Green Banana Ball Soup

So if you ever have to choose between "green banana ball" and "chicken" for your first lunch course in Ecuador, definately go for the local tradition. To call my Spanish "sketchy" would be a gross overexaggeration, so I'm not exactly sure what it was I ate. Let's just say it was a delicious surprise.

Which sort of typified our trip. It seemed like at every turn there was a little something pleasantly unexpected. We stayed at a great hostel with small cabanas run by a Belgian woman who was married to a local indigenous man. She turned out to be a wonderfully hospitable French cook! We were well fed and healthy which was great for all of us, but especially for Gayle who had anticipated primarily eating Luna bars. The only down side was the traveling "local news" broadcast every morning at 6:00 am over a bull horn from a village pickup truck.

Our travelling companions, Liisa (the Finnish college professor who has been researching the area for a decade and is writing a book on the region) and Jason (the grad student-translator-driver who we wanted to just put in our pocket and take home with us) were invaluable. Liisa's relationships with the producers allowed us immediate access to the people we needed to talk with. I was utterly flaborgasted at what we saw and who we met. Who knew that there would be functioning jeans producing workshops with industrious, creative, ingenuous people at the helm! They have an association of the registered producers who we were fortunate enough to meet with. Their collaborative competition was a new take on capitalism for us and was a welcomed surprise. Most everyone is related in some way and so no matter how much they are in competition, they really seem to be looking out for one another. After meeting at length with producers and visiting the workshops it became apparent that they are already doing fair trade. Subsequently, their prices are higher and therefore cannot compete in the US with (sweatshop?) jeans offered at significantly lower prices. Also, input from a US designer (Gayle), was invaluable to them. I was afraid they might eat her with a spoon. It was great.

So what now? We were not exactly anticipating the quality, productive capabilities, fair trade bent and willingness to export that we found. We've got a whole new set of questions to answer. In addition to pow-wowing with the World Next Door team and researching the next level of detail, we're going to need to start looking for investors if this thing is going to be a go. We're looking forward to exploring the next steps!

Jeans Jeans Jeans

Oh my. We have just spent the past few hours walking through stall upon stall upon stall of as many kinds of jeans in as many colors as you can imagine...and then some more. We had no idea. Our heads are so full its hard to even know how to write!

We obviously have arrived safe and sound in Ecuador. Our only hitch was a cancelled flight out of Atlanta but we got good exercise (and good conversation) out of several hours of walking the airport. We are the resident experts on each terminal! Our hosts in Quito are great and it was awesome to see old friends. Our efforts to learn Spanish on the plane have been at least a mild success because we took a taxi to meet our new friends this morning with no major event.

So today has been an utter whirlwind. We drove several hours through the Andes to the jeans producing region with a professor of economics and her grad student-driver-translator. They are delightful. And we have learned quite a lot about economics, politics, history, environmental issues, human rights of Ecuador, Latin America, the world and of each region we passed through. Wow. Not to mention that we talked a lot about the jeans industry! Fascinating stuff even if it is a brain stretch!
So tomorrow we meet with the Pelileo Guru of Jeans, the granddaddy, the Don...and learn even more. Then we´ll meet with little producers up in the hills. Apparently we´ll need the 4-wheel drive. Lots and lots to process. We had no idea the magnitude and capability of the Pelileo jean industry.

Gayle is the greatest. I hope all of you reading this have a friend who would willingly go with you on a 3rd world adventure! If not, please go seek one out! We´re enjoying being together and its great to have a likeminded friend to hash things out with.

Back to Ecuador

Who would have thought I (Kim) would be heading back to Ecuador just a little over a month after our last trip! The children are all in an outrage that they don't get to go...and a tiny bit worried about having their mama gone for a week. "Who's keeping the children?" is the FAQ of late and we've seen lots of smiles and raised eyebrows when we say "DADDY!" They'll have a great time and be just fine.

My dear friend Gayle and I are heading down to explore the possibility of starting a fair trade (hopefully eco-friendly) jeans cooperative in a small town called Pelileo. They've been making jeans for generations and would apparently welcome the opportunity to talk about Fair Trade possibilities. Gayle has past experience in the fashion industry and is a jeans designer. (You should ask about hidden talents of your friends. They may come in really handy!) We're armed with loads of questions and some ideas to pursue. Incidentally, feel free to toss any ideas into the hat about a name.

We had our fair share of tears at bedtime tonight. It was a great opportunity to talk a bit about what we're aiming to do and what we're dreaming about. I said to our oldest (Simeon, 7) that we're hoping to go make friends with some people who know how to make jeans. I told him that I'm pretty sure their lives are a lot harder than ours. We decided that if we didn't have clean water, or money for the doctor, or a chance to go to school, or enough to eat that we would hope that someone would come and be our friend and try to help us. I'm not sure what we'll find out and who we'll meet and what will come out of all this, but it felt good to articulate our hope.

We'll arrive in Ecuador tomorrow night, stay with our friends who live in Quito and travel 4 ish hours down through "volcano alley" to Pelileo on Tuesday. There's no hotel or restaurant in Pelileo so we're staying in the next village, Salisaca. (We googled Salisaca and saw a few good images of the town and the people. It looks very Ecuadorian!) I'm not sure whether or not there will be internet access, so this may be it until we return! Looking forward to the adventure!

Fair Trade Weddings

Some of you may know by now that Jency, the store manager, and I, the bookkeeper/whatever else guy, are getting married this spring.  That's right.  Sorry, the rest of human males, she's mine.  Any of you wise guys tries anything, and I WILL beat you up.

But seriously.  All this wedding planning stuff has had me doing Google search after Google search for things like invitations, flowers, even rings.  Something cool I've been finding through our MySpace friends are fairly-traded alternatives for many common components of the American wedding.  Here's a quick list of things I've seen so far:

• Fairly traded flowers
• Fairly traded, eco-friendly, conflict-free rings
• More fairly traded, eco-friendly, conflict-free rings
• Fairly traded, handmade paper for invitations/programs
• More fairly traded, handmade paper for invitations/programs
• Fairly traded, handmade guestbooks and photo albums

We're actually using a few of these items in our wedding.  

We're getting these cards from one of the store's vendors, Originals from Africa, to use as our invitations.  They come from Zimbabwe.  Jency just took a sample to a local guy that does letter-pressing, and it turned out AWESOME.  These are going to be very cool, and not too expensive.

We'll also be using one of these guestbooks from another of our store's vendors, Handmade Expressions.  This one's handmade and leather-bound in India.  I don't think they're available for purchase directly from their website.  If you're interested in any of this stuff, talk to us and we can probably order it for you.

After I created our MySpace account I started friending anyone I could find with a similar mission.  One place I found is a fair trade store in Maine.  They've got a whole section of their website devoted to fairly traded wedding stuff.

There are all kinds of resources on the web for making your wedding 'socially conscious' -- i.e., green, fair trade, conflict-free, etc.  Getting married soon?  Check it out.