Sign-In
Cart
Our House in the Clouds: Building a Second Life in the Andes of Ecuador
Paperback
Biographies GeneralSouth American History
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780292745278
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: Mar 15 2013
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.80
Height: 0.70 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
While many baby boomers are downsizing to a simpler retirement lifestyle, photographer and writer Judy Blankenship and her husband Michael Jenkins took a more challenging leap in deciding to build a house on the side of a mountain in southern Ecuador. They now live half the year in Cañar, an indigenous community they came to know in the early nineties when Blankenship taught photography there. They are the only extranjeros (outsiders) in this homely, chilly town at 10,100 feet, where every afternoon a spectacular mass of clouds rolls up from the river valley below and envelopes the town.
In this absorbing memoir, Blankenship tells the interwoven stories of building their house in the clouds and strengthening their ties to the community. Although she and Michael had spent considerable time in Cañar before deciding to move there, they still had much to learn about local customs as they navigated the process of building a house with traditional materials using a local architect and craftspeople. Likewise, fulfilling their obligations as neighbors in a community based on reciprocity presented its own challenges and rewards. Blankenship writes vividly of the rituals of births, baptisms, marriages, festival days, and deaths that counterpoint her and Michael's solitary pursuits of reading, writing, listening to opera, playing chess, and cooking. Their story will appeal to anyone contemplating a second life, as well as those seeking a deeper understanding of daily life in the developing world.
Also in
South American History
The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World
Bevins, Vincent
Paperback
The Flying Death: Poison, Plunder, and the Quest for a Miracle Medicine in the Amazon
O'Hara, Matt
Hardcover
A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children
Gilliland, Haley Cohen
Paperback
A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children
Gilliland, Haley Cohen
Hardcover
Aprender inglés para adultos principiantes: 5 libros en 1: ¡Habla inglés en 30 días!
Towin, Explore
Paperback
The Quest for El Dorado: Sir Walter Ralegh and the Search for the City of Gold
Gibbins, David
Hardcover
The Radical Spanish Empire: How Paperwork Politics Remade the New World
Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge
Masters, Adrian
Hardcover
Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela
Neuman, William
Paperback
Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela
Neuman, William
Paperback
Lula!: The Definitive Biography of Brazil's President, Now Re-Elected for a Fourth Term
Lapper, Richard
Hardcover
Angels with Dirty Faces: How Argentinian Soccer Defined a Nation and Changed the Game Forever
Wilson, Jonathan
Paperback
Who Will Speak the Truth?: Buenaventura de Salinas y Córdova's Activist Memorial, Peru, 1630
de Salinas Y. Córdova, Buenaventura
Paperback
English Liberator: William Miller and the Independence of Spanish South America
Hemming, John
Hardcover
Mi Vida Y Mi Carcel Con Pablo Escobar / My Life and My Prison with Pablo Escobar
Henao, Victoria Eugenia
Paperback
The Battle for Brazil: Resistance, Renewal, and the War Against the Dutch, 1580-1654
Litrel, Suzanne M.
Paperback
Child of the Dark: Child of the Dark: The Diary Of Carolina Maria De Jesus
de Jesus, Carolina Maria
Paperback
Life and Death in the Andes: On the Trail of Bandits, Heroes, and Revolutionaries
MacQuarrie, Kim
Paperback
The Inquisition's Gambit: Making Wealth and Race in Cartagena de Indias
Silva Campo, Ana Maria
Hardcover
No Apparent Danger: The True Story of Volcanic Disaster at Galeras and Nevado del Ruiz
Bruce, Victoria
Paperback
The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012-2020
Rodríguez, Francisco
Hardcover
Twilight in Venezuela: Dispatches from My Once and Future Country (Large Print Edition)
Osío Cabrices, Rafael
Paperback
The Battle for Brazil: Resistance, Renewal, and the War Against the Dutch, 1580-1654
Litrel, Suzanne M.
Hardcover
The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon
Whitaker, Robert
Paperback
Emerging El Dorado: Steam Age Expansionism and the Social Worlds of Growth in Argentina
Elena, Eduardo
Paperback
Wallace in the Field: Ethnographic Expeditions and the Rise of Anthropology
Limeira-Dasilva, Victor Rafael
Paperback
Ethanol: A Hemispheric History for the Future of Biofuels
Manuel, Jeffrey T.
Rogers, Thomas D.
Hardcover
The Souls of Purgatory: The Spiritual Diary of a Seventeenth-Century Afro-Peruvian Mystic, Ursula de Jesus
Jesus, Ursula De
Paperback
Rupay: A Graphic History of Political Violence in Peru, 1980-1990
Guevara, Jesús Cossío
Villar, Alfredo
Rossell, Luis
Paperback
People of the Ucayali: The Shipibo and Conibo of Peru
Eakin, Lucille
Lauriault, Erwin
Boonstra, Harry
Hardcover
Political Institutions and Party System Change in Chile: Competition, Realignment, and Breakdown
Alemán, Eduardo
Hardcover
The Inca Empire: An Enthralling Overview of the Incas, Their Civilization in Ancient Peru, and the Spanish Conquest
Wellman, Billy
Hardcover
El Derrumbe de Pablo Escobar: Las Actas Secretas de la Persecución Al Capo Hace 30 Años / The Collapse of Pablo Escobar
Naranjo, Óscar
Paperback
After Escobar: Taking Down the Notorious Cali Godfathers and the Biggest Drug Cartel in History
Feistl, Chris
Balboni, Jessica
Mitchell, Dave
Paperback
Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist
Rohter, Larry
Paperback
Portuguese Jews and New Christians in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822: A New Geography of the Atlantic World
Marcus, Alan P.
