Segundo is the last of eight, born in 1948 on the hacienda. He has six children; three girls and three boys. He finished his college education in his thirties, followed by a bachelor degree as a mature student. As a youngster he was one of the first in Quilloac to finish primary school and the only sibling to complete secondary school. Two of his sisters are illiterate. Segundo consequently places great importance on education, reflected in his community participation vis-à-vis education in Quilloac. Nevertheless, when it came to his children’s education, family economics and the birth rank of specific children were clearly linked.
Karina is Segundo’s eldest child, born in 1971. When Karina was a child, life was difficult economically for her family. She recounted how, in order to compensate for the lack of resources such as socks and shoes, she would exchange her polleras with her friends’ socks, to see what wearing them was like. This was an important memory, chuckling away as she told it, explaining how:
… I had the socks secretly. When my parents went out, I would put the socks on and admire them in the mirror. I don’t know why I did this, maybe because they didn’t have money to buy socks. So for a second I would put them on, and hide them straight away. I couldn’t keep them on! That is a memory I have of my sad life. I guess maybe as my parents had to deal with school clothes etc. for six children, they maybe had low economic resources to buy things. That is bad-luck.165
Being the first-born put Karina at a disadvantage, as her parents could not provide all that she needed due to responsibilities to her siblings. However, she recounted how she received a pair of canvas sandals in fifth grade, which ‘was something very exciting and made me happy. This was the first gift from my parents’.166 It appears
that her family’s poverty significantly impacted Karina as a child. Nonetheless, she finished school up to eighth grade, and was very happy because:
I hadn’t got married. I was very proud of this. My cousin and I finished together as single girls. All the others had already got married. We watched how they suffered from marital abuse, from lack of support from parents. They always suffered. They were not free and happy like we were. We were relaxed and happy.167
This tells how, in the past, marrying at a young age amongst the Cañari was common. Nevertheless, when Karina wanted to continue her studies at university, her parents said, ‘there is no money to spend on you going to university’, because she still had five siblings that needed supporting. For this reason, her parents told
165 … yo así ocultamente tenía las medias. Cuando mis padres salían, yo sabía poner las medias, y sabía estar
así mirándose en el espejo así. No se porque que es lo que paso, porque no dieron comprando, y vi las medias. Entonces, un ratito ponía, en seguida escondía. Ya no podía poner (chuckles!). Eso es mí, una vida triste que tengo de recuerdo. No séé, a lo mejor mis padres por tener seis hijos tenían que atender a los estudios en el vestuario, en todo. A lo mejor pareció estaban con bajo recursos económicos que no dieron comprando. No sé. Eso es una negreta, sí. Interview: Cañar, 5 July 2011.
166… algo emocionante, algo alegre, digamos. Primera vez obtener ese regalo de mis padres. Interview: Cañar,
5 July 2011.
167Entonces, en cuanto a los estudios, yo termine así, como les digo, felizmente señorita hasta octavo año. No
case. Eso era mi orgullo, que termine yo con mi prima, los docitos, fuimos señoritas. Las demás eran todas casadas. Veíamos como sufrían las mujeres por el maltrato de los esposos, por el no apoyo de los padres, por los hijos mismos. Ellas siempre siempre sufrían. No eran así, libres, alegres, como nosotros. Entonces pasábamos así tranquilas, alegres. Interview: Cañar, 5 July 2011.
her to become a teacher: ‘so there was no opportunity for me to continue studying’.168
Born in 1987, Alejandra argues that her familial position has provided some advantages in life that her older siblings did not experience, particularly her sisters. This she states is because she has been ‘very spoilt, too spoilt’ as a consequence of being the youngest.169 Firstly, as a child, Alejandra had different roles to play within
the family. She was not expected to help work land but only assist her mother with the animals at home. As an adolescent she would participate in the mingas on Mondays and Fridays, replacing the work of her mother in the afternoons. Alejandra also experienced a benefit from being the youngest in relation to education:
Well, due to being very spoilt, I have the advantage in that my father said, “look for a career that you like”. As generally my parents would say to my sisters, “no daughter, there is no money, you can only study at college and no further. You finish and become a teacher”. On the other hand, as I was the last daughter, they said, “go to university, we will send you to the university where you want to go. Choose the one you like, and if you want, we send you outside of the country. I had a treasure in that way.170
This contrast between parental attitudes serves to highlight the significance that family economics can play in the educational attainment of children. In Chapter IV, Segundo is referenced as saying that he encouraged his children to study (page 145). This is notably true, yet there is a discrepancy in the level of education each child has achieved through his support.
Alejandra commented that the motivation for her to continue with university education not only came from the fact that she enjoyed it, but it was also due to her parent’s influence:
My father said to me, “but my love, if you get married and have children, what are you going to do?” … I was very pampered. I didn’t have the experience that my siblings did; they worked, they knew how to work in the countryside and I don’t! So my mother said to me, “my love you are a spoilt one. How are you going to live here, what are you going to do in the countryside? You don’t even know how to raise a cinchona tree, a hen”. My mother said to me, “How will you live? No, you have to continue studying.
