Endings

1966-68 Peace Corps letter correspondents: Hugh and Gertrude Graham.
On top of the Helderberg escarpment just before leaving for Montana.

Mom was renown for the long letters she wrote to her parents, siblings and to her children, when they were away to college or living on the other side of the continent. Two or three pages single spaced every week was not unusual to my experience. The Peace Corps gave me my first real opportunity to emulate her writing longevity and news worthyness.

 

Solid Endings

 

Maria and Bob's marriage in Quito

The conclusion of our service in the Peace Corps created a number of endings; some solid and others less so. Most of these endings would lead to new beginnings.

 

Two weddings among our group were among the solider kind.  Both marriages were between a Volunteer and an Ecuadorian woman. In so far as I know, both couples remain happily married more than 50 years later. 

 

 

Another solid ending was our summer training session in Montana and Ecuador's future credit cooperative experience. 

 

The training goal was to provide the new Volunteers, who would be our cooperative program replacements for the next two years, with a solid foundation upon which to build a stronger cooperative movement in Ecuador. 

Taking a break from training in Montana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the intervening fifty plus years, we heard positive news from knowledgeable people and sources  about the progress of Ecuador's credit cooperative movement. Sources such as the 2014 document; The Feeling is Mutual: Financial Cooperatives in Ecuador supported that conclusion. Mutual support of cooperatives at an international level is growing according to a 2018 source.  Another document discusses the strengthening of Ecuador's rural credit cooperative system. I am confident that the service of Peace Corps Volunteers had a significant role in that success.

 

Disturbing Ending

In 1968 I surveyed farmers participating in the Julio Andrade pilot project during two weeks in Carchi. Analysis of the gathered information indicated farmer attitude toward the pilot project and farm production success; an increasing potato harvest for the participating farmers. 

 

Regrettably, key questions were left out of the survey. Significant environmental and health findings were missing. 

 

To be frank, in 1968 it was probably too early to accurately answer such questions. Harmful impacts associated with pesticide and fertilizer use had not yet risen to our attention level. 

 

An important use of the production credit loans was to purchase chemicals to spray over the crops to protect against debilitating and lethal pests and to fertilize for maximum production. The farmers and ourselves were ignorant of the adverse environmental side effects of these chemicals.

 

Chota valley home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An analogy would be an evaluation of the success of spraying DDT to reduce insect pests. Clearly, limiting the evaluation to the impact on the target insect pests would present a false picture. Such a narrow evaluation would completely miss the impact on the total environment, including the effect on other animal species such as birds and human beings.

According to "Learning from Carchi, Agricultural Modernisation and the production of Decline" by Stephen G. Sherwood early agriculture production success in Carchi did not have a happy ending. The following quotes from that document help explain why.

During the second half of the twentieth century, farming in Carchi evolved towards a market-oriented potato-pasture system based on a three to five year rotational system.Between 1954 and 1974 potato production increased by about 40 percent and worker productivity by 33 percent (Barsky, 1984). Until recently, the potato growing area in the province continued to swell, with yields rising from12 t/ha in 1974 to 21 t/ha in 1992, a remarkable three times the national average (Crissman et al., 1998b).  

Indian child walking beside bus in Carchi

Essentially every farmer with whom I have talked since arriving to Carchi has made the same general claim: pest problems are getting worse with time. Pesticides have not only become a necessary part of the production system, but each year farmers must make a larger number of applications to sustain production.  

Pesticides were carried in the environment and reached homes and people, leading to potentially costly environmental and health consequences. 

Active surveillance of hospital records revealed that pesticide poisonings in Carchi were among the highest recorded anywhere (Cole et al., 2000). While there were some suicides and accidental exposures, most poisonings were of pesticide applicators. Clinical studies found that both applicators and their family members were at risk.

 

 

 My Loose Ends

This blog conveys my perspective on our volunteer group's two year Ecuador service ending in the Spring of 1968. At this point, I have nothing much to add regarding our group's impact on Ecuador.  

Another area of examination would be the impact of the two year service on the volunteers themselves. I limit that examination to myself, the volunteer I knew best.

The following words from two 1968 letters home give a sense where my mind was at as my Peace Corps service neared its end. I would call it loose with occasions of extraordinary focus.

February -  I have become a member of the fanatical group of hobbit fans, having completed the first book, the Fellowship of the Ring, of the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. Today by luck I found the third book of the trilogy and I’m looking madly for a copy of the second book, the Two Towers, since I refused to start the third without having read the second. The trilogy totals about 1500 pages in all. 

March - A Volunteer lent me my missing copy of the middle book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and so I was able to finish all 1400 pages of this fascinating, imaginary epic.

In the six years following my service in Ecuador my life had a lot of ups and downs, resulting in many loose ends.  

In 1968 I was 'engaged' to a German volunteer whose service in Ecuador ended in the summer of 1969. After a year of long distance correspondence and a rendevous on the Isle of Wight in England, our marriage prospects ended on those shores, unhappily for both of us.  

