Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador A month late, the annual rainy season has begun with a drenching vengeance. It began lightly, just sparkling the night pavement shortly before I arrived in Guayaquil, and continued intermittently a few days later while waiting to pick up new volunteers Darcie Luce and Lisa Kundrat at the airport. On the six hour bus ride from there to Bahia we encountered […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador  We closed the first community meeting to initiate the women’s compost/garden project in Fanca feeling as though it was the last hundred yards of a mile long race. Here’s a field spotter’s view of how the whole event developed and finished.  Nicola Mears met with me to discuss being hired as a consultant for demonstrating, training, and assisting people in composting […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador  Coastal Ecuador seems to breed imaginative future scenarios. It could be the sheer biological richness of the country, mixed with hard-pressed economic necessity, but something definitely inspires a sense of starting over in new and different ways. People aren’t generally inhibited about having large visions. One Bahia friend enunciates new ideas as a constant aspect of our conversations. Here’s one that […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador The home for most life on our planet is in water. It is a soupy, form-shifting medium where food can be chased, nibbled, or just plucked as it floats by. Plants and animals that don’t actually live in water require it anyway. All plants need to absorb moisture. Terrestrial animals manage their days around water holes, ponds, lakes, creeks, and rivers. […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador August is the “gringo month” on the coast according to Patricio Tamariz, who believes it brings weather that resembles the Pacific Northwest. Days usually begin with gray clouds that can last into the night, but occasionally surrender to the radiator hot sun of the equator for a few hours in the afternoon. When this acquiescence occurs, there is a peculiar phenomenon […]

Report #6 from Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador The “Ecological Plan for the Development of Canton Sucre (Bahia de Caraquez)” is finally finished! Last Thursday, February 15, six months after the first tentative draft was circulated to instigate a community process for its full development, a public meeting in City Hall solicited and added final comments and suggestions to complete the document. An openly invited group (that […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador. Final version approved Feb. 15, 2001 by the Public Meeting I. Introduction — The need and purpose of a plan to create an ecological city. A) Need 1. Ecological City Declaration a. Fragility of Bahia, Civil Defense map of risks and environmental problems b. The present opportunity: the effect of El Nino disasters c. Disaster prevention, mitigation plan 2. Understanding, coordination […]

To get this straight from the beginning, I’m not going to complain about it. We were all children. Sometimes we cried. Things hurt us and we couldn’t do anything about them. For those who are now mostly adults, it’s painful to hear children cry but we know what it’s about. Adults are no longer children, mostly. They try to comfort and do something about what […]

Report #5 from Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador Making plaques for plant identification in the Maria Auxiliador revegetation park now officially named Bosque en Medio de Las Ruinas (Forest in the Midst of the Ruins) has started. The newspaper announcement of a contest to design a logo offering a $10 prize was a total bust. No entries. Amparo Aviles, the genuinely inventive owner of Arte Mania […]