A Witnessing Trip to the Desert Below Santa Isabel

After our Friday witnessing trip to the lush green hills above Santa Isabel, it was off to the desert on Sunday.

(This is actually going in the other direction – towards Cuenca.  It’s pretty dramatic, though)

I assumed, being desert, that it might be unpleasantly warm, but fortunately it was not. We left Santa Isabel and drove for 30 to 45 minutes then turned off the main road onto a dirt road into the territory we’d been assigned.

All around us were uninviting, barren, dry, corrugated hills, with not a house, a person or an animal in sight. We wondered why anyone would choose to live here – although in Ecuador, many people inherit land, or live where their parents and grandparents have always lived.

                          Apparently, there are people out here somewhere …

After we had driven further, we could see in the distance signs of life in the form of a village a long way off, and greenery where there were trees and some crops under irrigation. It’s amazing what a difference water can make – it causes the deserts to blossom!

In the distance were signs of civilization …

Amazing what a difference irrigation makes … (These photos were taken looking in the other direction from the village)

After we’d been driving for a while longer, we were surprised and puzzled to see a woman and her two young children walking along the rough dirt road towards us. We couldn’t work out where she had come from, as there were no houses, cars, etc. We assumed she had come from a house or village further on and was walking to the main road, probably to catch a bus. The people out here are pretty tough!

Then, around another corner, was a surprising sight, rather reminiscent of a moon landing.

One of the brothers in our vehicle got out and went over to talk to the man working there. It turned out he was testing to find water.

Sitting down, just to the right of the black tent is our brother, talking to the man working there.

It’s the end of the dry season, and the locals were desperately in need of rain in order to be able to give water to their livestock

More driving, and so far, no signs of habitation; although in the distance in the hills we did see some wild horses. There are no fences in this area, so the horses go where they please.

We drove on, and the village in the distance became closer. But before we got there, we spotted a couple of houses off the main road, so we abandoned the car and went on foot to investigate. We wondered if perhaps that’s where the woman with the small children lived?

Exploring by foot

There was a little house, but just in front of it was a newly concreted playing field, complete with electric lighting and ditches (for drainage? for pipes?). How bizarre! This house was a fair way out of the village, in the middle of nowhere. But in reality, the whole place is in the middle of nowhere!

a lonely playing field

The little house, with playing field to the left

We often go in threes, if there is an odd one out

Back in the car and we drive along a little bit, until we stopped to talk to a man working in his corn field.

Irrigated corn, in an otherwise very dry area

The man came over to the fence to talk to our brother (on the right)

As we drove on, we heard a voice from a loudspeaker, “helado, helado, helado” (“ice cream, ice cream, ice cream”), and around the corner comes an ice-cream van! We thought that was rather amusing – ice cream, in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the desert!! So, naturally, we availed ourselves of the opportunity.

On the front of the van it says “Helados”  and “Isabelita”.  People here commonly name their trucks, vans, work vehicles.

In our little witnessing group we had a special pioneer family. Well, the mum and dad are special pioneers, and their 12 year old son auxiliary pioneers in the afternoons when he finishes school. (Here, the students go to school either early in the mornings or in the afternoons and finish around 6 or 7 pm.)

Here are the special pioneer mum and her son, eating their icecreams

I worked with the sister, and she was very supportive of my rather inadequate Spanish. She spoke very slowly and along with gestures etc, we got on like a house on fire, and had a few laughs along the way.

… and there goes the helado man, back to civilization …

By this time, we had walked and driven along the road into the little village, stopping at the houses along the way. Unfortunately, we didn’t find many people at home – Sunday is market day in Santa Isabel, and we thought probably a lot of people from the village had gone to market.

The village was an oasis compared to the dry hills all around. It was still dry and dusty, but because there were some trees and tropical plants, etc, it was definitely an improvement.

There’s the village; the photo is a bit blurry, unfortunately

This is part of the village, from the other side.  The big blue roof is a covered basketball court!

Village church, with covered basketball court to the left

The village cemetery – rather colourful

At the last house we called at, a lady invited us to sit under her veranda, and we chatted for a while and she accepted some magazines. (Well, I didn’t contribute to the “chatting” as it was all in rather fast Spanish, which was rather beyond me. )

Then it was goodbye to the desert, and back to Santa Isabel.

Leaving the village, heading back to Santa Isabel.  Another irrigated area, next to the river.

