San Mateo's Back Alleys

San Mateo, Ecuador. The view from the street is of a freshly-painted grocery store front , the manicured church on the hill, simple houses. The hurried tourist would note that house windows aren't covered by burglar bars, unlike in other Ecuadoran cities. Children, mostly clean and well dressed, play in the streets with no one to watch over them.

But to see the story behind the outward façade, you have to enter the back alleys, and that’s where Mary led me one morning.

I met her after her early morning duties at the diabetic clinic. She packed a diabetes tester, insulin jars and her blood pressure tester. From a tin she grabbed some $10 bills and stuck them in her pocket.

As we walked down the main street she greeted everyone with a “Buenas Dias”. They all knew her. A woman stopped her and told the story of her children, growing fast. Did Mary have any spare clothes? My sister promised to see what she could do.

 We turned into a narrow alley. Grey water seeped into it from plastic pipes. The bright green algae on the pavement made the surface slippery. The alleyway opened into a courtyard with several houses. The one  facing us had cracked walls, a hole for a window and a metal door. Mary shouted, “Permitte! Ave!” From within a faint voice replied. We entered a dim room.

A woman was sitting in a chair. Mary introduced me as “mi hermano” , as if I was royalty. Her husband lay on his bed watching television. Two children ran in circles. Mary asked the woman about her health; about her life. She pricked the woman’s finger. A tester strip soaked up a drop of blood. It contained 300 units of sugar, twice what was normal. The woman swore that she’d taken her insulin. Mary doubted it. She asked to see the insulin. While she held the bottle, she asked the woman what they ate in the house. Fried banana, fried fish and rice; what most people could afford. What about vegetables? The woman said that she tried some vegetables but didn't like them.

Down another alley we came to a family who had just moved in. Mercedes, a young mother with two small children, greeted us. A man of around twenty lay in his bed in front of a flickering television. The small finger on one hand was split open. Badly swollen. When Mary asked how he was doing, Mercedes said that he’d be fine and would soon return to fishing. The children looked on while Mary examined the hand.

She told Mercedes that her son must go immediately to Manta to see a doctor and get antibiotics, or he could lose a finger. Mercedes protested that the doctor wasn't necessary. The boy would be fine. After a lengthy standoff, of words that flew so fast that my rudimentary Spanish didn’t parse them, Mercedes agreed to take the boy to Manta. Mary thrust a $10 note in her hand to seal the deal.


Up another narrow alley we found a house with cracked walls whose cement and plaster were falling off. Fifty years earlier, the builders had opted for a cheap solution of mixing cement using sea sand. Now the residents had to deal with the consequences.

 Inside the house water dripped from long fissures in the ceiling. A man sat on the balcony. In her buoyant voice, Mary asked how he was that day. The man nodded, but otherwise could not move. His wife answered that he was as before. Mary took his blood pressure, fortunately normal that day. She talked to his wife about the leaking roof, prices of vegetables and food. Before we left, Mary slipped the woman $20; said to her, “Se pase bien.” (the local expression for , 'take care'.)

“She’s a good woman,” Mary said. “Her husband used to be a trader, quite well off. He chased other women all his life, but then his wealth evaporated. He had a stroke, and the woman he never paid attention to, took care of him. She has no income. She has absolutely nothing.”

Alfredo has diabetes. The bed where we found him looked like one that Mauro made. Not content with building houses, he also builds beds and gives them to people who otherwise would be sleeping on the floor. While Mary measured Alfredo's  blood sugar, I watched his wife weave a Panama hat. Her fingers moved in and out of the natural twine, like a blur. Hundreds of women up and down the coast wove those hats, taking a week to finish one. A good hat might sell for $100, of which the weaver would receive a fraction.

Weaving a Panama hat






After a longer walk down muddy pathways we reached a house on stilts, at the edge of a steep gully  Rubbish filled an empty garden space. Inside we found a young woman who could barely move because of her rheumatoid arthritis. Her husband was out on the boat. She told Mary that he drank a lot. This was the second marriage for both of them. She used to cook over a fire --- several burning branches in a bucket, until the Barrio kids raised the money to buy her a stove top and propane cylinder. While we talked to her, her teenage son lay on his bed (made by Mauro). He played a game while watching TV. “Tomorrow afternoon, you must send him to the clinic to fetch you pain medicine,” Mary told her.

