Ecuador Student Blog

Mila B., Age 16

Roosevelt SEIS

Beginning in the year of 1964, foreign companies – such as Texaco/Chevron – have entered the Coca community in hopes of obtaining oil as a product for profit. As a result, the environment and those living in Coca have been negatively affected. The exploitation of Coca's natural resources has left many community members in states of despair: some are not able to see another day; others do not have the healthy land, to grow the food they require, in order to. Because of the selfish choices made by Texaco/Chevron to save a little bit of money, 18 billion gallons of toxic waste encompasses the Coca region, among other hazardous things. Almost everywhere you step, within the land of Coca, there is a promise of contaminated water, contaminated air, contaminated air and death.

Based on the injustices displayed, the Coca community, and other communities surrounding them, has decided to take action. Coca has managed to see the manipulative ways of Texaco/Chevron and has resolved to use education as a solution to their problems. They have successfully filed accusations against Texaco/Chevron and a trial is still going on in order to force Texaco/Chevron to see the error of their ways – and to fix it. Coca has also been an inspiration to neighbouring communities such as the Yachana community.

Yachana is a two hour canoe ride downstream from Coca. Because of the incidents that have occurred in Coca, Yachana has been able to organize their own people so as not to repeat the mistakes made in the past. There is currently a high school available for the youth of Yachana in order to show them just how valuable the land they live on is to themselves and the rest of the world. The school focuses on eco-tourism and allows students to discover alternative ways to earn money, in a more sustainable way. Classes within Yachana High School's curriculum includes English and the indigenous language of most students attending, Kichwa, among animal husbandry, arts and crafts and more.

I have personally encountered and talked with many of the people directly affected by oil exploitation in both the Coca and Yachana region. I have worked alongside those attending Yachana High, and even met a sweet young man named Byron who, in order to make up for his lack of English, gave me a bracelet he learned to create with his own hands at his high school. I have eaten the food harvested by the people of Yachana as an alternative way to earn money. I have travelled within the rainforest both Coca and Yachana depend on, and have seen it in all its natural beauty. And because of this, the benefits of oil – of this global commodity – are not worth its cost. It is not worth the livelihood of these kind-hearted, hard-working people that make up both of these communities. It is not worth the despair it would bring to the present and the future of the world. The people of Coca and the people of Yachana deserve a healthy life.

Ty M., Age 17

Open Meadow

The socical justice issue that is in the community of Sarayaku is that the government is giving Companies General de combustible ( CGC) a oil companies permission to drill with out asking the community first. The Sarayaku people does not want them to come and drill for oil because CGC would be taking over their land. They have 135,000 sq acres right now but if CGC comes they said that they would let them have 2 sq acres for 2,000 people but they need that land to grow food like yucca, plantains, corn and naranjajia. So they can live. They use so much stuff out of they rain forest for every day things that they need.

There are a lot of people that are involved like the Ecuadorian government, CGC, and the  Sarayaku people but there are Sarayaku people that are really involved like this woman named Hilda. She is one of the leaders of Sarayaku. Hilda is a 45 year old woman and she is in the 12th grade. She also is a single mother. She helps people when they come to see Sarayaku and she tells you what’s going on there as well. She is doing it because she does not want nothing to happen to the land and she loves everyone there like family and she does not want anything to happen to them.

There are kids that are involved too that don’t want nothing to happen to their land. The Sarayaku community is responding trying to stop them from coming in. They already stop them once in 2002 and they are trying to stop them again if they can. Sarayaku people are campaigning, writing letters and telling the government that they don’t want them to come to drill on their land.

They are doing it because they want their land they need their land to live. They are letting groups know that go to Sarayaku what is going on there so they can get the word out on what’s going on because they don’t leave Sarayaku at all. So they want others to help them stop CGC.
There are so many humans rights that are being threatened like their land like I said before. Food, clean water, their homes and their way of live. So if the oil companies come and drill they would be stripped of everything.

For me I really don’t think that it is worth them coming and drilling just for some oil because there are a lot more costs then there are benefits for the people so CGC should understand what well happen if they do come. So they should not come at all.

