Unpaved Paradise

Hola Todos!  I spent the last few days of my summer break on a great vacation at Río Muchacho Organic Farm with 10 other girls from the BCA program.  We set off on an overnight bus from Quito to the seaside town of Canoa on Tuesday night.  The curvy mountain roads and loud techno music playing rendered the first three hours rather unpleasant.  However, the music was eventually turned off and the roads mellowed out, so the following five hours were bearable and we arrived in Canoa at 5:55am.  Luckily, we were able to leave our bags in the Río Muchacho office.  I went on a morning run down the beach and then spent the day relaxing.  It was cloudy, but still a lot of fun.  We met two Germans and decided that a Germany v. US soccer game was in order.  Even though the Germans were outnumbered 2-4, they still won (maybe if we had been playing field hockey I would have had a chance…)  So far, I have met people from England, Ireland, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel!  It is amazing how many people you meet when you travel.

The beach in Canoa

That afternoon we rode in the back of two pickup trucks to the veritable paradise of the Río Muchacho Organic Farm.  We entered the compound to find lots of tropical trees, rock-lined paths, natural wooden buildings, and lots of hammocks!  It was absolutely wonderful.  It was very relaxing to be out under the stars with the crickets and cicadas and away from the cars and crowds of Quito!  We spent the next three days at Río Muchacho helping with farm work, hiking, making jewelry, learning about the farm’s sustainability mission, and eating delicious food.  Some highlights included making chocolate from cocoa beans, visiting a 130-year-old strangler fig, swimming in a jungle waterfall, and carving myself a cup out of a large mate fruit.   I returned to Quito on the Saturday night bus very dirty, very tired, and very happy.

Very old tree

CHOCOLATE!

Rings from Palma Real seeds

The Río Muchacho farm was founded based on principles of environmental sustainability and awareness.  Quito’s coastal regions were once mostly dense forest, but in the early 1900s much of the land was cultivated to grow shade-grown Arabica coffee.  However, rising popularity of robust coffee from other regions caused the coffee industry to decline, and the cattle grazing industry to increase dramatically.  Unfortunately, this meant major destruction of the native ecosystem via slash and burn land clearing.  Many areas are now suffering a lack of almost any vegetation due to very poor soil; however, at Río Muchacho native forest is flourishing.  Water is collected and filtered from rain or the river.  Most of the food is grown in the garden, which is helped by abundant compost from the pigs, horses, and cuyes kept on the farm.  Humans help with the composting too because all the toilets are dry compost!  There is even a mobile “reforestation” toilet.  All in all, the farm produces less than 2lbs of inorganic waste per week.  

When we arrived at the farm, Dario (the founder) told us, “You can rest easy during your trip here.  While living at Río Muchacho, you don’t need to feel guilty, because you are leaving almost no footprint on the environment.”  I immediately thought, Should I be feeling guilty for how I live when I am not at Río Muchacho?  I think of myself as an environmentally conscious person, but am I really doing all I can to promote sustainability?  My trip to Río Muchacho was full of questions like these.  During our stay we watched three documentaries: “The Power of Community,” “Food Inc,” and “Dirt!”  These are all excellent films and I highly recommend that everyone watch at least one of them!  The take home message from my whole experience is that our society leads an extremely destructive lifestyle.   We are quickly draining the Earth’s oil reserves, inflicting incredible damage on the atmosphere, and changing the climate – with devastating effects.  We continue to wipe out native ecosystems in order to make room for mega-farms to produce our genetically modified food.  In order to exploit Earth’s natural resources we are actively destroying our planet.  What does it matter if one or 100 or 10,000 species are wiped out in the process?  What does it matter if we change the climate forever?  After all, it is “our” planet, isn’t it?  Earth was made for man and man reigns supreme, superior to all other life.  Sure, technically we’re ‘animals’ but we are not the same as all those other wild creatures.  We have the power to manipulate the environment to suit our needs and we have the right to do so at the expense of everything else that lives on our planet!

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?  This is the message our culture sends, and if you do not actively speak out against it then you are sending the same message.  This is a finite lifestyle.  One day we will wake up and the oil will be gone, our crops will fall to disease (since they’re almost all the same this is not far fetched), the rainforest will be eradicated, the oceans will be polluted, the soil will be barren, and we will be left unable to repair the damage we have inflicted – unless we change how we live.

I recently read Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn.  I definitely recommend reading this!  The book deals with the themes I’ve touched on, such as western culture’s (the “Takers’ ”) destructive norms: 

"And every time the Takers stamp out a leaver culture, a wisdom ultimately tested since the birth of mankind disappears from the word beyond recall, just as every time they stamp out a species of life, a life form ultimately tested since the birth of life disappears from the world beyond recall."

Some food for thought.