Home Sweet Sarayacu

Hello again Everyone!!

We hope that our latest message reaches you all in good health and spirits! SO.. we sat down to write this blog and realized that a lot of you are not even aware yet that we are

Due to the internet connection being extremely difficult to access during the past 5 days, we were unable to post this blog, but here it is.

For the last week, we have been here in Sarayaku working with a group of three students, teaching them the foundational basics for using the video editing program, FinalCutPro. Their first project consisted of creating a short story with still images. They each were given a camera and went out to take photos of various things nearby.

If you are interested in the specifics here is a list of what we have gone over with them so far:
-create new folders for your project files [this is excellent for organization]
-create a new project in FCP so that your footage saves correctly [set your scratch disks!]
-capture your footage from a video camera
-import photos/audio to your project
-create bins in your browser
-learn different ways to view your browser using icons/list view [ctrl + click]
-look through those photos and move your favorites onto the timeline
-change the duration of a clip using timecode
-adjust/fade the audio [using the pen tool]
-how to use various tools [blade/arrow/pen]
-use motion effects on both video/text
-use transitions [both automatic and manual] between your clips
-how to add and play with different text options [size, motion effects, zooming, fonts, colors]

We will do our best to upload one or all of their first projects sometime soon. It has definitely been a challenge teaching a highly advanced, technical program in a second language that neither of us are fluent in, but the students are learning incredibly fast and are very patient with our limited [but growing] vocabulary!

Today we will begin a second project with them, that will involve an interview with someone they know. For this project we will be teaching them various camera techniques and interviewing skills.

Aside from the work aspect of things, we went to our first Minga this weekend. Minga is a day during the weekend where people are inviting from all over the community to help a household out with a project. Everyone arrives at the house early in the morning to begin by drinking cheecha. Cheecha is a lightly alcoholic beverage that is made by the women who chew yucca, spit and ferment it. It is actually pretty tasty! Its texture is.. well.. like spit, with chunks of yucca dispersed lightly throughout each gulp, it is quite effervescent and citric. Afterwards we were off to our first canoe ride, where we traveled fifteen minutes downstream to haul large slabs of lumber, approximately 4 X 4 by 20 ft, on our shoulders down a muddy hill, into the riverside, and into the canoe. We did this with the family who was hosting Minga, they plan on using the lumber as floorboards for a new room in their house. The work was very difficult for us, but the idea of our tired bodies was lightweight hilarious beside the elders who worked through their tiredness like energizer bunnies. After work was completed they treated us to a nice lunch and more cheecha.

The first few nights here we were sleeping outside and it was raining endlessly, but now the sun is dominant in the sky and we sleep in a structure with walls that provide a bit more weather protection.

We have our own sleeping space but spend a lot of time with Heriberto and his family. At first conversations were difficult, but they have improved greatly. It is really amazing to speak with Heriberto's parents and learn about their lives. His father is 86 years old and walks up a giant mountain everyday to get to his workplace. His mother has a medicine garden and can whip up an endless amount of various concoctions, magic juices and teas for good health. We sleep and wake early here, there is very limited amount of electricity, so our sleep patterns have pretty much adjusted to the schedule of the sun.

Thank you all for your support with this project, it was most definitely worth the effort!
You are on our minds,
with love,

Chaz and Mahaliyah

neblina means foggy, and lluvia means rain

Hello Everyone!

We hope that our words find each of you in excellent health and spirits!

So, there has been a slight change in our plans... Due to weather restrictions we were grounded in the Shell airport station for three days. The airport is located in Shell Mera, a small town in the eastern foothills of the Ecuadorian Andes, about 94 miles from Quito [the capital of Ecuador]. As you may have already guessed, its name can be traced back to the Royal Dutch Shell Company, who established an oil base in the area in 1937. After a number of violent clashes between company workers and Indigenous communities in the area, the company decided to leave. Although Shell abandoned the base in 1948 the name still remains, as do many rustic-looking, yellow shell logos; a repetitive makeup style for the faces of many buildings. The name and the symbol-- familiar leftovers of a globally familiar pattern; of an ever pervasive colonial presence.

During those first few days of wetness, the 3 seater plane station became a temporary home for us. We made new friends with sky hungry pilots and other patient passengers. We got to practice our Spanish skills by having a number of good conversations and we even temporarily adopted a baby bird!

Click on the following link to see a short video clip of the station! This footage was shot on a ipod camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHaOyG_SxxE

On the fourth day, we finally caught a glimpse of blue sky. But right as we were about to load our things onto the airplane, we received word from Eriberto.

It turns out that there will be an Amazonian dance/music festival here in Puyo this Saturday and Eriberto's music group, Ikara, will be performing. So for the rest of the week we decided it would be best for us to stay with him in Puyo. We will be spending the week working on various film projects and further strengthening our language abilities. The office we will work in is Sarayacu's official office in Puyo and is located next to a gym that plays loud workout music all day.

After being shown some more photos of life in Sarayacu, we are more excited to go than ever-- that said, we are making the best of things here in Puyo and plan to explore all that this beautiful town of 25,000 people has to offer! So far, we have taken a hike along the local river that runs through the jungle and are also planning to go to the botanical garden and the zoo sometime this week!

