Still More Levels

Bahia de Caraquez,|Ecuador

Report #2, January 28,|2001

by Peter Berg

When the mayor| asked six months ago for a volunteer Environmental Planner to assist him|personally, I promised to fulfill the request. I correctly supposed that|he| wanted to undertake initiating and coordinating the ecological policies|and| activities of city agencies, while also responding to numerous|suggestions| and  needs of non-profit|and| business groups as well as private citizens.   In this spirit, a Department|of Tourism| and Environment has been created in the intervening months. The new|department| is in the process of being staffed, and an Environmental Planner was|found,| Gabriela Chetjman from Argentina, who arrived at about the same time I|did in| mid-January.

What I incorrectly guessed was|how much that| promise would occupy my mind in the space of time until my return to|Bahia.| Locating a planner in San Francisco didn't seem to offer a wide enough|range of| choices, so I decided to explore finding someone solely through the|internet. A| brief job description was sent to one professional and one special|interest list| serve. It was almost immediately picked up by another half-dozen web|sites that| broadcast somewhat garbled versions of their own. In most, the condition|of| "bilingual English/Spanish" was retained but "volunteer" was|unfortunately| dropped. As a result, I received fifty or so serious responses over a|space of| two months (another one actually came yesterday) from places as widely|separated| as New Zealand, The Netherlands, and several countries in South America,|besides| those that could be expected from the US and Canada. They each required| different responses depending on what version they had read, their|requirements,| and each one's qualifications. |Many| dropped away when informed that the announcement they saw had   "volunteer" missing. I|composed a| second,  more detailed|description| and list of questions for the remaining candidates. Another round of|personal| follow-up correspondence was then required with about a dozen capable|and| willing applicants, and more e-mail conversations with each of them took|place| as the selection process narrowed. It was a huge amount of work and| concentration for the intervening six months, ranging up to several|hours| roughly every other day while electronic messages crossed back and| forth.

Gabriela has spent most of her|time so far| meeting with the mayor or city agency staffs and following up   leads to citizen eco-ciudad|activities..| There is so much information and first-hand observations that she needs|to| absorb that I haven't seen her much. | She went on the eroded land survey, jammed between Ivan Aquirre|and| myself in the front seat of a pick-up truck as we veered through|mud-clogged| sections of the main highway or bounced along back roads, asking|pertinent| questions about local social conditions as well as natural features. I|hope to| have an impression of her general approach and specific recommendations|before I| leave in less than a month. To questions I ask about these things now,|Gabriela| cagily answers "Veremos (We will see.)." With the marvelous but|peculiarly| isolating  increase in|activities| that is underway, there is an urgent need if for nothing else to have a|central| source of information that everyone can use to stay current. The new|department| and Gabriela's planning position have the promise of doing much more, of|course.| They might eventually be able to match what has been up to now a mainly| bottom-up citizen's movement toward a green city with a complementary|top-down| effort from the government.

Amy Jewel works for a recycling|company in| New York City and immediately threw herself as a volunteer in Bahia into|the| task of conceiving an overall view of waste generation. She envisions|converting| the city's garbage program into a recycling operation with remarkable| single-mindedness. She became an instant confrere of Canary Islands|bred  fellow volunteer "Jay"|McConnell  whose dedication during the|last two| months has revived and transformed the main public market's moribund|waste| separating effort. Operating under the aegis of Stuarium Foundation, the|market| now consistently provides organic material for compost to a   private agricultural producer|as well as| the city. (An official | understanding was created |this week between the city, the market, and the private company|that will| insure proper waste separation with Gabriela's supervision.) Now Amy|wants to| find ways to recycle the non-organic portion. She was disgusted by the|pollution| and disease-fostering conditions during a visit to the main landfill.|Inspired| to create an alternative for burying the municipal trash, Amy made a|sample| survey of household and hotel waste by actually getting up before dawn|several| days to beat the garbage trucks to refuse containers on the sidewalks|outside| buildings. She put on gloves and opened up garbage bags to get at the|true| story! It's her impression that half of | the discards are organic matter that the city could render into| compost  She has even made|a| preliminary tour looking at land for potential compost pile sites.   Recycling companies that|operate on a| fairly low level here haven't escaped her scrutiny, and she now knows|the local| going rates for cardboard, glass, plastic, and metals that can be|separated out| by each household and commercial establishment. Amy is writing a report|to| present to the mayor next Tuesday along with mine on eroded hillsides.| Overcoming the gulf between good intentions and demonstratable results|is a| formidable challenge anywhere, and we are often warned by native-born|residents| that Ecuador is particularly slow in this regard.   Our transformation-minded|evaluations| need to be circulated in a finished form within the city council and|appropriate| agencies for approval as policies. Then they can guide future actions|that can| be large-scale and dramatic. But first comes a briefing for Dr. Leo who|candidly| told me, "I'm good at two things: doctor and mayor. I need knowledgeable|people| to explain everything else."

Aching legs when I stand up or|walk today| are proof that Marcelo Luque, Amy and I accomplished more than just a| sight-seeing tour for her through the Maria Auxiliadora park site|yesterday. We| carried one-foot diameter, four feet long sprouting hobo logs down the|fairly| steep entrance stairway to into the interior   to plant alongside the trail.|This is| the first time that plantings have been used to support structural|elements of| the park. Some low parts of the trail were previously built up to a|level height| by shoveling in dirt. Those spots have looser soil than places that are| naturally level, and could eventually slump or fall away. Hobo trees|will| provide a nest of roots to support the trail.

Cultural notes. "Maldicion|(curse word))"| appears regularly in Spanish subtitles that run throughout|English-speaking| movies and television programs as a substitute for four (or more) letter|words .| The same thing happens by using bleeps or silent spaces in US televized|versions| of movies. The moralist's ax is a little sharper here by adding   "damn," "hell," and other|religion based| words. Sometimes the censor seems to have a special prejudice or simply|lacks| exposure. For example, in a recent film Julia Roberts' character   called someone "a limp dick"|which was| translated in a Spanish subtitle as "homosexual." What happened there?|Did| "limp" transfer over to 'limp wrist," or was limp dickedness|chauvinistically| assumed to be a condition of homosexuals? | Even though it was an inappropriate translation, more of the| Spanish-speaking audience might have understood   the slang expression "marecon"|without| needing to check the definition with each other. Was the potentially|more| English-sounding "homosexual" chosen to make a critical cultural|reference? Or| was it used to simply make things even more obtuse? As off-the-wall|censorship,| this bit requires genuine cultural archeology.

Socializing on weekend  nights here includes a curious| combination of urban cruising and | country dances. Small groups walk or drive around the ocean front|Malecon| boulevard and main streets waving from the curbs or calling out the|windows to| friends, drinking beer, and stopping to talk. What makes this different|from a| strictly teenage scene is that it can be completely inter-generational.|Older| couples get out of their cars to dance at high school celebrations,|twelve year| olds ride along with cousins in their twenties and thirties, and|different| groups can all start singing together when a well-memorized song happens|to come| over a passing car's radio. It may be limited as a diversion, but no one|is| excluded.