A stove and propane bottle bought by the local teens.

“He doesn’t like to run errands,” said the woman.

“He must do it,” Mary told her.

This family lives in a bamboo house. They keep doves for the eggs.

We visited many others, all people who lived on the edge of life. So many that the faces began to blend.

As we turned toward home, Mary stopped at a small grocery shop, asked the man working there if she could go up and see Don Ricardo. The man nodded. Opening a metal door we climbed the concrete stairs. A stench of urine hit us as we entered the upper room. Don Ricardo, emaciated, and deathly pale sat on his crumpled sheets. At least three bowls of unfinished lentils and rice lay on the bed, scraps of moldy bread and litter everywhere. I wasn't sure if the stench or sorrow were the stronger. Mary sat beside him. For several minutes she held his hand. There was nothing to say. Apparently the man in the store below was his son. But he had his life to look after, didn't he?

Two days later Mary rounded up a couple of women and came over to clean out the Augean stable. For a few more days Don Ricardo would live with a modicum of dignity. But he was only one of many in the town, forgotten by his closest family.

Our final stop that day took us into a house with a stillborn baby. It lay on a cushion, surrounded by burning candles. The entire family had come together that morning, except the mother who was still in hospital. All told about fifteen people. Mary talked at length with the grandmother. Others sat in chairs not saying much. Despite the sorrow, an overwhelming peace permeated the room. I learned that the mother had a short liaison with a fisherman. When he learned that she was pregnant, he left her. Her family stepped in and supported her throughout the pregnancy. No one knew what went wrong at the birth. In the midst of the tragedy, the family solidarity gave one more hope  than in any of the other houses.

That day I met poverty on a scale you don’t see in the UK. unless it hits the evening news. We were only able to help a few people. There were many others living down back alleys. At the root of the poverty wasn’t a lack of money. To clean up a littered garden and plant a few trees takes little money. Somehow the people could not see new possibilities, the way out of their poverty. Probably because it required changes in diet, work, family commitments and lifestyle.



 The fishermen could not see that the new harbour waited for their boats along with splendid facilities for their catch. Instead, they still landed their boats on the same old beach because they’d always done it that way.

Next: The Women of the Savannah

Land of the Albatross

For the next four blog entries, we leave the shivering winter-scapes of Scotland for a much warmer and sunnier place, San Mateo on Ecuador's west coast.

San Mateo is not much of a tourist destination, even though the beach would make you believe you’re on California’s Zuma beach, only without all the people or traffic. Albatrosses wheel overhead. Pelicans skim above the surf, sometimes six foot high. High sandstone cliffs frame the endless beaches. Where are the surfers?

Albatross!

Walking to the fishing village you pass through a desert savannah of sandalwood and dry shrubs. As in California a few inches of rain fall once a year in February to March. Green shoots sprout from the ground, from trees you thought were dead. Within two weeks the hills turn green. You’ll find more kinds of birds than you can count: green and red breasted parrots, seabirds, vultures. An ornithologist’s Mecca.

 

Maria-Theresa, Juan, and Mary

Upon reaching San Mateo village any comparison to California becomes fantastical. Fishing boats are parked by dilapidated houses. Some have a wall or roof missing. Many have a dirt floor. The people live on the edge, own next to nothing, but always a television. They barely eke out a living from the fish the catch. The better off have their own boat from which they cast lines with hooks. Many others hitch a ride on a boat and work for a share of the proceeds. Often boats return from sea with no catch. Some houses have a small piece of land but it’s rarely cultivated. San Mateo has a one track existence, and it’s fish.

The beach where the fishermen bring their boats. Last year San Mateo built a new harbour, but the men still use the old beach. It's more familiar.

Well-to-do and not so well-to-do side by side.

Water is scarce. It’s trucked in from Manta, Ecuador’s fourth largest city about six miles away and dumped into each house’s reservoir. Sewer systems? Gray water seeps into alleyways and streets. The pipes connecting houses with Manta are usually empty.  Once a month a cry is passed from house to house, “The water’s coming!!” Dry pipes are filled for a few hours with muddy water. People hop out of bed to water trees and anything else planted, while the water lasts.

