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We spent most of the day waiting around for a phone call from Freddy Ehlers, a politician we had arranged to interview. Originally we had planned to meet him in the early afternoon in between his meetings with the president and other ministers but his schedule changed and it wasn't until almost 5 when we got a call to come to Quito and meet him. Freddy Elhers is one of the most well known faces in Ecuador. For many years he hosted and produced one of the most popular television programs here, as well being heavily involved in politics for the last ten years. He has served as a member of parliament, been a candidate for president and is now Secretary General of the Andean Community of Nations, a very powerful political post.



We arrived at a building where he was having a meeting and were told we would meet up with him after he was finished and do the interview then. We waited another hour or so before we finally got to meet him. He told us we could do the interview right then and there or back at his house in a couple of hours. As the building was an awful government type of building we said shooting the interview at his house would be great. In the meantime he asked us to sit down for some coffee and talk about our project. 



Freddy is an interesting man, calm, composed, full of energy and charisma. He spoke freely about his own personal beliefs and ideas in a way that US politicians would not do. It appears there is more freedom here in Ecuador for politicians to talk freely (at least with Freddy) without the fear of angering their party or special interests. Freddy was excited about our project and shared his belief that people’s consciousness needs to change and recognize the oneness and interconnectedness that is present in life. He said he has felt a shift in the last few years and that more people are interested in creating unity, even in government and business where he works. He was just starting to tell us about his personal spiritual life and how it impacted his work in government when his assistant's phone rang with a call for him. The Ecuadorian secretary of state was calling to say that the president had asked for her resignation, which was a big deal considering the government was sixteen days old, and the secretary of defense had been killed in a helicopter crash a few days before. Freddy said he had to go, but that he would meet us at his house in a couple of hours.



It seemed that this would be a promising interview....



We arrived at Freddy's house and were soon set up for the interview. It wasn't until after 11 p.m. that Freddy arrived, and another 30 minutes before we started the interview. We picked up our conversation where we had left off some hours before with Freddy telling us that six years ago he discovered Zen Buddhism, and that it had changed his life (can you imagine an American politician saying that?). He said that after he started meditating he began to see how it was possible to live and work in a different way and that he has been encouraging his colleagues to meditate and observe a daily silence. He said that through his practice he had experienced moments of oneness and those experiences had dramatically effected that way we related to people in his political life. I tried to ask him questions about how political systems and structures could change to reflect the experience of oneness we had shared with us, but didn't get much of a response.

What I had hoped would be a promising interview about a practical approach to oneness in a political context turned out to be more of a personal account of how a spiritual practice like Zen meditation can change your life. 

It was close to 1 a.m. when we headed back to the home of our host Juan Alfonso.

We would be getting up in a couple of hours for an early flight to Cuenca and a drive to the area of Saraguro to meet a Quicha shaman named Don Alberto Taxo.