168Entonces ya no había la oportunidad de continuar estudiando. Interview: Cañar, 5 July 2011. 169… “muy amada…demasiada animada”. Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
170Bueno por ser muy amada, tengo una ventaja de que mi papi decía 'busca tu carera, la que te gusta' porque
generalmente [a] mis hermanas, …mis padres dijeron, 'no hija, no hay plata, tienes que estudiar, digamos, colegio y nada más. Acabas y haz profesora allá. En cambio, yo como fui la última hija, 'ándate a la universidad, te vamos a mandar a la Universidad donde QUIERAS, escoge que te guste, si quieres, te mandamos fuera del país..bueno'. Tenía un tesoro así. Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
Despite me as I am, without shoes, hats, living disorganised, you have to study”. So they began supporting me.171
Alejandra describes herself as being rebellious during her adolescence, and got married at the age of sixteen. She had planned to go to college and study biological chemistry, as she enjoyed everything that was related to health sciences, and later attend Universidad San Francisco de Quito. However, once she got married, this altered. Although her parents said they would continue to support her in going to university, the options she previously had over study location changed:
Luckily my parents continued helping me. As the tradition in my comuna is that, when you get married, you live apart, and you have nothing related to your parents name… but I say the advantage of being the last is lucky. My parents helped me once again. They said, “you are young and we don’t want you staying that way. We will continue to support you. But the only disadvantage is that you can only go to Cuenca. We will not support you in going to San Francisco de Quito”. Those were my punishments.172
As such, Alejandra began university as a young woman. Karina, on the other hand, spent sixteen years working as a teacher before beginning university part-time at long distance. She previously aspired to study psychology at university, but as a consequence of her various years of work experience, began studying a degree in basic education.
Despite two different processes occurring for two members of the same family, both can be attributed to the influence of their parents, particularly Segundo. He is a driven and determined character who came to understand the importance of education and its significance in life. Segundo’s respect for learning has been passed down to his children, as Alejandra says that her parents were some of the first
171Mi motivo para seguir…si más bien era por el gusto y porque, más también es que era la influencia de mis
papas. Mi papa me decía 'pero mija, si es te casas, ya tienes tu hijo, que vas a hacer?'… es que yo era muy mimada. Yo no, yo no, yo no viví la experiencia de mis hermanos; trabajar por ellos, trabajar, saben trabajar en el campo y yo no! Entonces me dijo 'pero mija vos es una mimada una. Y como vas a vivir aquí, que vas a hacer en el campo, ni sabes crear un quino, una gallina' así me decía mí mami. 'Cómo vas a vivir? No, tienes que seguir estudiando. Y yo como sea, aunque me quede sin zapatos, sin sombreros, vivo descasas, pero vos tenés que estudiar'. Entonces ellos empezaron a apoyarme. Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
172Por suerte mis papas me seguían ayudando porque la tradición de mi comuna es que ya cuando te casa, te
casaste, tienes tu vida aparte, ya no tienes nada lo que es a nombre de mis papas, así…pero por suerte yo digo eso es la ventaja ser última. Mis papas me ayudaron otra vez. Me ayudaron y dijeron 'ya pues eres jovencita, no quiero que te quedes allí. Te vamos a seguir apoyando. Pero lo que es desventaja solo tienes que ir a Cuenca, nada más. No puedo ayudarte en que vayas a la San Francisco de Quito… tampoco vas a Cuba'. Esos fueron mis castigos (chuckles). Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
people to educate their children in Quilloac.173 Karina also noted how her success of
becoming a teacher had been attributed to the support of her parents:
…for example, I graduated in the third class of teachers. But we were considered to be the first professional women in the comuna. And so I watched people admire and thank my father, saying, “look, how your daughters study, how your daughters move forward, we congratulate you for supporting your daughters, and you for continuing with studies”. And we were the examples, let’s say, for other women to continue studying.174
While interviewing Alejandra, I asked about her experience of university. She told me that she had a child when she was 17, who died a month later from pneumonia. Alejandra tearfully told me that that is when her “fight” began:
Firstly it is a loss, and from then on began another failure, and another and another, which were traumatic for me. For me finishing university is going to be a victory because I have gone through so many things.175
Here she referred primarily to becoming a mother again, confronting living costs, and experiencing difficulties in her conjugal relationship:
Besides having another daughter, and watching her by my side, I put up with my husband, and economics too, as you don’t have the freedom to ask for money from your parents. I can’t say, ‘Dad, I need money for books and materials’. Studying orthodontics, the materials are expensive and it is really hard. Sometimes I would eat, others I wouldn’t… I’d study at night and spend the day with my daughter. During exams I would barely sleep in order to look after my daughter. I maybe slept two or three hours. So the first three years were a sacrifice.176
After Alejandra began a degree in orthodontics she and her husband separated for several months. Alejandra believed that because they married so young, followed by the loss of their baby, they did not understand each other well. They lived separate
173 Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
174…yo por ejemplo gradué, salí de maestro profesora de la tercera promoción. Pero fuimos consideradas como
primeras mujeres profesionales de la comuna. Entonces la gente le admiraba y agradecían. Yo le vi agradecía a mi padre, diciendo que 'vea, como como estudien sus hijas, como avanzan sus hijas, felicitamos por apoyar a sus hijas, y Ud. también continuar con los estudios'. Entonces felicitaban a mi padre. Entonces fuimos las primeras profesionales digamos. Y nosotros fuimos los ejemplos, digamos, de otras compañeras, de otros jóvenes que continúan, continuando digamos estudiando. Interview: Cañar, 5 July 2011.