David T., Age 17

Open Meadow

Sarayaku is a wonderful place with 135,000 square km of land. Its best known for people that loves to be creative about their living space. They only allow 50 groups per year and that’s it. Its one of the best places to go and learn about what they do. But as of right now they are having trouble with the oil companies trying to invade on them.

The social justice issue is that the government is letting the oil company come by giving them permission. Cgc oil is getting in so they can take over. The major players of the whole situation going on are the government, oil company, international human rights.

Human rights that are a risk are everyone’s special things that are being taken away from them. Land, food, homes, animals, bathing in rivers is all being destroyed and token away. This is their lives that are just going down the drain and being thrown away. In Sarayaku they don’t have most showers like most places. Rivers around them is what they bathe in to get clean. Also its biodegradable place so rivers and jungles can stay clean and not dirty. Land around them is being covered in oil little by little each second, day, months, and years.

Well one of the main people that are leading Sarayaku as well is Hilda and she’s 45 years old single mother and still in high school. Hilda has been helping every individual person in Sarayaku out. Cgc Oil Company that’s trying to invade most places; she’s not letting them by using all of her strength not letting them.

Sarayaku is preventing the oil company of their territory through the legal political public awareness efforts. International American commission of human rights and the precautionary of the government. All the people in Sarayaku don’t want any other oil companies to come because they will not clean their mess up.
They also have a video to show every person that comes to Sarayaku so they have a glimpse of what’s going on and why Sarayaku people are fighting back. Youth really needs to know about anything that goes on because they have a whole life ahead of them to be someone that they always wanted to be.

Cgc Oil Company wants to invade Sarayaku´s land and wouldn’t care one bit about hem. Cgc wants the oil that was left behind from Texaco/Chevron and reinstates the issue with a different oil company. Money and the dependents of oil is a big cost for having it around so there is a lot of money being spent figuring out what to do.

Just being in Sarayaku and knowing what’s all going on its way to much to think about but Sarayaku people are worried unlike we are in Portland because we don’t have a problem like what they are fighting still to this day in Sarayaku and many other places. Portland is a place where the oil companies have their own responsibility and don’t have to worrie about situations like the people in Ecuador.

This whole thing that’s going on in Ecuador needs to stop and come to an end. This place is really terrific to learn about but not to learn about the oil taking everything over. So there has to be ways to stop this and one thing is to go to the president of Ecuador and tell him the situations and maybe things will change.

Britteny J. Age 19

Open Meadow

The social justice issue behind intag is the Copper Mesa Mining that has been going on for 12 years. How it all started was when Rosario Piedra husband was when shot dead by the paramilitary squad because he had refused tol et them come and survey the land. Piedra community sent her to peru to visit a copper mine and when she returned back to ecuador with  the report on what she saw the community was in shock.
 
With the copper mesa mining Project in the works a lot of people human rights are at risk like clean water, fresh air, freedom of speech to keep their land and the human body was destroyed. The intag river where people bathe their children or children who swan in that river ended up getting rashes and sores because of the polluted water, but eventually in dried up.
 
The intag community decided to do something about it so they decided to write letters, stand up against the paramilitary army, put chains around the land they wanted to Project, and they also burned down Bishimetals. They are doing these things because they want to protect the land and water they have leftt in their community by standing up to the soliders who tried to take their land and putting them in jail at  the junins chapel.
 
I  think what they are doing is effective because now they are making sure no ones human rights are being abused, having self- goverance to have an healthy  environment and choose their own means of development. The juninss community produces their own food from  their land like coffee, fruit and flowers.
 
I dont think the benefits are worth the cost because all that community wants is to have the rights to their land and keeping it to make a living off what they grow and produceand if they have that they will be a stronger community because they fought to keep their   land for so many years and now that they have it they will do a lot of good for their community and health.

