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“The Elders Narrate: Interviews by the Vilcabamba National High School”
Produced by Christina Chaya. In-kind printing by the National University of Loja. All income benefits the elders of Vilcabamba, “Valley of Longevity.”

Prologue:

El presente libro pretende difundir la imagen de un Vilcabamba profundo, mediante microbiografías de adultos mayores (60-100 años), que transmiten con derroche de sinceridad, lo que fue y es, actualmente para ellos, el “Valle Sagrado” o “Fuente de la Eterna Juventud”, como es conocido mundialmente el pueblo de Vilcabamba, parroquia situada al sur-oriente de la ciudad de Loja, a 43 Km. de distancia. Los datos biográficos, tradiciones, creencias y pensamientos de los longevos, fueron expuestos abiertamente a estudiantes voluntariosos para hacer obra social que se forman en el Colegio Nacional Mixto “Vilcabamba”, quienes son familiares o conocidos de los entrevistados. El libro aspira a revivir y conservar las tradiciones antiguas como base de Identidad y solidaridad nacionales. Acortar la brecha generacional entre ecuatorianos, y expresar el cambio que ellos han sentido, beneficioso a veces, y contrapuesto también, del cada vez más abundante flujo turístico hacia este lugar que, como pocos en el mundo, es privilegiado por la bondad del clima, tranquilidad, biodiversidad y espíritu hospitalario de su gente.

El producto de su difusión será revertido totalmente a las personas más necesitadas de la tercera edad, con implementos de apoyo a las mingas, a través de los Centros de atención a adultos mayores de Vilcabamba.
[English translation to come soon]

To celebrate the International Women’s Day and the National Day of Youth, the second film festival was organized featuring 4 nights of shows in Central Park, Vilcabamba. A benefit for the Pacha Feria, donation: $0.25.

March 8, 2007: International Women’s Day
Performance with fire dancing: “Tierra, el principio femenino” by local artists “Cristal de Fuego”
and 2 women’s rights films: “Matilde” (local feminist activist) and “El grito silencioso”

March 9, 2007: “Causas y consecuencias del alcoholismo” and cultural videos

March 10, 2007: National Day of Youth
Charlie Chaplin’s “Peregrino” and “Adiós a las almas” (for the elders to remember youth in this “Valley of Longevity”)

March 11, 2007: Day of Pacha Feria
“La verdad incómoda” with subtitles in Spanish, read by local volunteers

[Expenses: $15]

“El Huilco”

Recycled water balloon chain contest

The children in Vilcabamba create colorful chains by picking up the popped water balloon plastic from the streets and weaving them together. The Association created a special contest this year to promote this activity of re-using the plastic waste. Prizes were awarded to the children who constructed the longest water balloon chain on the last day of Carnaval. The prizes consisted of paints, crayons, colored pencils and drawing books.
[Cost: $8]

“Earth Fair”: Public Crafts Fair every second and fourth Sunday in Central Park, Vilcabamba

Objectives:

1. Help the economy of the town of Vilcabamba by promoting the production of crafts inherently from Vilcabamba, using its natural resources ecologically, and exhibit the work of talented, visiting artists, whom Vilcabamba is known to attract, from the County of Loja as well as from the world.

2. Preserve, recuperate and develop a culture traditionally ecological with its healthy diet, medicinal plants, and respect towards nature, especially through its agricultural lifestyle.

3. Spread higher consciousness, especially with the youth, learning while playing with resources from their own environment, encouraging creativity and imagination, integral to the balanced development of a healthy community, though rarely implemented in the educational agenda.

Specific objectives:

1. Create an educational, entertaining, and social public space for local and touring families and individuals, resulting in a unique Fair, yet unknown to exist in an ongoing fair in South America (an aspect that can be a healthy tourist highlight when sustained by the townspeople themselves).

2. Create a successful comercial space for local production of tradional/folk products as well as for artists to display and sell their products of high quality to clients who expect high quality, resulting in a Fair, and town, known for their unique fair.

3. Unite the diverse entities that constitute the Vilcabamba population (i.e. Municipality, Junta, Teniente Político, Church, Police, businesses, institutions, natives, resident foreigners, tourists, artisans, etc.) by synergetically developing the fair, ensuring a healthy social benefit for Vilcabamba now and in the future.

