Wow...

What a week! So even though I thought, after my coastal village homestay, that there was no such thing as "off the grid" anymore, this past week has proved me wrong, since Jatun Sacha is almost as off the grid as you can get. I arrived last Sunday and my Quito-accustomed senses were shocked as a stepped into the hot, humid air of the Galapagos. I walked with the hoards of tourists towards the airport, but was very proud and pleased to be able to avoid the lengthy "International Tourists" line and go to the "National Tourists" queue, where there was no one else waiting. I had gotten my censo (Ecuadorean ID card) and thus was able to qualify as a national tourist AND I would only have to pay a $25 park entrance fee as opposed to $100...At least, that´s what I THOUGHT. I got stopped at the door because, seeing a gringa walking towards the National Tourists line, the guards assumed I just couldn´t read or something. But I proudly showed them my censo and was allowed past. BUT, when I got up to the lady behind the desk and presented my censo and other documents, she looked at it and at me and then asked for my passport. I told her I did not have it, only a copy of it, since I was told by my teachers that that I was all I needed. She took my copy of my passport, looked at it, and then directed me over to the International Tourists side, saying I still had to pay $100. I almost completely involuntarily cried, "Bullshit!" but managed to hold it and my frustrations in. I at least was not made to wait through the entire HUGE International Tourists line, but they did unapologetically take my $100 from me and send me on my way, while I glowered silently to myself.

I eventually collected all my bags and made my way to the throngs of people waiting out front of the airport, most of them guides waiting for tourists. I almost had a moment of panic as I stood there amongst them--someone was supposed to be meeting me from Jatun Sacha, but where the hell were they? What if they never came? How would I find the station?

Thank God, out of nowhere, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was there for Jatun Sacha. She was Lydia, a woman who works at Jatun Sacha, and she was waiting there with another woman who works in the kitchen at the station. She said she knew I must be a volunteer because of the requisite giant, ugly rubber work boots I had slung over my shoulder. However she recognized me, I was just glad she had found me!

We waited in the oppressive heat a while longer for three other new volunteers who were supposedly arriving, but then finally we decided that the woman from the kitchen and I would go on to the station in a taxi (aka. a big, white pickup truck) while Lydia waited for the others. We rolled along in the taxi on a paved road only for about fifteen minutes before veering off on a narrow, dirt road that wound through jungle. On this extremely rough road, we rumbled along for the better part of an hour and, the further and further we went, the more it dawned on me that my hopes for occasionally going to an Internet cafe in town during the week or making phone calls were completely ridiculous.

FINALLY, we arrived at Jatun Sacha. Besides the sign out front, you would not know it--it is just a collection of humble buildings built from bamboo in the middle of the jungle on a hillside. A girl named Mimi, who also works in the kitchen, met us and showed me to the "Old House," where I would be staying. After she had shown me my room, she left me to myself while she started dinner. No one else was there yet, because apparently all the volunteers go into port for the weekends and were not back yet. So I stood there, completely alone, POURING sweat, in my dark little bamboo room, staring at the GIANT spiders hanging from nearly EVERY wall and smacking at the little biting flies that were partaking in a little fresh blood, courtesy of me, and, for a moment, I could only think: What the hell have I gotten myself into? Three weeks of this!!! Three weeks of oppressive heat like this, hard labor, bugs at every turn, and completely isolation from the greater world! "Holy shit..."

Luckily, Lydia arrived somewhat soon afterward with the three other volunteers, who were also in the Old House with me. They turned out to all be from Germany--Gabriela, Anne, and Ricarda. Ricarda was closest to my age and probably spoke the best English (they had only had a month of Spanish instruction before arriving and, besides that, their accents can sometimes make it hard to understand), so we talked for a while and have been getting along pretty well. Ricarda was also a bit more appalled and disconcerted by the heat and bugs than I was, so it made me feel better that there was someone else who kind of felt the way I did.

Just before dinner that evening, the other volunteer arrived. There was: LJ from CA, USA; Claire, Fran, and Croz from the UK; Connall, Sonya, and Paul from Canada; and Vanessa and Mike from Germany, as well. They gave us some pointers and advice to help us get accustomed to things there and how things work, which was nice. It was also just comforting (and helped relieve my slight sense of panic) to be with other people who seemed so self-assured and who had been doing it so long.

And thus, Monday morning, began what was a LONG and exhausting and CHALLENGING week. Each day, we had about six hours of hard labor, working on Jatun Sacha´s various projects. In the course of the week, I dug holes to plant coffee plants, clear cut invasive species away from the road with a machete, did some weeding and tending to the plants in the nursery, raking, and more macheteing! There is only SPOTTY cell phone reception and getting any reception at all requires people to hang their phones from wires along the roof and then lean out and twist and turn them into odd angles to get a signal. My phone, of course, gets no service on the islands at all, so I have to borrow other people´s phones and then spend a half hour attempting to get a signal just to send a quick message to my teachers twice a week to check in.

One of the highlights of the week was a CHANCHO (pig) hunt, which was awesome! After we had finished work for the day, Cesar, the director, asked us if anyone wanted to go with them to hunt chanchos. They are an introduced species and have been eating the eggs of the native birds, which is bad, and plus, they are good to eat! So, me and Claire looked at each other and I immediately was like, "I wanna hunt a chancho!" I convinced Claire to come with me, because I did not want to be the only girl running through the jungle after guys with machetes, begging her, " Come on! If nothing else, it´ll be an amazing story! When else will you be able to have this opportunity!" So, she came with us!

The chancho hunt entailed hiking up incredibly steep hillsides for about an hour, following dogs and guys with machetes, and then, FINALLY, upon spotting some chanchos on a nearby hillside, running like crazy down our hill and back up another one after the chanchos. Unfortunately, we did not catch the chanchos, but it was an adventure, for sure. It also really hit home for me how much invasive species are a problem here...and how hopeless it may be...when we were standing on top of those hills, looking out over all the neighboring hillsides: there was mora EVERYWHERE! Mora is one of the worst invasive species (it is basically blackberries) because it does not allow anything else to grow where it grows and it easily spread because birds eat the berries and spread it. And wow: I looked out over the hills and saw, in some places, it was completely white, twisting thorns and vines where the mora was and NOTHING else. It was everywhere! Lydia told me it covers 70% of the islands and that one day, it will probably be everywhere, and that it is basically impossible to stop. Sad. And it all began with one lady bringing a single mora plant to add to her garden here. Now, it is everywhere and it is irreversible.

