brainstom week 8- Teresa Bonilla

Feminista movements in Ecuador are very deeply tied to the idea of la pachamama, Ecuador was the first country to grant inalienable rights to nature in 2008. However the deeper goal of the powers at play here was not in fact to really protect the nature that eco-feminists and indigenous peoples had been working towards but instead to recolonize these spaces. Even with this law, indigenous peoples in Ecuador are still fighting to protect their land and la pachamama. They are fighting to live peacefully in coexistance and coivencia with nature. In convivencia there is not a part that is being exploited, it is all about living in harmony and working together. La pachamama provides for the indigenous peoples and in turn they take care of her and honor her.

La pachamama is about resilience she has existed and likely will continue to exist, unless we as humans disrupt that. She has provided for all allowing us to survive and thrive, she allows us to be resilient, she brings healing to many through her beauty and her medicine, she is strong and always changeing, they water that flows on her can take anything the wind sweep it up, and she has learned to adapt to the things that hurt her. She provides inspiration and a reason to fight to the indigenous peoples, because they know that our resilience is not possible with her. Pacha to me is a bottle, like that which a mother would give to its baby with milk. She is not just out mother but our source of life and sustenance.