Paperback
Mi País Inventado / My Invented Country: A Memoir: Spanish-Language Edition of My Invented Country: A Memoir
Allende, Isabel
Paperback
Under the Flags of Freedom: Slave Soldiers and the Wars of Independence in Spanish South America
Blanchard, Peter
Paperback
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega: Literary Genealogies of an Indigenous Intellectual in Nineteenth-Century Peru
Ward, Thomas
Hardcover
I'll Samba Someplace Else: A Spatial History of Race, Ethnicity, and Displacement in São Paulo
Britt, Andrew G.
Paperback
Aztec Science: The Genetic Origin of Maize, Pollination, and Plant Sexuality Recorded in Art
Burgos-Ellis, Helen
Hardcover
Afro-Peruvian Mestizos: The Invisibility of Blackness in Post-Abolition Peru
Cozart, Daniel S.
Paperback
Traveling with Che Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary
Granado, Alberto
Alvarez De Toledo, Lucia
Paperback
Mourning Remains: State Atrocity, Exhumations, and Governing the Disappeared in Peru's Postwar Andes
Rojas-Perez, Isaias
Paperback
Indigenous Struggle at the Heart of Brazil: State Policy, Frontier Expansion, and the Xavante Indians, 1937-1988
Garfield, Seth
Paperback
From Virile to Sterile: Science, Masculinity, and Modernity in Argentina, 1776-1852
Novoa, Adriana
Paperback
Reinvention and History Making in Huarochirí: A Local Narrative of Colonialism in the Peruvian Andes
Hernández Garavito, Carla
Hardcover
Who Will Speak the Truth?: Buenaventura de Salinas y Córdova's Activist Memorial, Peru, 1630
de Salinas Y. Córdova, Buenaventura
Hardcover
The Five Hundred Year Rebellion: Indigenous Movements and the Decolonization of History in Bolivia
Dangl, Benjamin
Paperback
Flashes in the Dark Volume 2: USAF Nuclear Espionage in Argentina, 1960-1966
Marón, Gustavo
Paperback
Exploration Fawcett: Explorer Percy Fawcett's obsessive Amazon expeditions searching for a fabled lost city
Fawcett, Percy
Paperback
Forty Days in the Jungle: Behind the Extraordinary Survival and Rescue of Four Children Lost in the Amazon
Youkee, Mat
Paperback
Principles in Power: Latin America and the Politics of U.S. Human Rights Diplomacy
Walker, Vanessa
Hardcover
Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians Volume 2
Foreman, Grant
Paperback
History of the Inca Realm
Canseco, Maria R.
Rostworowski de Diez Cans, Maria
de Diez Canseco, Maria Rostworowski
Paperback
The New Kingdom of Granada: The Making and Unmaking of Spain's Atlantic Empire
Muñoz-Arbeláez, Santiago
Paperback
Bruchko and the Motilone Miracle: How Bruce Olson Brought a Stone Age South American Tribe Into the 21st Century
Olson, Bruce
Paperback
The Monumental Andes: Geology, Geography, and Ancient Cultures in the Peruvian Andes
Chambers, Roseanne
Paperback
Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist
Rohter, Larry
Hardcover
The Slum and the City: Culture and Dissidence in the Villas Miseria of Buenos Aires
Codebò, Agnese
Hardcover
Flashes in the Dark Volume 3: USAF Nuclear Espionage in Argentina, 1967-1974
Marón, Gustavo
Paperback
Brazilian History and Mythology: An Enthralling Journey Through Brazil's Past and Legendary Myths
Wellman, Billy
Hardcover
Brazilian Mythology: Enthralling Folktales, Vibrant Folklore, Mythical Legends, and Deities of Brazil
Wellman, Billy
Hardcover
In the Darkness of the Cinema: Gender and Moviegoing in Early Twentieth-Century Urban Brazil
Suk, Lena Oak
Paperback
Revolutions in Cuba and Venezuela: One Hope, Two Realities
Romero, Carlos A.
Pedraza, Silvia
Paperback
Extraordinary Threat: The U.S. Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela
Podur, Justin
Emersberger, Joe
Paperback
Health in Ruins: The Capitalist Destruction of Medical Care at a Colombian Maternity Hospital
Abadía-Barrero, César Ernesto
Paperback
A New History of Modern Latin America
Clayton, Lawrence A.
Conniff, Michael L.
Gauss, Susan M.
Paperback
La Cuarta Espada: La Historia de Abima El Guzmán Y Sendero Luminoso / The Fourth Swore
Roncagliolo, Santiago
Paperback
Globalizing Chocolate and Tobacco: Medical Exchange in the Early Modern World
Polansky, Susan G.
Paperback
In the Hands of Devotees: Indigenous and Black Confraternities and the Creation of Visual Culture in Colonial Lima
Gómez, Ximena A.
Hardcover
Either Catholicism or Liberalism: The Pastoral and Circular Letters of St. Ezequiel Moreno y Diaz
Moreno Y. Diaz, St Ezequiel
Paperback