Congreso!

Last week we divided into our separate tracks for development related classes. I am in the Microfinanzas group which I am enjoying a lot more than I expected, especially considering how I felt about economics when I left Grinnell in December. For the first week we were supposed to have a Professor named Fabián Calispa but he was only able to be there the first day because he is strongly involved with a movement of various organizations that are currently fighting in Congress for a law to promote and support food sovereignty in the country through various measures. He wasn’t in class for a few days because he was in the debates in Congress but we all really liked him. He came back for his final class today and I asked him more about what he had been doing with the food sovereignty law and he mentioned that the second debate in Congress was this afternoon and there was going to be a demonstration in support of it at 3 in the afternoon. I got really excited and invited myself/our class to attend which he was totally in support of. As soon as class was over my friend Erin and I ran upstairs to find Emilia, our academic coordinator, and ask permission for the five us in the microfinanzas track to ditch Spanish class to go to watch and listen to the debate in Congress. She said that would be fine so around 2:15 we left CIMAS with vague directions on how to get to the Congressional Building. Somehow we made it there with the help of hand gestures from friendly people on the street and some wandering around.

When we arrived Fabián happened to be standing right there and made us feel welcome amongst the dozens of campesinos and activistas. After waiting around outside the building for a while, we formed lines of men and women separate to go through a very lax security process to enter the building. The men got patted down while the women just had our bags glanced into. We entered a room overlooking the Congressional hall separated by glass to observe the debate about the law for food sovereignty. I admit that none of us understood totally what was going on because everybody spoke very passionately and rapidly, but it was incredibly interesting to observe the process. As far as we could tell there were a few Asambleístas totally in favor of the law, several that spoke generally in favor but criticized certain aspects and called for changes or additions, and one really angry lady that seemed totally opposed to it. We left before the debate was over to make it home before dark and for dinner and we couldn’t find Fabián to get a summary of what exactly had happened.

Tonight over dinner we were watching the news because several major roads from Quito to the Coast have been wiped out due to heavy rains which is a huge deal, especially with Carnaval (a holiday which many people travel to the coast for) coming up this weekend. My mom is pretty bummed that they probably won’t be able to travel this weekend. There was a short segment on the news about the debate and it was pretty sweet to be able to say I was there and heard those people speaking, and then see it on TV! It was also awesome to experience a part of real life in Ecuador related to the policies and themes we have been sitting in our sheltered classroom discussion. I was proud of myself for making that happen for my class!