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July 14, 2005
A Visionary Achuar, and my Laptop
A week ago Thursday, I got my laptop! Haha, no more fighting over computer time in the office among the part time consultants and the intern! My mom brought it to Pachamama's office in San Francisco and Pachamama is currently leading a trip down in Ecuador with donors and 2 staff members from SF. They get to go to Kapawi, the Ecotourism lodge in Achuar territory. I almost was able to tag along, something that my boss and I wanted very much, so that I would be able to see a community in which the Achuar live and see a project supported by Pachamama in action. However, because it's operated by another company, I would be charged full price, and I couldn't pay 1000 for 3 days on a Smoke Grant budget, nor was Pachamama willing to cover me. Oh well, I might get to go down in late July.
Anyway, I went to meet the gringos at their hotel in Quito, and sat and listened to a presentation given to them by an Achuar named Domingo Peas, who talked about the Achuar people, culture, development and politics. Domingo was a leader of FINAE (the Achuar political organization) for 10 years until he decided he wanted to work in his communities instead of dealing with political issues outside of the community. He's also a visionary who is studying for a bachelor's and has implemented a few sustainable projects in his community, such as peanut oil farming and processing. In addition, he has almost single-handedly taught and changed the consciousness of most of his community members towards one that embraces environmental stewardship! In the meeting of the Comité Interfederacional a month ago, he was specially invited, despite not being a leader, because he is incredibly well respected for his insight. He’s only a 40-year-old man too, not one’s typical image of a wise elder. Instead, he’s of a younger generation that knows the political ins and outs and knows how to maneuver within various systems to defend their territories and culture and to achieve improvements in the well-being of his people. At that meeting, he came across as the most level-headed politically savvy (in terms of synthesizing ideas and consensus building) of anybody there. And in the meeting with the Pachamama SF representatives, he was an eloquent, well-organized and powerful speaker.
After his presentation, Cristina (my boss) and I talked about Pachamama and the main elements and successes of the recent work of the Quito office. I thought it was quite funny how Cristina slipped in slogans from the San Francisco office’s website into her talk. Overall, a very successful meeting, and I want to start a dialogue with Domingo to try to pick the brain of this insightful, rational, visionary human being.
Posted by Lee Gilman at July 14, 2005 05:34 PM