Though the labor has been hard this week, the people have made it worth it. Meeting so many interesting and amazing people from all over is incredible. Definitely makes for some awesome story and character ideas for my creative writing project! One thing that was sad this week was that Paul and Croz left the project Thursday. They were two really interesting guys, who each basically got fed up with society and with their jobs, so they quit, sold their houses and everything they owned, and have now just been traveling and volunteering. Paul worked saving leatherback turtles in Costa Rica before this project and now he is moving on to do a three-month trek in Patagonia (I asked him how the hell he found out how to do awesome shit like that, to which he replied, "Google. The world is your oyster."). Croz worked in Costa Rica before this, too, and he is not sure where he is going next. It´s funny--I probably never would have met them except for being here and now that they are gone, I will probably never see them again (they are not the type for keeping in touch). It´s funny to think of the people that enter your life for just a brief time only to leave again, but who you will never forget. It was cool to know them while I did, and I know that, occasionally, I will think of them and wonder, "Where did they end up? What are they doing now? Did they ever find what they were looking for?"

While Paul and Croz left this week, new people arrive all the time. Richard from the UK and Eric from France just arrived on Thursday. Fridays we do not work, but instead go on nature hikes. Due to excessive rain the night before, we could not do the hike Friday and instead, Richard, Eric, Ricarda, Gabriela, Anne, Lydia, Cesar, and I piled into a taxi and drove to the Galapaguera Semi-Natural. This is where people get to see the giant tortoises. It took an hour to get there, then we walked around the place and saw the nursery with the baby tortoises, and then the big ones along the trail, who just sat there, nonchalantly chewing on leaves and staring at us. The biggest ones were pretty freaking incredible and reminded me of a tank or something. And yes, I got some good pictures, which I will post eventually...MAYBE next weekend.

After seeing the tortoises, we hiked down to a nearby beach (gorgeous white sand, clear blue water, volcanic rocks with blue-footed boobies on them) to eat sandwiches for lunch and enjoy the beach. And a bit later, we hiked back up and got back in our taxi to go back. NOW is where it got exciting.

Because there were eight of us, eight people cannot fit into the cab of a pickup truck, so Richard, Eric, Ricarda, and I sat in the back (the other two Germans were not too enthusiastic about the prospect, so we volunteered). However, about five minutes after getting in, it literally started to POUR. And it continued to pour the ENTIRE ride back. And as if that were not enough, we got stuck on the muddy dirt track that leads to Jatun Sacha, so Eric, Richard, and Cesar had to get out and push. We somehow managed to get past it and Richard, Eric, and Cesar jumped in the back of the truck as the driver gunned it up the rest of the rough, muddy track, trying to avoid getting stuck again. I just remember looking around at all of us--covered in mud, soaking wet, and all laughing our asses off. Eric yelled, "Well, this is adventure, isn´t it?" Adventure, indeed.

By some miracle, we were able to get our things from the station and make it out to the paved road and into port for the weekend, where the rest of the volunteers waited for us. Today, I plan to spend on the beach, where there are apparently tons of sea lions and blue-footed boobies and mantas, and tomorrow Ricarda and I are going snorkeling off of a boat that some of the other volunteers are going scuba diving off of, as well.

So, until next weekend, ciao!

-Alex

"Las estrellas y la luna ya me dicen donde voy..."

School´s OUT! Yes, that´s right--yesterday was the last day of the Academic Seminar portion of my semester here in Ecuador. It was just like any other day, but I somehow felt like I should pay more attention to everything since this was in fact not like any other day in that it was the last time I would have to wake up at 7:00 and make my way through the crowded city streets to the Experiment in International Living office where our classes were held. Yet, as I found myself once again squeezed between mounds of people on the Monserrat bus, shoved and jostled the whole ride and dying of heat between all these people, some of whom obviously did not believe in deodorant, I was not so sad it was the last day of this nor too concerned about paying attention to it all. Frankly, all I wanted to do was get off that freaking bus and into some fresh air!

So, as I have done almost every morning, I took the bus down Diez de Agosto and as soon as we reached a point from which I felt I could feasibly walk to class, I pushed my way through the crowds of people, handed a quarter to the little guy with the fanny pack whose job it is to take it, and tumbled out of the bus onto the sidewalk. Lucky for me, the last day of class was a particualarly beautiful one and more than made up for the cold, rainy miserable days that found me sitting in class shivering and uncomfortably damp for the majority of class. The sky here just seems so big and blue and clear on days like this, despite the smog that pours out of nearly every vehicle that passes by. Maybe it is the sun--it is so clear and close and strong here, the light absolutely unfiltered by anything ("All the better to burn the crap out of your skin, my dear!").

Eventually, I made it to class and, as is usual in any college-level class that I have ever experienced, there were already people there early, preparing for our final exam and talking nervously about it--what would it be like? What would the questions be? Would we really need three hours to write two essays? I am fairly superstitious about tests and do not believe in cramming or freaking out about it and verbalizing that to my fellow students right before the exam. So, I went and sat out on the patio that looked out over Quito. What a truly gorgeous day! On days like that, you can see for miles and miles--the little houses like little boxes clustered all over the mountainsides and, even more spectacularly, the mountains beyond. And on this particular days, I could see, peeking out from behind wisps of clouds and the mountains in front of it, just a bit of Cotopaxi, snow covered and magnificent.

I just sat quietly and watched as the city woke up. There is this one house directly across from the patio and, apparently, the bathroom is the room directly across. The glass is fogged so you only see the people in it as shadowy figures. The sink is nearest the window and I only deduced it was a sink because I had seen the figure of a father, with his little son sitting on the counter by the sink, while the father brushed his teeth and then brushed his son´s, a few times. On my last day of class, they were there again, the shadowy figure of the father brushing his teeth, then brushing his son´s and wiping his face.

