Our House in the Clouds: Building a Second Life in the Andes of Ecuador (Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture Series) - Softcover

Blankenship, Judy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0292745273 ISBN 13: 9780292745278

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2013

Synopsis

While many baby boomers are downsizing to a simpler retirement lifestyle, photographer and writer Judy Blankenship and her husband Michael Jenkins took a more challenging leap in deciding to build a house on the side of a mountain in southern Ecuador. They now live half the year in Cañar, an indigenous community they came to know in the early nineties when Blankenship taught photography there. They are the only extranjeros (outsiders) in this homely, chilly town at 10,100 feet, where every afternoon a spectacular mass of clouds rolls up from the river valley below and envelopes the town.

In this absorbing memoir, Blankenship tells the interwoven stories of building their house in the clouds and strengthening their ties to the community. Although she and Michael had spent considerable time in Cañar before deciding to move there, they still had much to learn about local customs as they navigated the process of building a house with traditional materials using a local architect and craftspeople. Likewise, fulfilling their obligations as neighbors in a community based on reciprocity presented its own challenges and rewards. Blankenship writes vividly of the rituals of births, baptisms, marriages, festival days, and deaths that counterpoint her and Michael’s solitary pursuits of reading, writing, listening to opera, playing chess, and cooking. Their story will appeal to anyone contemplating a second life, as well as those seeking a deeper understanding of daily life in the developing world.

About this title

About the Author

Judy Blankenship is an award-winning photographer, writer, and editor. She is the author of Cañar: A Year in the Highlands of Ecuador, and her photographic exhibition, The Cañari of Southern Ecuador, traveled to museums, universities, and cultural venues across the United States, Canada, and Ecuador. With Cañari colleagues, Blankenship has collaborated on several documentary projects with the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, including photographs, videos, audio recordings, and a bilingual Quichua-Spanish book.

Reviews

After several lengthy visits to Ecuador, including two Fulbright grants, the author and her husband chose in 2005 to build a home in a town of 10,000 located two hours north of Ecuador’s third largest city, Cuenca. This thorough book reveals the indigenous Cañari culture from its ancient history up through the impact of Ecuador’s 1999 economic collapse. Then, whole towns of men migrated to “the yonny,” slang for New York. These men wire home money that rejuvenates the economy, with Quichua-speaking plot-farmers counting wads of bills as they step away from Western Union. This same money buys “migrant houses,” the gaudy-colored, concrete-block homes that dot the mountainsides. Blankenship and her husband want a traditional adobe-walled, tiled-roof casa, and they create a small masterpiece. They live there six months a year, and the rest in Portland, Oregon. Blankenship is committed to Cañar. Yet, when she is glad they buy more land to protect their privacy and view, and when she laments a pending housing project, it’s hard not to find this book a bit exclusive. --Dane Carr

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0292745273
• ISBN 13: 9780292745278
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240