Dear Friends: The truth is I rarely think about our life in Cañar while we’re in Portland. Then, as we get closer to leaving, I’m preoccupied with renting the house, remembering and organizing what we’re to bring (two 8″ chimney brushes; exhibit materials for the Costa Rica trip, airpods for Paiwa), and preparing for travel. (At least no Covid restrictions this time.) On December 1 we’re off, with excess baggage ($168), four busy airports (bad food $$$), and three cramped flights (no food). Twenty-four hours later we land in Guayaquil, where the temperature is 82 F. We check into our usual silly Wyndham Garden hotel with endless Christmas carols in the lobby, two big beds, hot showers, cold beers. Ahhhhh. Sheer luxury to relax with nothing to do but relax after the past busy weeks.

Tulio, the man at the hotel who helped us with our bags, turns out to drive a taxi on off-hours, so even before we’ve settled into our room we’ve arranged a ride to Cañar the next day. He’ll take us after he finishes his shift at 3:00. We have a late lunch called a Tex-Mex bowl in the hotel’s dreary dining room, long rests with skipped dinner, and good sleeps. Next day for lunch we try the Magnolia Room on the 8th floor. World Cup games blasting everywhere, of course; I was briefly hopeful for Costa Rica. Terrible lunch, but I hardly noticed so distracted was I by the view outside and the decor inside. As long as Michael has a beer and his KenKen puzzles (printed out in Portland), he notices nothing but the tasteless fried seafood. The next day, with Tulio in his taxi, we take a familiar route out of chaotic Guayaquil, across the long coastal plain through the scrappy towns of Troncal and El Triumfo, with mile after mile of fruit stands on the side of the road. “Mango season,” Tulio says tersely. I’m grateful he’s a driver who doesn’t chatter; I like to read, Michael does his puzzles. Suddenly the road climbs and we begin the long ascent into the mountains. Distant clouds obscure the view, then clear to a blue sky, then lower to the ground for 50 feet visibility. Then repeat. We climb to up over 12,000 feet into the sierra of the Andes. As we reach the highest point, I avert my eyes from the bright red “love motel” that some idiot built here a couple of years ago, the sole eyesore in this magnificent landscape (also the turn off to Sangay National Park.) Past that, approaching four hours, I watch for signs of the inter-Andean valley where our town lies (big red dot on the map). Although the map barely captures what I’m describing, you can see the lighter areas where the Andes bifucate to create highland valleys. As we descend, I shoot a bunch of photos from the car on my phone. And there it is – the neighboring town of Tambo, looking celestial in the afternoon light. Only now do I start thinking  about our life in Cañar – how will we find the house and garden?  Will I remember people’s names? How are the scholarship women doing? I dig out my keys for the gate as we pull onto our road. We unload the bags, invite Tulio in for a beer (declined; he’s going straight back to Guayaquil), but we show him around the house. It’s dark from the closed shutters, furniture is covered with sheets, with a thick coating of dust everywhere, but otherwise pretty much as we left it six months ago. It’s too late for a fire, so Michael puts together a quick dinner with the groceries he bought in Guayaquil while I find a lamp, tablecloth and napkins to set us up in my office. Not only do we have a first dinner “in style” but the Internet is working so we watch the new Netflix film, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Talk about culture shock!  The next day we open the shutters and take stock. The layer of thick dust everywhere comes from constant traffic these past eight months on our dirt road due to a  construction/sewer detour that brings everything from buses to cattle trucks by our house. In the patio, we find two little fuzzballs hidden deep in the macho aloe. We see nests nearly every year, but this is the first time we’ve seen nestlings. In the following days we hear them chirping, and get occasionally sightings of them and their mother as she flies in under the roof to feed them. Then one day they are gone, flown away. For my birding friend, Annie Tucker: these are rufous-collared sparrows, (Zonotrichia capensis). “Widespread, common and familiar in shrubby and grassy areas throughout highlands, often around houses. Distinctive, with rufous collar, puffy-crested look. Streaky juveniles are often seen.” (The Birds of Ecuador Field Guide.)

Next day is Sunday, market day, and Michael has a yen for hornado or roasted pig. We trudge into town, stopping to catch our breath along the way, and greet acquaintances in the streets. “How do we know them?” we murmur to one another as we walk on. “What is his/her name?” But many know Michael by name – “Miquito” the taxi drivers yell as they drive by. And in the market, the pineapple man from the coast greets him with Señor Miko and the perfect fruit to eat today.