175Desde allí empezó mi lucha. Primero es un fracaso y desde me fracaso empezó otro fracaso y otro fracaso, otro
fracaso, que era traumas para mí en la niñez. Pero que le diría. Por ejemplo, para mi acabar la universidad va a ser un triunfo porque tuve que pasar por tantas cosas. Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
176…además tener otra hijita, tenía que ver a mi hija al lado, aguanta las cosas en mi esposo, y la economía
mismo, porque ya no tienes la libertad de pedir plata a mis papas. Por ejemplo, decir 'Papi, no hay tal, necesito para libros, necesito para misma materiales de ontología'. Estudio ontología, y las materiales son caros y es bien difícil. A veces pasaba comiendo, a veces no comía. Las noches estudio y de día paso con mi hija. Las exámenes igual, amanecía ni dormía una horita allá en el día, acompañando un poco mi hija también, dormía 2 horas, 3 horas y ya. Fue un sacrificio, mi primero, segundo y tercer año. Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
lives, in which he was a musician and she simply wanted to concentrate on her studies. He would go out at night, returning home late, attempting to ill-treat Alejandra due to drunkenness:
After the trauma of losing our daughter, we were like, ‘you have your life and I have mine’, until a certain point. Up until the point that we exploded… So we had to separate. We said, ‘if you want to separate, let’s separate’. So we separated for eight months and I was on my own. It was hard.177
During the same time as their separation, Alejandra was struggling with her anatomy module and failed the class. Another family member told her that her husband had been unfaithful while they were separated. This caused Alejandra to fail the module exam and repeat the course; ‘It was terrible. Nobody knew or could understand it’.178
This situation that Alejandra encountered serves to demonstrate how emotional trauma through domestic relationships can impact on educational achievement, potentially undermining processes of empowerment that might be occurring as a consequence of studying at university.
Over time, Alejandra said she began to move on, and one of her professors gave her a job as an assistant in a clinic in Cuenca; ‘I began to gain strength’, she said.179 However, at this point, her husband realised that Alejandra was growing
distant:
He realised that I wasn’t putting any interest in him and he began to look for me, win me over, and send me flowers, chocolates, whatever he could to recuperate things. He’d cry over the phone, calling me.180
Alejandra decided to give their relationship another opportunity. Two months after they got back together, Alejandra fell pregnant again. Though this time she described having another child as being a much more positive experience:
177Después del fracaso de mi hija cambio, éramos “tú a tu vida y yo a mi vida”, hasta a un cierto punto. Hasta
un punto que explotamos. Mi esposo, él es músico. Somos bien opuestos. Entonces, yo quería mi privacidad, yo quería mi tranquilidad, nada de bulla, nada de molestia, es para poder estudiar, concentrarme. En cambio mi esposo cogía la sala, y tocar cosas eléctricas. Ya bueno entonces ya nos fuimos poniendo reglas. “Vos de tal hora a tal hora, pues en seguida”. Pero unión así, no, no funcionara. Y mi esposo, quería salir de las noches a los conciertos, salir con sus amigos, salir a sus farras, y yo tenía que estar en la casa. Y también, en cambio, mi esposo llegaba en las noches, en las madrugadas. Sería 4 de la mañana, 5 de la mañana, borracho. Y a veces con los celos, a veces intentó maltratarme y todo. Era tan inmaduro o algo así, ‘porque me ama, me pega, porque me ama, me celas. Bueno ya. Y tuvimos que separanos. Dijimos 'no, ya, si quieres separamos, separamos'. Y nos separamos casi 8 meses y yo aquí solita. Si, era difícil. Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
178Era terrible. O sea nadie no sabía ni entendía. Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011. 179Empecé a coger fuerza. Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
180 …ya olvidando de mi esposo, mi esposo empieza dar de cuenta que ya yo no le tome interés a él, empieza
buscarme, empieza de conquistar, mandarme flores, chocolates, lo que sea, pero contarle recuperar. Lloraba por el celular, me llamaba. Interview: Cuenca, 15 June 2011.
With her [daughter] everything changed. My husband changed his behaviours, he only went out a little, he always let me know, he never raised his voice to me, he always accompanied me to see my parents, he helped me. From then on I began to change.181
Alejandra and her husband had learnt from their previous experience, each altering their behaviours for the sake of their child and their relationship. Accommodating the role of motherhood alongside her studies, nevertheless, was difficult for Alejandra:
Up until six months all they do is sleep. So it was great when she slept, as I