A few years ago my sister Mary and her husband Mauro moved to San Mateo, not particularly for the scenic beauty, but to get close to the people. The poverty. With money from volunteers in Italy and from friends, Mauro built an entire neighbourhood, about seventy concrete block houses. Each cost about $8,000, electricity hooked up and plumbing. For a recipient whose house typically lacked a wall or roof, it’s a palace. He also built a community hall, and a crisis house, mainly for women who need a place to land.

Houses can be built with bricks and cement, but you can only build so many. They don’t change the causes of poverty. Chief among those, Mauro suggested, is “Ignorantia”. He didn't know the English equivalent, but it characterizes a mindset that results from generations of social fragmentation. Men come back from sea and often drink away the proceeds. Marriages are little more than temporary liaisons, with typically eight children. Some are given away to whoever wants them. Women, often battered, move away to a man who might beat them less. Older people are left alone in rooms with no one to talk to. There’s also diabetes, spread out like a permanent epidemic, both genetic and acquired from a diet of fried banana and fried fish.

 There's a church but most villagers don't attend it. The priest sticks to his job of saying mass, preaching sermons and administering sacraments.

In the Palo Santo Barrio. Mario supervised the building of over 50 houses.

To make any meaningful change you have to heal the people and help them rebuild their community. At 5AM every Monday Mary opens the diabetic clinic. About fifty patients are already waiting, some camped out in front of the door for over two hours. She tests their sugar, measures blood pressure and administers insulin.  On Tuesday afternoons a doctor comes to work with the patients.

 Drawing mainly from women Mary met at church, she organized them into groups. Some get together and discuss their family issues. Others study the Bible. Some women organize fundraisers to buy medicines. Each Wednesday, neighborhood kids bake cakes and sell them in the barrio for 50 cents a piece. Or they make candles for sale.

 Twice a month Mary’s women bring the disabled to the church hall for cakes, drinks and games. The week I was there, it had rained and the mucky streets prevented the wheelchairs from moving. So we brought the cakes to the disabled. 

The girls making cakes for sale

  Most were delighted to get their cake and juice. Those who weren't, because they were PO'd that the trip to the hall was off.  Dolores sat on her wooden floor and related, once again, her life history. How she had hurt her foot so she cannot stand. She talked about her son, lost in a far away land. She heard his footstep on her porch the night he died. Her daughter, Corina has Down Syndrome or something related. She was  unconditionally happy. Laughing. Before I left she threw her arms around me and gave me a big smile.

We hadn’t solved San Mateo’s “Ignorantia” but we brought smiles to a few people.

Coming next: In San Mateo's  Back Alleys

Bees and Trees --- The Cottarton Game

Picture our domain at Cottarton, fields, winding pathways, gardens of Canterbury bells,vegetable rows, and then some special features such as the house, cabin, greenhouse, labyrinth, beehives. Not to forget special residents such as our three cats and the bees. How clearly can you see it all? Now transfer your vision to cardboard tiles, arrange them in ways that suit you. You’re not the only player in this game. There are others and they may not agree with you on how to build the gardens, where to put paths or the position of the greenhouse. All players place their tokens on pathways, gardens, special features and even fields. Points are awarded for completed gardens and paths. Special tiles that contain a bee win you extra points because bees increase the value of a garden.

Now you’re playing Bees and Trees, the table top game that Lois left for us under the tree. When I opened the box and saw the handcrafted tiles, for a moment I thought that with the assistance of a magic spell she'd encapsulated features of our domain on small cards. That if I stared for long enough at the log hive I’d see bees flying. Or that the cats would start dancing. We sat around the table, picked our token --- each player has six; pebbles and shells that Lois had gathered at the foot of Mount Olympus in Greece. And so the players each picked a card when their turn came. Like Woofers, they built pathways, gardens, planted trees and laid claim to the special features. Perhaps the one aspect not true to life was the competition for lucrative gardens and the fields that contain them. People who visit us don’t jockey to possess anything.

Gardens -- bee included

 But after all, it’s a game, not a bad place to let your competitive instincts express themselves. Or to explore how to take the cards that you’re dealt, apparently at random, and build something beautiful.

