even worst often have their own drinkable water depleted or polluted by those who can. In Ecuador this is a daily problem, you probably heard of the Chevron court case which made some noise internationally, well they turned an entire region into an oil pit, nothing grows there anymore and people are dying due to nasty illnesses and kids are being borne looking pretty funky (more on it here).

In Intag (where I am writing from) mining from Canada, Japan and other extractive state are the ones wanting to do the same to this last remnant of the most incredible natural wilderness one is to see. The locals have been good at fighting the threats so far and even dared stand against armed mercenaries sent by a Canadian company (more here). However the local population are only fighting back as they were told of the horrific consequences their neighbours had endured from entire communities being broken, rivers turned lifeless, and entire region turned inhabitable (more about mining in Intag here). The local newspaper always hold at least three articles on the subject and the amount of organisation and NGO's concerned about the region is impressive. The hills of Intag hold two richness, on one hand an amazing natural diversity and an ecosystem, and on the other hand abundant resources in gold, copper and marble. One is priceless however the other has a serious price tag.

There is a more furtive issue which has already affected more than 80% of the world (don't cite me), agro-pollution. At my family's home the fresh water springs which are abundant in the region, provided villages and towns with drinkable water, but today through nature's water cycle and the world's best insecticides and herbicides money can buy, having a glass of this gift from nature would be like having a shot of white spirit. It is quiet ludicrous the amount of subsidies given to French farmers, which come from tax payers who are now forced to drink bottled or recycled water. How does that make any sense? (Does it need to?). I wonder if eating farmed chicken which was given recycled water than eating game meat which has unconsciously been poisoning itself.

Don't know if you have seen the world according to Montesanto. It explains how through dependence techniques of infiltration, the company Montesanto has created a world Monopole over food production (doc available to watch for free here). In Intag, where the company probably hasn't got a grip on (yet), I am seeing the arrival of the first hand held spray, they are 10l jericans carried like a backpack which contain herbicide, and spray with the help of a manual hose. The environmental impact is definitely not as great as the industrial machinery used in Europe, but I know the population here and they would turn the greatest offer down if they were aware risks it would hold to their family's or communities' health and future. However, unconsciously and in the best spirit there they go spraying the lovely chemicals they bought on the market with their savings on what will be their children's future meal and the meal of any organism in the way.

I often had to take precautions drinking water while travelling, and often ended up being the victim of nasty diarrhea, and when I got here I bought myself a big 5 litre bottle of water, a coke and an ice tea. Got to my cabaña which has been my home here and had a sip of water, little did I know before closing the lid and seeing the label that I was drink Coca-Cola water and even more my ice-tea was also a product of the company. Great, I'm in the middle of nowhere working for the environment and being kept alive by the Coca-Cola Company. A week ago realising this, I decided to endure the possible hours of toilet time by drinking tap water, like my shower's water, it comes from a small stream up-hill. Haven't had any trouble so far, the water tends to contain a bit of soil but taste fine, Pedro (a local) might be running up stream to piss every time I have a wash, for the fun of it, well I doubt it.

If the project I am working for manage to us the incredible maize of rivers in Intag to produce 100Mw of electricity with minimal environmental impact the energy would offer on one hand a serious financial value to the area which would in a way offset the value of the resources it holds and on the other hand give the region a protected status. In other words since the region will start producing money, destroying the environment and the livelihoods of thousands for a load of gold won't be worth it (as if it had ever been).

