Ecuador and I have reached our bittersweet end. Tomorrow I sit on a bus for an as-of-now undetermined amount of hours (but at least 10) to cross the border into Colombia.
In the last month I have...
Lived, worked, interviewed, studied, smiled, and played with puppies in an indigenous community of 80 families.
Translated tours of my one-month home, a permaculture farm.
Washed my clothes via bicycle-power.
Wrote a 35-page document in Spanish.
Gotten lost in the cloud forest.
Played the cello (!)
Had good conversation.
Had a picnic at 3850m and discovered the delicious combination of avocado and peanut butter (try it!).
Unexpectedly ran in to someone from my hometown on a street in Cuenca, Ecuador.
Went night swimming in the Pacific and lost my clothes and shoes to the tide.
Met good people.
Found sand in my ears for a week... and counting.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Let me know if you need a new leather belt/jacket/backpack/purse/wallet/horse saddle or reins, because they´ve got a lot of them here.
(Here is a post I wrote in the beginning of April for the Puget Sound website that I forgot to post here:)
So, it´s been long-time-no-post, but luckily absence makes the heart grow fonder (right?), so hopefully you will enjoy a quick update on my Ecuadorian life.
Today marks my official first full day of the second chapter of my study abroad semester. Yesterday, I bid farewell to my Qutio homestay family and hopped on a bus north to a small pueblo named Cotacachi — the Ecuadorian land of leather goods, in case you were wondering — to start my Independent Study Project (ISP). My job for the next month is to live here to research the water distribution and use within Cotacachi through many many interviews with many different people. (Added bonus: I´m living on an organic farm… it has a bicycle-powered laundry machine!) Here, there are a few issues with water, but the overarching problem is that there is a shortage — it´s expected that if things continue the way they are currently going, water will run out within the next 20 years.
There are a few reasons for the unsustainable usage, but one of the big ones is the fact that within the last 5ish years there has been as massive amount of retired grinogs moving to Cotcacachi thanks to two very organized and savvy real estate agents who realized the great money-making opportunity: Cotacachi is a beautiful location at a bargain price, and who wouldn´t want to buy some Ecuadorian land for cheap, hire some Ecuadorians to do the labor for cheap, and then make some green off the profits? May sound ideal, but in reality things are not so pretty. The retirees (or extranjeros, we call them) are creating a separation in the pueblo due to the fact that they don´t speak the language or know anything about the culture. Those that own land can´t really do anything with it (let alone make a profit), and others are living in large apartment complexes that are not only completely against the local culture, but also using a ton of natural resources — especially water (this is where my project comes in). In the mean time, our friends the real estate agents are rollin´ in the dough. The anger of the locals is definitely present: yesterday, another student from my program Stephen and I stepped off the bus in Cotacachi to meet his host family for lunch, and what started as a casual meal ended up as our first informational interview regarding the subject (Stephen and I are studying similar topics, but his project focuses more on the influx of extranjeros and less on natural resources).
So, fellow friends and family, the moral of the story is: before your parents retire and move somewhere exciting and foreign, make sure they´ve done their research.
Today marks my official first full day of the second chapter of my study abroad semester. Yesterday, I bid farewell to my Qutio homestay family and hopped on a bus north to a small pueblo named Cotacachi — the Ecuadorian land of leather goods, in case you were wondering — to start my Independent Study Project (ISP). My job for the next month is to live here to research the water distribution and use within Cotacachi through many many interviews with many different people. (Added bonus: I´m living on an organic farm… it has a bicycle-powered laundry machine!) Here, there are a few issues with water, but the overarching problem is that there is a shortage — it´s expected that if things continue the way they are currently going, water will run out within the next 20 years.
There are a few reasons for the unsustainable usage, but one of the big ones is the fact that within the last 5ish years there has been as massive amount of retired grinogs moving to Cotcacachi thanks to two very organized and savvy real estate agents who realized the great money-making opportunity: Cotacachi is a beautiful location at a bargain price, and who wouldn´t want to buy some Ecuadorian land for cheap, hire some Ecuadorians to do the labor for cheap, and then make some green off the profits? May sound ideal, but in reality things are not so pretty. The retirees (or extranjeros, we call them) are creating a separation in the pueblo due to the fact that they don´t speak the language or know anything about the culture. Those that own land can´t really do anything with it (let alone make a profit), and others are living in large apartment complexes that are not only completely against the local culture, but also using a ton of natural resources — especially water (this is where my project comes in). In the mean time, our friends the real estate agents are rollin´ in the dough. The anger of the locals is definitely present: yesterday, another student from my program Stephen and I stepped off the bus in Cotacachi to meet his host family for lunch, and what started as a casual meal ended up as our first informational interview regarding the subject (Stephen and I are studying similar topics, but his project focuses more on the influx of extranjeros and less on natural resources).