'Tis the season for making holly wreaths

Among my earliest memories is trying to find a place to sit down in a living room jammed full of holly. Piles of it, some cut into sprigs, some with wires wound around the stem, green holly, variegated, berries, wires. My dad sat among the piles, a circle of moss balanced on one hand, and with the other hand he stuck holly sprigs into the moss. First he planted a complete circle of cypress sprigs, then three rows of holly, inserted at three different angles to fill up the circle. Finally he inserted several sprigs of variegated holly and  berries. The wreaths were all pleated during the long winter evenings. To keep our stone cottage warm, we burned a paraffin stove. Every couple of hours I had to run into the frosty night to fill up a jar with paraffin and insert it into the stove to keep it running. I also wound wires around the holly stems. Later on, I made a few wreaths to earn some Christmas money.

While he worked, he told us stories.

We heard about his adventures in the POW camp. The compound was along the lines of the camp in the film, The Great Escape. Perhaps it was a harrowing experience, but he made it sound like an adventure. At times funny, especially how the prisoners sometimes got the better of their captors. A few, not many, escaped in ingenious ways. Yes, they dug an escape tunnel, and almost completed it, but in the end decided not to use it. War was ending and the prisoners realized that they had more to gain by waiting until they were released. There were family stories, memories of growing up in a manor house on the banks of the Pripyat River in Bielorus: wandering in endless forests, accounts of the bogs that could swallow you up, hunting for Capercallie and the pranks his brothers played on each other.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that during winter, when the Old Scone Nursery had little else for sale, the wreaths provided most of the winter income. Making each one took about two hours, but they fetched a good price in the Perth shops. Also, materials were cheap. The moss came out of the local woods. As for the holly, well that was a family secret. Enough to say that the nearby palace garden contained many holly bushes. Each winter they received a severe haircut. Finally the local Factor, not amused by the stunted look of his holly trees, told  my dad to cease and desist. He had to look further afield. Hardest to find were holly berries. In a bad year, my dad had to substitute plastic ones.

This year I bought the metal rings and  made a few wreaths for gifts. Remarkably I recalled the entire process as if I'd done it yesterday: the order of the rows, the angles for the holly, that the variegated holly and the berries get longer wires. The wreaths turned out exactly as I remembered. No one makes them that way any more. Modern wreaths have pine cones, plastic holly and fir tree sprigs. 

Where did my holly come from? My dad used to reply to such a question with, “It’s better not to say”. I'll stick to that line. 

Of Fog and Food Poisoning

When air travel goes wrong it usually goes wrong badly. Not just a flight delay but as the poet expressed, “When troubles come they come not singly but in battalions.”

And so to last week’s trip to Munich. Luggage was checked --- luckily underweight, and no funny business at security, such as losing (yet again) my pocket knife. We’re in the departure lounge to take off for Heathrow. But alas there’s fog over Heathrow. First one flight and then an entire board of flights are delayed. Ah whenever we get too big for our boots and think we've mastered nature, pesky weather reminds us that we are on Earth, and planet Earth has the last word. I ask about the Heathrow-Munich leg of our trip, but the BA lady assures us that the flight will be similarly delayed and so we should make it.

After three hours wait, we board, and then wait  another hour on the tarmac for Heathrow fog to make up its mind whether to lift or roll in. We sail! Land in Heathrow and then Amber and I sprint for Terminal 5, ducking under barriers when they pop up in our path. The good news is that we make the gate as the flight is still boarding. The bad news is that  BA took us off the roll and placed us on a later flight. They figured that we wouldn’t make it. I suspect that we got bumped by a celebrity who pushed his/her weight about. So our flight is to leave ---four hours later. More fog rolls in. Signs of “Enquire Airline” pop up all over the departure boards, but our flight is still on. What do you do while waiting? You drink, shop, eat, drink some more. After a while you suspect that flight delays are so profitable for airport businesses, that Gucci, the caviar bars and liquor establishments pool together a bribe for BA to delay certain flights.

And so we finally board! I phone my cousin in Munich that we’re on our way. Will only be six hours late. We sit on the tarmac, for an hour at least. Finally comes the news that the pilot got sick from food poisoning and had to deplane. The co-pilot can’t fly the plane as maybe he’s got what the pilot has. So, no flight that day. Just get off folks, pick up your luggage and our staff is there to help you. Right?

