Tony the Swiss, the Minga and the Mac

Changing the world, one bridge at a time

I've recently spent several intense weeks in Ecuador, living with indian communities in the Amazon Basin and the Andes. I was also in Quito, working with the main indian organization in the country, the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE). Some things I learned have to do with the Mac.

Minga

Minga is a quichua word that refers to projects undertaken by a whole community. For example, if I need to build a home, I call the other members of my village and we all build it. Of course I will provide them with food and drink, and when somebody else needs help I will be obliged to participate in that minga.

When the Amazon communities, basically hunter-gatherers, need to replentish their reserves, a minga is organized in which everyone goes out into the jungle for food.

Petroleum

The word petroleum is definitely not an indian word, but it's used a lot in the Amazon Basin. For them it means, basically, the rape of Pacha Mama, Mother Earth, for profit. Indians don't get anything out of it, except a few crumbs (some jobs as laborers, the privilege of using the oil companies' roads). Wealth generated by oil is sent elsewhere. What remains behind with the indians is polluted water, an increase in certain illnesses and an alarming decrease of game and edible plants (yucca and banana trees are suffering from diseases previously unknown).

There's also the aesthetic aspect: defiling paradise with oil pipes, pumps and refining stations is the equivalent of putting a water pipe through Velazquez's Meninas. But when you see children with their bodies covered with sores, aesthetics seems a mere anecdote. And when you see that the water that these same children drink is permanently covered with an oily film, the word that crosses your mind is genocide. All in the name of human avarice.

Tony the Swiss

Tony the Swiss is an engineer who has travelled all over Ecuador's Amazon Basin -a land crossed by numerous rivers- building hanging bridges. He has made them with the oil companies' waste materials. For labor he has used mingas from the indian villages. I believe this is the flip side of the destruction caused by the oil industry. His motivation has been different: he doesn't get a cent out of it. And his legacy is also quite different: works of an enormous usefulness for the indians.

Plus, the bridges are quite beautiful.

The Mac

I had the privilege of working in Quito with several indian men and women who use a DV-G4-Final Cut Pro system to shoot and edit broadcast-quality video. Native people's organizations are more and more aware of the importance of video as a tool for communications, training and education. Final Cut Pro is allowing them to produce professional-grade materials at minimum costs. If there's a place where the democratization of the audiovisual media is a fact, it's here.

I felt a certain pride seeing that the Mac, in these cases, is still being used for "changing the world, one person at a time". The utopian ideals of those two kids who made their first Apple in their garage may have sometimes grown rusty, but they seem to survive in some ways. They're values closer to those of Tony the Swiss and the spirit of the minga than to those of the oil companies.

Yes, it seems that the Mac is still more than a mere machine. At least I like to believe that it's still so.

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