Projects
By Carey Knecht (Planet Drum Foundation field staff person overseeing revegetation project) I joined up with Planet Drum and the Eco-Bahia project because I was deeply inspired by the task of integrating nature and a city. That is a task that requires not only reforesting one hillside, but actually changing culture. Sometimes I wonder how these projects relate. Sometimes I feel like the only nature […]
By Carey Knecht (Planet Drum Foundation field staff person overseeing revegetation project) The word that defined the first week was Tranquilo — Peaceful, Tranquil. Not that life WAS tranquil, but that was the ideal. Deal with all the pressures of the job and not break a sweat (Ha!), make everything up on the spot, and still exude assurance. And then at the end of the […]
Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador The political demonstrations a month ago as part of a peaceful roar which caused the president’s resignation in what eventually only amounted to a palace revolution in Quito finally erupted in Bahía de Caráquez. Whether ironically or with perfect poetic timing, it was on St Valentine’s Day. With Flor-Maria at the wheel and Patricio as company, we drove out of town […]
Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador There isn’t a way for me to know from experience how it would feel to have been born somewhere near the equator and later move to the northern temperate zone. But it is powerfully clear how the equator feels to someone who comes from nearly half-way to the north pole. Especially after working outdoors at comparatively heavy labor to plant paja […]
(“I hope so!” A common Spanish expression obviously derived at the time of the Moorish occupation from Arabic, “As Allah will have it.”) Leonidas Plaza—Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador The morning of Revegetation Day I began with a round of sweeping up crickets, the mound only slightly smaller than the day before. There’s a barrel of rain water on the roof-patio (a typical Ecuadorean amenity even […]
Leonidas Plaza This may be completely to the side of everything else that is going on with the eco-city process in Bahía de Caráquez, or it may be part of the core. I’m too personally involved to know. It has to do with the close-to-the-bone experience of occupying Planet Drum’s new office/apartment in Leonidas Plaza. Although a first and last month’s rent was paid along […]
Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador The rainy season seems to have begun in earnest. A light sprinkle two days ago may have been the actual starting point, and last night’s downpour that continues into the morning appears to remove any question about an end to the annual coastal drought. The revegetation of Maria Auxiliadora barrio can get underway soon now that the soil is damp and […]
Ecuador is exiting the past in Quito, and it is coming into important aspects of the future in Bahia de Caraquez. Last night, national television showed the capitol with lights glaring into packed throngs in the street, smiling men and women wearing ponchos and indigenous hats, soldiers with rifles slung from their shoulders walking casually beside student protesters waving Ecuadorean flags. CONAIE, the confederation of […]