July 26th, 2006

These are more pictures from last week. I made the mistake of updating my photo program, so for the moment most of my photo editing seems to crash the computer (well, to be technical it only crashes my desktop environment). I guess I shouldn't be using self-proclaimed "unstable" software. Anyway, what this means is that more pictures, particularly ones showing all of the afrecho and balanceado, are missing, though I do think I just uploaded a couple of pictures with community leaders. We will be making more deliveries in the next couple of days, some to the same places and some to other places.

July 22nd, 2006

In this email, I don't much describe the destruction caused by Tungurahua. Instead, I describe the help that we have provided to the villages that are suffering. After my last email, an American friend of mine in Quito decided that we should help more, and so we requested contributions from our families and our friends, who have responded generously.

On Wednesday and Thursday, July 19th and 20th, John and I made two deliveries of 70 quintales each of two types of animal food -- 40 quintales of afrecho and 30 of balanceado para ganado -- to 4 different communities that have been seriously hurt by Tungurahua. So, the total delivered in two days was 140 quintales. A quintal is usually either 100 pounds or 50 kilograms, depending on the product, though often it is also just the term used to describe really big sacks of stuff. In this case, the Afrecho sacks were 100 pounds and the balanceado sacks were 40 kilograms, or about 88 pounds. So, my total calculation for our deliveries is 6 metric tons (2.4 of balanceado and 3.6 of afrecho). Afrecho is a powder that looks kind of like sawdust and is made primarily, I think, of wheat, though corn is also in it. Balanceado para ganado is a type of green pellet that looks kind of like rabbit food or like rabbit shit, and this type is specifically for cattle (ganado).

Afrecho generally is mixed with water in a bucket to become a thick sludge kind of like corn meal or oatmeal. It has the big advantage that any animal will eat it, as long as the animal is hungry enough. Also, it won't go bad and by the time you mix water with it, you actually only have to give a small amount to each animal for each meal, so it lasts a long time. Its major disadvantage is that animals who have never eaten it don't like it very much (because it also tastes like sawdust). That is why we also got the balanceado. The balanceado has certain ingredients that cattle like. I actually am not sure what they are, except for molasses. I tasted it and all of us farmer folk thought it was pretty tasty, at least as animal feed goes, but John didn't like it very much, as he's a city boy. Its big negative is that both the sack is smaller and it takes a larger amount of balanceado to fill up a cow's belly, so it doesn't last as long. Furthermore, other animals aren't especially fond of it (though I imagine a pig would happily eat it). So generally, a farmer would mix some pellets of balanceado with the afrecho (which I will refer to as sawdust from here on) when feeding their cattle, just enough so that the cow would eat the sawdust.

We actually wanted to get a higher proportion of sawdust, but the folks we arranged to buy from didn't have as much of it as we wanted. They gave us a price of $8.50 per sack, which is about 15-20% lower than the typical retail price and they also arranged the delivery. This is supposedly the factory price, though later we learned from one of the community leaders that perhaps we could have negotiated $8.00 per quintal. Still, he though we had done alright on that issue. For those who are weak on the math, our total expense on food has been $1190 dollars so far, which means that all of the money I have raised has been spent, and we are starting to use the money John has raised, though we still have enough to make at least one more major delivery and another smaller delivery.

Anyway, on Wednesday afternoon we headed out on their big delivery truck with my brother-in-law's pickup truck following us with a number of family members, including Rosa, her father, a few of her cousins, and an uncle of hers. We made the same trip I describe last week, which is about 45 minutes, through Pelileo, Huambaló, and finally to Cotaló. There was one main difference: the volcano has calmed down some and we both hear very few explosions now in Salasaca and as we approached Cotaló there was very little smell. Furthermore, the ashfall has almost stopped, so I am hoping that like six years ago, this big activity will recede and people will have time to recover and hopefully this time prepare for the next time! Unfortunately, there is no real vulcanological evidence to think that there will be another rest. Nobody really knows.

Anyway, we arrived in Cotaló, where the big delivery truck unloaded everything. We knew that he was unwilling to go out and deliver to the small communities, so we were prepared for that, which is why we took the pickup with us. I had handled all of the coordination of the delivery, since I both know the area better and understand how to handle this sort of rural coordination and communication, while John has done a bit more fundraising. We knew which places to deliver to because I had both been in contact with the president of Cotaló and with a volunteer with the local Catholic church, who had gone around checking out the communities, seeing how bad the situation was in each one and also how many cows each community had. He also asked them what they needed, and they all said that while they had received some help on the food front, there had been almost nothing for the animals. Furthermore, I had already visited Cotaló and Chacauco, so I had an idea of the issues, and I also talked it over with the person in Salasaca who had organized the food drive last Sunday.

