Ecuador Indigenous – Self Help

Nov 8th, 2008 by SteveM

The ‘Cotacachi Olympics’ stimulates the ability of the Ecuador indigenous population to help themselves.

This project was started by by Jorge Quilumbaqui, the developer of Primavera One and Two.

Jorge started off as a laborer for a local indigenous builder and made good after years of struggle. Now he is considered to be one of the indigenous elders in Cotacachi, an example to younger generations of how to prosper in what, years ago, was a difficult environment.

Here’s Jorge, second from left standing with some of the medal winners

Jorge hasn’t forgotten his roots though and employs dozens and dozens of builders in his various projects as well as local girls in his hotel in Cotacachi, Sumak Huasi.

Earlier this year Jorge came to Meson de Las Flores to tell me about his plan to stage an athletics competition for indigenous children. He would call it the Indigenous Olympics and it would primarily be a way to financially help all the different indigenous communities around Cotacachi. Using his own money and also sponsorship the prizes for the winning children athletes would be a computer or school utensils for the entire school year.

Some of the children, in good humor and ready to compete!

Knowing us at Meson de Las Flores very well and also aware that we have the Land of the Sun foundation to primarily help the indigenous in Ecuador, Jorge had no hesitation to ask us to be one of the sponsors of his event. We had no hesitation agreeing to do so!

I find Jorge to be a humble man without any airs or graces, unassuming with conservative style and tastes and with a social conscience – he wants to give back to his own indigenous community.

It was no easy task to arrange the Olympics because sometimes there’s a rivalry between the different indigenous communities and also the children are, for the most part, not used to taking part in athletics events such as relay and long jump. They can all run but don’t know how to start a sprint or pace themselves in the longer distance events.

Here’s some supporters from the Morales Chupa community

Jorge hired a physical education trainer to visit all the 14 communities that were to participate; the trainer spent one day in one community and then moved on to the next community. All in all he spent 2 months training the 180 children who were due to compete.

This child runs wearing the traditional indigenous sandals hand made using fiber from the agavi plant.

The event took place in Cotacachi’s very own sports stadium which is basically a soccer pitch surrounded by a 400 meter track. The stadium started to fill early and the children were all kitted out in their sports kits with the name of the community stitched on to each shirt.

Mostly indigenous spectators look on but middle left you can spot two of our delegates looking on

It was an event for all the family

At the time we were all involved in a Super Spanish course here in Cotacachi so this made a perfect event to visit and try out new phrases we had just learned in class.

Here’s a delegate making some new friends

And I couldn’t escape the photo requests either!

Then the action started and it was time for us spectators to sit back and snap photos, watch others hard at play and marvel at the participation of everyone involved. It was taken seriously with gold-plated, silver and bronze medals and even official time-keeping so that in future years new records can be made and broken.

I don’t know why, but watching the Olympics on tv, especially the drama on the athletics track sometimes makes my eyes water as I empathize with the emotions athletes feel, dreams realized and dreams shattered. Years of effort paying off or disappearing down the proverbial drain.

I looked around our group and lo and behold saw that I’m not the only one who gets emotionally wound up looking at athletics events! Several delegates were wiping tears from their eyes as they watched the drama unfold right in front of their eyes.

So to the action. Jorge’s trainer had done his job well and we saw few false starts

Both boys and girls competed and the joy expressed as they competed, won and lost in good spirits was a pure pleasure to watch.

Finally it was time to award the medals. Cotacachi’s indigenous mayor was on hand as a kind of grand community father-figure to hand over the medals; that’s him in the white pants below ..

… and the pride with which the medals were received and worn was all the evidence I needed to know that Jorge’s efforts to give back to his own indigenous community had proven very successful on the day.

Children walk away with a medal around their necks and smiles on their faces.

Tuesday, as we walk around Jorge’s projects and admire his construction expertise and good taste, I’ll remember this day we spent realizing childrens and parents dreams courtesy of Jorge’s efforts.

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