In the days that follow, we each make forays into town for groceries and supplies and to check out the state of this place, where dogs run free (I counted seven in front of our house one day)… 

Road/sewer construction never stops, which to go into town means running a guantlet of open sewer access inlets, fresh concrete (with dog prints), fresh asphalt (black footprints), and entire streets shut off with hoardings.

But that’s all part of life in Cañar, this homely town working to bring itself into the 21th century with potable water and sewer systems, paved roads (not ours), rabies vaccines for dogs, pink Himalayan salt found in our tiny MegaMarket (!), and nice people everywhere. We are happy to be back.

Cañar Book Club

Oh, how I’ve missed the Cañar Book Club, and I’m so depending on you, dear readers, to bring me out of my literary doldrums. I’m overwhelmed by all the “best of 2022 books” flooding my in-box, and although I’ve put several on hold in my library, when they come I’ll probably have no memory of why I got interested. I will mention one book I read in transit: The Wall, by Marlen Haushofer, and again, no memory why I choose this book. Published in 1963 it was recently reissued, so I might have read this review. But I was fascinated by the story of a women who finds herself cut off from the rest of humanity by a transparent wall, and has to create new skills to survive, accompanied by a dog, cow and cat. For some reason, I really enjoyed the repetitive mundane details of her life.

As for the books I’ve brought, it was a mixed bag (so to speak) of a couple of books I’d ordered (About Grace, Anthony Doerr, Butcher’s Crossing, John Williams), some taken from my shelves (Greene, Bryson, McPhee, Kidder), two that I’ve published this year (Ana Magarita’s story, Tell Mother I’m in Paradise), and another in Norwegian by my good friend Liv that I’ll be editing in the English edition (more on that next time). A paltry pile, so I’m depending on Kindle books from my Portland library to keep me happy these six months. And I’d also love to hear your recommendations for the next Cañar Book Club meeting in the new year, January 2023.

Until then, please stay in touch. I love hearing from you.

Dear Friends:

I never tire of seeing the faces of our graduates, and I thought you also would enjoy being reminded of (some) of the results of your generosity.  Thank you!

I wish I were writing this letter from Cañar–we don’t leave until December 1–so I could describe what the “new normal” looks like. This fall our scholarship women returned to in-person classes after two years at home, struggling to carry on with their courses despite unstable Internet, cranky cell phones, and isolation from fellow students. Still, they did well. In 2022 we had three new graduates, bringing our number to twenty-eight, along with four graduates with master’s degrees, one in a PhD program in Mexico, and our first potential Fulbright scholar for a master’s in the U.S.

 Our latest graduates are (l-r) Paiwa Acero (2021, civil engineering); Sarita Duy (2022, economics), and Nube Sumba (2022, economics).

As for our new scholarship women, I want to tell a story related to Nube (above, right). She showed up at our house with her mother about five years ago, coming from a poor farming region more than an hour from Cañar. Nube was timid and hardly spoke. With a gift of fresh cheese, her mother explained that although illiterate, she was determined that her two daughters get educated beyond high school. We did give Nube a scholarship, and on the first day of every month – when the scholarship is paid in cash – her mother showed up at our house with fresh cheese or eggs. Meanwhile, Nube charged straight through university in Riobamba, with excellent grades, to graduate this year with a degree in economics. Her sister is now studying at the same university (but without our scholarship, as we award only one per family). Still, that’s multiplication! And Nube’s mother has achieved her goal of having two daughters educated as professionals. On their last visit, Nube and her mother brought their neighbors, Kuya Killa and her mother, who is sole support of her four children, one with a serious medical condition. Kuya (who also barely spoke) graduated high school three years ago and passed the university entrance exam with high marks, but the family could not afford to send her to university. After our talk, with her mother’s encouragement, Kuya completed all the paperwork to renew her test scores and was accepted by the university in Riobamba. She is now enrolled in our program, and in the next five years I look forward to watching Kuya bloom, as did Nube, into a confident young woman. These two young women would never have known even the possibility of a university education without word of mouth of our graduates and friends, and without your support. Thank you!

A few updates on our graduates.

Dr. Luisa Duchi reports that she is now clinic director in the community of Huayrapungo, where 90% of her patients are Quichua-only speakers. This community, site of an old hacienda about an hour from Cañar, is famous for not allowing visitors into their territory. Michael and I ventured walking there once, and quickly left. Luisa is our first physician, but we have another one close to graduation at University of Cuenca.