In 1970 I earned a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Wisconsin. Having reached the magic age of 26, I survived the military draft thanks to a most unfair bureaucratic system. 

My life experienced a bit of chaos during the four years following receipt of that planning degree. I took residence and worked in numerous places; San Francisco; Concord, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Mexico; San Francisco again; Olympia, WA; and finally, San Jose, CA. I was employed for three short periods of a year or less in my new planning profession; city, social and environmental planning. In San Francisco I attempted to write a book about the future. Did not get very far, mostly research, not much content.  In 1973 I married for the first time.

In the year 1974 I began a job in what would become known as Silicon Valley. This employment provided a variety of planning assignments over the coming decades. It marked a new beginning for my life, with new friends and work that I found both interesting and stimulating. 

Thirty years later I  retired and am still going strong. Hope to live long enough to see habitable planets or moons circling other stars and friendly aliens who find some humans worthy to operate technology which appears like magic to earthling eyes.

Grand Tour

Machu Picchu. A favorite place in my travels, Alicia Graham © 2005

 

In this Grand Tour post, the description of the trip as written in 1967 may be read in the "South American Trip Diary". The 12 pages of that document may be found below.

Each Peace Corps Volunteer received two paid vacation days per month of service. Many volunteers used a major portion of this time to travel to nearby countries.  My South American Grand Tour took 30 of these days (September 15, 1967 to October 15, 1967). Most of the trip was traveled with a fellow volunteer from my group.

 

South American Trip Diary

Pages 3-4, Cusco and Machu Picchu

Pages 1-2, Lima and Cusco

Pages 7-8, La Paz, Såo Paulo, Rio

Pages 5-6, Machu Picchu, Boat-Train & La Paz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pages 11-12, Santiago, the desert, home

Pages 9-10, Montevideo, Bueno Aires, Mendoza

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three maps are included to provide a better sense to readers not familiar with the continent. A quick overview of my travels may be found in the image to the left. A more detailed view is contained in two maps; the first of the Andean portion of the trip and the second of the remainder.

 

Supplementing the written pages, photos of places traveled to and through on this trip are included.  To satisfy the curious about changes in the subsequent decades, I am including photos from the 1960s and more recent times.  In the following years I both traveled to Ecuador (2007) and Brazil (2012) and a daughter in 2005 traveled on the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, my favorite discovery on the 1967 trip..

 

 

Showing the route through the Andes of the first part of South American Tour,
Map courtesy of Wikipedia

 

Lima

These two photos are current images of Lima, Peru. I seem to have taken no pictures of the city on the trip.  With an average yearly rainfall of 18.2 mm, Lima is a desert city. Strangely, despite the aridity, Lima has overcast skies much of the year. It seems that cloudy skies does not guarantee rainfall. Lima is Peru's capital city, with a metropolitan population of 10 million people.

 

 

Coastal Lima

Central Lima

 

 

 

 

Cuzco

As our Faucett Airlines plane neared Cuzco, I was mesmerized by the window view of range after range of glacier covered mountains as we neared our destination. Cuzco is located in a broad valley at over 11,000 feet in elevation. Its population is a little over 400,000 persons. Before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores, it was the capital of the Inca Empire, the "Roman Empire" of the Americas.

Glacier covered mountain wall west of Cuzco

Historic section of Cuzco

Llama and woman resting on Cuzco sidewalk

Sacsayhuaman, Inca fortress overlooking Cuzco

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu remained a "hidden" Inca citadel for 400 years. In 1911 American explorer Hiram Bingham reached the site and brought it to international attention. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was constructed prior to the Spanish conquest as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). 

 

It is located about 80 kilometers northwest of Cuzco in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru, on a mountain ridge about 2,400 meters (8,000') high. A canyon cut through the Cordillera by the Urubamba River lies below it.

 

The image on the right illustrates the fine quality stonework customary with the Incas

 

Illustration of steep terrain upon which
the citadel was constructed

Close up of the terraces constructed to hold fertile
soil transported up from river in canyon below

 

 

 

 

Lake Titicaca

The next objective for my tour of the South American continent was La Paz, Bolivia. Our mode of transport for that travel segment was a boat-train across Lake Titicaca which is shared between Peru and Bolivia. 

 

The daylight portions of this trip leg would occur in two trains. The night would be on the boat crossing the lake. The travel modes would include a train from Cuzco to the lake, a boat ride across the lake, and the Bolivian train from the lake to La Paz. The total distance is about 500 miles.

On the shores of Lake Titicaca

The SS Olanta, which I believe was our ferry across
the lake

La Paz

The Altiplano is a plateau at an elevation of about 3500 meters, with scattered mountains located on its surface above that height.  Most of the altiplano is located in Bolivia. The rest may be found primarily in Peru, with a southern extension in Argentina and Chile. Only in Tibet is there a plateau of this size and height on the planet.  

