Before I continue with the blog post, I'll just let you know that everything in my town stayed relatively calm throughout the protests last Thursday. Although most of the activity was concentrated in the major cities, the entire country was on edge. Tensions have eased, and normalcy has returned.
Last Thursday was supposed to be a normal Thursday. I had a full day of work planned. When I left for work in the morning, I was focused on collecting seeds for the tree nursery. When I got home for lunch, I wondered about the stability of society. And just as quickly as my thoughts escalated, I went to bed Thursday night and woke up to a town that showed little evidence of the national crisis it had faced the day before.
No pasa nada, right?
Not quite.
One of my main projects right now is reforesting the local watershed with 250,000 plants. I like to stress the importance of planting native species to protect the area's biodiversity. Since almost all primary forest has been converted to agricultural use, the largest remaining forest in the area is the local ecological reserve, which is run by the Ecuadorian military.
Now is the season when most species in the area go to flower and give off seeds. I have been trying to coordinate seed collection with the ecological reserve for several months. Like any effort to deal with a large bureaucracy, even trying to do a small amount of work requires a large amount of time and paperwork and frustration.
In the course of this process, they had relocated the ecological base and changed commanding officers. But after months of trying, we had finally arranged to go the reserve on Thursday morning.
We were going to meet at the municipality at 9:00 a.m. and go to the reserve from there. When I arrived, I glanced at the news on the TV and saw some demonstrations but didn't really pay close attention. There are always demonstrations of one sort or another, so I didn't really look to see what was going on.
The army arrived at 9:30 a.m., and we set off for the reserve.
The trail that we used for seed collection is deep in the forest. There is limited cell reception. The entire horizon is covered by dense brush. You feel completely separated from civilization.
As we continued along the trail, they received radio transmissions updating them about the escalating situation. I wasn't in earshot of the radio. All I could pick up was their reaction to each update.
With each message the strike's severity became more clear.
We continued with our seed collection because they didn't have orders to do otherwise. But on the ride back to town, there was an air of doubt and uncertainty about what would happen next.
They were talking about the looting and bank robberies that were occurring because the police were not enforcing the law. Some wondered what this meant for the government's stability.
We got back around 1:30, dropped off the seeds at the tree nursery, and bid each other farewell. We said that we would do another seed collection run in a month or so, but given the country's current situation it seemed silly to be planning so far ahead.
I went home for lunch. On my way home, I called another volunteer to find out what was going on. At this point in the day, the police strikes were the big news.
I went home to learn more and parked myself on my neighbor's couch in front of his TV. As the afternoon wore on, there wasn't much new news coming out. A group of people marched through town cheering support of the government, and some of my neighbors played a war drum all day (I think they were practicing for the high school marching band, but the drum definitely made it seem that much more suspenseful).
I watched the news all afternoon and night until I went to bed. At that point, the president was still in the hospital.
When I woke up at 5:30, the first thing I did was check the news. I read about the daring police raid that freed the president and about his address to the country upon his liberation. It was still dark out at this time.
I didn't know how my town would respond to the situation. Would everyone stay inside and reflect on what had happened the last day? Would they go about their lives as normal? Would they just take the day off?
Life just went on.
At about 6:00, the morning milk man passed by. A few minutes later, the boiled corn and humitas saleswoman came through. Then, it was the fresh fish guy.
Aside from the fact that the schools were out and the military was patrolling the streets instead of the cops, life was normal. I went into the municipal office later in the day, and everybody had recovered.
All the talk was about that night's beauty pageant and the weekend's fiestas. Nobody was dwelling on the police strike.
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