On this particular day, I also saw, on a rooftop in the distance, a woman hanging laundry, but not just plain old laundry--this laundry was particularly brightly colored--neon pink, red, green, blue, yellow. It made me wish I had my camera (though, out of a fairly valid fear of pickpockets and just plain being robbed, which has happened to more than one of my fellow students, I did not bring it with me).

So, finally, the exam commenced! We had three hours to write two essays and we had a choice of two out of four different questions. I ended up writing about the history of the indigenous movement in the Sierra since the 1960s and then about US-Ecuadorean relations (THAT one was fun...and I kept thinking about something Hugh Grant said in that movie Love Actually: "I love that word relationship...covers all manner of sins, doesn´t it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship, based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all the things that really matter to Britain."). ANYHOW...

Now, like I said, I am superstitious about exams. I have my routine and the things that work for me. And one thing I find works better for me than anything is not second-guessing myself. When I do that in an exam, the product ends up worse than if I had just left it the way it was. So, essentially, I spent about an hour on each essay, getting done about an hour early. I felt self-conscious and hesitated momentarily to walk up and turn mine in, being the first done, but I decided to go with what has worked for me all through high school and college and went ahead and turned mine in. Faba was a little surprised, but I told him, "I know I have done the best I can do and sitting at my desk and rereading or rewriting will not improve what I have done." Basically, for better or worse, I knew I could do no better, so there was no use just sitting there because I did not want to be the first person done.

I gave Faba a huge hug and thanked him for everything and hugged Lenore, too. I promised to keep in touch during the four weeks I would go without seeing them during my Independent Study Project (which I am actually required to do, every Sunday and Wednesday, so they know where I am and how things are going). It was weird--I mean, we will have another week with them after our ISPs...but still, it felt strange saying goodbye and going for a whole month without seeing them! They have become like Mom and Dad for all of us since we have been down here and we see them almost every day...our beloved Fabinore! But it will be weird going so long without seeing them. However, this is what this program is about: Faba and Lenore are there to hold our hands in the beginning and in the end, they have to let us go so we can use everything we´ve learned during the semester and experience things on our own.

I stepped out into the gorgeous sunny day and, lucky for me, a Calderon bus was just going by and had been stopped at the red light. So I ran up, jumped on, and actually got a seat (score!). And it was cool--for the first time on this ride, out of all the buses I have taken in Quito, I saw a couple people I remembered seeing before--a lady with this crazy visor thing (how could I forget that!) and a guy that came on and played some songs on his guitar. The last time he got on, I had not been able to get out some money to give him before he hopped off, so this time I made sure to have my money ready and, after he was done playing, I handed it to him and murmured, "Gracias..." before he got off.

Last night was spent packing and arranging all my things for the Galapagos and running some errands. I went to the Mariscal to meet my ISP advisor Rick (who happens to be Lenore´s "compañero"). I got assigned him at the last minute because they were having difficulty finding a bilingual advisor for me. The reason I needed a bilingual advisor is because, for my ISP paper, I had chosen to do a "non-traditional" ISP and write a create writing piece as my product rather than a traditional paper. And, because the simple fact is that I know more words in English than in Spanish, I felt like I needed to write my piece in English. This is allowed, though Lenore and Faba did tell me they would grade me harder in English, which is fine. Basically, for my ISP, I am going to the Galapagos Islands for three weeks to work with the Jatun Sacha Foundation. I will be volunteering with the reforestation and eradication of invasive species projects while there. Where the creative writing piece comes in is I actually got the idea based on another volunteer I met at Jatun Sacha´s office in Quito a few weeks ago.

I went to the office to go through orientation and there was a lady for the US who was there for orientation, too, for one of Jatun Sacha´s other biological stations in Ecuador. I talked to her for awhile and she said she had just quit her job of many, many years and was reevaluating a lot of things. So, in the process of reevaluation, she decided to take a month and volunteer in Ecuador. That gave me the idea that, since I will be working with a lot of volunteers from all over the place, and the Jatun Sacha staff, it would be cool to write a fictionalized version of my experience that talks about what all these people´s histories are and their motivations for coming to the Galapagos. Also, on a larger scale, I want to talk about how effective Jatun Sacha´s efforts have been in the face of all the tourism and human incursions in the Galapagos.

Despite what I intend, as Lenore and Faba told us, nothing ever goes the way you plan it and to just keep an open mind. So, with that in mind, I really do not know where my project will go exactly. But, as Lenore and Faba also told us, ANY project can be an amazing one--there is no single magical project. It just matters what we put into it. And I am definitely ready for this.

I fly out to the Galapagos tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 9:00AM and I return on Sunday, May 11 to Quito to write my paper. I do not know what to expect as far as Internet access and phone, but I will do my best to keep this blog updated if at all possible.

Take care and until next time, ciao!

-Alex

P.S. Just remembered a couple quotes from my fellow students/the Fabster that make me laugh and by which I will think of them fondly over the next four weeks:

"I just wanna go off and have my whole thing just totally rocked and I just wanna become more like Pacho."
-Zach, during our class discussion of our goals for our ISPs

"I don´t know, I guess I just always thought it was from brushing my teeth..."
-Rachel (aka. "Africa"), explaining (completely seriously) why she has such ripped arm muscles

"And when I become the benevolent dictator of Ecuador..."
-Faba

"¡Mi Pablito Chiquitito Precioso Lindito!"

In Ecuador, when a woman is pregnant, you do not ask her "when she is due." You ask, "¿Cuando viene la luz?" Literally, that means, "When is the light coming?" I always thought that was a pretty cool way to say it and it has never been more evident to me that "a light" is exactly what a baby is than now. It has been a new experience for me, being around someone who is expecting baby every day leading up to the birth. Sure, I have visited my aunts when they were expecting my cousins, but I think I was too young to really understand everything that was going on. So, really, this is my first real experience with the excitement of not only a couple´s first child, but a first grandchild as well.

