Fair Trade Blog

Watching tagua go from scruffy looking nuts to beautiful carved animals was one of the unforgettable experiences I had in Ecuador. 

In Washington’s workshop in a little village near Montecristi, I watched as a proud little elephant emerged from the single nut he picked from a loose pile against a cement block wall.  

In his shop, which employs several people and supports Washington’s family, there are several stations with grinding and polishing tools. At each station, the carvings are carefully shaped and manicured into beautiful, but unique, perfection.

First he cut the top and bottom off the nearly 3-inch traingular shaped nut.  The solid white flesh was exposed as he took the squared off nut to a grinding station.  Quickly and skillfully, Washington held the nut against the grinding wheel to begin to give it a shape.   The hump of the back emerged, then the head, followed by the legs.  Last, the beginnings of a trunk poked out of the head.  He held it up so that we could see, while explaining what he was doing.

Next he took the newborn tagua elephant to a polishing wheel. After grinding, the surface of the elephant was grainy and dull.  Achieving the glossy finish of the final product took several polishing steps.  Washington continued to work on the elephant by polishing away the rough edges and further refining the shape of our new little friend. 

After taking off the rough spots, Washington took out his portable drill and began scoring details into the surface.  Then he drilled small holed for the tusks. 

Finally, our little elephant went to the last station.  Here, one of Washington’s workers continued the polishing process.  The little elephant was polished several times with finer and finer sand paper on the wheel. 

At last, just as in real life, our elephant got little tusks which had been shined on the same wheel. 

It all took less than twenty minutes, but was certainly more involved than I would have imagined.  There is much more work required than we saw.  The nuts have to be collected by liberating them from massive fruit pods that look like a giant spiny clutch of eggs.  

Washington is one of the most skilled tagua carvers in Ecuador.  We’ll be featuring some of his work soon! 

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Ecuador sits on the middle of the world.  While I was in Quito, the capital, I visited a museum where you can stand with one foot in each hemisphere. 

Our guide showed us a sundial with two faces, one in each hemisphere. For six months of the year, you can tell time on one face, but for the other half you have to look at the opposite face.  Most amazing were the physical “tricks” the equator can play on the body. 

For example, our guide encouraged me to hold my hands together in front of me.  He told me to keep them still while he pushed them down.  Of course, it took some effort on his part.  Then as I stood on the equator, arms raised parallel to the line painted on the pavement.  With no effort at all, he pushed my arms down.  I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it myself.

And, of course, our guide showed us how draining water will swirl in opposite directions on each side of the equator.  It’s a fact we all learn in grade school, but I felt like a kid again seeing it happen in person. 

It’s all meant to give tourist a wide-eyed experience, but it’s only one aspect of a country that is literally spread across the middle of the world in four dimensions.

Hillside in Quito, Ecuador

Quito itself, cupped in the magnificent hands of the Andes Mountains, is 9,000 feet high.  Traveling any distance away from the city is a trek down as much as it is away.  On our first travel day inside the country, we took a bus from Quito to Santo Domingo on the coastal Plains.  First we traveled higher through a mountain pass.  The landscape thinned to dry rocky crags where short grasses and scrubby bush struggled to survive. 

Traveling down out of the mountain pass was like being on a slow motion elevator in an aberretum.  Desert landscapes gave way to forest, then lush jungle.  Each few kilometers  of our decent brought a whole new landscape into view.   At last, the bus stretched out into the coastal plains where giant palms, flowering trees, lush grasses and towering bamboo crowded every foot of the view.  

Ecuador is home to nearly any climate you can imagine save the winter’s we have here in the midwest, which makes it one of the most biodiverse countries in the world.

More on my Ecuadoran adventures soon! 

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