We get off only to find ourselves in a large crowd of everyone whose flight was cancelled. One BA chap at the counter is trying to sort them all out. The line isn't going anywhere. Some have sat down. A guitarist serenades us with “We shall overcome.” Amber and I are at the end of this line. We study our lack of options. Finally a chap appears from a doorway with a stack of papers and heads for us. “Who wants a hotel?” he asks. Sighting a couple with a baby he gives them some coupons then disappears through the doorway again. Ten minutes pass and he appears again. Several Spanish speaking people corner him, almost threatening to rough him up. He protests, “Back off or I’m going away and I won’t be back.” He gives out the coupons then disappears again. A young chap addresses me in German. Finally he breaks into English, says that he knows what is going on. But before he can divulge the secret, he breaks into a series of German swearing and marches off down the corridor.

 I’m sure we've seen the last of the guy with the coupons when he pops up again. This time he hands Amber and I the goods. The only open hotel is the Olympia, in Central London. But, he warns us of dire consequences if we take our luggage. Luggage stays in airport; our bodies go to the hotel. We have to come tomorrow to be re-booked, or we dial a pricey BA phone number and hope you don’t go bankrupt while we’re on hold. We exit the room with the crowd and guitarists, pass border control and come to the baggage collection hall. All our suitcases are scattered there, with no supervision. Anyone could walk off with them. A sign boldly declares TO DELAYED PASSENGERS: PLEASE TAKE YOUR LUGGAGE IF NECESSARY. If necessary? ~ Are they being funny? We grab our luggage. 

Outside the terminal, there’s another unending line. This time for a taxi. We team up with a German couple, just back from a Star Trek convention. And so for the next hour we trade Star Trek trivia. Taxi pulls up, we cram in, three couple plus our luggage. Upon arriving at our hotel,  the Taxi man asks foe £66. We ask for three receipts, as we each have to reclaim our taxi expense from BA. “I suppose you’re giving me a tip too,” he says. We pull together £80, ask for change. But he pockets the money and says, “Thank you.”. At least he hands out three receipts.

From our hotel room I call the BA number. After 15 minutes a voice comes on. He puts me through to the “Excecutive Club”. Then, I lie on the bed for 45 more minutes; on hold. I hang up. After calling again I reach the first voice. Letting all my dignity go to the wind, I plead, almost cry to the chappie in Bombay not to transfer me but to book me on a flight. Which he does.

After that our fortunes take a turn for the better. Amber and I sleep well, eat a great breakfast, coffee, then lunch on BA’s expense account. Our Munich flight leaves on time and the rest is uninteresting.

I’m left pondering how rarely we appreciate our planet and the weather systems, except when our travel plans go wrong. Then, rather than expressing contrition, or understanding, even acknowledging that the Earth has a right to exist, we’re reduced to swearing.

The Cottarton Labyrinth

Last summer, despite being the butt of all jokes and other disparaging comments I built a labyrinth in the middle of our field. Not a maze like you find in English country manors with passages framed by neat boxwood, most with dead ends, designed to bewilder you. Or a-maze? The labyrinth leads you in one continuous path though by no means a direct one, to the centre, and then back out.  You can walk it at any time of day or night, when you feel distressed, when you’re happy, want to meditate. Or you can walk it when you have absolutely no reason or purpose in doing so. Do it consciously, each step taken with awareness, and you find yourself emerging from the pathways  in a different space then where you entered.

The view toward the cottage





Building a Cretan-style labyrinth, or any other is quite easy and doesn't require advanced surveying skills. First, you learn how to draw your labyrinth on paper. Then you repeat the same process on the land. My introduction to drawing was a you-tube video.  I cleared away the space with my scythe. After I’d practiced my art skills and knew how the deisign worked, I repeated the process on the cleared space, using 3 foot long bamboo sticks as my pencil. I used them also to measure the width of the path and stuck one into the ground every three feet. The labyrinth axis is lined up with  Janetstown Hill,  the most prominent peak close to Cottarton,  so that the structure blends with the energy of the land.  I marked the  cross at the labyrinth centre with stones from our land. At the heart is a collection of white quartz. No doubt you'll find your own objects to enhance the structure you build. After drawing the labyrinth on the land I mowed the pathways, and kept them mowed throughout the summer.