So, fellow friends and family, the moral of the story is: before your parents retire and move somewhere exciting and foreign, make sure they´ve done their research.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Forests, Mines, and Chickens... oh my!
I´ve returned from a fantastic week in a place that could easily be featured in a National Geographic magazine. Last Saturday (Feb. 5) our group took a bus to the Intag Cloud Forest. For those who don´t know, a Cloud Forest is what it sounds like -- a forest in the clouds. There is a lot of rain, and therefore, a lot of awesome biodiversity (and really huge leaves! People sometimes use leaves as umbrellas here... and they do not fall short of the size of your average umbrella, either). From where the bus left us, we pulled on our rainboots (everybody´s best friend here, there is a lot of mud) and hiked for an hour through the greenest landscape I have ever experienced. Our destination was a farm started by a man named Carlos about 30 years ago -- more on him in a little bit. On the farm, compatible crops grow together to create a productive balance and open-air composting toilets hide among the trees. There is no electricity in the (also open-air) cabins and water is only heated by the sun. Basically, very close to a closed, self-sufficient system and really, really awesome.
Now-- a little about Intag and it´s history. Intag consits of many little communities, about 400 people or less in each; between each community is at least an hour hike through the mountains and the mud. Many families within each community maintain a farm on a hillside from which they sustain themselves. The people of Intag have fought a long battle against mining companies (mostly Mitsubishi), who hope to create a copper mine that would drastically damage the region´s unique biodiversity through massive deforestation and contamination of rivers, and cause for the relocation four communities -- and the copper from the mine would only satisfy the world´s demand for two months. Carlos (the man running the farm we stayed at, whom I mentioned earlier) has been the figurehead of the movement against the mine and has done an incredible amount of work bringing people together to fight against the often-overwhelming power of big corporations. It is hard to convey how huge of a problem it is through a blog entry. But it is big enough of an issue that the Ecuadorian equivalent of the CIA at one point showed up unannounced in the middle of the night to the farm (where we stayed) in order to murder Carlos. Yup... there was a price on his head. Luckily, he was given a 5-minute heads up by his friends up the road and was able to escape into the forest. So, in short, Carlos is a BAMF. But he continues his activist work and life on the farm for the time being.
After staying on the farm for a few days learning about mines and plants and other cool things, we set out for a 3-day rural homestay with an Intag family. The house had an incredible view, and was probably about the same square-footage of my Mercer Island home´s living room. Mornings I would be woken up by chickens running through the house promptly at sunrise. I had three siblings ages 8, 10, and 11 who loved passing the ball and running up and down the slopes of Intag. It was a great, surreal experience, and I will never forget watching Michael Jackson´s top music videos with the family on their new TV and being asked to translate his lyrics...
Now-- a little about Intag and it´s history. Intag consits of many little communities, about 400 people or less in each; between each community is at least an hour hike through the mountains and the mud. Many families within each community maintain a farm on a hillside from which they sustain themselves. The people of Intag have fought a long battle against mining companies (mostly Mitsubishi), who hope to create a copper mine that would drastically damage the region´s unique biodiversity through massive deforestation and contamination of rivers, and cause for the relocation four communities -- and the copper from the mine would only satisfy the world´s demand for two months. Carlos (the man running the farm we stayed at, whom I mentioned earlier) has been the figurehead of the movement against the mine and has done an incredible amount of work bringing people together to fight against the often-overwhelming power of big corporations. It is hard to convey how huge of a problem it is through a blog entry. But it is big enough of an issue that the Ecuadorian equivalent of the CIA at one point showed up unannounced in the middle of the night to the farm (where we stayed) in order to murder Carlos. Yup... there was a price on his head. Luckily, he was given a 5-minute heads up by his friends up the road and was able to escape into the forest. So, in short, Carlos is a BAMF. But he continues his activist work and life on the farm for the time being.
After staying on the farm for a few days learning about mines and plants and other cool things, we set out for a 3-day rural homestay with an Intag family. The house had an incredible view, and was probably about the same square-footage of my Mercer Island home´s living room. Mornings I would be woken up by chickens running through the house promptly at sunrise. I had three siblings ages 8, 10, and 11 who loved passing the ball and running up and down the slopes of Intag. It was a great, surreal experience, and I will never forget watching Michael Jackson´s top music videos with the family on their new TV and being asked to translate his lyrics...
Thursday, February 3, 2011
I´M HERE!
Wowza! I´ve been in Ecuador for about a week now and things are crazy in the best way possible. I´m going to try to give a brief summary of the happenings so far.