Soledad, my host sister, did not think she was capable of having kids for about the first six years of her marriage. However, just when she had almost given up, she got pregnant! So, besides the fact that this baby is she and Raoul´s first and the first grandchild for my host mother, Hilda, it is also more or less a miracle baby--definitely "a light" if ever there was one.

I have watched the way my host family has prepared for this baby the past few weeks, feverishly anticipating the arrival of their "light." Soledad was always so incredibly overjoyed to talk about the baby, to show me the baby clothes they had bought and the nursery they had painted and decorated, anything and everything related to the new baby. For the first time, I saw a baby moving inside its mother--little Pablito definitely enjoying kicking and punching and wiggling around in Soledad´s stomach and it was a crazy and intense experience to be able to literally see the baby moving under her skin.

Finally, we had an exact date to expect the coming of "the light": Thursday, April 17 at 8:30Am (she had a C-section scheduled). Soledad had been having contractions off and on for about a week, had ceased being able to sleep at all since no position was really comfortable, and looked as though she was about to pop--she is a very petite lady and sometimes I wondered how she remained upright! So, last night, just like every night, Raoul and Soledad came over to have merienda with us--some pan, queso, tea, coffee. We sat around the kitchen table, talking and laughing like always, but it finally came time for Soledad and Raoul to go home. Soledad looked so nervous and she told me that she was very excited but that the only thing she was nervous about was waiting those long moments to hear her baby cry for the first time because, for those moments that would seem like forever, she would be wondering if he was okay.

Denisse, Hilda, and I all told her that everything would be fine and to not worry about anything. Soledad and Raoul kissed us all goodbye and Hilda leaned down and kissed Soledad´s stomach, like she had done almost every night, one more time and whispered to the baby, "¡Mi Pablito chiquitito precioso lindito!" and said a prayer for him. So, with one last nervous wave goodbye, Soledad and Raoul went home.

I went to class this morning as usual and as I was walking down the streets of Quito on an especially warm, sunny, gorgeous day, I looked at my watch and thought, "Welcome to the world, Pablito!" when I saw that Soledad´s C-section would have already been over. After class, I went directly home since I had told Hilda I would be back for lunch. As soon as I walked into the kitchen, Hilda ran up and hugged and kissed me and told me that the baby had arrived, that everything was fine, that Soledad had cried and cried when she saw Pablito for the first time, and that he was a gorgeous baby. To prove it, she immediately pulled out her cell phone and showed me a picture she had taken on it of the baby--a tiny, pink little bundle wrapped in a white blanket with a patch of dark hair on top. As I sat at the table while Olgita, the maid, and Hilda finished preparing lunch, the phone was ringing off the hook and there was more than one occasion where Hilda had the house phone held up to one ear and her cell phone held up to the other, talking to two people at once. There is absolutely no doubt: this kid is going to be the most loved and most spoiled kid in existence. :)

Soledad comes home from the hospital with the baby on Saturday and she and Raoul are going to be living with Hilda and the rest of the family for the first month while they are getting used to the baby. I cannot wait to see Soledad and little Pablito! Raoul asked me last night if it was a tradition in the US for people to smoke cigars after a baby is born and I said, more or less, though perhaps those pink and blue bubblegum cigars are perhaps more popular. Made me wish I had a couple blue ones to give them when they come home for the hospital, but I do not think they sell them here. But I know what I am going to send them as soon as I get back to the States!

What a happy day! Take care, everyone, and until next time, ciao!

-Alex

On a Lighter Note...

So, in the interests of lightening the tone of my blog (which has been...um, heavy to say the least), I thought I would take a moment to reflect on some of the little peculiarities of Ecuadorean pop culture that I have noticed during my time here. First of all, MUSIC. If I could explain why the particular American music that is popular here IS so popular, I would be a very rich and successful sociologist.

I had a hint as to the peculiar taste in American music that exists here within my first few weeks here, when I heard (of all things) that song "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence multiple times from multiple different sources. Now, that song came out four or five years ago in the US and it was sort of aimed at a somewhat moodier, darker, goth-type crowd. So, it was more than a little amusing when I found myself sitting on the couch with my host cousins in my first host family, translating the song word for word for them. You have to realize, my host cousins were all guys in their late 20s or early 30s, true sports enthusiasts, and there was nothing in their Adidas shorts, soccer cleats, or baseball caps to indicate the brooding, angsty nature typical of Evanescence fanatics. Yet, my one cousin had this particular Evanescence song as his ring tone on his cell phone and played it multiple times right next to my ear, while all the others looked on and waited intently for me to recite the lyrics for them.

My understanding of Ecuadorean taste in American music was even further confounded by my host brother, Marco, in my current host family. Now can you even begin to guess what his favorite musician of all time is? I will give you a hint: think of every cheesy, romantic ´80s-´90s song you can...okay, there is no way you will guess, since I never would have: Bryan Adams! Now, I do not think Mr. Bryan Adams enjoys that much popularity in the US anymore; however, he apparently has a huge legion of fans in Ecuador and should seriously consider moving down here permanently if he would like to bask in the glow of their admiration a bit more easily. As it is, he apparently has an inkling of his popularity down here--Marco excitedly informed me that Bryan Adams is coming to give a concert here sometime this month and that he ALREADY had his tickets. I have also seen multiple huge billboards of that studly Bryan Adams throughout Quito. He´s like Elvis here, somehow. Who knew?

Another one that left me flabbergasted, probably more so than the seemingly inexplicable popularity of ´80s love song crooners and angsty goth bands, was the popularity of a more or less one hit wonder band whose name you probably will not recognize. However, you gotta know the lyrics to their single big hit: "Don´t you forget about me/Don´t-don´t-don´t-don´t you/Forget about me!" That´s right, those geniuses behind the hit song from the Breakfast Club, Simple Minds, are HUGE here! I was not particularly familiar or aware of any songs that they had done besides this one, BUT oh no! They apparently have TONS of songs, all of which my host brother owns on a 6-disc live concert DVD set--"The Best of Simple Minds." So in case you were not aware of the genius of Simple Minds, check them out--I dare say they have found more success here than they ever did in the US.