Open Meadow

The Pangaea group has been to a lot of communities that have social justice issues since we have been on this trip but I chose a specific community to do my blog on which is Coca. I chose Coca because chevron/Texaco dumped billions of water waste (oil mixed with water) into oil pits in the ground because they had no where else to store the left over mess from the oil that couldn’t be used. By doing this, Texaco has done amounts of damage to the indigenous people’s land and water. The people depend on all their resources around them such as water, trees, soil so that they can plant more food, bathe in rivers and use the streams  for water to drink, but they had to stop using there resources for a little bit because the oil pits had toxins in it that contaminated all their natural resources. When the people in the community started to using the water again the kids and adults were coming out with mouth sores, stomach and uterine cancer, birth defects and numerous amounts of miscarriages all types of mal-functions to their bodies.

With all this going on a lot of the people human rights were taken away such as freedom of speech because the indigenous didn’t have any say so as in wither the oil company can come and dig up their land and take oil, rights to clean water, soil, and food. I don’t think this is right because nobody rights should be taken away just because another group of people want to come in and dictate peoples  land just to bring in profit for themselves and be cheap about the way they do things just to save money and also provide work for others. The only good thing that came out of this disastrous process to me was that it only provided jobs for some of the Ecuadorian men who needed money to support their families. I also think that the governments should have found out more about the cause and affect that it would have on people’s communities instead of putting 100% trust into an oil company just because they’ve been around for a lot of years.

But to end this drama with the oil company and the indigenous people the people in the communities are getting together to spread the word about how bad the oil company left their land and there also filing a law suit against Texaco between 7-16.3 billion dollars but in November of 2008 the upped the lawsuit to 27 billion dollars for the damages that they have caused to the peoples bodies. So I think the Ecuadorians are doing a pretty good job of putting action into this global situation because they deserve their human rights back and to live a normal healthy life like everybody else and use mother nature like they used to.

Sarah M., Age 18

Open Meadow

In 2004 Sarayaku was a community of 2,000 indigenous Kichwa people, the growth since then is unknown. The people of the community can be found in the Central Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. They do not depend in the Government of the state for help. They depend completely on the lush forest of the Amazon for growing their crops, mostly containing yucca, bananas, plantains and fruit. The land provides room for their growing families and livestock.. Using the resources of the forest for building homes, boats, furniture and clays that is used for making cups or plates, common plants for medicine, tea, and  palm leafs that is made into a backpack for the transportation of Yucca and other foods.

The river to bathe and wash clothing, to clean their food and to cook their foods, they may not have much but the land and their family is their riches. They are very welcoming making sure their guest are fed and happy. The land provides them with everything they need without it they have nothing.  

The Ecuadorian Amazon in divided into numbered blocks for the concession of oil. In 2002 an Argentinean company known as Company General De Combustibles (CGC) and another company called Houston-Based Burlington Resources (HB.BR) each controlled 50% of block 23 later HBBR gave 25% of the portion to a French company, Perenco. The community was never consulted about any of the bidding and auctioning of block 23. Sarayaku makes up about 60% of block 23. The oil company claimed that they had permission of the communities to drill up the oil in the land. Although the Community of Sarayaku did not give the oil company any consent to do so. The Ecuadorian Government and the oil company carried out plans to have seismic testing in block 23. The first attempt of the testing in 2002 the community organized and fought, forcing them to postpone the agreed plans. The o shut down schools, store and men, women also children when out into their land in search for these deadly dynamites. Now Sarayaku only complies with a tourist company called Popgado, people born and raised in the Sarayaku community. The other attempt was to tear family apart, the companies failed. The family union was to strong.

Even thought the main income for Ecuador in 60% relied on oil, the government thought the oil drilling would help with their national debt instead they have been more in debt then ever.

The community of Sarayaku has learned and seen the destruction and the lives, homes taken. The land contaminated as well with water and the air that oil drilling has cause for Coca. They where not going to let that happen to them and their home. They have completely organized themselves and fought with the government, wrote letters, sent e-mails, spoke to the Human Rights to issue a precautionary measure to the Ecuadorian government. Traveled to different counties to give speeches and ask for help to people who were willing to help and listen save the only home they have even known from total environmental and humane destruction.           