Living in Intag

After my first meeting which was also the day of my arrival, Jose took me to los piscinas termales, which are swimming pools fed with natural hot water. However I didn't go for swim but rather to meet Freddy Garcia (I think) one of the promoters, not sure why they are called promoters, there's two of them and I am still to meet the other one. From what I understood they are local farmers who help implement sustainable farming in the area, which is mostly growing coffee and bananas, and unsustainable being intense farming of crops or the rearing of cattle (anything which involves chopping loads of trees and rain forest). I suppose unsustainable farming all depends in the area you are, for instance Intag is full of rivers and watersheds so farming which would need abundant water would not necessarily be seen as unsustainable, whereas it would be in some areas of Australia or Africa. I think unsustainable needs a new definition, because anything can be sustained to some degrees, I think unfriendly farming sounds in some ways more appropriate, as it does not fit with its given environment; please leave a comment bellow on this point. Anyway let's come back to the pools. So I met Freddy (another person with a very American name, though I have to say they don't really have the choice if they didn't incorporate new ones everyone would be called Pedro, Jose or Carlos), he took me on the back of his motorbike to has been my home for the last 11 days. My sister complains that my parent's home is remote, well Joséphine I found worst. However it is beautiful, a little farm on the other side of the main river (Rio Intag, see picture), instead of writing a description which is a real pain and I am not George Orwell I'll Just film it and upload the video on YouTube (it's funny how Microsoft word does spell checks on words like Google and YouTube, and if you forget the capital letters it will make sure to remind you, but still it spots Apuela which is a town that has existed for probably the last 500 years as a mistake).

So how has it been these last 11 days sleeping and living in a wooden cabin? Well the first night was hell, I could hear all the bugs in my room, I had an ant nest in the bed believe it or not, and ants here "ne rigolent pas" (French for don't mess around) they are huge, and to be honest it was a bug nightmare, they have some serious creatures here, you thought you knew what a dragon fly was well I'll have to get a picture of the local dragon fly and they do look like a dragon. Trying to fall asleep in total darkness with creatures taking your face and all its orifices as motorways is not fun. I might be here to help on an environmental project but I quickly jumped on the bus to Otavalo and did the entire bus ride to buy an armament of bug killing sprays. I only used them one night as I couldn't believe my eyes in the morning, my balcony looked likes D-day, a mountain of insects, most of them only mosiz and nasty flies but there were a couple of really nice butterflies and moths, I quickly felt guilty for my actions. Haven't used the spray since, but god I do cover myself in repellent which doesn't seem to have any affect. When the family sees my bits every morning they can't hold themselves from repeating that they don't get bitten. They say that the insects here don't know me... RIGHT, well or they are a bunch of crazy animal lovers or they don't want to admit that they never use soap. Might stop washing myself for a bit and see if it works, just can't stand the smell of a dirty bed. So I am now used to the insects and it seems that the more I get used to them the harder they bite, every bite actually drips blood now, well I suppose they've learnt to know me now (bastards).

Having a shower is harder than it sounds, especially when there is no heating (no need in the Ecuador) and the water coming out of the shower head comes from the river. I had gotten used to the cold shower prior to making my way to Intag as most of the showers in Ecuador only have cold as an option. My usual plan was to stand right under the shower head and then turning the tap on full blast (and scream for a minute), that was a lot easier than slowly making your way inside the water. Well that was a bad plan here, the water comes directly from the river or a spring somewhere higher which would make more sense and the canalisation get filled with sediment, which means that on my first shower I used my cunning plan and, yes, got the worst shower in history, I got out of there black and covered in mud. Not knowing if more of that natural crap would pour over my head I decided to go for the easy option and jump in the river. However, I did realise now that it is necessary to leave the water (or mud) flow a couple of minutes before jumping in. Apart from the revolting insects and the muddy showers things are not too bad. There's a couple of other things which are a bit of a pain, such as: 1- can't leave the light on at night in my cabin for too long or the insects make their way in through the gaps in the wall 2- I have to wash my cloth by hand and they never end up smelling or looking clean (I'm hopeless) 3- the people here seem to eat the same thing every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner 4-there is no signal and need to walk 7 km to reach the world 5- all my cloth smell of turd as the cloth line is right over horse shit 6- I need a beer and I bought the only 2 they had in town.

On the good side now. I might finally be able to stop smoking, most of Ecuadorians hate cigarettes (don't know how they feel about the green stuff) and they look at me with disgust every time I light one, I'm actually enjoying walking to work and have given up waiting for the bus every morning which seems to come whenever the driver feels like. My Spanish has improved dramatically, indeed on my arrival I couldn't put two words together and I am almost making sense when I speak today (my Spanish teacher would be proud if he hadn't expelled me from school). The coffee here is amazing and the family lodging me (not for free) grows and processes their own, and god I never want to touch instant coffee ever again.

