More of life in the campo

I am sore. Life in Quito was lazy…I rode buses, sat in class, ate a lot of bread, hung out, read…here is a completely different world. In the campo (country/rural area) people work, people do everything for themselves, people walk to get places, there are mountains to climb and things to see that you don’t have to be afraid of leaving the house to do. I love it here. Life is calm. Everybody greets each other when they pass walking down the road. Trucks stop to pick up people walking along the road. Today I spent a lot of time walking down the roads totally lost and unable to find my house. It was the first time I didn’t get picked up or dropped off by Runa Tupari people and took the bus from Otavalo. I literally got dropped off on the side of the road and pointed in a direction. I wandered the roads for over an hour not recognizing anything and asking directions. Like I mentioned before, people like to pick a direction and point…eventually I made it home, then promptly left with my host family to go pick choclo (like corn)…more walking to the field. On the way home we stopped at the house of the abuelita (mother of Alfonso) where my family has cuyes (guinea pigs to eat) and chickens where we fed the cuyes leaves from the choclo. My mom accidentally knocked off a cement block from the retaining wall of the cuyes and killed it. They were all very sad, especially my little sister, because they hadn’t planned to kill it today….I don’t quite understand because they would eat it in a few months anyway…

It’s a community—everybody works for themselves and is self-sufficient but at the same time is thinking about the good of their neighbors and how they can help out. Every weekend there are “mingas” which are group projects in which at least one member of each family in the community has to go work or else the water to their house will be cut off. Currently my community of Santa Barbara is working on constructing their own water system because right now they have to buy from a neighboring community. On Saturday I am going to work on the minga with Alfonso, my host-dad here.

A bit more about my family here:
Soledad—another young mom, 30 years old, but at first I would have guessed older. She is currently campaigning to be elected Concejala for the canton in the upcoming elections in April. I don’t completely understand the local political structure yet, but I think her position is similar to a city council member. She is very busy visiting the communities to meet everyone and working for her party in hopes that they win on April 26th. I will be living here through May 1st so I will get to see the whole process. Even though I don’t know much about the other parties and candidates, I am a fan of her party because their logo/flag is a rainbow flag which is by far better looking than the other candidates. I hope they win because the house could get pretty depressing if not.

Alfonso—my host-dad who works the night shift of security at a hotel in Cotacachi, the town about a 20 minute walk from my community. Cotacachi is known for its leather production. I might have to splurge on a leather jacket because I have always wanted one and even though they are expensive here, in comparison to the States they are really cheap and why not buy straight from the artisans that make them? Alfonso cooks when Soledad isn’t around and last night he made a delicious meal…I was impressed. Overall he is pretty quiet and doesn’t talk much unless I ask him questions.

Emily and Sawani—Two little sisters, ages 6 and 8 respectively. These two girls are incredibly dramatic. There is a constant stream of shrieks, giggles, crying, laughing, whining and more shrieking coming from them. It’s going to take while to get used to that after my incredibly well behaved little brothers and sister in Quito. Today I helped my mom with dinner and made Guacamole. Sawani was in the kitchen and criticizing the way I cut onions to Soledad, then complaining that there wasn’t enough salt or lemon even though for me it was super salty and lemony…oh well, I thought it was delicious. The two girls also whisper a lot in front of me and giggle and look at me. It makes me kind of uncomfortable because I can rarely understand what they are saying unless they are speaking directly to me because their voices are so shrieky and whiney. But they are cute and it’s good for me to have the experience of living with younger children.

My work: For the internship I am going to spend Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday working at a “vivero” or plant nursery which is a project of UNORCAC, the indigenous organization of Cotacachi. Runa Tupari is also a project of UNORCAC which is why the two projects are connected. I will start there this Monday and will write more about that when I know more about what I will be doing. Thursday and Friday I will be in the Runa Tupari offices translating some promotional documents to English, talking to tourists about tours we offer, and going on tours especially to translate when the tourists don’t speak Spanish. As well as working in both these places, the idea is to learn about the fields—local agriculture practices and native plant species and community-based tourism—and hopefully come up with a theme to write my 25 page monografía on relating the two concepts. We’ll see how that goes…

Life is good. Food here is all locally produced, if not produced by the family themselves. Everything is fresh and delicious. I’m going to come back with some new recipes. I made friends with the guide on our hike today, Hektor, who also produces organic agriculture to sell and generally is working to be totally independent and sustainable. I’m going to go work with him when I have time to learn the practices here and see his inventions. He told me about a washing machine he made powered by a bicycle, among several other creations. I can’t wait to go check it out. I have lots to learn from life here.

Life in the Campo!

I live in a very rural area. Like a 20 minute walk from Cotacachi then a 30 minute bus ride to Otavalo where the offices I work in are located.

Today I went on a hike for work. Kevin and I were supposed to go with a French tourist but he never showed up so we ended up just the two of us going with the guide. Hector, our guide is a super cool guy that I had really interesting conversations with about organic agriculture and sustainability with during the drive up. The hike up was difficult, especially since I haven´t really excersised since leaving and because of the altitude. But we made it to the top just after the clouds rolled in so we couldn´t see any of the view. Oh well, good times. The way down was a big game of trying not to slide too much. It resulted in lots of laughter and mud all over my pants...good thing I have to wash all my clothes by hand here.