Extensive irrigation in this area.  The little green building at the front of the picture is a shrine. 

 

Heading out of Santa Isabel, back to Cuenca

Anyone want to buy some tropical plants?

A Witnessing Trip to the Hills Above Santa Isabel

 

A month or two ago, our friends in Santa Isabel invited us to come visit for a few days, with the lure of exciting witnessing trips, wild horses, country air, etc. And because it was the special witnessing campaign for November, offering a leaflet, they figured it wouldn’t be too much of a strain on our Spanish.

So we went.

We went through the little town of Tarqui on the way 

Santa Isabel is a town about 1 ½ hours south of Cuenca, and at a lower elevation, hence somewhat warmer than Cuenca, but not unpleasantly so. It’s sub-tropical, and we were warned about bugs, but they weren’t too bad at all. As far as I can work out, it has a population of around 18,000 people, and the congregation has around 90 publishers. Some Cuencanos have country houses there as it’s not too far to travel, and the countryside is quite pretty (as is much of Ecuador).

There are buses which travel between Cuenca and Santa Isabel about every half hour, and cost $1.75 per person each way.

In the middle of Santa Isabel, where the bus dropped us off

Vendors of fruit, food, etc like this are everywhere throughout Ecuador

We found some interesting differences between Santa Isabel and Cuenca. In Cuenca, we are somewhat used to the electricity cutting out now and then, and to the water supply also cutting out occasionally, but generally this only happens every few months. But in Santa Isabel, this happens rather more often. The town is dependent on river water, and at the moment it’s the very end of the dry season, so lately the water has been cut off just about every day for a period of time. Some of the houses and apartments have a small water tank or reservoir up on the roof so that they have a reserve when this happens.

“The beginning of wisdom is the fear of Jehovah”

Inside the market in town

Pig for sale like this is very common in Ecuador – you can ask for which part of the pig you’d like, and either they will cook it for you, or you take it home and cook it yourself

Our friends live in a new apartment, and fortunately, they have a reservoir. But they also have interesting electrical wiring. They explained to us how to work the shower – it’s an electric shower, and a rather scary concept to those of us who were taught that water and electricity should not mix. But fortunately, you don’t have to touch anything other than the tap, so it seems pretty harmless.

It actually looks more scary than it is

But because there are only 3 electrical circuits in the apartment, they have to be careful about what appliances they use at the same time. For instance, if someone is using the electric shower, and someone else uses the microwave, then there goes the circuit, and someone has to run out into the street and flick the switch on the power pole to restore power. Hopefully the person who was in the kitchen will do that, rather than leaving it to the wet, naked person who was under the shower.

The Kingdom Hall is only a couple of blocks away from their place, which is handy. But if you are walking, it’s a pretty steep slog uphill.

Santa Isabel Kingdom Hall

 

We went for a walk into town to check it out, and it was an uphill climb all the way, until we got to the park in the centre, adjacent to a large church, which seemed to be the only flat part of town. And then if you follow the road in the same direction, it heads downhill. Definitely more hilly than Cuenca.

Santa Isabel

Panoramic shot of the park, and me with umbrella to keep the sun off

These red bananas were growing at the park – can’t remember what they are called, but they are YUMMY!  Not ready yet, though

The park in the centre of town – there is definitely more of a tropical feel here than in Cuenca

There is no town bus route there – the public transport seems to consist of the following options: you could catch the Cuenca-Santa Isabel bus into town – it does a loop through the middle of town and then heads back to Cuenca. Or you could flag down passing traffic and maybe get a ride that way. (I asked one sister how she gets to the Kingdom Hall and she said that that morning she got two rides – one in a small truck which took her part-way, and then she caught a ride in another vehicle. For free.) There are also taxis (proper yellow ones just like in Cuenca) and taxi-trucks which would seat maybe 4 passengers inside (legally), and then a whole lot more people or goods in the back.

On the left-hand side of the photo is a white with green stripe taxi-truck – these are used to transport people and goods

Most congregations in Ecuador seem to meet for field service quite early (by western standards), such as at 8 am, 8.15 am etc. But because we were planning to go out into the country, the field service group was to meet at 7.30 am! Aaarrrghh!! But we met at the appointed hour, and we survived.