During August white clover grew in the structure. On a warm day you could smell its honey. My favorite time of day was around 9 pm when the low angle of the sun lit up our grassy field in bright golden hues. There was a peace in the air that did not appear to originate in any human thought Something you might call, sacred. You wanted to indulge totally in what was there. Without boundaries. To walk in circles, with your feet constrained to move along a prescribed path seemed almost unnatural.  At other times, especially when one felt overwhelmed by  turbulent thoughts, the pathways were more welcome. Walking them awoke an inner movement toward harmony. There was no thought of suppressing unwelcome thoughts or feelings, but rather a process of becoming more aware of them. Seeing what was already there.

Stone circle near Aboyne







Some people like to go to a church, cathedral or other special building to pray or meditate. Lately I've found most such places, built by human hands, to be empty and uninspiring. The temple that inspires is not one that is built by us or by our clever thoughts. It’s outdoors in the order created by nature, with nothing to separate the sky from the Earth. The language is expressed in the grains on the grass stalk, seemingly haphazard clover clumps and gnarly pine trees. I suspect that our ancestors five thousand years ago or earlier also sensed a certain sacredness in such places which is why they built their stone circles. Not to create temples of worship. The temple was already there. But rather to mark those spots that were particularly meaningful. Where, if you spent some time, you might discover yourself and your connection with the land.

Bees and the Northern Lights

Three days ago the bees were acting up. Temperatures were below 10 C, and so I expected them to remain huddled in a ball inside the log, but there they were, buzzing in circles, darting here and there. They clustered in large groups on the log. Some took off to forage, but others, plain excited danced in zig-zags to the music of  an unseen piper. Some alighted in Amber’s hair when she approached the hive. A first!

Meanwhile, unseen by us,  a large mass of plasma erupted from the sun and began its journey earthwards. Did the bees sense it? I’m quite sure that they’re aware of many influences that you and I don’t notice. Our unconscious thoughts and feelings for one. Geomagnetic storms are known to affect their WaggleDance.  They have a close relationship with the sun. Adult worker larvae take 21 days to develop, the rotation period of the sun. When the Queen takes her mating flight which way does she fly? Directly toward the sun. It’s well established that worker bees use the sun’s position when executing their Waggle Dance --- a complicated set of gyrations performed on the honeycomb to tell other foragers where the best food supply can be found. And what are beeswax and honey if not energy sources --- the sun’s energy stored by bees and ready for burning.

Clearly I didn't understand what the bees were telling me or I would not have been so surprised when Charles called last night to tell me that the Aurora was active. I hung up quickly and darted outside. There it was on the northern horizon, a curtain of greenish-white extending a quarter of the way to the zenith. Amber even brought out Ellie to look, but poor Ellie, just out of a bath, found the warmth of the indoor fire more inviting than the green thing-a-jig on the horizon. From the white haze, several green flames shot upwards, waving, hair-like. I thought of my camera, but realized that by the time I fished it out of my clutter, the flames would be gone. Oh well, that’s why UFO’s are never properly photographed either.  A second green curtain developed higher in the sky. You knew that it wasn't a cloud because stars shone steadily through it. Minutes passed, the lights shifted  to cluster brightest under the pole star. A large pink glow gathered close to the horizon, remained there for a few minutes before dissipating. The green flames died away and there remained the white glow that was not from street lights.

Luckily, others were able to capture the show.

Did the bees know about the solar explosion before it arrived? I don't rule it out. Barbara Shipman, a mathematician at Rochester University described their the Waggle Dance  in terms of a six-dimensional figure, one that can also describe the behavior of sub-atomic quarks. I've no idea what her discovery means except that bees remain extremely mysterious, with an intelligence that far surpasses what you'd expect of the little things. Perhaps they're not limited by our three dimensions.

Reluctantly I went inside the house. Daily life --- what people call “the real world” was calling, even though it’s probably less real than we think. This was the first time I’d seen the Aurora since returning to Scotland. It’s an unexpected guest, beautiful and uncommon. When it’s there you want to stay with it every minute. You don’t know when you’ll get to see it again.