Our House in the Clouds : Building a Second Life in the Andes of Ecuador

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. "where we are" by Gerald Locklin Introduction Part One 1. Planting a Tree for Plinio 2. On Becoming Property Owners in Ecuador 3. How Much Will All This Cost? 4. Construction Begins, Poco a Poco 5. “You’re Going to Live Here?” 6. The Lives of the Workers 7. Carnival: Sins and Repentance, Abundance and Reciprocity 8. Sticks and Stones, Mud and Horse Manure 9. We Become Padrinos . . . Again 10. Strike! 11. Putting Out Fires 12. Personae non Gratae in Ecuador: (or) Why We Went to Peru Last Week 13. On Becoming Residents of a Foreign Country: (or) “Just Go Get Married Again!” 14. Leaving Cañar Part Two 15. The Return 16. On This Day a Year Ago 17. Reality Sets In 18. The Devil Is in the Details 19. A Short History of This Place 20. Moving Day 21. The Wasipichana 22. The Mysteries of the New House and a Mother’s Visit 23. Mama Michi, Curandera 24. Coming Home to Cañar 25. Neighbors and Fences 26. La Uyanza: A Gift of Sustenance 27. Life in Town 28. Living in Two Worlds 29. Epilogue: What on Earth Are We Doing Here? Acknowledgments This compelling memoir by the author of Canar: A Year in the Highlands of Ecuador vividly describes an American couple's experience of making a second home in a rural Andean community in which they are the only outsiders.