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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Mayoristery

The price of manual labor in Ecuador is $150 per week. The weekly food bill for us once stood at $80 for two adults and a toddler. I kept asking anyone who would listen how workers with large families accounted for this. When several EMAPA employees came to install the water meter on Pedregal I finally received an answer.

Ana Lucia took me along to the Mayorista the first week I was in Ibarra. We walked along amongst open rooms full of woven plastic sacs bulging with fruits and vegetables. Ana Lucia stopped now at the blood-red Tomates de Arbol, now at the tiny orange Naranjillas and now at the enormous light green Watermelons. At each stop she conducted business with a familiar humor and then asked me to show the vendor to which car to carry each 15 kilograms of fruit.
"Ana Lucia," I asked after the last watermelon had rocked the car and we glided through throngs of buyers, "Can anyone shop here?"
"Of course, why wouldn't they be able to?"
"It's a wholesale market and I don't know if it's permitted for people who don't own restaurants or––"
"Ah, no, only store owners are allowed to shop here."
"Food stores?"
"Hmm... Food stores, restaurants, anyone who needs a large quantity of fruits or vegetables."
"So I couldn't buy here?"
"No, I don't think so; No."
I looked out of the window and watched the exit barrier swing back in place. Just like that, the Mayorista was out of my mind.

Months later I stood next to a pickup, swatting at sand flies.
"It's the hour when they're most active," said one of the men with a yellow helmet and reflective vest.
"What? Oh, the flies, yes. You have to put on repellent in the afternoon." I was watching his compañero dig for the water main.
"Is the wall OK?" I gestured to the brick wall covered with patches of cement mortar.
"What happens is that if we put the meter in the wall we have to make a hole for it and the wall will fall over. But that doesn't matter, we'll put the meter on top and if you have more bricks you can build around it later."
"That's fine, I've got about 15 bricks more."
"You won't have a problem then, that's easily enough."
"I wasn't there when the technician came to verify the location of the main here, but I heard that he said a brick wall like this would be fine."
"No, you want something with a hole in the middle, so we can install the meter like that," and he pointed across the road at a small concrete-block wall with a water meter neatly cemented in the center.
"It doesn't matter though, we'll use cement to put the meter on top of the bricks and you can put the other bricks around it when you have time."
I nodded and watched the worker connect the main to half-inch plastic tubing.
"I have a question for all of you, something I haven't managed to figure out here in Ecuador. How is it that salaries for labourers are so low, but commodity and food prices so high?"
They all looked at me.
"Well, for example, what's the salary for a week of manual labor?"
"They don't charge by the week, usually you pay for a month at a time. But a week would be about $125."
"I paid $150 per week for three weeks, but I guess that's a little expensive?"
"$150... that could be the price."
"We pay about $80 a week for food at Gran-Aki. If you live with your parents and children, how do you cover the cost of living when most of your salary goes toward food? I don't understand this."
"You buy fruit and vegetables at the Mayorista."
"At the Mayorista... can you shop there if you're not a business?"
"Yes, anyone can shop there. What you buy at the supermarkets usually comes from there, and then the supermarket adds to the price for the store, the employees and taxes. The Mayorista is cheaper, and better quality."
"Cheaper? I don't know. We buy on Tuesdays at Gran-Aki and there's a 20% discount on produce."
"Look, how much is a lettuce there?"
"85 cents before discount, so––"
"25 cents at the Mayorista, and for better quality."
"And you're sure anyone can shop there?"
"Yes, it doesn't matter who the person is."
I was all questions and they were eager to educate me. A little too eager.
Today the water company had to send workers back to Pedregal to fix a leak between the main and the meter.

Last week we took our first shopping trip to the Mayorista. There's a section called the Minorista, where we buy most of our veggies but we also visit some of the larger wholesalers, buying mandarins and pineapples directly off of a truck. The Mayorista is the typical market experience: searching for the right quality of fruit, some haggling and finding our señora who this week threw in some extra veggies 'because it's you.'

Now, I feel horrible doing this because I know not all of you are happy with your available choices in local food, nor can all of you afford what you'd like in fruit. When we were living in Brussels most of the fruit we bought was from Morocco and my favourite, strawberries, were $5-6 for a small plastic box, so expensive for us that they were a twice-a-year treat.

... and yet I am compelled to continue, perhaps by the desire to document, perhaps by the desire to entice volunteers. Whatever be it, here is the total of our produce purchase from this Monday, at a price of $26.

Strawberries $1. Non-produce purchased at Gran-Aki.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Siga no más

"Siga no más:" the first Spanish phrase I taught to Oliver.
"Go ahead; Proceed; Continue; Carry on." Those three words carry these ideas in Ecuadorian Spanish.

Oliver came to us fresh from his apprenticeship with the Cob Cottage company. He is a young man ripe with ambition and for five weeks he worked alongside us to accomplish the next stage of our project. In natural building they say that planning and foundations are the most intensive stages of building. We made use of Oliver's tremendous physical efforts to proceed swiftly through these stages. Just look at the materials we obtained:

  • 10m^3 of gravel infill for drainage in the foundation trenches
  • 36m^3 of stones for the stem wall
  • 27m^3 of clay-filled soil for cob mix
  • 16 bales of straw for cob mix

I'm excited to say that materials are nothing without hard labour. As we swung shovels, heaved rocks, and laboured away with chisels and sledge hammers, we realised the formal beginnings of the house. We dug the foundation trenches, filled them with gravel, stacked the stem-wall to near completion, poured a concrete column and built a brick wall for the installation of electric and water connections and finally erected a frame for the dry toilet. A fine list of accomplishments for only five weeks!

There are many stories to tell, and I hope to regale you readers with them in the coming weeks as the machinery of this blog spins back to motion.

Oliver left Ecuador on October 1st, early in the morning. He plans to look for work from Seattle and he hopes to begin a contracting business in Guatemala when he has earned sufficient start-up capital. 

Oliver, triumphantly appraising the poured cement column and
2.5m galvanised steel tube assembly.

Thank you, Oliver, for your hard work! Best of luck in your future endeavours.