The Ecuador Diaries: Part 3

It's our first day going to our work placement, we get up and catch a ride with Ali and Kalina's dad, who muy easy-going and one my favourite people I met there. Ali, Steve and I got off at San Telmo, the ecological farm, where we would work for the first week. Our supervisor Felix, started off by showing us a pile of dirt that we determined he wanted us to fill in a well with, and move the rest next to a pair of banana plants about 10 meters away. He then promptly skiddadles without telling us where he's gone, so we do what we thought he asked. After moving most of the dirt, he turns up, with a bunch of horses he'd apparently left up in the hills to graze. We find out that we've moved the dirt wrong and spend time trying to figure out what he wanted us to do with it. Much later... he wanted us to create a basin of dirt around the two banana plants so that water collected there during the current wet season. At 10 (only 2 hours of work, and we were expecting 6!) we were picked up by Ali's dad again. It's an awesome way to keep cool, standing in the box of a truck going 110 kph between speed bumps, which is uncoincidentally the standard way of travelling. Lunch was fish and rice, which is pretty much all they eat, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We met another relative of the family, Fernando's cousin David, who lives in Puerto Lopez. We decide to walk down to Puerto Rico but meet Ali halfway. Since we only worked 2 hours, we are to go help the people working on the school site.

Building the school was brutal.

We have to dig 6 supporting holes 5 feet deep in the Ecuadorian sun. Dehydration was a big problem, resulting in many people getting sick from sunstroke and various other things that affect anyone with white skin. At 4 in the afternoon, we stop and go to the beach to cool off. Soccer game that night, and I fell asleep to the sound of Bon Jovi on my headphones.

Quito

The Ecuador Diaries: Part 2

I have to come to understand this, while I wake up rested here, I will always feel sweaty, thank God for cold showers. After breakfast, we go down to the "The Boat", which according to a brief history lesson from Wes, was beached by a Swiss expatriate who made it into the restaurant/resort it is today. Gathered on the boat's top deck, we meet Cecile, the head honcho of the project work we are doing here and the owner of the hostel we are staying at. She is a real, honest-to-god social activist, she's active in a movement to promote gender equality here in Ecuador where societal roles are still entrenched. She was almost like Mother Teresa, giving off the kind of energy and idealism that I try to promote myself. We discuss what we'll be doing here, which is to help build a school for the kids in the nearby villages, and what each of us hope to gain from the experience. After lunch, we talk about the itnerary where the next day we'll begin our billet stays and the day after our work placements. I was have been assigned to an ecological farm for the first week, and work on the school during the second. After the meeting wrapped up, we all go down to the beach and I ended up shaken as I got pulled out by the riptide and having to work hard to get back to shore. That night we are introduced to the girl who works are are server in the hostel, she is our own age, 17,, her name is Viviana, and she's studying tourism business at the college in Puerto Lopez, and lives in Puerto Rico, it was really something trying to communicate with her as we only knew a little of each other's langauge. We end up going down with her and playing a game of soccer with the local kids, which is something we'd basically do every night while we are here (they worship soccer here, second only to Simon Bolivar). It is very moving to play with kids that are ridiculously poor in comparison to me, something every spiritual of being able to laugh and play with these kids.

Next day, we pack up and go to our billet homes after being told what to expect. I'm with the half of the group going to Las Tunas, the other half going to Puerto Rico, about a half hour walk away. Las Tunas is the picturesque image of the small, developing world, semi-post colonial village, which seem to have developed all along the coast. After meeting the other host families, Jeff, my billet partner, and I meet our family.

It's a family of three, mom, dad and 6 year old kid. Our mom's name is Miriam and reminded me of a big momma that takes care of everyone around her. Aurelio, the dad, works in the fish-flour factory in Salango, and for most the day he's out working and so much of my family exposure was the mom and kid. Antonio is the kid, and was very taken with the fact that we were much taller than anyone else. We end up spending the first hour in our home renovating our spanish and trying to understand what they were saying, as well as spending a long time trying to tell Miriam that I am a psuedo-vegetarian (the concept of someone not eating something out of choice is very weird to them, it's evidently a very Western idea). A guy turns up at the door dropping off bananas and oranges and tells us they are organic, and from the mountains. I had no idea oranges were so sweet! Any of the fruit back home simply was tasteless in comparison. After more talking we find out that our family, Wes and Steve's family amd Ali and Kalina's family are all related, don't ask how, my spanish couldn't figure it out. After a little time in the village we can also estimate that we live with one of the richest families in the village, our house has tile floors, which is evidently amazingly rich for this area. Also, everything is very cheap, I can buy a big bottle of Pepsi for $1.25. We found another soccer game going on in the center of town, with what looked like most of the men of the villages playing and watching, but there were no girls or women there. We meet Wes's mom, Rosa and his host brother, Fernando (16 years old, but he looks like 12), who for our time here was our best amigo and our guide. He's such a nutcase, (no wisecracks about a kindred spirit) climbing up on his roof and stuff, we also meet Ali's family, one girl Caty (14), and two brothers, Edison and Robertson (7 and 8 I think), and the mom Ellsa, and the dad, who I never figured out his name.