If there’s drilling in Sarayaku their human right are highly at risk! The land will be taken and destroyed. The whole community will have to share 2 Sq. kilometres of land that’s not enough room for them to have room for their family’s, or to have a decent size crop or letting their livestock roam and feed. The water would be contaminated couldn’t be used for anything, the land would be a new home to oil pits and contaminated soil. Not only that they still use the old fashion way to retrieve oil, and with them burning the natural gas they are pollution the air and killing off the forest and bio-diverse plants and animals. This would all end with the people who can’t leave the destruction who’ll develop cancer, have miscarriages, abortions, and areas of the body that will have deformation and rapid death.

The Sarayaku people have resisted the Government and oil drilling on their land for 13 years by making noting but a complete uproar, campaigning, asking for help from countries willing to help and support them, letter writing, marking their territories of their land that’s now 135,000 Sq. kilometres. They do this because this is their home, the place they lived their whole life the same as their ancestors, they do it for their children and many generations after them. They do it for the forests home not only them, but to many. If they can fight for this long the organizing and planning has paid off well, and is very effective for years to come.

The benefits of destroying the land is money to help pay of a little of their national debt, and jobs to those working for the oil company. The cost is completely wasted land water, lives taken and homes of indigenous people. It is not worth getting a little bit of oil for a little bit of money because the companies are taking a lot more they are getting. The community will continue to fight for their human rights and their land.

Audrion W., Age 18

Open Meadow CRUE

This is Audrion Bird´s blog number three. You will find this blog to be very abstract and tap into your senses. This blog performs best if you listen to calming music while reading. I suggest Kelley Howells Total Relaxation mp3.
 
Look down, take caution.
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down
down d
down do
down dow
down down
down down b
down down ba
down down bab
down down baby
down down baby t
down down baby ta
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down down baby tast
down down baby taste
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down down baby taste th
down down baby taste the
down down baby taste the r
down down baby taste the ra
down down baby taste the rai
down down baby taste the rain
down down baby taste the rainb
down down baby taste the rainbo
down down baby taste the rainbow
   
I first want to state that I like the expression of ¨winging it,¨ it provides me with the creativity that modern society looks down upon. Society looks down upon a lot of things: happiness, freedom, and interpersonal relationships. It’s important to really listen to yourself, and not what society tells you. When you sit down and listen to your thoughts you’d be amazed by the beautiful sounds you’ll hear.
 
Simply listening to the sound your mind makes and using your big smart logical brain to identify and justify the sound, completely ruins the moment. Processing things ruins life. But that’s what the school tells you, process everything and make sense of it. For this river of thoughts, this forest of ecstasy, I’m going to let life flow and live. I’ll be looked down upon by the whole world, but life will live.
 
Breathing in the hot soothing breath, the one thousands have breathed before. You’re exhaling the laughter for everyone’s ears to make travel to their stomach. Your lungs hurt, is this really possible? A bite from love assures your existence among the jungle that never sleeps. Rest assured your one with the jungle.
 
There’s a bed of sun and you’re walking all over it. The heat fuels your fire of ambition. Sun drops from your soul and lands beneath the pillow. The sun fairy is not coming till tomorrow. There’s a distinct look and feel, a yellow orb of warmth and wonder, soon to be extinct.
 
An icy chill shoots from your heels to your animalistic mind. A shock crawls from your head all the way to your toes. Deeper and deeper you still go, becoming consumed so slow. Looking down, you are a whole organism. A living spirit with just two top half’s. Seeing through yourself, the heart of the jungle pumps it’s crystal precious blood, enabling life for all those in existence.
 
Body fully emerged your minds flowing to the constant never ending heat beat. Life splashes before your eyes. Past memories, future aspirations hold on tight. Everything else is slowly dieing. If death is dieing, then you understand the amazon’s flow of chilly true words. The wet rocks provide a twinkle for your minds dark eyes.
 
Open up see what’s inside, the secrets can never hide. Take time to ponder and think what’s really important to you. For now, soak up in your mindless peaceful thoughts. Let the river flow. Let the sun shine. Let the life breath. Let your magic out. I´ll come back for you. I’m Audrion Bird; join me in looking up at the world and laughing.