Given more time to think on it, I could probably give you a whole list of American artists who, for whatever reason, have achieved incredible fame and appreciation here in Ecuador for whatever reason. However, I would instead like to turn to some of the AWESOME music that I have gotten hooked on since being here. Now, I would have a HUGE list of must-downloads for you all, except that I do not know the names of the songs or artists of much of what I have been listening to the past few months. And why? Because, for whatever reason, whenever I asked Javier or Silvana or Nathaly the name of a song or singer we were listening to, they just shrugged, unable to give me any hint. However, Javier was kind enough to burn me two CDs of a bunch of the songs I had liked, but on his computer as well, the songs have the titles "Track 1" and "Track 2" and so on, so that does not help much. All I know is that whatever the songs are that I have listened to over and over on those CDs are awesome and I will be putting them straight on my iPod when I get back home. Lots of awesome salsa, reggaeton, some other stuff...In the interests of sharing the few songs for which I have names, "Perdóname" by La Factoria is one of my favorites, as well as a lot of stuff by Daddy Yankee (stuff that has not really been too popular in the US, but is HUGE here)...there is also a gorgeous song by (I think) Antonio Banderas that Javier burned me that is awesome...and a gorgeous tango song by some female singer whom I don´t know...hopefully I will get some answers on some of the names of the songs Javier burned me before I get back to the US so I can make some more concrete recommendations.

Lastly, getting off the topic of music and moving on to TV, I have been traveling down memory lane quite a bit to the good old days where me and my brothers spent every Friday night watching the Friday Night Action Pack of "Hercules: the Legendary Journeys" and "Xena: Warrior Princess," except that I have been watching the programs of my childhood dubbed in Spanish, which is awesome. And hilarious. Also, I should mention, the most popular American TV show here is none other than "The Simpsons," hands down. Somehow, not the same for me with the dubbed Spanish voices--something about Homer´s English voice is just so distinctive to me. However, it is hugely popular here nonetheless. There is even an entire restaurant just a block from my house dedicated to "The Simpsons." I kid you not.

Our last week of classes is going by quickly--thank goodness. I am more ready to get to the Galapagos than words can say. Hopefully, the next time I write, I will have something a little more interesting than music and TV to talk about, but since I am being bombarded by papers, exams, project proposals, and all the rest during this last week of class, it may not be until I reach the Galapagos that I have something particularly interesting and exciting to write. Until then, ciao!

-Alex

P.S.

"Me gusta tocar guitarra!/
Me gusta cantar el soul!/
Mariachi me acompaña/
Cuando canto mi canción!/
Me gusta tomar mis copas,/
Aguadiente es lo mejor,/
También el tequíla blanco/
Que tu sal de la sabor!"

-Part of the awesome song that I THINK Antonio Banderas might have done (but not sure)

Brooke y Sara, nuestros pensamientos están con ustedes...

Upon getting to school this morning, we were all milling around our classroom waiting for Faba and Lenore to arrive when one of the girls, Sara from New York (aka. "Manhattan") burst inside and announced that she just got a call from Faba telling her that two of our classmates were involved in a car accident last night and that he would be late, but for all of us to remain calm and that he would fill us in when he got there. So, tense and uneasy, we looked around us, taking stock of who was there and who wasn´t and we quickly realized that the only two people missing were Brooke and Sara from Washington state (aka. "Walla Walla").

We waited nervously for about fifteen minutes or so until Faba finally arrived. He entered the classroom wordlessly and immediately, everyone sat down and grew quiet, waiting for him to tell us what had happened. Apparently, after a nice, long day playing soccer in the park yesterday, Sara and Brooke went one of their host brothers to get some icecream at about 8:00PM. As far as what actually occurred, all Faba said is that the police have one story and the driver of the other car has another version but, basically, it looks like the driver of the other car made a left turn where he should not have, hit Brooke and Sara´s car, and somehow launched it into a few spins in the air.

Sometime immediately following the accident, someone (some absolutely amoral creep) ran up and stole Sara´s bag with her phone out of the car (which is known to happen here with traffic accidents). However, Sara was okay enough to call Faba from Brooke´s phone to tell him (as he related to us today in class), "Hey Faba, so guess what happened?" It turned out that Sara had a broken arm and had to have reconstructive surgery last night on her elbow due to injuries from broken glass and stuff, but she should be able to return to class in a couple days. Brooke´s semester here, unfortunately, is over--she broke her hip and essentially has to remain horizontal for about a month. She is going to be medevacuated back to the States in about a week or so. The host brother is in critical condition with head injuries.

Lenore and Faba spent all night at the hospital with Sara and Brooke and Lenore remained at the hospital with Brooke all day today while Faba came to lead our class. Faba assured us that they would both be fine and that they were both very lucky, but when he then tried to move on and begin our activities for today, it was definitely very hard to concentrate on anything else for quite some time.

Unfortunately, on top of what happened to Sara and Brooke, we had two speakers scheduled for today with some very heavy, serious, depressing subject matter: one woman who came to speak in favor of abortion rights in Ecuador (which do not exist here basically--not even in cases of children who become pregnant as a result of sexual abuse, not in cases of rape--never, basically) and a young Polish woman not that much older than us to talk about her experience in Ecuadorean prison (she was essentially manipulated into being a drug mule at age 19, got caught and thrown into the incredibly corrupt Ecuadorean judicial system, and now, 6 years later, is still unable to return to her country because she is currently still on parole). Two incredibly interesting talks, but once they were both over, everyone was obviously completely shell-shocked. Definitely a very heavy, tough, depressing day.

I hope that I have something a bit happier to relate the next time I write. Until then, I will be thinking of Brooke and Sara and wishing them well (hopefully will be able to visit them in a couple days in the hospital).

Ciao,
Alex

Let the countdown begin!

This weekend was a relatively lowkey one. After getting back from the coast last Wednesday night, almost all the students were physically and emotionally exhausted (not to mention, a few of my classmates may have brought some friends back from the coast with them in the form of parasites...yay!). Friday, I hung out with my host family and, as boring as it sounds, went to bed fairly early. I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow and, perhaps for the first time since being here, I slept like a rock and did not wake up once until my alarm went off early the next morning.