Thus we decided to make deliveries to four different communities: Chacauco, Bilbao, San Juan, and Pillate, who average having about 50 families and who have a total of about 500 cows. While Chacauco has the fewest heads of cattle, our contacts indicated that they had the most need, so we have delivered them a total of 40 quintales of food. The other hundred have been divided between the other three communities, though I think we should probably give Chacauco a higher percentage next week.

Anyway, our first delivery was for the residents of Bilbao, because they are evacuated and living in Cotaló in the church. Naturally, they were extremely thankful. We had an official ceremony in which we all signed various papers indicating that we were there representing our families and friends and including the exact quantities delivered. We asked what support they had received, and they indicated that it was almost exclusively from other rural communities, and that the only help from the government had been half a quintal of afrecho for each family. In our short visit we matched the government.

We then made a delivery with the pickup to Chacauco, which continued to be covered in ash. They remembered me from Sunday and were also very happy to get help. They said that they had received absolutely zero help from the government. However, I did see that farmers from unaffected areas had given a fair amount of produce, and they seemed to have enough human food. That said, we were the first people providing some real help for the animals, and they requested that when we come back we provide them with more of the same.

After that delivery, we went again to see the lava and rock flow, because Chacauco is the closest surviving town to those areas. It was already about five o'clock, so we rushed to go check it out. I was shocked to see that there were still a few cows in Bilbao. I imagine that the owners don't want to move them, but it was still unbelievable. Unlike on Sunday, this time there wan't much volcanic activity, so we went ahead an walked up through the ash to the most devastated area. There the ash was at least 4 inches deep and there were volcanic rocks that had been shot out of the mountain that were the size of a calf. Some of those rocks were still burning hot, as John pointed out when he spit on one and his spittle sizzled. Just walking around raised the ash up in enormous quantities, thankfully, we were wearing masks that John had brought.

It turns out that this big flow down a ravine, just to the south of Cusúa, had destroyed a bridge that had just been finished a couple of months earlier. That shows the great planning done by the government here. We walked up the ravine a bit, astonished by the destruction, the bleakness, and frightened by the power. We saw bits of chickens that hadn't escaped. We then went off to the side a bit and saw three cows covered in ash, dead. That was next to the destroyed greenhouses that I mentioned in my last email. There was also a house and near the house a tree with live chickens, including a small chick. We hope that those chickens are alive because the owners of the house continue to visit and feed them. The crops of course were destroyed. This time I took my camera, and perhaps that is why this email is a bit less descriptive than my last. The photographs I took are amazing and I hope to send some by email next week or set up a blog with them.

Anyway, by this time it was getting dark. We had been unable to see the top of the volcano all day, and I am happy for that because I don't think I would have enjoyed seeing lava coming down. I also saw no indication of rocks or any flows coming down the mountain. So, we moved on, to make our deliveries to San Juan and Pillate. We did those quickly, since it was dark and there was nothing to see there. Finally, we went home through a thick fog, getting back at about 10 at night.

On Thursday we made another delivery of the exact same quantities, but John was in a hurry and we didn't feel a need to go to each place. So, I called up the community leaders in advance and told them to have pickups ready in Cotaló to take their cow feed to their communities. We went, and it was a very cloudy day, so we couldn't really see anything anyway. The thing we could tell though is that there still wasn't any ash falling, which we hope is a good sign. We planned to leave quickly, but the president of Pillate insisted that we go to Pillate for lunch, so we went and they gave us a delicious meal of baked guinea pig. We also looked around up there on the hill that it is located, facing granma. It looked like there had been some rain, because it wasn't as grey as it had been days earlier. That said, all the crops are lost. The positive thing is that the grass is growing again and in a month or two there will be some cow food in some areas.

We also asked them if their grandparents and great-grandparents had warned them about granma. They said yes, but they had never paid them any attention, because they had nowhere else to go. Some of them had family in Ambato who had invited them to stay with them there, but I think nobody has any intention of leaving. The land is good because of the ash, and in a country where only the rich people have good land, this is one of the few places where poor people can have very productive earth. For that reason, these farmers work extremely steep slopes and are willing to take their chances with the volcano, rather than go and become move to the slums like most of the country's peasants have in the last 50 years. Only two towns, Bilbao and Sucúa are slated to be moved, but who knows if the government will really fulfill its promise to buy land and build houses for their residents somewhere else.

John and I plan to go back next week with more of the same. We have done more so far than the government for the people in these areas. While some of the people have sent things like clothes and food, and we saw that a mayonaise company gave every family a few jars of mayo, it's only us and some small peasant communities who have really worried about these areas, especially the animals. Furthermore, almost all of the aid gets directed exclusively to the places where the refugees are staying, because the politicians worry about the people in their hands, who they see every day, but the people who haven't been evacuated are completely forgotten because they aren't a political or budgetary problem for anyone.

