Funeral Procession

Having some recent knowledge of funeral costs and customs, it is interesting to make comparisons. While we don't know the cost of a typical funeral here, we do know that it is considerably less than in the US. The three pictures in this posting show a funeral procession moving through the down town area of Puyo. As noted in the first picture, the casket is placed in an open pickup bed. The family walks after the pickup. There is no special traffic control as the taxi cabs and few other drivers quickly observe the situation and yield until the procession passes. Of course, it is raining and the procession takes this in stride.
We are told that the body is dressed and prepared for nearly immediate burial. We are not sure who prepares the body. We understand that sometimes this is done by family members. There are cemeteries around Puyo and we notice a lot of burial above the ground in family crypts.

Cultural Differences

When living in another culture there are plenty of times when it is difficult to understand traits of the culture you are living in. Even more difficult is the explanation of things in your own culture that the local people here find strange. This last weekend, daylight time kicked in across the US. Now how do you explain that concept to people who live on the equator where each day is the same length the entire year around? Why would anybody go messing with the clock to gain something? What is it that is gained? Is it so valuable that everything from work schedules to airline schedules are disrupted twice a year? How does it "save time" as the name implies?

On this end of things we have the strange (to us) idea that the customer is responsible for having the correct change. Even the large shops with cash drawers full of change will ask if you have the odd amount of your bill so that they will not have to return change. Saturday morning this got complicated. We shopped in Puyo's largest department store. The transaction went fine. However, when I discovered I had no change to buy tomatoes from a vendor outside, I went back in to ask the store to break a $10 bill. I was refused. MJ suggested I buy something more. So, I bought a candy bar and waited in the same check out line where I was refused change. I laid the candy bar down along with a $20 bill. I stood with my hands on my hips. She became upset when I said I had no change. She made the change in a big huff, I thanked her and left the store to buy my tomatoes. (The store does not sell tomatoes).

In a future blog, we will demonstrate with pictures that sidewalks are NOT necessarily intended for walking on.

Different Vegetation in the Rain Forest

As we travel around the rain forest area, one continually comes upon beautiful plant life. The two flowers pictured here were in the courtyard of our hotel in Tena. We do not know the name, but they appear to grow from a vine. The color and design was just outstanding.

The picture above and below are of the same kind of tree. Again, we don't know the name, but the 'fruit" grows to be huge. The green "ball" below is about the size of a volleyball. The outside of the fruit was very hard. This is an example of things that the traveler should research at the time, but never gets around to it later.

The two pictures below are of the same tree. We do not know the name, but like so many trees in the rain forest, it is just huge. There are estimates as to how much bird, insect, and animal life a single tree like this supports. The estimates stagger the mind. The problem is that the several hundred year old trees are being cut and sold for very little when one considers what it takes to replace them. The tree below is in a protected park and should live a long time.

Teacher Discussions & Classes

This series of pictures show our teacher class room in action. The setting is the laundry room which is a covered shed in the middle of our compound. The group ranges from a dozen to 15 people. Watching the expression on people's faces says a lot. In the upper right you can see two people talking intensely at once. Talking over another person is not considered rude in this culture.

The picture in the upper left shows Debra, MJ's co-teacher and our chief translator at these meetings.

I spend a lot of time just waiting for the discussion to go on and finally questions in English emerge. I have tried very hard to stick with process type questions and give advice on process. The content of the discussions must belong to the group membership. I do bring a written outline to the meetings to direct discussions. My co-teacher translates for me. Without the written discussion guides, chaos has a better chance of surviving.

The picture to the lower right features the director of the school. Lidia takes a leadership role in directing discussions and responding to individual questions.

AmaZOOnica

This posting shows several pictures of a wildlife refuge located in the jungle some hour and forty five minutes out of Tena. The place is called AmaZOOnica. It is run by a Swiss foundation. Access to this refuge is by motorized canoe. We took a chance of just stopping on the road a hundred yards from the landing. A boat happened to come by and give us a ride to the refuge. (We were lucky several times that day.)

