Letter to the Ingeniero

My wife Anita Rodriguez, and I, Patrick McCaffrey, own 50 hectares of land on the Guayllabamba river, a short distance above the proposed location of the Mandariacu hydroelectric project. It is our home in Ecuador, and we will be living there permanently in July of this year. We have been building a house and other cabins and living there part of the time since 2004. There is currently a family living there as our caretakers, Lucho Obanda and his wife and daughter.  We bought the land to protect it as an ecological preserve and to create a small ecotourism business centered on environmental education.  We understand from the project proposal that the Mandariacu dam will flood a large part of our property that includes all the houses. It will also flood the home of our neighbors on the adjacent property, as well as the road and the bridge that crosses the Rio Guaycuyacu.
We are very concerned that we will lose all we have worked for for many years. We respectfully request that the location of the Mandariacu project be reconsidered to avoid displacing us from our home, our neighbors from their home, and flooding the road that provides access to the town of Santa Rosa. 

Sincerely,

Patrick McCaffrey y Anita Rodriguez

His Reply:

Estiamdos Señores 
Patrick McCaffrey y Anita Rodriguez

De mis consideraciones:

Me permito informales a ustedes que los estudios del Proyecto Manduriacu se han inicado recientemnte; y que, la definición de las características del mismo tiene un proceso un tanto prolongado en donde se considerarán aspectos soicles y ambinetales  como el que ustedes describen. Mucho agradeceré  mantenerse informados de los resultados de los estudios a través de la Gerencia de Desarrollo humano de Hidroequinoccio quines son los voceros oficales del propietario del proyecto.

Atentamente,  

January 2010 - last trip to California

We just got back from Ecuador and we had a wonderful trip. Pat, Mateo and I enjoyed good times with our Ecuadorian family, in our cozy apartment in Quito that looks like a home now, and a couple of trips to our beautiful nature preserve Yanapana in the rainforest. As many of you know, we plan to live on our land and develop a project of Ecotourism focusing on environmental education and community projects.  We see many opportunities for us to help in this area and I am sure we will know what to do once we are there. Since our last trip 1 ½ years ago, our caretakers finished “cabana #2” (does not have a name yet) which will provide sleeping for up to 4 people. They are also in the middle of building a third cabin named “Casa Grande” (the big house). This building will be a communal kitchen, living room and dinning room.

As we were leaving Ecuador on Thursday, we received news from our neighbors (who also own another nature preserve) that the government is looking into building 9 hydroelectric projects on a river that borders our lands. This project is in its early stages of study. If one of the dams is built where the project says, our land and our neighbors land will be flooded! We will do whatever we can from here to oppose this. We need to legally register our land as a nature preserve and hope that the government will consider the environmental impact in this area and move one of the dams further down the river. In the mean time we will go ahead with our plans.

We were a bit sad to come back but look forward to good times here in California before we move for good sometime this year.

Looking back at 2009, we were so thankful for the arrival of our son Mateo who has brought so much fun into our lives. Thanks also to my mom who has been helping us so I can continue to work and invest in our project in Ecuador. She is back with us now for the last few months.

Pat and I enjoy our jobs with Hidden Villa and Environmental Volunteers and will be sad to leave them because of the good friends we made here.

Looking forward to 2010, we will be getting ready for our move! We do not know when exactly as we need to save enough $$ for a truck. We have finished paying the property, the apartment in Quito and now we need a good vehicle to go from Quito to the land. It could take up to 6 hours by public transportation if available but it only takes 3 ½ hours in a truck.  On this last trip to Ecuador we took some things we want to keep and left them in Quito. Some other things will go with us when we move. We do not plan to ship or air mail anything since it could be very expensive so we will be selling and giving away what we have. 

We would like to recruit all our friends contact information to keep in touch from Ecuador.