JULY 16, WEDNESDAY
This was the toughest day of the trip. We left Zaruma at 8:00a.m. We took a different route back to Loja to travel over better roads. While the roads were better it took 4 1/2 hours by jeep to get back to Loja to the Hotel Liberatador. When we had been on radio and T.V. in Loja we had asked people to meet to meet us at the hotel on Wednesday. We arrived at the hotel at 12:30. We were scheduled at 11:00. No one had shown up and no one came while we were there. This technique for seeking out Conversos was not working.
However, while we were there we received a telephone call from the wife of the mayor of Zaruma, Senora Maria Isabel Ocampo. She offered to meet with us on another day. She said she knew of the Judeos or former Judeos in Zaruma. It was impossible to schedule a meeting with her that week. Again, I had to promise my self to follow up this trip with an interview with this lady at some time in the future.
We received a phone call from the station manager at the T.V. station in Loja asking us for a second interview at 2:00 p.m. There must have been some type of an audience response to justify a second interview but we never learned what it was. Eduardo and I completed the interview with all members of the our group in attendance. Right after the interview we headed towards Cuenca for the night. There was another 4 hours of hard driving.
[I would ask anyone with the English name of this deciduous tree that bears these 1-2" yellow flowers , seen on the road to Porto Vello, to contact me: dr.reder@neapolitan.com]
Along the way we stopped in the village of Segura to talk to a group of women and children standing by the side of the road. The women were in traditional dress, fluffy red skirts, embroided blouses, little white Panama hats perched atop black braided hair. From their skin color and high cheek bones these women appeared to be indigenous. Zucky distributed toys and candy to the kids. A truck pulled up and an attractive young blond woman dressed in jeans jumped out.
She was well known by our new friends and on a personal basis with a few of the younger women in the group. Karin Chamberlain was a peace corps worker who had been living in Segura and teaching animal husbandry and farming techniques. She lived alone in a small house and had been there for the past year. She came from Hanover, New Hampshire and attended Exeter Academy for awhile at the same time that my nephew, Tommy was attending Exeter and at the same time that my brother Jim Samiljan was teaching there. Zucky was able to engage her in a serious conversation about the best ways to raise cattle and chickens.
[On the road back to Loja, we stopped for lunch at another small town. One of the members of our party- Andy, photographed this pentagram with Hebrew letters hung on the wall of a local merchant.... Any information?
Please E-mail:dr.reder@neapolitan.com]
We reached Cuenca around 7:00 p.m. and checked into the Crespo Hotel. Eduardo and Emmanuel live in Cuenca and they left to visit their families. We were unchaperoned for the first time. Finally, I was able to reach Kurt Dorfzaun. We made plans to get together. Also, The Israeli Ambassador to Ecuador, Yaakov Paron was in town for an art exhibit and he would try to arrange a meeting. The ambassador had an interest in Conversos and there could be a possibility of a joint effort. Who knew where it could lead?
We enjoyed a good dinner, a bottle of red wine that wasn't bad and we prepared for an early night. After all that driving and the near accident we were pooped.