The feeling of community is much stronger here than back in Penticton. We play soccer with them that night (no surprise, every night was basically the same, but it never got boring or tiring, strangely enough), and they taught us spanish tongue twisters (trabajarlenguas, the exact translation is tongue work, haha) and songs. Fernando is really fond of the one english song he knows some of the words to, Hotel California, weirdly enough. It felt really good to have that kind of cultural exchange and was probably one of my happiest days in Ecuador.

The Ecuador Diaries: Part 1

I know it's taken me a long time to have this written, but here it is, it's fullness and completion:

The trip down was relatively uneventful and probably the dullest part of the entire trip. After leaving by coach to Vancouver, where we would stay at a hotel and get the plane to Houston the next day. That night, the IHOP where we had dinner managed to screw up my order and I didn't get it until everyone else had left (worthless place).

The bed was softy and comfy that night.

The next day, we get and proceed through a headache inducing series of luggage hauling, bright sunlight and airport security, not good for inner peace. Landing in Houston, I officially agree with you Ben, it truly is one of the most horrible places on earth. Out the plane window, it's suburbia as far as the eye can see, and the airport terminal at George W. Bush International makes one feel like a hamster inside a steel box. The only notable event was a terrible error on my part for buying a danish from Starbucks, at which Wesley promptly got me to pose for and take a picture, my anti-corporate antics are now on parole, haha. As we fly down to Guayaquil, I can see masses of bright lights shining out of the land below, that we later figure out were the major cities in Central America, including one huge mass that we guessed to be Mexico City. Our first exposure to Ecuador, indeed of South America consisted of touching down at about 1 am local time. With humidity levels at at least 85%, the air was totally sweltering, even though it was the middle of the night. The other was a pair of drunks wandering around the airport lobby, who attempted to pick up a couple of the girls in our group, they were hilarious, speaking in broken english and slopping beer everywhere, but it set the realization that white people tend to singled out, wherever they may be. Driving through Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, at over 2 million people, I have come to understand that there are only 3 rules to South American driving, they are:

1) Driving as fast as you can between speed bumps
2) Road signs are for wimps
3) Why use the brake, when you can use the horn?

The taxi drivers were the worst, cutting in and out with bare inches between cars and going at about 90 kph, but it appears to be the norm, needless to say, the entire trip was filled with reckless, suicidal driving. Another note is that they all drive small, Euro-style cars, none of the hulking automotive monoliths like here in North America. There is also an unreal amount of garbage here, and I don't mean like a pile in the gutter, I mean ankle deep all across the sidewalk, it was incredible. We arrive at the hostel, weirdly enough, called the Hotel California, where we are briefed and shuffled off to bed.

The bed was hard that night, but somehow, more comfortable than the one in Canada.

The showers here, having almost no pressure, are basically holes in the wall that gush cold water out. But it's always so hot, it was always welcome to have a cold shower. We meet our guide for the trip. His name was Xaviar (pronouced Haviar) and he dressed more like a tourist than any of us did, with shirts that look like they'd been cut from tablecloths. Anyhow, we go through Guayaquil, which was a mix of old colonial buildings and modern skyscrapers. Statues are everywhere, mostly of Simon Bolivar and one huge one of the BVM overlooking the city. We climb up 444 steps to a little church overlooking the city and one of the main barrios of the city. Javiar, for whatever reason decided, after roasting up the steps, and spending relatively little time at the chapel, gets us to go back down the stairs, not stopping for anything, he does get better as the trip goes along, but we guessed he was just a bit scared about having to lead around 26 foreigners. Getting on the mini-buses again (lunch consisted a soup and a bunch of other things where we were dictated what we could and couldn't eat) we drive to the main bus terminal where we catch the bus that will take us out to the villages where we'll be staying. It took forever, and in the end, a little kid that no one knew told me to follow him and led me right to the bus. It is so HOT! Fortunately, there are cold drink venders on the buses, no doubt there to take advantage of the fact the buses are cooking. After nearly being killed by the bus driver's driving. We are on the road north up the coast. We got pulled over by the highway patrol at one point, apparently to make sure we, a group white people, hadn't comandeered a public bus for our own travelling needs. Anyhow, we get out to the hostel we'll be staying at for the student orientation, the only environmentally sustainable resort in the country, Hostel Alanduluz. It's much cooler here, away from the heat-gathering pavement. Everthing is very peaceful here, with the Pacific Ocean and the tropical jungle here, and watching the sunset turn red as it went over the ocean.

The bed's there were so soft...