Leaving

Things I will miss about Santa Barbara/Cotacachi/Otavalo:
-Rincón del Sol—$1 best banana splits ever
-Walking to work with cows
-Walking home from Cotacachi into a stunning sunset over the mountains
-Walking to Cotacachi when the music on my ipod matches perfectly with my mood and I feel on top of the world
-Oskar’s pizza!
-The food—it’s all fresh, whole and delicious with a fresh fruit juice at every meal
-My big comfy bed
-Working with my buddy Kevin Keen
-Greeting everyone I pass on the roads in the communities


Things I will not miss about Santa Barbara/Cotacachi/Otavalo:
-Walking home in the rain
-My whiney, screaming, crying, complaining host sisters
-Moscos—not mosquitoes…far worse. They are small and black and their bites itch 10 times more than mosquitoes and leave scars for much longer
-Having to be home by 6:30 everyday because the last bus from Otavalo leaves at 6:30 and its dangerous to walk in the dark—not because of robbers but because you are likely to run into a cow or fall on a rock or be eaten by a dog
-Finding slugs in my shoes, frogs under my shoes and spiders lurking around
-Political campaign songs
-The papa truck that drives around the communities with a loud speaker announcing that it is selling papas (potatoes) at all hours of the day and night
-Getting in trouble with my mom for not greeting people that greet me—friends of hers that I met maybe once or didn’t even meet but saw in the truck when the picked her up once tell her that they saw me and greeted me and I didn’t respond. This happens on a regular basis, but unlike them, I stick out and you could spot me from three blocks away and wave and I would have no freaking clue who it was, if I saw anything because I have taken to ignoring random strangers shouting at me
-Dirty clothes
-Its always cold…not really cold but just cold enough that its not pleasant

Losing and winning

My mom's party lost the elections which means a pretty somber mood in the house. From what I can gather she is not as sad for the fact that she lost herself, but more for the mayor that has been in office in Cotacachi for 12 years is now gone. She and my host dad are pretty bummed, especially because the new mayor is from a neighboring community called Turuco. Turuco and my community, Santa Barbara are currently in a heated conflict over rights to a source of water that is located in Turuco. I don't understand all the details but my dad goes to meetings pretty regularly with lawyers and Turuco keeps doing sneaky, underhanded things like cutting the pipes that Santa Barbara has worked hard to install. So the last few days have been dramatic, sad, emotional and tense in the house.

One good thing that happened was that yesterday I finally accomplished a small project! This is a big deal because it is so freaking hard to get anything done here. I finished making signs with the Spanish, English and Scientific name of all the plants at the vivero I have been working at, as well as the classification of the plant--fruit,reforestation, etc. Small victory for me!

I leave on Friday but have a lot to do before then. Unfortunately, I am waiting for a meeting this afternoon to be able to get started on my mountain of work. Hopefully all goes well and the meeting actually happens!

Politics and Rainbows

The political campaigning is in full swing here with nationwide elections for all levels of government this Sunday. My host mom is a canditate for Consejala Urbana with Pachakutik, the indigenous party that is supposed to be all indigenous people and everyone united. Alas, as always in politics there is division...which here leads to intense rivalries between the communities. I don't quite understand all the details of the history of the split among the indigenous communities, but I do know that it is not pretty. Starting on Friday, the sale of alcohol is banned until after the elections. The most annoying part of the campaigns are the pickup trucks that drive around with loudspeakers mounted on top blasting campaign songs and messages.

Last night my host mom invited me to go to "La cierra de Campana" (Campaign closing festival) in a community. My friend Anna joined me and we rode in the back of a pickup for a couple hours through several communities in a parade of trucks, cars and motorcycles decked out in rainbow flags and posters blasting campaign songs and honking horns. Good times, except that I was about 5 feet behind the loudspeaker that had an invitation to the campaign closing in Cotacachi tonight on repeat for several hours straight. Not so fun...

On Sunday the madness here will all be over. I hope the rainbow flags don't all disappear. They make things prettier around here :)

Rants and thoughts

I am content with life here but I’m actually getting kind of tired living in the middle of nowhere. Last weekend I went back to Quito to meet with my tutor for my monografía and realized that I actually kind of missed it. I’ve never been much of a city person but I’m not sure I could do this much longer either. I like a good small town…this is literally a house on a hill with some other houses nearby. I like the fresh air, the fresh food, and the mountains. I like greeting everyone I pass on the road. But it’s not much fun when it’s raining and you have to walk half an hour in to Cotacachi to have any sort of access to internet, phone cabinas, food or friends. I keep getting asked if I like the life and culture here, and the truth is that I do. At first I liked it a lot better than Quito and would tell whoever asked me that I loved how safe and calm it is here. Now I’m not so sure…they are so different that it is impossible to compare. It’s incredible that within 2 hours you can be living totally distinct lives that really have nothing in common.

There are ups and downs. Yesterday when I was walking home from Cotacachi into a gorgeous sunset over the mountains, I felt totally content with life. It’s a feeling I get in my chest where my heart just feels like it is about to burst with love and peace and ease. Everything just feels right in the world and I feel like I am riding on top of that wave of love. Like I own the world and nothing can stop me. Sometimes it lasts a few minutes or hours, sometimes it comes and goes for days and other times it completely disappears. Over the past few months the feeling has come a lot more frequently than it usually does at Grinnell. I’m in the right place right now even though my experience has been a lot different than I imagined.

One of the downs is the men here. At the vivero where I work three days a week there are several guys in their 20s that work on a bee farming project. In the beginning I was friendly to them but after I got asked by several if I wanted an Ecuadorian boyfriend I just started ignoring them. After a while I felt kind of bad and figured I should give them a chance as friends. Yesterday I wandered over and was chatting about what they were working on. One guy asked if I liked the life in Cotacachi. “Yea, I really like it here,” I responded. Which naturally lead to him telling me I needed to find a boyfriend here so I could move back to stay. To everyone at the vivero I have an imaginary boyfriend, which always brings up the famous Ecuadorian saying that translates roughly to “a long distance relationship makes 4 people happy.” So much for my imaginary boyfriend stopping the incessant flirting on their part. Then yesterday I found out 2 of the most persistent guys are both married, have children and have pregnant wives. I was so disgusted and pissed off to discover that. Please guys, just show a little bit of respect to the women here, especially to your wives.

I have 2 more weeks here which are going to fly by because I have a huge amount of work to get done. Then back to Quito for a week. Then off on round 2 of South American adventures.

Project and life

There is not a lot of exciting news in my life. I’ve settled into a routine here. Get up. Eat breakfast with the family (usually a Colada—fruit or grain soupy thing—of some kind, some sort of bread and eggs). Go to work at either the vivero or Runa Tupari. Come home. Meet up with friends in Otavalo or Cotacachi to use the internet and eat delicious banana splits at Rincon del Sol. Journal. Read. Help with dinner. Eat dinner. Edit some photos. Read some more. Go to bed. Repeat.

I have a project to work on for my monografía. I’m going to do some research on communal agriculture in a community where they are working on developing an agrotourism project. It will be a lot of work to get all the details they need but it will actually be useful and should be pretty interesting. I will be working with a young woman named Marta from another community who is an agronomist which will make it more fun.

Life is good. The last few days I’ve been missing Grinnell people. Trying to figure out classes does not make me all that eager to go back though.

Love to all.

brief update

things i like about life here:
walking to work with cows.
greeting everyone i pass on the road.
the food is always fresh and whole, usually from our garden or a nearby farm.
the most valuable things that get stolen are pigs.

things i don't like about life here:
mosquitos.
my host sisters.
lack of punctuality.
pigs get stolen.