I got up early Saturday and, with my game plan written out on a piece of paper, set off to buy all the things I needed to buy to prepare for my independent study project in the Galapagos, which begins next Sunday (!). Lots of fun things, like a bed net and a face net, bugspray, sunscreen, garlic and B-complex to help keep the mosquitos at bay when the bugspray fails, a sleeping bag (yes, Mom, I know you told me to bring one and yes, I remember telling you that, "Oh no, I´ll never need one!"...but hey, at least in Ecuador, it is possible to get a really nice sleeping bag for all of $20--thank God for the lower price of living!), rubber boots, gardening gloves, and loads more of fun stuff. I went to one of the many giant, new malls in Quito, but one I had never been to before and, lucky for me, it pretty much had everything I needed. The only hiccup was when I asked the lady at the checkout of the ferretaria where I was buying my rubber boots where I could buy a bed net. She told me, "Oh, only in the centrohistorico!" That was disheartening (I did not really feel like getting robbed at knifepoint or pickpocketed or both, as was sure to happen if I ventured there on my own). Luckily, I did not listen to her and, when I spotted an outdoorsy-looking store, went in and asked if they had bed nets and sure enough, they did! They also, lucky for me, had some wonderfully fashionable facenets attached to some form of plastic hat thing...I will need to take a picture of myself in my whole volunteer get-up when I get to the Galapagos--facenet, rubber boots, gardening gloves, and all) to provide everyone with a good laugh.

After my shopping excursion, as boring as it is, I spent much of the afternoon working on a paper at the local Internet cafe that is due Monday. However, out of the blue, some friends called me to see if I wanted to go to the movies...in 30 minutes. Now, this might be doable in Cary, NC, but when you live in the very northernmost part of Quito and the theatre your friends are talking about is in the center of the city...not so much. So I sprinted home from the Internet cafe, changed, grabbed some cash, and hailed the first cab I could on the autopista. It was one of the times when I was glad of how crazy the cabs are here--I got there in no time and met up with my friends in the lobby at the very minute when the movie was supposed to start...although we then proceeded to stop and get some food and drinks and stuff, and ended up walking into the movie about twenty minutes late.

Despite missing the first twenty minutes, it was a really good movie--"Desapareció en la Noche" (aka. "Gone Baby Gone")--with Morgan Freeman and Casey Affleck. Really sad, but really good. It was in English with Spanish subtitles, which was nice for us. But it was hilarious reading the subtitles written for the characters´truly obscene dialogue (the language was kind of "Deadwood" meets Boston, basically). I never knew how to say, "Go f*** your mother!" in Spanish until I read the subtitles in "Gone Baby Gone." It´s amazing what you learn from the movies!

After the movie, we split up--Robin to go hang out with some friends, Laney to go deal with the parasite that may or may not have been feasting on the contents of her intestines, and Rachel to go on a "non-date" (kind of the way those guys from the US Embassy kept calling the base in Manta a "non-base") with a "28-year old kind-of-pudgy Ecuadorean ´philosopher`(aka. `unemployed´). Lara, my partner from the coastal village homestay, and I got some icecream and hung out for a while before taking a rather interesting cab ride around the city (the driver was apparently completely confused by the directions we gave him, so we ended up on the opposite side of the city from where we needed to be).

Today, I got up and caught a bus to Los Chillos to visit my family there and have lunch with them. Because of the whole Trebol disaster I mentioned a week or two ago, the road between Quito and Los Chillos was a complete mess, so it took a little more than an hour. However, finally, the bus dumped me off at good old Puente 8, the stop I had learned so well during my month in Los Chillos. I walked from the autopista down the familiar, winding road, through the park, and reached my old house just as Silvana was getting home from church. It felt so strange to be back--good, but strange. I felt as though I had come home, kind of, like I should be staying there, not just visiting for lunch.

Javier was in the backyard with Magdalena when I got there, pruning the bushes and trying to tie some of the branches into an arch (it sort of worked). I sat back there talking with them for a while, with the cat Culón in my lap (still definitely my favorite cat ever). We eventually went inside and had "sopa de china" (some kind of Chinese-style soup with egg and unidentifiable bits of meat in it), choclo (corn), rice, what I think was maybe a steak of beef (the meat here has no steroids like in the US, so it is all tougher and with less fat...so sometimes, it is hard to tell what you are eating except a piece of really tough meat of some kind), and (my FAVORITE!) jugo de coco (coconut juice...as in, Silvana cut up a coconut and put it in the blender with milk and sugar as we were sitting there....sooooo good!). All in all, a very delicious meal, for sure.

We talked for a while after lunch. They told me how Nathaly had left to study abroad in the US two weeks ago and that she was going to be studying in Florida for a year! And of course, how Magdalena had cried and cried when Nathaly left and Nathaly, likewise, had made many teary-eyed phone calls home since arriving in the US. I told them that, if they could give me Nathaly´s cell phone number in the US, I could maybe call her and visit her sometime since she is going to be in the US a whole year.

Eventually, it came time to leave and I said goodbye (and this time, it somehow felt worse to say goodbye than when I left them a few weeks ago for my Quito family...don´t know why...), promising to do my best to visit them one more time before going back to the US. Magadalena, for her part, reiterated her offer that she made me when I first arrived at their house way back in February, insisting that I bring my family to come stay with them and visit sometime.

Tomorrow, my very last week of class begins. And exactly a week from now, I will be in the Galapagos, beginning my three-week independent study project there. Words cannot describe how excited I am. While I know I should enjoy this week, since it is my last week of class here, I kind of just want to fast-forward through it and get to the Galapagos!

Take care and until next time, ciao!

-Alex

After lunch, we talked

"Dude, you are a freaking langosta!"

As my coastal village homestay is drawing to a close, I decided to take and little break from the heat and sand and sweat and bugs to reflect on my experience so far. Now, I would be lying if I said that this experience was anywhere as bad as I was expecting because it truly was not (in fact, I may have enjoyed this trip even more than our rainforest excursion, although that may have something to do with the fact that I was unknowingly sharing my food with parasites during much of the rainforest excursion). However, I would also be lying if I did not say that this trip was incredibly, amazingly challenging in a number of ways.