I have hopelessly been trying to cache a fish in the Rio Intag but with no success, I won't give up and it gives me something to do before the sun comes down (ran out of books, and my Spanish isn't good enough to start reading anything else than children's books). I am now in absolute darkness... wow and the electricity is back, well that's what I call on time (not). They have those flying light bugs not sure what they are called in English (lucioles in French) they are amazing, not like the wormy ones in Europe, these light up when they feel like and you can just see them flashing randomly in the darkness, it's quiet pretty. God, I am going o have to stop writing now I'm being covered in bugs attracted by the light of my netbook, going to get eaten alive. That's not bad just wrote 1300 in less than an hour, well I wish it took me that long to write essays for uni.

Good night

Volunteering for Hidro Intag

The lights are out, well not intentionally, there's been a power shortage which has started since 3 this afternoon. Typing is a nightmare and I'm getting bitten to death by some invisible creatures (and they really hurt, not like mozis these guys take a chunk of skin off and make sure that you know you've been bitten).

I've been in Intag for a bit over a week now. Working for free (they call it volunteering), well at least I don't have to pay to work like an American guy I met, who for $3000 gave a month of his time to help an organisation somewhere in Costa Rica. If I knew you could make money by giving people something to do I would have gotten into the industry earlier.

Anyway. It all started in January and after struggling for a few months to find something worthwhile to do during my last summer break (such as getting professional experience) dad gave me a call. He told me that his best mate, he had been walking with in the aim of raising money, has a sister in Ecuador who works for an organisation called Rain Forest Concern (the website ends in .org) and she might be interested in taking me in as a volunteer. After a browsing through the website it looked more promising than anything I was hoping for. So after chatting by E-mail with Fiona, she told me there was a project in the Andes I could help. The project is called Hidro Intag, and finding information about it was a real nightmare, their website had not been updated since 2007 and most of the documentation was in Spanish. However I decided to give it a shot and booked myself a ticked to South America landing in Colombia, had a few friends there I had promised to visit for a few years now.

After a bit more than a week of cruising through Colombia I made my way to Ecuador's capital Quito where I met with Fiona, she was able to tell me a bit more about her work for RFC and gave me all the contacts I needed for my time in Intag. A couple of days later and I arrived in Apuela. The bus ride from Otavalo to Apuela is breath taking; it goes on for 2 hours in mountainous mud tracks with death threatening cliffs the entire way. The bus drivers have serious skills, I wouldn't have been driving over 20 on these traitorous roade. On my arrival in Apuela I met with Jose Gueva the director, funny enough he had even less idea than me on how I could help them. I thought they might need some data collection, as Fiona told me, but that had been done a while ago. However, it didn't take me long to come out with work for myself, their website is totally out of date, there is no information about the project anywhere on the internet and they are in desperate need of cash (meaning donations). So for the last week and a half I've been geeking away. Didn't raise much but at least the project is starting to exist elsewhere than here. Marjorie Chopin, a French specialist in hydroelectricity, asked me to train a few locals in using excel and entering information they have collected on the surroundings. Since 2007, Hidro Intag has collected an impressive amount of data and maps of the region. They have almost everything necessary for the creation of the 7 hydroelectric plants they are aiming to create. Never the less they do not have the funds necessary to buy some hi-tech evaluating machine they need.

Intag is well known for its biodiversity, the problem is it also possesses rich resources such as gold and copper. So the idea behind the hydraulic project is to protect the region from mining companies. If you Google mining Intag, you will fall on quite a few articles. Those companies don't mess around and even send paramilitaries. However the locals have been good at kicking them out so far and the production of a 100Mw of electricity would be a good incentive to protect and reforest the region. Of course the project is not hoping on donation to raise the 30+ million they need to build the station, but without the required data they will not find investors who will bend to their environmental exigencies.

If you have time and feel like finding more about it check out our facebook page I  also upload a PDF file in English detailing the project. (click on PDF). Will send another update tomorrow. Thanks for reading.