Carmen Loja (far left), (economics, 2011) has made a success of her a community-based tourism program, Kinti Wasi, in her village of MilMil. Along with her cousin and another partner, Carmen hosts high school and gap-year groups to learn the Andean worldview in “agroecology, gastronomy, architecture, ancestral medicine and spirituality”. And I see by the website that Kinti Wasi is an Amigos de las Americas partner for 2022. Congratulations Carmen!  (She also welcomes individuals and small groups if any of you are contemplating a trip to Ecuador.)

Pacha Pichisaca, our only ondontóloga graduate so far, has expanded her dental practice, on the main shopping street in Cañar, by adding a second chair. She was one of our early graduates, and with CWEF support she continued with specialist courses in oral surgery and orthodontics. Each time I walk by, I glance up at her windows. After giving up on my dentist in Portland, I’m getting up my nerve to make an appointment with Pacha.

Finally, a dispatch from our first PhD graduate, Juana Chuma, who is at UNAM in Mexico, where she did her master’s (with help from CWEF). Earlier this year, she did a residency at University of Georgia, where she writes that her biggest challenge was understanding the southern English. She’s now back in Mexico working on her thesis, “optimizing the genetic selection of milk producing bovines in Chile,” (where she did a previous internship).

As you know, our foundation is managed in Portland, Oregon with a treasured treasurer, Charlotte Rubin, who takes care of contributions and banking. In Cañar, we are a busy committee who meets a few times a year to monitor the scholarship women’s progress, review new applications, and manage finances. But this year we had an additional agenda item: to complete our application for NGO status in Ecuador. This has been a multi-year project with lost documents, a change of presidents, a new ministry handling our application, and more. After a couple of marathon meetings in 2022, with the help of our lawyer in Cañar (Mercedes, far right, one of our first graduates) and our “man in Quito”– Segundo, husband of another first graduate (Alexandra, 3rd from right), we have shepherded our application through the byzantine process of becoming a legal non-profit foundation in Ecuador.

Here we are after a 5-hour meeting in May. The main benefit of our new status will be that it clears the way for Michael and I to leave our house and property to the program for an endowment. We made a proper will in Cañar years ago, which required six witnesses, several days, a lawyer, accountant, and $500. But no transfer of property for the benefit of an organization can be done without a government NGO designation. Flash: Today, I talked to lawyer Mercedes Guamán (far right) and she said she’d just received the final certification from the government.  Hurrah!

To conclude: Cañari Women’s Education Foundation (CWEF) is an official 501(c) 3 nonprofit, which means your contributions are tax deductible, and every dollar goes directly to the women. Here you can donate through PayPal by using the DONATE button below. Many thanks for your continuing support and please stay in touch.  I love hearing from you all. (You should see a new reply field below).     Judy Blankenship

Dear Friends: I’m very happy to be back in touch. Michael and I made a short trip to Cañar in the spring, when we found the Covid lockdown in Ecuador still in effect and cases rising, though nothing like previous levels. Masks were required throughout the country and public transportation was back but varied according to infection levels. Vaccinations were just starting in Cañar for the elderly and are now available to everyone, including children. Otherwise, in Cañar, at least, daily life felt “regular” – a favorite expression said with dead-pan tonality. Twice-weekly markets had started up and the town streets were alive with traffic and shoppers. Since then, according to a recent post from the World Bank, “after a vaccination campaign earlier this year, Ecuador went from being one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic to becoming an example for the world. This success story would have been impossible without the massive turnout of the population.” (Note: World Bank provided most of the funds for vaccines.)

Two posters for rural areas of Cañar. Text on the left: visits door-to-door to give vaccines to all persons from five years old. Second right indicates same information for local health clinic.

Last year I started this letter by saying that despite the pandemic our program was alive and well. I think this year I have to say that while still alive – we are limping. When the lockdown hit Ecuador in March 2020, our women were scattered across the country, some as far away as the northwest coast and in the Amazon, and they came home to face the challenge of continuing classes without Internet. Everyone had cell phones, however, and so at the outset the women “attended” classes and submitted their work on their mobiles. Imagine how hard that was! Our local committee quickly decided to continue paying full scholarships ($150-$160/month) to help families buy access to Internet and support additional children at home. Today, 18 months later, university classes are still virtual. One woman suspended her medical studies after struggling all year.

However, our 2021 numbers provide a positive overall picture: we have 25 graduates, four with master’s degrees, and one PhD student. Michael and I are headed to Ecuador on December 1 to begin the sixteenth year of our life in Cañar, so during the next six months I will send more up-to-date news of the scholarship program on this blog. Meanwhile, I’ve checked in with some of our graduates (mostly via Facebook) to see what they are up to.

