July 3: Blogging through Ecuador - Prison and Preschool

At the entrance to Peguche Falls there is a village (not sure of the name).

A rock wall crosses the road with an archway over the path that leads to the falls. The rock wall (which maybe six or eight feet thick) is the remains of a prison.

The prison was built in 1613 at the direction of Spanish troops. The sign near the wall says that Spanish forced the indigenous people to build the prison. Then men, women and children were captured inside and forced to work.

This wall is one of the scars of colonialism, racism and xenophobia.

On the backside of the wall, shockingly, is a preschool. A bright and beautiful school of yellow and blue. Ironically, the new school shares a common wall with the old prison. The same wall once used to enslave children now supports a place where they are nurtured.

Martin Luther King once said that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. The backside of this rock wall is one place where the curve of time is visible.