The area we planned to preach was a village up in the hills above Santa Isabel called Huasi Pampa which is 3000 meters (9842 ft.) above sea level. [As a comparison Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia, is 2,228 m (7,310 ft.) above sea level.] It was a dirt road all the way, and while we didn’t come across any other cars, we did see a few people riding horses, but not for recreation; for transport. We came to realise that horses are a very practical mode of transport up in the hills.  

Our first call of the day

We stopped to preach a couple of times along the way to the village when we encountered someone on the road, and when we got to the village we all got out and went in different directions.

Customarily here, when you approach a house, instead of going right up to the house and knocking on the door, you stand back a discreet distance and call out a greeting. This day not many people seemed to be at home although we did find them later, out and about.

                    Nobody home here – the house appeared to be abandoned

On seeing this man in his field, the brothers called out from the road to ask for permission to enter, then walked across to speak to him 

It was rather fun being so far from civilization and witnessing in a way completely different from anything we’ve ever done before. For practical reasons, our attire was somewhat more casual than in western countries; for instance, it makes sense to wear sturdy walking shoes, have a water bottle handy and possibly use a backpack to carry what you need. Sun hats or umbrellas are a must, and Brendan was quite pleased to find that the brothers do not wear ties when witnessing in the country.

A certain amount of exploring was necessary – in the village we could easily see where the houses were, but once we’d left the main area, there were little tracks here and there leading off into the distance, and sometimes we could see a house ahead and we’d follow a track in the hopes it would lead to the house.

Looking down over the little village where we were preaching

Exploring …

This track was rather fun – just wide enough for a person or a horse – and there was even a little house at the end

We found a lot of people going about their daily chores – one of the main activities seemed to be milk delivery by horseback. I couldn’t work out who was actually going to take delivery of the milk, as it seemed the whole population was on their horses complete with two steel containers of milk, one on each side of the horse. But someone suggested that maybe it was being delivered to a milk company.

The horse on the left was tied up, but the foal (on the right) just wandered around as it pleased – as long as it wasn’t too far from its Mum

Horses waiting patiently, and a lady (on the right) leading her milk-laden horse up the hill

Because people were going about their daily activities, some on horseback, some on foot, we tried to speak to as many of these as we could, which sometimes proved a challenge, particularly if they were on horseback as these horses don’t dawdle. I was working along with our friends’ daughter, and at one stage while we were walking down a hill, we realised a man on horseback was riding past us and she went to speak to him, but to do so had to ran after him, as the horse had no intention of slowing down. It reminded us of Phillip the Evangelizer running alongside the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch.

After we’d been preaching for a few hours, we were walking downhill as a group (there were seven of us) and got to a point where the road went down more steeply, and it was thought that there was maybe only one house down there. So, most of us decided to sit in the shade on a grassy bank and have a rest, and let someone else have the privilege of struggling back uphill later on!

                                                        The uphill climb …

It turned out though, that there were 4 houses down there, and at one of them, a brother started a Bible study with a man who said that if they gave him a couple of weeks, he would gather a few other people who would also like to discuss the Bible! The brother also started 2 other studies that day. This would be in addition to the 12 or so studies his family already have between them!

We were talking to one of the pioneer sisters in the congregation who has been in Santa Isabel for two years, and she said she has 12 Bible studies. There are apparently lots of Bible studies to be had in Santa Isabel and surrounding areas; they just need more people to be able to conduct the studies.

The centre of the village – even out here, there is the obligatory volleyball/basketball/soccer court

We saw 2 or 3 pigs out here – this was one of the cutest, though

An old adobe house – also abandoned

The adobe houses have a character to them that the newer concrete houses lack

More exploring …

The lady riding horseback is carrying a baby on her back – you see that a lot in this part of Ecuador, and it’s very practical.

Another little village in the distance, but that’s for another day

There I am, standing in the middle of the road, trying to work out which part of the grassy bank would be best to sit on to rest

We travelled up here in the red 4-wheel-drive next to the house with the green roof – the only other vehicle we saw up here was a taxi-truck which collected a few of the villagers and took them into town.  Lots of horses, though

On the way back to Santa Isabel

We had a thoroughly enjoyable day out in the field (although by lunchtime all this unaccustomed country exercise and activity had rather taken its toll), and although we had the option of going country witnessing the next day (Saturday), we decided to take a rest day so we could be up bright and early (7.45 am this time) on Sunday, as we had a day of witnessing planned in the desert area downhill from Santa Isabel.

But more on that shortly …