Carmen Loja, (Economics, 2011), worked with several financial cooperatives before realizing her dream of building a community-based tourism program, Kinti Wasi, in her home community of Suscal. Along with her cousin and another partner, Carmen hosts groups such as this one of US-based Amigos de Las Americas: https://bit.ly/3BYzCNa) where “high school and gap-year students experience the Andean worldview in agroecology, gastronomy, architecture, ancestral medicine and spirituality.” And I see by the website that Kinti Wasi is an Amigos partner for 2022. Congratulations Carmen!  (She also welcomes individuals and small groups if any of you are contemplating a trip to Ecuador.)Margarita and Mercedes Guamán (with younger sister and brother), are both graduates of our program, and their subsequent careers reflect the employment situation in Ecuador. Margarita (l), now married with two children, works with the 911 call center in Cuenca, not what she was expecting when she graduated with a degree in natural resources in 2011. Her younger sister Mercedes (in cap & gown), also married with two children, graduated as a CPA in 2018 and has worked steadily as an accountant for local organizations. Without exception, our scholarship women choose careers aimed at jobs. Among our graduates we have several accountants, nurses and nutritionists, along with an MD, veterinarian, dentist, lab clinician, psychologist, agronomist, gastronomist, lawyer, business and communication specialists, but not one in the humanities. I’m sad about this, but the public university system in Ecuador is geared towards technology and science, and our scholarship women are geared towards professional jobs.

Juana Chuma is the only one of our women pursuing a PhD (so far). As a graduate in veterinary medicine from University of Cuenca (2015), she received our master’s support of $3000, but beyond that she has won scholarships and awards at UNAM in Mexico, including a training trip to Chile and a semester at University of Georgia in the US (delayed due to Covid but on track for 2022.)

The pandemic has meant good news for those already working in public health, as the Ecuadorian government has offered them full-time, permanent jobs in hospitals and community clinics. To be permanently nombrado in your workplace in Ecuador is something like tenure – you can stay for life. This is good for job security but not so good for new graduates trying to break into their respective fields. However, the world always needs doctors, nurses and nutritionists, especially those who are bilingual Quichua/Spanish as are all of these below.

Physician Luisa Duchi works in a community health clinic serving rural areas where many elderly speak only Quichua. Married with two children, she is from the Cañari village of Sisidhuayco

Mary Zhinin is a nurse in a provincial hospital in Ambato, in central Ecuador, where her husband also works. They have two children and are from the Cañari village of Quilloac.

Nutritionist/dietician Mariana Acero works in our provincial hospital in the city of Azogues, an hour from Cañar, which allows her to live at home in Correucu with her mother, the famous curandera Mama Michi Chuma.

Here is what graduation looked like in 2021: after five years in a very tough civil engineering program at University of Cuenca, Paiwa Acero sat in front of a laptop screen in my office in full graduation regalia (rented the day before), with script in hand, four people in attendance, and a Zoom program full of glitches. But that night her proud mother, Maria Esthela, organized an elaborate fiesta to celebrate with friends and family. Congratulations Paiwa!

Great thanks to the Circle of Giving in Bend, Oregon who for the past five years have supported women in a new two-year distance program called “Integrated Childhood Development” to train preschool teachers. It’s a government-created course to offer post-secondary education to those who can’t afford to attend university or have other barriers such as caring for young children or elderly parents.The “Circle” of eight women commit to a set amount each year to pay stipends to women who need assistance with childcare, transportation or meals, or to help the program outfit teaching laboratories at the facility. In May this year I was a surprise recipient of gratitude (to the Circle) when the program included me on a wonderful rainy “solidarity” day in the mountains, including a trout lunch

The Cañari Women’s Education Foundation (CWEF) is managed in Cañar by a local board of program graduates + me and the treasurer). Under normal circumstances, we meet two or three times a year to look over applications, review each scholar’s progress and decide how many spaces can be filled. Before Covid we also had a yearly meeting of all scholars, past and present; something we hope to do again in 2022. We keep the current group at about twelve, making it easy to manage monthly payments and monitor progress. Charlotte Rubin, our treasurer in Portland, keeps track of contributions and handles the banking here. We have no administrative costs.

CWEF is an official 501(c) 3 nonprofit, which means your contributions are tax deductible, and every dollar goes directly to the women. Please make your checks to CWEF and return in the enclosed envelope. We’ll send everyone thank you letters with IRS receipts. You can also donate through PayPal with this DONATE button at the end.

Please stay safe, stay in touch, and profound thanks for your continuing support.  Judy B.