The section between Lake Titicaca and La Paz is flat. The eastern edge of the plateau drops off sharply in a significant escarpment. La Paz is located at the bottom of that escarpment where it appears a chunk was bit out of the edge of the Altiplano. 

High rises of central La Paz come into view as
the train continues its descent.

The beginning of the train's descent to La Paz.
Note the almost flat altiplano just below the higher
mountain peaks. Alicia Graham © 2005

Moritz Thomsen, World Wanderers, plus an Esmeraldas Adventure

Bob Jensen, my Esmeraldas adventure companion

The letter excerpts below describe contacts with world travelers and various activities involving co-ops, including a muddle of poor planning that ended well and resulted in me meeting a unique Peace Corps Volunteer.

 

Meeting world wanderers during our Peace Corps service was one of those interesting experiences which you don't hear much about. I googled Roger Hart and the book, "Four Against  Everest" after reading my June 13, 1967 letter about the same. Turns out, their telling of the story was very accurate. Their survival of the climb seems to have involved some luck. Disappointedly, the book is now out of print. 

This mini-review from the Kirkus Review gives a taste of the Everest Four's experience. - This is the story of a nearly incredible attempt to scale Everest's North Face, which had been previously attempted eight times without success. Since Prof. Sayre and his three companions couldn't get permission from the Chinese communists of Tibet, they had to make a secret dash through the country to reach the North Face. Getting to the base camp was ""like walking up and down ladders from Boston to Albany."" The climb itself became excruciatingly difficult, only a few hundred feet a day at the heights. Very near the summit and after several bad falls, they didn't have the supplies for the final week they needed to reach the top. They had set off on a light expedition without Sherpa guides or porters or oxygen and proved that an unburdened group made faster time. The author has many interesting comments about the mystique of climbing, as well as the psychology of climbers, and a literary gift for description.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moritz Thomsen left the world and the poor of Ecuador a powerful literary memorial. His book, "Living Poor", is a chronicle of his four years service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rio Verde, a small town a few miles up the coast from Esmeraldas. Reading it for the first time in the year 2021, I found it one of the most readable, vivid and honest books describing life for the some of the poorest inhabitants of this planet. 

Read it! It is still available it paperback.

Moritz Thomsen

Ride in the Coastal Forest

Coastal Dry Forest with Ceibo Trees standing as sentinels

 

Ecuadorians have protected the Ceibo tree for centuries. Even now, as coastal dry forests are slashed and burned, Ceibo trees remain alone and in pairs, standing guard like soldiers on the heights of coastal hillsides. The Ceibo tree, the 'redwood' of the 'La Costa'  forest, has adapted to periods of drought, appearing dead in the dry season and sending a spectacular display of fresh green leaves and bright white flowers after heavy rains.

  

La Costa Forests

La Costa region of Ecuador shown in red

The western coastal area of Ecuador ("La Costa") is the site of the Pacific Equatorial Forest   whose forest remnants are considered the most endangered tropical forest in the world. La Costa is one of the four natural regions into which Ecuador is divided. The other three are the Sierra (the Andes Mountain Range), The Oriente (the lowland Amazon forest east of the Andes), and the Galapagos islands in the Pacific Ocean. Some 75% of the original native forest has been lost.

 

La Costa encompasses a broad coastal plain, along with some small mountain ranges, extending from the Pacific Ocean on the west to the foothills of the Andes Mountains to the east. It is estimated that a majority of the native forest that originally covered coastal Ecuador has been eliminated in favor of cattle ranching and other agricultural pursuits; including cacao, palm, banana and coffee plantations. Some remaining forest is part of the Tumbes-Choco-Magdalena biodiversity hotspot.

 

The vast majority of the Pacific Equatorial Forest remains unprotected and continues to be logged and cleared for agriculture and cattle ranching. In 2009 the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment launched its Socio Bosque (Forest Partners) program, which provides forest owners with an annual conservation subsidy of $30 per hectare ($12/acre). Long-term success is uncertain. 

 

 

The Ride

Note the rugged terrain east of Independencia
where the ride probably occurred

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The satellite image below (click on it to make it larger) shows Independencia. It appears to have grown considerably larger than a hamlet in the 50+ years since I rode the trail to La Deliciosa. The rural area around the village shows some remaining original forest or rejuvenated second growth forest. Lands converted to agriculture indicate a variety of uses. Grasslands for cattle or other grazing animals appear to be the most common.

 

Satellite view of Independencia and environs

The most recent conservation innovation is the use of drones.  At least one organization in Ecuador is implementing drone technology to assist their conservation efforts. Initial plans are to use drones for monitoring the area for illegal logging activities. Another possible drone activity could be monitoring reforestation efforts. CEIBA, is working hard and committing resources to preserving the coastal forest.