• Continually develop the social benefits of the Fair (ex. Eco-art workshops, reading center, cultural entertainment, environmental and health education.)
• Involve the authorities in general planning and Fair necessities (ex. chairs, publicity, supervision, public relations).
• Collect donations from local businesses as an exchange for publicity in the Fair.
• Publicize traditional and healthy lunch specials called “Pacha Ofertas” offered by the different local restaurants.
• Involve the Eco-Club from the National High School of Vilcabamba.
• Invite institutions (ex. educational institutions, women’s associations, environmental associations) to exhibit products as a fundraiser or to raise public awareness.

4. Develop the cultural identity of Vilcabamba, increasing the care and value that the townspeople have for their own land and town.

• Promote the economy of locally-made products which take advantage of local natural resources.
• Create eco-art workshops for chidren which utilize resources from their natural environment.
• Spread environmental consciousness, especially in a practical format, for green areas and farms.
• Promote products that are natural and traditionally from Vilcabamba, for example the Horchata (a local herb tea).

Three fairs ago, there were three tents barely half-filled with craftspeople and one tent for food vendors, and now participation increases to four tents all filled, two tents for food vendors, one tent for the sound equipment and children’s eco-art workshop, and one tent for the new ongoing exhibition by the Ministry of Environment.

In the morning of the fair, the Committee of Environmental/Health Education for the Pacha Feria coordinated a radio interview/invitation at Radio Vilcabamba with the 2 representatives from the Ministry and the local priest. The exhibition was highly successful, with locals and national/international tourists of all ages visiting the tent, reading the information, watching nature videos and taking home nature posters and informative brochures.

Children’s art workshop: Improvised coloring workshop on recycled large cotton fabric. After it was filled, the fabric was hung in the tent and the children continued to color on large sheets of kraft paper. A volunteer craftsperson held a brief drawing contest and gifted one of her crafts to the winner. (In the Fair, the craftspeople are obligated to collaborate with one hour of volunteer work.)

School service painting project: Because of the constant lack of tables and chairs, the Association is required to borrow from the nearby elementary school, “13 de Abril.” In exchange, the Association painted these tables and chairs, with the help of other participating craftspeople from the Fair.

Publicity: Radio Vilcabamba, the most common radio station in Vilcabamba, broadcasted the Pacha Feria 50-second radio spot twice during strategic times on Saturday. Cost: $1 (discounted from $1.80)

Plans for the following fairs:
a. Members of the Ecology Club from the National Vilcabamba High School participate in the Ministry of Environment exhibition, and later, exhibit their own projects, sell ecology-related goods to raise funds and present short presentations on the stage.
b. Invite different public institutions to exhibit information on different days of the Fair (i.e. Domestic violence at one fair, then organic agriculture the following fair, etc.)
c. Publicity: Paint a large 10-meter banner to hang over the main street entrance to Vilcabamba.
d. Publicity: Broadcast the radio spot more often with press announcements to highlight specifics for the upcoming Fair.

Medicinal plant eco-art workshop for children

Goal: Create the habit in children to use the medicinal plants from their natural environment to cure health problems.
Activity:
From a list of common health problems and their respective healing medicinal plant with common name and illustration, the children:

1. Recognize which health problem is the most common in their household (or with themselves)
2. On a paper bag, write the name of the health problem, the name of the medicinal plant and illustrate the plant and anything else they wish to draw.
3. From a collection of actual plant cuttings, select their medicinal plant, place it in their paper bag and take it home to plant to have available year-round.

After our first meeting, the Ecology Club of Vilcabamba High School (“Colegio Nacional Mixto Vilcabamba) gathered cardboard boxes and during a quick painting session before the “Carnaval games” started on campus, painted the boxes into trashcans. About 30 trash-boxes were painted and placed around the main plaza, near the Vilcabamba Recreational Park and in the river area of Yamburara Alto, where many visitors love to bathe and leave their trash. After 3 days of Carnaval, a taxi was hired and with a Municipal worker, the boxes were picked up from Yamburara Alto (the Municipality never cleans nor picks up trash from this area

Cost: $16