Tags
Farm life in Latin America, fresh cheese, images of horses, jama ecuador, Let's Be Wild Black and White, life in rural mississipp delta, Life on a farm in Ecuador, manabi ecuador, mule wagons, Nostalgia, Nostalgic images of mules, old fashion corn harvest, Queso Fresco, Shrimp farming, wooden saddles
Manabi Ecuador
Growing up on a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta, I thrived in the natural world of fields and hardwoods and that grand Mississippi River. Horses, cattle, mules and chickens shared as much of my attention as the fields and lakes and river did. Fishing, water skiing and horseback riding provided endless outdoor entertainment, and the summers slipped by way too fast. Life in Ecuador reminds me of that vanishing idyllic syrupy life of my childhood when summertime was oh so very easy!
Enjoy Norah singing Summertime while we wipe away the color and pretend we’ve stepped back in time.
…
My neighbor Jaime
Jaime says, “HOLA! Fish for sale!’
A few locals describe my home as an islita – ‘little island,’ since it is nestled between Rio Jama and a shrimp pond! Tucked half a mile across the shrimp farm is my friends’ cattle farm. Let’s go see some horses and cows!
Floating out of the misty recesses of my memory bank, memories from long ago resurface as I explore my friends’ farm on Ecuador’s Pacific Coast. At times, the years are wiped away, and I am young and full of wonder. The wonder has remained a lifelong companion.
The corn is harvested by hand and carried across a footbridge. How well I remember shucking corn by hand! Why? Because I enjoyed the task!
Planted by hand; harvested by hand.
Going home after a long day.
Mules, just like in the old days! We sometimes hitched a team of mules to the wagon and journeyed three miles to town! All was great until we pointed the mules toward home, and we sometimes risked a runaway mule wagon!
Wooden Saddle
Crates of Queso Fresco (Fresh Cheese)
The Mississippi Delta did not have shrimp ponds, but there were many rice fields and catfish ponds! The shrimp harvest in Ecuador relies on manual labor, and the walk-on helpers are paid with shrimp!
My life-long friend Andalyn will testify that we shelled our share of lima beans while growing up, though we never dreamed that their origin might have been Lima Peru!
No thanks, I think I will shell my own!
Sometimes the cowboys dress up and go to town!
Farmers bring their cheese to town each Friday afternoon and sell it to a buyer. They meet at my friends’ home, which is the cheese-trading headquarters!
Sampling and Weighing Queso Fresco
As with the shrimp, the buyer and the seller write down the information for each crate and agree on the grand total. Town bustles throughout the weekend, and the horses, burros and mules enjoy their days off as well!
Going home; what’s for dinner?!
Going Home…
Going Home – Fish for Dinner!
Leave your boots at the door; there’s no place like home!
See more black and white images at this week’s Let’s Be Wild then hop over to the party at WordPress and enjoy neighborhood images taken by telephone. Since I don’t own a telephone, I hope WP will forgive me for submitting ‘normal’ images, although my neighborhood is far from normal!
Zeebra Designs & Destinations 
Beautiful shots. Except for the weather and the shrimp, this could have been the Berkshire mountains of New England where rural farms abound, and where I grew up. Thanks for sharing the memories
so true; they also have palm trees and bananas! i’ glad you enjoyed the post. thanks! lisa/z
What a great idea to return the photos to black and white. Reminds me a bit of my youth too when I was surrounded by sugar cane fields. No mules though. I am curious about the cheese. Perhaps you have mentioned it previously in your posts. I researched a bit on your fascinating yucca bread and some of the recipes suggest using a white mozarella type cheese. I am guessing that could be the substitute for queso fresco.
yes, the queso fresco is the fresh straight-from-the farm cheese and it’s used in soups, stuffed inside of the pan de yucca and ‘bolones’ and and and – it’s found most every day somewhere in the lunch special. i’ve asked xavier to come get me one day when he has time, and we’ll ‘walk’ through the cheese-making process as well as other tasks on the farm.
one can buy little saucer-shaped orbs of brown sugar – i forget the name, but yes, the province has many products made from sugar as well!
My mouth is watering.
Is it just sugar, or is it like our pralines? No pecans there, I’m sure, but the candy would be delightful nonetheless!
Great photos! And the black and white just give it that yester year feel. What a wonderful neighborhood.
yes, it’s nice to have a mix of that nostalgic old life and modern technology as well! thanks for your feedback!
Told with love. And I’m lovin’ that shrimp!
$1.50 a pound.. the larger ones, i think they are selling them for 2.50 a pound.
thanks! z
I’m living in the wrong country!
explosion of unexpected laughter!
It looks really idyllic and I am sure it would be the same in color too! Wonderful photos, so atmospheric. I wonder how the cheese tastes? The mules are lovely. We have donkeys in Jamaica but you don’t see mules so often these days…
in warmer climates, the cheese usually has a lot of salt to help preserve it; the flavor of the cheese depends on the grass that the cattle eat. in the dry season, the flavor is different than in the rainy season. some cheeses are a bit like chewing soft plastic, and a few are soft and amazing like goat cheese. cooler climates/hills or higher altitudes, produce a ‘better’ cheese as well.
it’s rare to find a good sharp cheese, though it’s nice to have msg-ffree cheeses!
z
Really beautiful captures! And with N.Jone’s Summertime you have made it…complete.
thank you so much! i’m glad you enjoyed the post!, and yes, norah could make ’99 bottles of beer on the wall’ a nice tune!
