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.