Pics from Guayasamin..

Ecuador's biggest export.

What is ecuador's main export???

The simple answer is not bananas, or coffee, or oil - but people. 

They send their brightest and best, and anyone who has a bit about themselves, to live on the other side of the world, and make money for other people.

We have moved from Flicker to google..

Flicker moved to google
Originally uploaded by invitation-to

http://picasaweb.google.com/speakingquito

Maintaining our advantage..

We knew when we came here that the hardest bit would be sorting out stuff in the UK. sabbaticals, banks, renting the house, money, insurance, cards (and the current fiasco with my bank and the letter agent prove this). And we knew that when we landed - even in the middle of the night in some strange city - the difficult bit would be over..

So why is that? 

I think its maintenance, not even keeping up with, but just the necesary lives we've built in order to keep things in order. Yes the losses are not as big here if we get robbed or scammed or lose out on something, but the mental energy it takes just to keep the cart on the rails - that can't be worth doing. 

So what if we stop doing it? We would instantly lose the advantage over people who don't do it. people who aren't in the know, and since our society is built on competition (even walking let alone driving down a busy street we would be able to go quicker - there is a facebook group called "i want to punch people who walk slowly") then we have to maintain it. And maintaining - using huge energies treading water - that's what i have a problem with and maybe one of the reasons our cities are violent, citys fat, people unhappy. Cheery hey?

Ibarra

www.locusactionresearch.org.uk

www.locusactionresearch.org.uk website is up and running now. Its should hopefully allow us to put some money through it would being employed directly by the organisations we;ll be doing consultancy for.

The Chinese in our block..

We complained to the landlady about the noisy chinese in our appartment block, she told us this story.

They have paid huge sums of money to a gangleader to come to ecuador on false papers, wait around, then catch a boat to the States. This is quite a common route because Mexico has its own problems, Colombia is in the pocket of the US and venezuela is on the wrong side. So Ecuador is the furthest north.

Unfortunetely for our chinese - the Quito gangmaster was executed at the weekend. so they;'re in limbo, don'ty speak spanish, have no money to get home (or know what boat) and don't know what is going on while they are rapidly running out of money. So now, we don't mind so much that they spend every evening shouting at each other..

We are shareholders in the destruction..

Gone are the days when we can complain about The Man. This mysterious other taking away our money, our successes opportunities,  as well as our weed.. We are now the shareholders in this process either through government or through house prices. So we need government, as well as UK PLC to success which means taking some 'tough decisions'. BTW - am i the only one who reads 'tough decisions' as screwing someone else over..?

Humanity has so far only found two ways of distributing money - the state and the market. When we are complicit in the success (or failure) of both we become shareholders. So Britain is the 4th biggest economy, whereas back in the 70s is was all about the death of empire.  Anyone want to go back? The difference may not be felt in our pockets, but maybe in our national pride..

Capitalism is the direct opposite of evolution

Capitalism rewards the strongest. Evolution rewards the most adaptable. In the real climate change we can see here, you can easily see who is adaptable to change, and who cracks up when the electric windows stop working..

Changing from Flickr..

Flickr decide they give you a 200 picture limit, so obviously we'll go elsewhere..

So the last pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29765213@N06/

and the new (dup[licate pics) are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/YQB0zHJRoJhdXJdz5aMr4A?authkey=Gv1sRgCLummunlkbqxVA&feat=directlink

Enjoy!  

Ecuador Elections 2009

We're meeting with Participación Ciudadan tomorrow to talk about the forthcoming Ecuadorian elections. Its mandatory to vote so they're concentrating on informing people for what they are voting (rather than the buses which pick people up and feed them in exchange), but all in all - i'm not too sure the use of informing people about something they'd rather sit down and change. Representational democracy is representing whom?

Here a rich person creates his own party, maybe gets two terms and is kicked out for corrupton. One guy running in 2009 was the president in 2004 and literally had to flee the country becuase of the angry mob outside the presidential palace. He got bored exhiled in Brazil so came back and no-one seems to mind he's running again..! On the other hand the ineffectual politicians here generally maintain the line (unless they've got oil money on tap like Chavez), a bit like Obama is doing. A linear view of politics as well as economics. Funny how in a world of increasing diversity - we're polerising our responses to things. 

Selling sweets on the bus

We've done two long bus journeys in different directions and on each a boy has got on selling sweets with a formal patter to the passengers. The first one stated with a question - the person who answers it correctly gets a free sweet (the question was what do you call the inside of a duck egg - it doesn;'t work in english because we call them all eggs, but nevermind..) Then the second boy two weeks later, told the exact same patter.  WHY??

Either they are told a set patter by the sweet sellers (proven sales track record Govnor) or they just can't be arsed to change it. and my bet is on the latter. Maybe because we're told to individualise everything, personalise everything that we (I) find it hard to believe someone waiting everyday for 5 hours wouldn't think of trying an alternative joke?? Also in the West we take modification as a sign that we have understood, mastered and progressed, in which case they don't have the same view of progress here (sweet-seller upgrades to drinks-seller shocker?). hmmm sweets..

English vs American Englash

A few people here have said to me "english is pure. americans use english with slang and bad words" with the idea that english in UK is the unchanged original. Evolution of language i've often thought about with relation to Indian english and its 'turn of the century' phrases, or international english as might be spoken between two non native speakers in africa or asia. And ditto spanish here is more formal and rigid than has evolved in Spain, with differences on route between mexico and chile. Bet Shakespeare would have a thing or two to say. Probably incomprehensible to us these days..

Our recent trip to Banos

waiting for the bus
Originally uploaded by invitation-to

Some new pics up of Banos, a volcanic site and hot springs about 4 hours south of quito. No thinking went on.