The email with everything in it--travel, alums, internships, and paramilitaries...
Hi Professor O´Neil,
This e-mail has been long in coming. First, let me say that UPS Politics people do indeed flock together! We had a lecture from two U.S. State Department representatives from the US Embassy here in Quito and the Political Officer was Mark Pannell, UPS Politics and Government Class of `89! Small world.
Times down here have been pretty fascinating with elections coming up on April 26 and doing work on the politics of alternative development with a group called Defense of the Community of Intag (DECOIN) which is a region in Imbabura, the province directly above Pinchincha (where Quito is located). This group has been resisting copper mining by Canadian companies since the late 90s. My advisor is Carlos Zorilla, the president of DECOIN and, interestingly enough, was targeted for assasination by paramilitaries hired by two companies and had to live in hiding and change his appearance on two separate occasions. He has recently brought charges against a number of Canadian companies for violations of the Ecuadorian constatution, so while he´s a busy guy, he´s an amazing resource. I´m excited to have the opportunity to work with him.
At the same time I´m working as a consultant for Earth Economics (I think I mentioned this) on a project doing a cost-benefit analysis of ecosystem services provided by the Intag It is actual, factual, on the ground development work and I´m happy as a clam building alliances, conducting interviews, and talking with stake-holders. Today I had took two kids from the street out to lunch after I spoke with them for a bit about their work. It´s crazy to see how prevelant the informal economy is here and how sistemic it actually is. David(10) and Efran(11) came in and offered to shine my shoes (which I didn´t need). But in the process I asked them what they made, if they made enough, and (because they looked like hell, but dirtier and more thin) when the last time they had eaten. I suppose it was for my own selfish reasons, but I asked them if I could buy them lunch, proceeding to glean some insight into the effect of poverty on these kids. After asking if they went to school, Efran said he did, likes math and wants to be a doctor, but David responded that he couldn´t becasue he didn´t have good shoes. He proceeded to show me the gaping hole in his shoes that went from the middle toe around to nearly his arch. That was the only thing that (he said) was keeping him from going to school. Shoes are cheap (to we comparatively rich americans) so I sprung for a $15 pair, and he said I was a gift from God. I can´t believe that something as seemingly trivial as a pair of shoes can stand between a ten year old kid and his education...like we have reasons to complain.
Any way, I´m learning a great deal and am looking forward to hearing back from the enrichment comittee about a research grant proposal I submitted. If it goes through I´ll be continuing looking at Intag´s development model through the political lens of the Correa administration´s populist rhetoric concerning mining revenue. He has pointed to mineral wealth as a source of funding for social programs, but he´s quoting a ridiculous figure ($220 bn revenue), when less than 7% of the reserves are ¨proven,¨ the rest are possible reserves (which are least certain). Furthermore, only 5-7% of the actual $220bn quoted would stay in the country. If we´re critical (which numerous economists here are), we find only a meager amount that would be gained, only for 10-15 years and at the cost of some of the richest areas of environmental importance to both the carbon and water cycles. All that said, I really hope to have the opportunity to continue on this.
