Hi,
Season's Greetings! I hope you're healthy and happy,
and ready to face the fast-approaching silly season. Happy to report
that there's not much evidence of Christmas around here, apart from a
few decorated trees in public places and a few extra shops selling shiny
bits and sparkley bobs for Christmas trees. Supermarkets are still
normal places to shop where shoppers are not bombarded with corny
Christmas Carols or overwhelmed by fancy glittering displays of seasonal
frippery. It's almost like any other time of year in the city. On the
coast, you wouldn't even know it's December if you didn't have a
calender in the house! It's a bit hard to believe another year is almost
gone; it seemed like such a short time. So much has happened this year
it's hard to think about everything at once. I started the year in
Galapagos, and will finish it on the beach. In the time between, I've
learned once and for all that I'm not a city-girl... Only 14 sleeps to
go until I leave the city to go and live on the coast... YIPEE!
It's over six months since I first discovered
Mompiche kind of by accident while bumping around the coast of
Esmeraldas looking for a decent beach to chill out on. I've been
traveling from the city to the coast to be there almost every weekend
since – a 10-hour journey. It's not something we often think about when
buying a bus ticket, but I spend two nights a week squooshed into a
metal tube on wheels with 43 other people, sleeping side by side with
total strangers, squeezed closer together than most married couples,
experiencing the ultimate in yogic contortions trying to get comfortable
while speeding through the night to reach the coast by morning. Arriving
more shattered, more stiff and sore, and in more desperate need of a
massage every weekend, I'm looking forward to 24 December; the last trip
to the coast (I'm treating myself to a plane ticket. Merry Christmas!).
This year I totally gobsmacked myself – as well as a
few of my friends and some of my family – by buying a block of land on
the coast. For the princely sum of $6000USD, which I carried in three
packets of 100 x $20 notes in cash on the bus from Quito to Muisne to
pay for the land, I bought 304.39mē (13m x 20.3m x 18.3m x 18.6m).
That's just slightly less than $20 per square meter of dirt – $19.71; a
gift. Conveyancing was done by the local public notary for $90. The
title deed issued by the local municipality will cost $147.50 once the
application is processed (it takes about a month). After a week's
vacation, after celebrating Christmas and New Year on the coast, I'll
begin the process to apply for permission to build my very first house
in January 2010.
The house will be about 170mē spread over three
levels with a 3m x 3m 'bird's nest', designed to view the sea, built
into the roof at the top. Think hammocks, tropical plants, sea and river
views from all four sides... It will be an 'artistic-looking' house of
driftwood, trees, bamboo, bone, sea shells, recycled bottles, river
rocks and a bit of cement to keep things in order... it will also be as
environmentally friendly as I can make it; composting toilets, recycled
water, lots of trees... etc. So far, I've planted two mango trees, an
avocado tree and a pineapple, and have plans for many more fruit trees,
shade trees and a thick jungle-type garden, but need to dig a well for
the water supply. There is underground water, I just need a shovel! In
the meantime, I've discovered there is a whole new list of the Spanish
terminology I need to learn to build a house... If you're curious about
the language needed to conduct all the transactions necessary to buy
land in Ecuador, yes, I did everything in Spanish with little or no
help!
The school performance of THRILLER is finally over!
Thank goodness! After weeks of frustrating “rehearsals”, we performed on
Friday 4 December for the Festival of Quito with all the parents
in attendance, most more curious about what the hippie-style Director of
the English Department was doing than curious about how their kids have
been doing at school. Now the all the scary masks and dirty, ripped
clothes have been put away, I can live without screaming at 120
unimaginative, uncreative, unresponsive 'monsters' who still have no
idea how to form a straight line, much less step in time... It was akin
to herding feral cats, an occupation I'm very happy to leave to their
parents from now on. And I'm very pleased to not have to listen to
Michael Jackson again... Nearly one hundred times a day, the same song
repeated over and over and over gets dull really fast!
Instead, I put my hand up for another project that
will create more repetition in my life. After a year of putting his GACC
(Activists Against Contamination Group) project together piece by piece,
Alex is ready to rock both the Ecuadorian government and the industrial
community next year with a series of mini-projects designed to create
interest, to educate and to raise awareness about the problem of
garbage, not only in Muisne, but all over the coast and then the entire
country. He asked me to write a short play to perform primarily at
schools on the coast. So after a few weeks of wracking my brain for
ideas, I wrote a 15-minute play – in Spanish – to rehearse and perform
with 12 members of GACC. Naturally, it's about garbage. That will be my
project for the next year, which will also include original music (some
great songs about garbage) from the GACC Band; an improvisation group
that makes magical music. Last month I built a lagerphone to add
to their musical repertoire and I'm currently teaching them all how to
use it – much less like herding feral cats, much more like teaching
interested people.
I'll be presenting the concept of my play at next
week's GACC meeting. Until now it's been a bit of a secret between me
and Alex, but we both think the response will be very good, and we
believe the interest in performing at schools will be good too. We'll
need to convince the Department of Education that it's a good idea (that
will be our biggest challenge: wrestling with deadheads!) and we'll also
have to do some workshops to make masks and costumes, and paint the
backdrops, but that will be part of the process too... I'm looking
forward to doing a real project with real people! We've been doing much
the same for the preparations for New Year's Eve. In Latin America, the
old year is represented by mannequins that are burned at midnight to
leave space for the new year to come in. We've been stuffing old clothes
with banana leaves to create the mannequins, and we'll put papermache
heads on them this week. On the day they are set up in various poses
with different conversations – painted onto coconuts – about garbage
running around each mannequin in the group. Should be interesting.
So, before it even started, the New Year brings some
wonderful surprises I never imagined... A house! I never imagined owning
a house... A play! I never imagined writing a play – and especially
never in Spanish! And a huge breadbasket filled with more surprises,
challenges and events as the year unfolds. I wish the same for you
too...
big love, big hugs, big surprises,
Roni
9-12-2009
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