Our first full day in town, Lara and I walked around, getting a feel for the layout of everything. And we talked to...well, almost anyone within earshot. We were instructed to keep a work journal of our observations, conversations, activities, all of it, so we set right to work talking to people about their town. That first day was absolutely EXHAUSTING! Besides the fact that we spent most of it walking around in the glaring sun and scorching heat and humidity (again, still cannot get over the lack of breeze here, even on the freaking Pacific ocean!), it is exhausting talking to so many people in Spanish and asking them in-depth questions about the economy here, social life, politics, all of it!

I went to bed and slept like a rock that night, but neglected to think about the fact that literally as soon as the sun comes up, it gets unbearably hot and therefore there is really no good sleeping to be had much past 7:00AM at the latest. However, Lenore and Faba told us on Saturday to take some time off and relax because we probably would be exhausted by then (oh, they know us too well!) so that was exactly what I did! I ate breakfast, put on my bathing suit, and headed out to the beach. I was the only person out there for a while and just sat on my towel, enjoying the sun and the slight breeze, reading an old paperback that I had found at Iguanazu in Guayaquil, left there by some previous visitor.

Eventually, I went back to the hotel and found Lara there, in deep conversation with a guy who had stopped by (don´t really know the reason). The guy was a driver and a guide for tourists in the area. I sat down and tried to listen and be polite, but very quickly got irritated and annoyed with listening to him. I believe it was a combination of the heat as well as the annoying way that the guy spoke really softly and conspiratorially about everything, as if he were telling you a secret when really, you just really could not hear a word he was saying. And around the time he first demanded Lara and I´s cell phone numbers and, when we said we did not have them with us, then made us write down his cell phone number, I had had about enough. I know people can exchange cell phone numbers and you do not think twice about it and there is nothing strange about it, but something about this guy sort of creeped me out and I could not quite put my finger on it. Needless to say, although Lara was too polite to say anything that might draw this uncomfortably awkward conversation to a close, I quietly excused myself and went upstairs to lie spreadeagled on my bed in the close, hot air, not wanting to move because I was so hot.

I went back out to the beach for a while after lunch, then returned to the hotel for merienda. However, as I sat down with Lara at the table to eat, her eyes suddenly got really wide and she cried, "Dude, you are a freaking lobster!" I stood up and looked in the mirror on a nearby wall--sure enough, though from the front I was fine, the middle of my back was positively fried! Luckily, it did not hurt too badly (yet), so I was able to ignore it. After merienda, I ran to the nearby pharmacy really quickly and although there was no lotion or aloe to be found to ease the pain that was sure to come from my heinous sunburn, I bought some baby oil (the next best thing and frankly, the only thing they had) before heading back to the house.

When I got there, Isaias told us that if we wanted, we could "dar una vuelta" around the nearby town of Montañita. We accepted, politely if not all that enthusiastically, since the heat from the day had just about sucked all our energy right out of us. So, we changed into slightly less-sweat stained clothing and walked up to the main road to wait for a cab to take us to Montañita. WELL, the "cab" turned out to be a dude in a broken down truck who came tooling around and slowed down long enough for Isaias to tell him where we were going and for all of us to cram into the cab of the truck. Even the dark of night could not disguise the terrible shape this car was in--broken windshield with holes in it, doors that you could not open from the inside because they were more or less a sheet of striaght metal rather than a traditional car door, no windows because, seeing as you could not open the door for the inside, you had to reach outside to open it from there.

So we tooled along the road for a little less than five minutes before arriving in Montañita and spilling out onto the dirt road...and it was like entering another world! Whereas Manglaralto is a small, impoverished town that aspires to greater things, Montañita is Manglaralto in ten years. Loud music was blasting, Ecuadorean and American alike; lights everywhere; tons of tourists from Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, the US, Europe, and more; hotels and restaurants and bars and street vendors EVERYWHERE! Lara and I perked right up, our eyes wide in shock at how something like this could exist so close to a town as quiet and sleepy as Manglaralto!

We walked around for a while, in awe of the throngs of people around us, as Isaias told us about the town, its history, its inhabitants. We stopped to view some of the street vendors´jewelry and other crafts (I ended up buying a tagua bracelet and a bracelet made out of old Peruvian coins, which I was pretty psyched about; Lara bought one as well). About five minutes after getting there, Lara and I looked at each other and agreed in unison: "We are sooo coming back here tomorrow!"

We walked around a while longer and bought icecreams and colas for ourselves and Isaias. As we were sitting on a stoop of one of the stores, drinking our colas, out of the throng emerged two familiar faces: Jenna and Bekah! They had been paired up in the town of San Jose and their host brothers had brought them to Montañita, knowing it was the perfect place for people to have fun at night (and, well, for gringas in general). It was strange: we had just seen each other two days before, but it seemed like forever ago and it was so nice to see familiar faces!

After we finished our colas, we said goodbye to Jenna and Bekah and took a (much nicer, more reputable-looking) cab back to Manglaralto. We were then yet again faced with the tedious process of recording the day´s events in our journals. However, as it was far more pleasant outside our room than in, we pulled two chairs out onto the crumbling porch attached to our second-floor room and sat out there to journal. However, FIRST, my amazing compañera de clase was kind enough to put the baby oil I had bought on my back which, by this time, had actually begun to sting quite a bit.

After that was over, Lara and had just begun to journal when Isaias appeared with a cerveza for us. I was not interested in drinking (in fact, totally exhausted, I was not interested in doing much except going to bed), so I left it to Lara to finish it. Now, Lara is a master at coming up with in-depth, cultural questions off the top of her head and she never seems to run out of them. And she happened to ask Isaias one such question when he brought us the cerveza, which then led him to stay out there talking to us for about an hour. I did my best to listen, but I also wrote furiously in my journal at the same time, intent on finishing as soon as possible and going to sleep.