The refuge has about 300 birds and animals with some 60 being monkeys. Most of the animals have had a troubled past. Some were cute pets that the owners wanted to get rid of when they got older and hard to handle. Others were confiscated from bird and animal smugglers. Some were shot and injured or the babies were rescued after the mother was shot.

Managing a situations where animals and birds come in and some are set free is a complicated job. Birds and animals may or may not accept the new comer. Releasing animals has to be done at some distance away. Sometimes the cage is left in the new location and after some time the doors are open. Some animals raised as pets can never be released because they never acquired hunting skills.

The people who work at AmaZOOnica are mostly young volunteers from Europe with a few from Canada and the US. They live at the refuge from two to six months at a cost to the volunteer of $100 a month for food and lodging. The Quechua Indians who live in the area are being taught to manage the refuge in the future. The families live on site. There is an elementary school to educate the children. Because of anticipated long term relations with the Swiss foundation, the school also teaches Germans to the students. So, the Quechua student know their own language, Spanish, German and some English. We happened to meet one of the volunteer teachers at our hotel in Tena the day before. She invited us to visit the school. The picture below shows two Swiss kids with Quechua children in the background.

Get This Monkey Off My Back

This is one of those blog postings that will give all the wise-guy readers ammunition about "so which one is the monkey?" and a million other lines. So, fire away! The picture above shows Tiffany Miller with her new found friend. We were visiting an island zoo in Tena. Tena is about a two and a half hour bus trip north of Puyo. About one third of the ride was like riding a jackhammer. They are slowly improving the roads, however.

I wouldn't say I froze when this guy jumped on me, but I would say I scratched my head for about an hour after he got off. I think I now know why monkeys spend a lot of time scratching and looking through their fur.

Just outside of Puyo, we visited an botanical "farm". The owner has spent 28 years collecting plants which are going exstinct here in the rain forest. This is our fourth visit to this place over a several year period. We have over 250 pictures from this botanical "farm". Nathan & Tiffany are beside a "walking tree" which tends to gravitate toward additional sunlight over the years. The new "roots" grow out of the trunk all the way from a foot to three feet above the ground. New ones keep coming and old ones rot off.

The food of the rain forest people include a wide variety of natural things. The picture above was taken in a market in Tena. The large bowl is full of live grubs. This is a delicacy which we did NOT try. They are "roasted" in leaves much like the way they cook fish which we showed in a posting some time back. There are just some foods we can't get past the mind let alone the mouth. Be sure to click on this picture so you get a full screen view on your computer.

Future postings will include more pictures and details of three very full days of travel in this area.

Tena, Ecuador

The posting tonight is from Tena, Ecuador. We decided to take a short weekend trip about two and a half hours north of Puyo by bus. About half the trip was on excellent roads and the other half was on roads under construction or should have been under construction. I think an excellent business here would be the selling of heavy duty suspension systems for busses.

Tena is a river town. Two major rivers join just a few hundred yards from our hotel. The island that makes up the upper fork of this joining of two rivers is a sort of natural zoo. We spent some time attempting to photograph monkeys in the trees until we discovered that if you stand still under the smaller trees, they will jump on you and sit on your shoulder and head. After this happened several times, I now know why monkeys scratch a lot. I felt the need to work my hair over a number of times.

My nephew, Nathan Miller and his wife Tiffany are making the trip with us. Seeing the rainforest for the first time, they seem to enjoy it and conclude it is a ¨wow¨experience.

Tomorrow (we are skipping work) we will travel back down south a bit to see several river communities and will possibly visit an animal rescue zoo where the animals of the area are nursed back to health. The rainforest does not present an opportunity to see wild life because of excess hunting and cutting of the forest. If one were to travel inland far enough, this would change. However, none of us are in condition nor have the time to try this challenging trip. A few people ¨cheat¨by riding down the rivers for several days to say they have ventured into the primary jungle.

We have run in to a number of Americans here in Tena who took a five hour bus trip from Quito to do some white water rafting. We have had a couple of interesting conversations.