We wanted to change the world song by song, book by book and we sang: I only pray to God that the war is not indifferent to me… And we read hurriedly and gladly. We wanted to change the world song by song, book by book and we sang: We will win, we will win, we will know how to win… Úrsula Iguarán and La Maga and Beatriz Viterbo and Gregorio Samsa… populated our days and our dreams. We were young and oil arrived.

Military dictators paraded it in an imposing parade down Shyris Avenue, and we were given tiny casks dressed in tricolors that promised prosperity. The social studies teacher talked about how we were going to sow black gold, mom got rid of her tired electric stove and replaced it with a gas one. Everything promised, our dreams of justice were fulfilled: Huasipungo, never again, Las cruces sobre el agua, never again, Baldomeras never again.

We trusted the dictators and the teacher, but oil in Ecuador not only spread its blackness through the jungle, streams and cities, but also brought a large, inefficient, heavy, obese bureaucracy. Not only did he bring money for a few new rich people who neither sing nor read, but he rooted the most terrible corruption in the bowels of the homeland.

In 1991 or 1992 I traveled to Oriente to gather information for an ecological directory. I traveled, saw and was horrified by the poverty and abandonment of Lago Agrio, Duren, Shushufindi, Koko and other towns whose names, due to so much misfortune, I even forgot. I met a priest from the Populorum Progressio mission. He told me that all the rivers in Orellana were polluted and that the cancer rate was already causing people to die.

Bishop Aguarica recently recalled that on April 7, 2020, 15,600 barrels were spilled into the Coca River and assured that environmental remediation was not carried out.

Those who want to take advantage of Yasuní tell us that this time it will be different: that this time the wealth will be shared…

Adrián Palacios, a link from Coca, came to my narrative workshop. Their stories exude the sound of the jungle and the power of indignation: “There is no potable water, the quality of electricity, healthcare and education are far behind. We have records of unhealthy and malnourished children under 5 years old…”.

Those who want to take advantage of Yasuní tell us that this time it will be different: that this time the wealth will be shared; that it will not be contaminated; that in the end the operation will be transparent. Oh my God! Paradise at our feet.

Empty promises, equal to those of a battering husband, a cheating wife or a pedophile patch. They vow contritely that it will be the last time. What did they take us for? Do you think the poor endangered toad poster is deceiving us? No, that one doesn’t convince us.

I vote yes because I saw that the oil arrived and everything turned black, dark, strange. Although we want to change the world book by book, poem by poem, they appear as evil spirits Oil festival, by Jaime Galarza Zavala, published in the 1970s, at the time of the first oil boom; and, Oil festival, Fernanda Villavicencia, from the decade of the second boom. So we sing, but quietly: What does your love leave me but regret…? (OR)