My Trip to the Church in Ibarra

Greetings to you all,
Monday and Tuesday I had my Spanish classes which are very helpful, but not very interesting stuff for the blog.
Yesterday I went to visit the Episcopal Church in Ibarra, a town about 2.5 hours north of Quito. It is the church farthest north from Quito and it is about 70 miles from the border with Columbia. Chris took me together with a family that is currently staying at his house. This family, mother, father and three small children, lives in Chattenooga, TN. They are old friends of Chris and Trish. They are a wonderful and delightful family. They have a FAIR TRADE business in Chattenooga and they are here in Ecuador to meet local artists from whom they can buy items directly and pay the artists more than the local distributors pay them, then take the items back to the US to sell. The local distributors pay unconscionably low prices to the artists, mark up the prices and sell to the tourists, or export to other countries like the US where the middle men make the most money and the artists makes the least. FAIR TRADE businesses try to see that the poor artists get a just and fair benefit from his/her art.
The Episcopal priest in Ibarra knows the local artists and arranged the contacts with Chris´s friends. It was a fantastic day in many, many ways.
First I have to explain that one of the realities in Ecuador, aned Northern Ecuador especially, is the flood of refugees coming into Ecuador from Columbia. The government of Columbia is a very repressive regime. The military and the para-military forces of the government roam the country and crush any effort to speak out against the government. The church in Ibarra tries to help as many refuges as it can. They even have a small bed room right beside the main sanctuary and while we were there we met a small family of refugees that had just arrived from Columbia, a mother and three daughters. They had fled because they were a part of a human rights group and a para-military force had raided their group and killed the son and the boy friend of one of the daughters. It is a horrible situation that gets no press in the US to my knowledge. I am told here that the US government is very supportive of the current regime in Columbia. I have no independent confirmation of that, but I am very interested to find out.
Later in the day we visited two families who have small homes on the ourskirts of Ibarra. The first family has a small farm, but to supplement their modest life, the mother makes ear rings and necklaces using designs taken from ancient ruins of pre-Incan civilizations near where they live. They are beautiful in their simplicity. They made a deal with Chris´friends that will improve their lives greatly. The family was so gracious and we had a wonderful time with them.
From there we went to another family. This family had an incredible story. Fourteen yeras ago the father was returning to his home on a motorcycle, his only means of transportation. He was run off the road by a car driven by some thieves who wanted his motor cycle and left him to die in a ditch by the side of the road. He did not die ,but was left paralyzed from the waist down.
To feed their family, the wife strated a small buiusines making clothes. She now employs two other peole full time and has 30 other women who do embriodery on the clothes for her part time. She makes a whopping $0.40 on each gament she makes. The shirts, dressed and pants are fabulous. The family who are friends of Chris made a great arangement with the lady to purchase a large supply of her product and paid her a price far above what the local distributors pay. Everyone benefitted thanks to the help of the church in Ibarra who made all of this possible.
I was exhausted when we finally got back to Quito. I had planned to go with them again today and Friday to another town, but I opted out. The little truck Chris has is very small, eventhough it has back seats, but you know what those are like. In the truck we had Chris, the father and the mother of this family, plus their 3 small children and me, and all of our stuff. The kids were fantastic all day and we all really enjoyed every part of the day. But the trip today and tromorrow is a 5 hour drive, twice as far as we went yesterday, plus an overnight stay, which means we all have to take some small luggage. I just decided it was a little too crowded and could be really uncomfortable for everyone, so I opted out.
Instead I will go to Otovalo, a town near where we were yesterdays and stay there for a couple of nights and visit the incredible market they have there on Saturdays. It is a real feature of local Ecuadorean culture and I really want to see it. I will leave today and come back on Sunday.
Well, that is what I have to share for now.
My love to you all and I will look for a place in Otovalo to access email and this blog to let you know what I find there.
Love to you all,
Glenn+