There was a question about responsible organizations that can be donated to by people who don't know me. To be honest, I haven't seen any sign of any. We were repeatedly told that it is communities like Salasaca that are helping, and nobody else. Have you seen any John?

I am having computer troubles, but there will be more photos later.

July 16th, 2006

Well, I went to the edge of Tungurahua today. (Turns out "Tunguri" IS the word for throat in Quichua for those of you who read the article I linked to yesterday, though all the people here refer to her as "Mama huila" which means "Granma"). Anyway, it was a pretty surreal scene and my first time near a very active volcano. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera, so I am trying to make do with a thousand words.

Here in Salasaca we organized a food drive and I'd guess from Manzana Pamba Grande (my neighborhood) we took about a half ton of food to a community right at the base of the volcano, about a half hour away from here. The food was mostly stuff that people here had grown and recently harvested, a large part of it was corn, and there was also a lot of potatos and then various other things, including things that people had bought to donate. Some of the other neighborhoods in Salasaca took grass and alfalfa for the animals, because the people are farmers and ash has covered everything up.

Anyway, we went there in a caravan of 10 pickup trucks and it was incredibly strange to look out and basically see a color world become black and white as far as the eye could see. That was the ash, which as carried by the wind covers areas to the south, while adjoining areas have been completely spared. There is enough ash to effectively kill all the plants beneath it (except perhaps the larger trees), but not enough to hide the plants nor the houses nor the geographical features. They were simply muted into grayscale. There were also two or three wide gray swaths that had been destroyed by lava and earth flows. At that point we were far away still. The view was down a river valley that separates the volcano from the surrounding areas and slowly we descended into the valley, having come down a road from Pelileo (not the road that goes to Baños).

On the road to Cotaló, a town in the shadows of the mountain, the last town that more or less has evaded the worst of the ash -- with only the southern part of town and the hill beyond really damaged -- we ran into lots of tourists who had come to see the volcano. The police didn't allow them to continue onwards to town, but we were allowed through because of the food we were carrying. When we arrived, there were townsfolk organizing the distribution of the aid, and our pickup truck was directed to go to the absolute last town standing where people hadn't been evacuated, Chacauco. Chacauco was covered in ash. The tree tomatos, potatos, corn, etc, clearly were done for. The tin and eternit (abspestos based corrugated sheet) roofs were covered in ash. The people who received us said that we were the first people who had arrived with aid, more than a day and a half after the most recent major explosions and a day after the president visited to look around.

As we arrived, we also saw the cattle, llamas, and horses alongside the road. Their backs were covered in ash and they had nothing they could eat. In Cotaló, the haciendas have escaped the ash, while the people living to the south on the side of the mountain, who have only tiny pieces of land, have been the people affected. Apparently the owners of the haciendas have not accepted evacuated cattle. The evacuated animals were all on the soccer field in Cotaló, but a large number of animals still weren't evacuated. These beasts, which are people's earnings and assets rolled up into one, are without food or shelter. When we arrived, people thanked us profusely as we deposited the food into the empty community building. The only other aid that had arrived there was a pile of reject bananas of the sort that are only fit for animal consumption. One woman told us that she was chopping it up into bits that the guinea pigs will eat when they get hungry enough.

Despite the danger, the people do not want to leave Chacauco. Of the 49 families that live there, only two have been evacuated. Where can they go? How can they abandon their animals? How can they abandon their lives? So they stay, knowing that their poverty is worse now than ever. They are probably making the right choice, there is no reason to think that they could have better lives, and there is no reason to think the authorities will help. In Chacauco we were only a short ways above the river that protected the town from any flows and looking across to the other side we could clearly see the abandoned town of Cusúa. Cusúa was not actually as covered by ash as Chacauco. This town sits on the road from Baños to Riobamba. Just to the south of the town a major lava/rock flow had gone down to the river, crossing the road. In its path it had destroyed a couple of greenhouses, the only structures that I saw that were actually completely destroyed. Just to the north of town was another flow. The town has been miraculously saved up to the moment, but I don't expect that to continue.

We then decided to check things out and we went down the road to the bridge across the river. From the bridge, we looked down probably 50 feet down the steep walls of volcanic rock to the river. The place was absolutely covered in ash. Probably less than a centimeter thick, but that little is enough to finish off life. Since before our entry into Cotaló things had begun to stink, in fact on Friday night when I took the pictures I sent before, even in Salasaca things were stinky. Down at the bridge, we were talking about how we hadn't heard any booms. In Salasaca we frequently hear what is like thunder, but right next to the house. Usually there is a sort of rumbling boom. A few moments after we commented about the lack of noise right next to the volcano, we heard a boom which was fast, like a gunshot. We proceeded onwards, going past another abandoned town named Bilbao. It was a town quite similar to Chacauco, but with the big disadvantage of being on the other side of the river. We saw abandoned houses, an enormous abandoned dump truck, and abandoned dogs. I imagine the situation further up the mountain is much sadder. People work the land and put their houses on incredibly steep slopes, because they have no access to better lands. At this point we proceeded onwards towards Cusúa and got out of the pickup about 100 meters from the ash/lava flow.

