15th day

We went to an indigenous village to see how the Otavalo people make their fabric in the morning.  It was enlightening to hear directly from the source that the scarf I bought for $2.50 took two hours to make, which is roughly a dollar an hour if you take the purchase of the fabric into account.  It is so easy to buy things in the U.S imported from far off lands without thinking whose hands have slaved over what you bought.  Do you think about what kind of treatment they received?  How much money they get per hour?  Here though, we saw the people and the conditions in which they lived.  They do their work from home, so it’s better than factories that violate human rights, but they still live extremely simple lives.  In some ways the simple life is better in rural Ecuador than the U.S.’s materialism, but when a good education isn’t available, I don’t agree with it.  It’s sad to hear that Otavalo is much more prosperous than the other Andean towns, yet they still live in poverty. 

Later we saw how indigenous instruments are made, and a band, the best Andean band according to Maria, played a song for us.  We then went to the Laguna de Cuicocha, which was breathtaking.  It’s an active crater lake, and has two islands in the middle, and mountains surrounding it.  We hiked and took a boat ride around the islands.  It was a long, but fascinating day.  My weekend trip was the perfect blend of cultural learning and nature exploring.