Not to mention, being here has definately been an incredible opportunity to expand our knowledge of Español before diving headfirst into guiding 5 young students through the journey of learning film.

We are very grateful to find that food here is wonderful and affordable, people are very nice and hospitable.

Finally, we have been very lucky that our new home, the grand Hostal Colibri, is not a very busy place because we moved in and out three times in three days. We weren't expecting to be paying for a hostal this number of days, but we are blessed because it is a nice place to stay and is affordable.

Thank you all for your support and we will be checking in again sometime soon!

With care,

Chaz and Mahaliyah

ps-- On the airplane ride from Miami to Puyo, we sat next to a woman who is an executive of an oil company.. she had a few drinks and told us some pretty interesting stories! But, more on that later :]

Amazon Travel Plans

Here is a little breakdown of how we'll be traveling to the Amazon.

Thursday 7/15 6am- Fly from San Francisco to Miami to Quito

Arrive Quito, Ecuador 7pm

Pick up by our Ecuadorian connection Yury

Stay one night at the hostel in Quito

Friday 7/16- 6 hour bus ride South to Puyo

Stay one night at the hostel in Puyo

Then on to the roller coaster.....

After a 25 minute flight over the Amazon rainforest we arrive at our final destination.

Sarayacu!!!!!

And this is where the real story begins...

Why are we going to the Amazon?

We have now witnessed the sickening spectacle of at least a half million gallons of oil a day spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, mixing with hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic chemical dispersants to create a corporate sponsored weapon of mass destruction. Peeking through the clouds of obfuscation spread by BP, with the complicity of the corporate controlled media and U.S. government, we are now beginning to get only a glimpse of the massive devastation being caused by the greatest oil-related environmental disaster in U.S. history. The loss of life so far to humans and marine life is only the first chapter in what promises to be decades of tragic consequences for the health and lifestyle of all impacted by the oil spill.

Now imagine that the flow of oil is not contained by August, as is currently acknowledged as the best-case scenario. Imagine the human and ecological devastation if oil continues to gush at this rate for the next 100 years, dumping over 18 billion gallons of toxicity into the environment.

Would it surprise you to learn a similar scenario has already occurred in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador, creating the largest oil-related environmental disaster in human history?
During decades of drilling in the Ecuadorean Amazon begun in 1972, Chevron (then Texaco) dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste byproduct directly into the rivers and streams of the rainforest, spilled 17 million gallons of crude oil, gouged over 900 unlined waste pits which continue to leach toxic waste into soil and groundwater, and burned hundreds of millions of cubic feet of gas and waste oil into the atmosphere, poisoning the air and creating “black rain” which inundated the area during tropical thunderstorms. And all of that from just one of the oil companies operating in the area.

Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorean rainforest like the Sarayacu, Cofan, Siona, Kichwa, and Huaorani have thrived for generations in one of the most biodiverse regions of the planet. They still live in the tradition of their ancestors, relying on the earth for clean water, healthy food, and preservation of their cultural heritage. Indigenous communities in the area where Chevron (then Texaco) operated have lost 95% of their ancestral land due to the impact of oil operations. Today their people are suffering from obscenely high rates of cancer (over 1400 cancer deaths), birth defects, infant mortality, miscarriages, skin lesions, and other ailments related to water, air, and land polluted by oil companies.
This story has been well hidden by the same corporate, media, and government interests that are covering up the extent of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. There has been scant coverage in mainstream media of the decades long struggle of indigenous communities to resist exploitation by multinational oil companies and preserve their environment and traditional way of life. Indigenous communities in Ecuador and their supporters, led by CONAIE (the nationwide indigenous confederation), have organized national demonstrations, blocked roads, occupied buildings, forced oil workers out of their communities, and demanded that oil companies clean up their toxic legacy.
The ability of indigenous communities to survive in the future will depend in part on their ability to get their story out to the world. It is ironic that hundreds of millions of people worldwide have seen the movie, Avatar, transported through 3-D glasses to the beautiful jungles of Pandora, and deeply touched by the fictionalized resistance of the blue Na’vis to the greedy RDA Corporation. Yet few have seen the real life images of indigenous Amazon communities struggling to save their ancestral homeland and way of life from profit obsessed oil companies.
Eriberto Gualinga is telling just this story. He lives in the indigenous community of Sarayacu in the Amazon and has been making videos about the community and their resistance. For example, in “I Am The Defender Of The Rainforest”, you can see women of Sarayacu bravely confronting the military at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4u8HjLqOdU . Some other videos of Eriberto’s can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/eribertogualinga .

Eriberto has no formal training in documentary filmmaking, minimal equipment, and limited means of distribution. Yet he is teaching what he does know about video production to the youth of the community so they have the means to share their story and build support throughout the world.

Now Eriberto and the Sarayacu community are asking for your help. In response to their request, two Bay Area volunteers will be traveling to Sarayacu in July to provide a month of technical support in filmmaking. Chaz Hubbard is an instructional media technician at Berkeley High School, and Mahaliyah Ayla O is a student at UC Berkeley, studying to be a filmmaker.