When last I wrote, we were about to embark on a trip to Otavalo, a weaving center that had been touted as the best place for folk art (particularly weaving) in the country. Unfortunately, that might have been 20 years ago, but today it lacks the folk in folk art. The market consisted of hundreds of stands set up in the center of town. Each stand that was selling weaving (and most were) had stacks upon stacks of shawls, sweaters, rugs, etc., all of which were beautiful but totally uniform. The weavings appear to be machine-made, rather than produced by human beings. Of course, it would be even sadder if the weavings had been made by human beings, as human beings would have been reduced to machines.
This is in direct contrast to the folk art of México, which is funky, irregular, very human and absolutely stunning in a way that Otavalo seems to have lost. Perhaps in the past, a Peace Corps volunteer had worked with these Indian women to organize cooperatives and apply modern business techniques to maximize their profits. It has worked very well, in that at the end of the day, we saw the petite native women with their broad skirts, embroidered blouses and fedora hats driving away from the market in new cars while chatting on the latest model cell phone.
In comparison, the folk art of Mexico is epitomized for us in a small shop in a poor Indian town that we visited near Ciudad Victoria. The shop’s sign proudly announced its offerings as being “Handmade Curious.” Like the sign, the folk art was indeed handmade and curious, but wonderful and wonderfully cheap. Of course, everyone in the town seem to be on the edge of starvation, but isn’t that the tradition of the starving artist?
The road to Otavalo is actually quite good. We had been expecting a road full of potholes the size of Volkswagens similar what the Costa Ricans euphemistically call a highway. It took 2 hours to go 50 miles because the road, like most of the highways in Latin America, is only two lanes. As the road wended its way the hills and curves of a small mountain range called the Andes, cars would back up in long lines behind slow moving trucks, waiting for an opportunity to pass. Once they passed, of course, they would find themselves at the end of yet another caravan, waiting to pass the next slow moving truck. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to development in the third world is the lack of infrastructure.
We are now in Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador. Rather that take the eight hour bus ride from Quito to Cuenca, we flew instead. This provided an opportunity for my new method of research: the world as seen by cab drivers. This provides a ground level view of a society. In Morelia, México, for example, our cab driver was a young man who had graduated from the state university in civil engineering. He said that he had been unable to find a job in this field like many of his peers. There were some jobs, but the jobs were taken by those people with family connections. In México, education provided only an illusion of social mobility, not necessarily a real way to improve your life.
When asked about the state of the economy in Ecuador, the Quito cabby said that economic conditions were very difficult now as investment had stopped. It seems that president Rafael Correa had started enforcing labor laws that had been on the books for 60 years, such as requiring companies to pay minimum salaries, provide sick leave and vacations, and actually pay taxes. Confronted by this outrage, businesses decided to take their investments elsewhere. It sounds very familiar.
While on the road to the airport, the cab driver also pointed out an underpass where a tragedy had narrowly been avoided the day before. This year the rainy season has been anything but normal with tremendous deluges of rain that have resulted flooding. Two buses crammed with people had gotten trapped when a flash flood filled the underpass to a level above the windows. People had to break the windows to get out, where they were rescued by boats. Fortunately, no one was killed. I’m sure that there were hundreds of extra candles lit that night for whatever saint it is that protects bus travelers.
Cuenca is a strikingly beautiful, colonial city which a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the third largest city in Ecuador with about 400,000 inhabitants. The architecture in the historic downtown reminds us of a combination of Prague and New Orleans. In a typical building, the bottom floor is used by business, either in one large shop or divided into a series of small shops. Generally, the second floor is residential with two or three balconies that overlook the street. As Ecuador is a major exported of flowers, most of the balconies are festooned with flowers and plants. The facades of the buildings are decorated with different motifs (such as vines, geometric patterns, Ionic columns, and the occasional sculpture) that are made plaster and then painted. Sometimes the painters get a little out of hand, as in the case of one building that we saw that had alternating green, red and yellow stripes. But in most cases, color is used to highlight the decorative plaster work.
But one of the biggest differences compared to México is that the city is clean. There is a regular pickup of garbage every night, and the city constructed bins along the street for residents to place their garbage. When we lived in México City, we had to place our garbage on a street corner. The pile would grow bigger and bigger throughout the week until it was a fairly good size mountain, when the City finally got around to picking it up. Needless to say, the wind would distribute plastic bags and paper around the entire neighborhood.
There are almost no people begging on the streets in either Quito or Cuenca, which is in stark contrast to México and most of the other Latin American countries that we have visited. You also don’t see poor Indian families that have migrated from rural areas and are forced to live on the street, as is common in México City and elsewhere. The biggest migration in most Latin American countries is not to the United States, but to their own megacities.
Toni is off photographing the courtyard of a house nearby, as the older homes are built around a central courtyard, another legacy from the Moors. When she gets back, we are going to Los Baños (the Baths), which is a small town famous for its thermal springs. Yesterday, we spent the day trucking around museums again, so we thought we would threat ourselves (and my aching back) to a soak at one of the town’s spas.
Toni also managed to hit the artisans’ market and found a lot of very nice things. Jewelry is a specialty of this area, particularly jewelry using “vegetable ivory,” or palm ivory. It is a nut from a palm tree which is very hard and white like ivory but a bit more humane to gather. When dried, it can be carved just like regular ivory. It also provides an alternative to local farmers rather than cutting down rainforests and it has a subtle perfume to it as well.