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though a black and white gallery, we can feel the summertime, Lisa! and for the music: Norah Jones is great! Maybe Janis Joplin too …
thanks! i considered putting that one on as well, though i thought norah would project the right mood. yes, this is a great one – what an amazing woman!
I hope some of your Mississippi memories arise too …
Great documentary! Thanks for sharing.
thank you so much! thanks for taking the time to read it! z
You really have managed to maintain your sense of wonder. It comes across in everything you do — though I tend to think of you in color, not black and white. Still, stunning photos and a delightful journey to your part of the world again. Thanks, Z.
ja! that comment made me think of ‘mary’s rainbow zebra’ – because she said that she couldn’t paint a black and white zebra to represent me! it’s a lovely piece of art!
https://playamart.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/z-for-marys-zebra/
thank you so much!
z
What a fantastic post..i do see many similarities between your birth place and Ecuador.. a slow, lazy way of life.. wonderful. I’m curious, how did you come to live there and for how long have you been there? It’s such a wonderful town you live in..
Ecuador first called through the beautiful hammocks, masks, ceramics that I saw in Costa Rica… Whenever I had time and air fares were fair, I visited new areas of Ecuador. I first came to this area for a friend who wanted me to help him find a shrimp farm to buy. I found a beautiful property for him here, and I also found a beautiful community of gentle people who are now my friends. Ironically, my friend (who wanted the shrimp farm) died about ten days after I emailed him the photos and info about the area. Tony is responsible for getting me to this area, and perhaps that is why he touched my life.
Wonderful Z!
thanks, amiga!
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I love your colourful photos, but black and white speaks so much within them. I think I will be singing Summertime all day long now!! Love the boots at the door 🙂
Great collections of photography once again my friend 🙂
thank you, jake!
I wish I’d have had access to material like this when I was studying geography at school! You provide a wealth of information in an attractive manner and illustrate your account beautifully.
what a beautiful comment! thank you so much!
you are right; so many times students are presented with boring facts and few details about the true essence of a country. when i was about ten or eleven, our studies about argentina gave me my first taste of wanderlust, and i aspired to one day live there and raise quarter horses we had quarter horses when i was growing up)
it’s been rewarding as my journey slowly takes me closer to argentina!
Enjoyed your photos, they are beautiful and genuine!
thank you! i enjoyed sharing that part of my ‘ecuador experience.’
love the photos in B & W..for some reason it seems to capture the essence of Ecuador..more so than color shots
hey! thanks! maybe because so much of life here in manabi seems like a step back in time?
hey, we were ‘rain free’ last night! in a few months we will be wishing for these rains!
nice shots to depict the surroundings. any reason for depicting them in black and white?
http://amarnaik.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/phoneography-challenge-my-neighborhood/
let’s be wild’s weekly challenge is for images in black and white… on reflecting on these images, they do help convey the mood of this area through the black and white as if we are looking into the past. life here is very much like that; time slows down. people smile. a lot. they are unhurried and are kind and gentle and nice with simple expectations of the day! there’s little stress, probably why everyone is so relaxed!
I adore this post Lisa so much! Sounds like you had quite the childhood! I enjoy learning about that part of he US as I honestly don’t know much about it. Lovely!
i chuckled! just pick up a copy of Huckleberry Finn, and you’ll be transported downstream to the oxbow lake where I grew up!
z
Cool! I bet my kids will want to read it soon. I can hardly remember it it has been so long. Maybe I can read it with my 8 year old son, Max? !
Nice post Lisa. I dabbled in BW photography years ago, and learned very quickly that it separates the good photographers from the “also rans”. I found in my own photos that having bright colors to fall back on made me lazy. Color could make my mediocre shots slightly better. However, without this color, the composition, subject and light become everything. I have a spiffy new camera that has BW capability, so I may give it another try. ~James
hey! thanks! i always enjoy the mood that black and white gives certain images. i think that my training as an artist helps decipher good contrast which is often hard to determine. i often would ask students to make a xerox copy of a painting, which instantly showed them the lack of contrast – everything ended up as middle ground! i’m lucky to have realized this years and years ago!
i look forward to seeing new images from your spiffy new camera!!!
z
What a great grouping of photographs and stories. I especially like the one of “—My neighbor Jaime.”
I love my neighbor Jaime! He is a constant on the river unless the rio is bravo, and then he stays out of the water.. Smart Man!
Beautiful post Z, loved the final shot the best 🙂
thank you; i enjoy photographing those fun-but-necessary boots, so i really enjoyed seeing that cluster outside someone’s home!
z
fantastic neighborhood… really like this 🙂
thank you! it’s a great place and oh so relaxed!
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thanks, amigos!!!
z
What an awesome post Z! Looking at black and white photography always seems to take me back to my childhood, and yours sounds wonderful. Great selection of song for this post. 🙂
thanks! i’m glad you enjoyed it! it was a fun one to assemble, but wow, it was hard to stop!
I love my rambles around your piece of paradise, your photos bring it to life and I think the black and white give it a serenity
I love the last photo the most – the one of the boots. And I had to do a double take at one – it looked as though you had sneaked a Mississippi tree in for us!
All of our family vacation photos are black and white, and there is something wonderful about them. Besides – black and white film photos last far better than early color. Some of the photos I took in the mid-to-late 60s already have faded out so much they’re truly ghosts of their former selves!