There were a number of cars there and people. We advanced towards the flow and and as I was looking at how the ash covered up leaves we heard another boom. Then, the people near the flow started running in my direction yelling at everyone to leave. We retreated back to the bridge. Apparently the loudspeakers from Chacauco had shouted for us to retreat because rocks were being shot out from the mountain. These rocks vary in size from very small to the size of someone's head. They are hot. When we looked up I could see an ash cloud spewing from the top of the mountain. The cloud had a reddish tint. The day had been cloudy, and this was the first visual evidence of the volcano's activity that we had seen all day. At this point we retreated to Chacauco and eventually made our ways up to Cotaló after a fair amount of conversation with the locals, from there we could see lines of smoke sliding down the mountain that indicated to us where the lava and rocks were falling. Some of our group went back down and eventually went to the flow itself and grabbed some rocks, one of which they gave to me. However, the more cautious of us felt that there was no reason to tempt fate, we had been close enough to truly appreciate what had happened.

When we finally we came home, leaving Cotaló, we saw one of the strangest rainbows I've ever seen. It was just a short section and instead of being against the background of the sky, it was below us, against the background of the mountain. I'm not at all spiritual, it seems to me that the rainbow is as much a deception of hope as anything else. It's sad to see that a lot of the problems being faced could have been easily prepared for. A few big government constructed barns and some stored food for both the animals and the people could have basically had everyone in okay condition.

Of course, I saw the most dramatic area of destruction, but there have been major problems with ash as far away as Guaranda, and the ash is a much bigger problem than the actual destruction caused by the lava or rocks. Rosa's grandfather has told us about how his father survived the eruption in 1920 and how then there were enourmous amounts of ash in Salasaca that killed the plants and animals, and that at that time food was donated by other areas. When we collected food today, the people in the community were generous. It is sad to think that the only people who have arrived with food to support the people at the base of the mountain are just as poor as the people affected. Here nobody can count on the wealthy and the government to solve problems. As we came back, the number of observers had multiplied exponentially, but none of the people arriving came with food for the people or for their animals. From their cars they happily checked out the excitement from afar, without ever aproaching the people who are suffering.

Right now, I'm back at home. Since night fell, I can look out my kitchen window and see the lava spewing out the mountain. I feel perfectly safe and don't think many people will die from an eruption. Baños is the only city right next to Tungurahua, and at least for the time being it seems to be on the other side of the action. That said, the lives of many people will be ruined, and I can only hope that the number of people whose lives are ruined won't be too high.

 July 15th, 2006

There was a big show last night from gramma (the biggest I've seen). Fran said that usually volcanos don't have both lava and ash, but I think these should satisfy him that it does happen sometimes. I took a lot of pictures, and a lot of them are really good, but I don't have the bandwidth to send all of them.

Here in Salasaca we are lucky. Wind patterns take the ash to the south of us. The smoke eventually stretched all the way from Tungurahua to Chimborazo, which is about 60 degrees on the horizon, within about an hour before it got dark and I couldn't tell anymore. Supposedly, wind patterns carry the ash all the way to Guayaquil.

Anyway, there were window rattling explosions all night. Today it is cloudy, so I can't see anything. I am not too afraid for Salasaca, but I am worried about the people in areas nearby (lets say, about 10 miles to the south of us). The danger for them is really that they are farmers and that the ash will result in the end of their crops and the death of their animals (their main assets/form of savings). Of course, nearby the volcano there are big dangers of lahores or whatever those mud flows are called.

On TV I've seen the ash in places like Quero, which are closeby. I am guessing from the photos about a centimeter of ash, which isn't putting houses and people in danger, but is rough on the cows, mostly because their food is covered with ash, so they have nothing to eat. As I said though, the prevailing wind from the east almost always takes the ash in a southern direction (as you can see in the pictures), so I am in no danger and neither are the mule nor the cows nor the pigs here.

For the last couple of hours, I've heard nothing. Of course nobody really knows enough about volcanos to say if there will be a real eruption or just more minor explosions like the ones I've described. The mayor of Banos is of course happily saying that this is an exciting show and everyone should come visit. Meanwhile various residents of Banos are abandoning ship for the time being (there is no mandatory evacuation like there was 7 years ago). I am listening to a call in show right now where people not from Banos are just pissed that the mayor of Banos is downplaying everything to get tourists, because of course that means that the issue isn't being taken seriously in the rest of the country.