I flew into Quito (the capital of Ecuador) with a friend from highschool who is also by coincidence studying here on a different program. We settled into a great hostal with fantastic views of the city and a cheap, delicious breakfast ($2.80 for fruit, yogurt, granola, and an 2-egg omelet! Ecuador is so kind to the wallet). We spent a few days before our respective programs walking around the city, exploring the many parks and cobblestoned roads of Quito´s ¨Old Town.¨ Some highlights: having a lengthly conversation with two kind souls running a watch shop who played us some traditional Andean music (guitar and panflute); eating cow´s stomache for the first time, thanks to a slight moment lost in translation; being inspired by hostal travelers bussing around South America and assuring me that really, Colombia is not as dangerous as everyone says (as long as you are smart about it of course); and having our first experience as the victims of a theft attempt (sometimes people squirt things on you in order to distract you so they can steal your bags. Caroline and I got ¨pooped on by a bird,¨ which I am a little suspicious of, given that we were on a busy street and were the only two people hit... and the only white people on the street. Luckily we had read up on the high street crime before we came, so knew to hold on to our bags.).
My program started on Sunday, and it´s been a lot of program-logistics since then. Exceptions include an awesome day trip to Yanacocha Ecological Reserve, where we spent the day hiking through high Andean forest learning the spanish names of flora and fauna and observing hummingbirds from a distance of what I would guess to be less than three feet; and attending an awesome salsa lesson -- perhaps SIT´s attempt to minimize total embarrassment in Quito´s Salsotecas (yay!). I could not be more excited about our program´s itinerary, but instead of boring you by listing it here, I figure I´ll uncover it as the semester progresses. But I will tell you that it´s really, really awesome in the mind of the environmentalist. For example: this Saturday we are taking a bus to a Cloud Forest, where we will be staying for a week to hike through the forest, wake up at 6AM to study birds in the ecosystem, and stay with a rural homestay for three days (among many, many other things). I would say more but I have a lot of reading about Cloud Forest ecosystems that I must attend to...
I hope America is doing well and dandy, and that the music you are listening to over there is better than the American music that they like to play here.
Ciao!
I flew into Quito (the capital of Ecuador) with a friend from highschool who is also by coincidence studying here on a different program. We settled into a great hostal with fantastic views of the city and a cheap, delicious breakfast ($2.80 for fruit, yogurt, granola, and an 2-egg omelet! Ecuador is so kind to the wallet). We spent a few days before our respective programs walking around the city, exploring the many parks and cobblestoned roads of Quito´s ¨Old Town.¨ Some highlights: having a lengthly conversation with two kind souls running a watch shop who played us some traditional Andean music (guitar and panflute); eating cow´s stomache for the first time, thanks to a slight moment lost in translation; being inspired by hostal travelers bussing around South America and assuring me that really, Colombia is not as dangerous as everyone says (as long as you are smart about it of course); and having our first experience as the victims of a theft attempt (sometimes people squirt things on you in order to distract you so they can steal your bags. Caroline and I got ¨pooped on by a bird,¨ which I am a little suspicious of, given that we were on a busy street and were the only two people hit... and the only white people on the street. Luckily we had read up on the high street crime before we came, so knew to hold on to our bags.).
My program started on Sunday, and it´s been a lot of program-logistics since then. Exceptions include an awesome day trip to Yanacocha Ecological Reserve, where we spent the day hiking through high Andean forest learning the spanish names of flora and fauna and observing hummingbirds from a distance of what I would guess to be less than three feet; and attending an awesome salsa lesson -- perhaps SIT´s attempt to minimize total embarrassment in Quito´s Salsotecas (yay!). I could not be more excited about our program´s itinerary, but instead of boring you by listing it here, I figure I´ll uncover it as the semester progresses. But I will tell you that it´s really, really awesome in the mind of the environmentalist. For example: this Saturday we are taking a bus to a Cloud Forest, where we will be staying for a week to hike through the forest, wake up at 6AM to study birds in the ecosystem, and stay with a rural homestay for three days (among many, many other things). I would say more but I have a lot of reading about Cloud Forest ecosystems that I must attend to...
I hope America is doing well and dandy, and that the music you are listening to over there is better than the American music that they like to play here.
Ciao!
Monday, January 24, 2011
This is mostly to test if this whole blogging thing really works.
I am sitting on my bed overlooking the mess that is my room -- it's my island of safe refuge. My mom will tell you that this state isn't too far from the norm (she's right... darn), but in my defense, fitting the next six months (or seven? who knows) of your life into a backpack is not an easy feat. Obviously one can only squeeze so much in a backpack, so hypothetically my stuff should not cover the whole house... but it does. My justification? I have to use as much of this house as I can before I leave, obviously. This is going to be a crazy, fantastic ride. I am so stinkin' excited.
Peace.
P.S. Because I was already looking at maps of South America to jazz up my blog page, I'm attaching one complete with the names of all the South American countries. American geographic knowledge is pretty pathetic in general, so it's okay if you don't know where Ecuador is. But if you don't, you should learn, so here you go:
Peace.
P.S. Because I was already looking at maps of South America to jazz up my blog page, I'm attaching one complete with the names of all the South American countries. American geographic knowledge is pretty pathetic in general, so it's okay if you don't know where Ecuador is. But if you don't, you should learn, so here you go:
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