More about my family and internship later. This is going to be an adventure!

Off to the campo

Today is chaotic, as are many days in CIMAS, but this is the last one for a while. tomorrow we are meeting here at 7 am to go drop everybody off at their internship sites.

i know i will be working with an ecoturism organization.
i know the names of my family, but nothing about them.
i don't know what i will be doing everyday.
i don't know where my community is exactly except that it is near Cotacachi.

i'm nervous. i'm excited. i can't wait to go. i don't want to leave.
i love my friends here. i love my family here. i love that i know the city now. i feel comfortable. i know that this will be good for me. it will very different than anything i've ever experienced for sure.

i'll keep ya'll posted when i get the chance and know more...

Spring Break 2009: Pick a Direction

Spring break on the coast was a blast. We (Erin, Ashley and I) named the trip “Spring break 2009: Pick a direction” because whenever you ask people directions here they don’t want to look they don’t know so they pick a random direction, wave their arms pointing and very convincingly assure you that your destination is 2 blocks straight, then turn left for another block and you will find it. Lies. You follow their directions only to be directed back exactly where you came from. The same thing happens with time until arrival at a destination. It’s always 2 hours more until you get there, whether you have been on the bus for 3 hours or 7...We had a general idea of where we were going and when-ish we were going there but our trip was pretty much just go with the flow.

Quick summary:
Friday night we took an overnight bus to Canoa, a small, relatively quiet beach town where my friend from grade school and middle school is currently living. We crashed with her for a couple nights, hung out on the beach, met her friends and relaxed. Monday morning we left for Puerto Lopez and spend most of the day traveling. We arrived in Puerto Lopez sunburned, sweaty, hair going crazy from the wind whipping through the buses and starving. Our Couchsurfing friend randomly found us in the restaurant we were eating in and we headed to his house. While it wasn’t a bad situation with him by any means, it was slightly awkward and uncomfortable so we only stayed with him one night then found a hostel the next morning. Puerto Lopez is very dirty and slightly bigger than Canoa, but it is really a service town for a National Park, tours to islands and paragliding! We spent one day out on a boat snorkeling, fishing and checking out the birds on the islands which was a really good time. The next morning Erin and I went paragliding—INCREDIBLE! I was up in the air for about 20 minutes riding the wind back and forth along the cliffs lining the coast. So beautiful! That afternoon (Wednesday, I think) we headed down to Montañita, an incredibly touristy party town with a beautiful beach. We met up with a couple other groups from CIMAS that were traveling the coast and spent the whole day laying on the beach and swimming in the ocean. I freaking love the ocean. I could spend all day just swimming and body surfing. Montañita was fun for a day, but the music was blasting all night until 8 in the morning and it was a little too crazy for me. Canoa was definitely my favorite beach town, but we only saw about a third of the coast and only 3 beach towns. On Friday morning I got up at 4:30 to head down Guayaquil, the other big city of Ecuador. There is a Maharishi School there, similar to the one I attended for 10 years and I wanted to check it out. Fátima, the mother of an Ecuadorian woman that I met in Fairfield before I left, spent the whole day with me showing me around the city and took me to the Liceo (School) Maharishi. They are on vacation now so I didn’t meet the students but it was really fun to see the school and I could feel the consciousness and peace there similar to the feeling in Fairfield. That afternoon I met up with Erin and Ashley who had slept in and we crashed at the house of her “host-nephew” who is actually 30. The next day we strolled the Malecón, a beautiful walk along the riverfront of Guayaquil, then Fátima and her mother and aunt took us to the Parque Historico, an interesting museum/park/art exhibit/zoo. Last night we got on a bus back to Quito and arrived home this morning around 6. It was an amazing week of adventures, friendship, relaxing and enjoying!

Today is a laundry and errand day. Tomorrow is orientation at CIMAS to go to our internships then on Tuesday we all head out of Quito. Time is flying!

Spring Break!!!

Today I finished classes at CIMAS in Quito! Woo!

At 8 tonight I am hopping on a bus with 2 of my good friends, Erin and Ashley, to spend our spring break on the coast. After a 9 hour bus ride through the night we will arrive in Canoa at 5 or 6 tomorrow morning. We are going to stay and hang with my friend Katie who is living and teaching English there for a few days then head south to Puerto Lopez, Montanita and Guayaquil. It should be a relaxing and exciting week o vacations!

Then off to my internship when I get back! Time is really flying here.

Still alive...

I kinda fell off the face of the earth with blog updates but just wanted to say I'm still alive and lovin' life in Quito. This is my last weekend in Quito, then one more week of classes here, then a week of spring break on the coast with 2 of my best friends here, then heading to Cotacachi area for my internship! I'm finally finding a lot to do in Quito and I'm not quite ready to leave. But I am ready to be done with classes and onto my internship.

This weekend I am staying in Quito again to spend time with my family and friends before we all disperse. I am probably heading to a farm tomorrow that we visited yesterday on an observation trip with microfinanzas to do work outside and learn more about the awesome closed-loop system they have going on there. If it wasn't too late I would probably try to change my internship to this farm, but at least I can get my hands dirty and be outside for the day!

:) Ami