Rio Blanco Community

For the first three nights in the jungle we stayed near the community of Rio Blanco. Our rooms were in the area that they built for tourists, just a short 5 minute walk from the actual community. (See “Where We Stayed” for some pictures and more description of our accomodations.)

We arranged our stay through a group called RICANCIE, recommended by a brother of a friend who is a professor of spanish and latin american literature. Here is an excerpt from their website outlining their background.

“RICANCIE stands for Indigenous Community Network of the Upper Napo for Intercultural Exchange and Ecotourism. It was founded in 1993 with the goal to improve the quality of life for some 200 quichua families. Then as now, RICANCIE has taken as its primary objective the defense of the Quichua territory against encroaching mining and oil companies. Furthermore, tourist groups were being sent into these communities by external travel agents. These groups paid only minimal reimbursement fees and left behind trash and bad feelings, which led to conflict within the communities. With organized tourism activities, RICANCIE pursues a self-determined development path and offers new perspectives for our children. While RICANCIE continues to enjoy support of international organizations, RICANCIE is proud of its independence and all decisions regarding RICANCIE events and strategies are taken by a Concil whose members come from the villages participating in RICANCIE. “

On the first day, after hiking into the jungle for a few hours and having some lunch, we headed to the community where we met some of the local families and the kids played soccer with two of the local boys (more on that later). As you might imagine, the living conditions in the community are far different than anything we’ve experienced before. Most of the homes are mad of wood and very simple construction. They do have running water and one has electricity, but as you will see in the pictures below the 60 or so people living in the community have only the very basic necessities. My perception is that the RICANCIE project has brought them some level of income and ability to be more self-supportive, but it was really hard to determine. The families were all welcoming and apparently used to a limited but fairly steady flow of tourists through town.

Everything must be brought into the community by foot or mule, about a 2 hour journey. In fact as we hiked in that first day a 9 year old boy from the community passed us heading out of town on a mule carrying goods for the market. He then caught up to us on his hike back in and then later in the afternoon “kicked our butts in soccer” as Ainsley said.

On the second day we went into a family’s house for a yucca preparation demonstration. Yucca and bananas are still a primary source of food for all of their meals and they are nearly completely self sufficient in terms of growing all of the food they eat. It was quite eye opening to spend an hour or so in their kitchen and to take a turn at preparing some yucca ourselves. You will also see Eliot drinking a tea concoction they prepared that was supposed to help ward off the effects of his cold. He hates onions and yes, that was one of the main ingredients. Miraculously he drank most of it and as you will see did not enjoy it.

The community does have a small church and a primary school. The Ecuadorian government provides support in the form of a teacher and a house for them to live in. They also provide food which is prepared by a different family each day in the school kitchen. We joined the students one day as they were eating their soup and then during part of their class work. It was really great for our kids to see the school, interact with the children and gain an appreciation for what we have in our school systems back in the US.

The children in the community are taught in both Spanish and Quichua. They also learn a limited amount of English. The classroom itself is arranged with the desks oriented into three different directions and the teacher rotates throughout the day, teaching the three groups of different aged children. While teaching one group, the other two are basically on their own doing work. During our visit they demonstrated some of their English skills and our kids did the same in Spanish. Here are some pictures from that part of the visit.