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.