Among the things I reflected on in my journal was the incredible contrast between these two towns that are less than five minutes apart. Manglaralto aspires to tourism, but, as Isaias told us, he goes sometimes weeks without having anyone staying at his hotel. Yet here is Montañita--a prime example of everything that Manglaralto aspires to. It is successful, wealthier, full of people, lots of employment opportunities, tons of tourism. And yet, although the tourist in me was in awe of the place, I could not help but think that Montañita could be any town in Latin America. I could have been in any country--there was nothing left of the original culture to tell you that you were on the coast of Ecuador. Everything there was meant to cater to tourists--the restaurants, the bars, the shops, the vendors, the music. There was nothing Ecuadorean about the place. So I found myself wondering if that was the price that Manglaralto (and any small, impoverished town) has to pay for success--do they have to sacrifice their identity and their culture for the sake of a higher income and quality of life? Is it better to have empty hotels and an impoverished, unemployed population like in Manglaralto or a bustling town that is filled with tourists and robbed of its traditions and culture? Is it really worth it? And what are the alternatives?

I also could not help but write a bit about Isaias´s son, Patterson, in my journal since we had talked to him an incredible amount. And the thing I kept thinking and could not help but feel slightly guilty about thinking was that Patterson was all talk and little to no action. Patterson can go on for hours and hours about politics and about how he wants his community to develope and prosper and his hopes for the future. He talks passionately and very intelligently about everything. However, the fact that kept coming back to me was that he is 39, has no wife or kids, no job, and is not looking for a job at present, either. He spends his days hanging out with his friends and working on a rusted hunk of metal that may of at one time been a functioning car, attempting to revive it from its state of rusted hibernation. He talks passionately and intelligently about all these things, but when it comes down to it, I had not seen how he is at all involved in ACTING to bring these things about.

Lastly, I wrote about Nora and Isaias and how absolutely astounded I am by them. In one of my moments of clarity when for some reason I was able to understand Nora, she told me about how she has had ten children, but that only five of them are alive (all sons). At one time, she had a daughter, but she died of some illness in her 20s, leaving her with only five sons. As a result of her lack of daughters (and heartbreak at having no daughters), she told us, she now has two young dogs, Areina (essentially, Queen) and Muñeca Princesa (Princess Doll). It is rare in the campo for people to keep their dogs inside the house with them or treat them with any sort of affection really, but Nora´s dogs sleep with her and follow her everywhere. There is something very sweet but also very heartwrenching about watching Nora sitting in their little living room at night, on their couch with its stuffing sticking out in places, and her Areina and Muñeca Princesa asleep on her lap. Isaias, for his part, is a very wise, very interesting man. I tried multiple times to draw his face in my journal because it says so much just to looks at him--skin like leather, lines etched deep in his face like a wood carving, eyes like an eagle. I still remember the first time I shook his hand and how solid, strong, and rough it felt--the product of a lifetime of machete-wielding on his farm. His face betrays nothing, no emotion--always impassive. It is incredible to know him.

Around the time I finished my journal, Isaias bid us goodnight and I slipped gratefully under my bed net, laughing maniacally (the heat can make you crazy after a while) every time a giant bug landed on my bednet--"Haha sucker, can´t get me!"--while Lara wrote in her journal. I do not know what time she finally finished, as I was asleep in less then five minutes.

Today, we had breakfast and returned to Montañita, as we had planned. We walked down the beach to get there, rather than taking a cab, as the tide was out and it is only a thirty minute walk. When we reached Montañita, it was as if we entered another world (yet again): whereas there was no one on the beach in Manglaralto, this beach was crowded with umbrellas and chairs and children playing and people walking. We immediately went into town to find some shade where we could sit, have an icecream, and apply our suntan lotion out of the sun´s merciless gaze. However, as we were sitting there, who should walk up but Merry and Allison, two other classmates who are in a village about half an hour away by car! Merry, for her part, looked hot, tired, and unhappy--apparently, after finally recovering from her bout with parasites after the Orient, she had now come down with a cough and sore throat just in time for this trip!

There was a tall guy with them and a little girl and we shook hands with them before going our separate ways. Lara and I, coated in SPF 50, went down on the beach and rented two chairs and an umbrella for $5, relaxing comfortably and enjoying the breeze. We talked for a while, watching the people around us and the vendors walking by us, desperately peddling jewelry, hats, food, icecream, drinks, even fake tattoos.

Eventually, a guy walked buy selling sunglasses and we stopped him because my $5 ones from Walgreen´s that I bought before my family´s trip to Costa Rica this past New Year´s were finally on the verge of breaking. I found a pair I liked and he told me they were $6. Lara helped me bargain (since I am terrible at it) down to $4, but by then, I decided I genuinely did not need or want them and said, "no, pero gracias." However, I inadvertantly stumbled upon an amazing bargaining technique, because even though I genuinely did not want them anymore, he immediately was like, "OK, OK, $3.50? $3? Come on, $3!" So finally, for $3, I agreed to buy them. He seemed relieved as he handed them over, even though we had just cut the price in half, saying, "I really just want to sell them...I don´t care for how much." Apparently, selling them even for a potentially absurdly cheap price, he can still make a profit.

We ended up talking to him for about half an hour after our transaction. He told us he buys his sunglasses in Guayaquil and travels all over the coast selling them. He also apparently has a brother who was born in the US, but lives here, and he asked us how long could his brother stay in Ecuador without losing his US citizenship (to which we told him that, if indeed he had been born in the US, then he never would and could go there whenever). He told us about the nicest beaches around, about the tourists and Americans he has met who live here permanently. And just after saying goodbye to him, none other than Merry, Allison, the man, and the girl showed up!

Lara, Allison, and Merry took the little girl in the ocean, while I decided to hang out under the umbrella and read (given the state of my back--still very much lobster red, I thought it best to lay off the sun exposure today). However, that did not exactly happen. I was so excited to relax on the beach and read in the comfort of my chair, under my umbrella, with the breeze blowing on my face and the sound of the waves in my ears...too bad the only sound I ended up hearing for most of the next hour was the man, Allison and Merry´s host cousin, talking to me. Now, some people speak Spanish more clearly than others and on the coast, the accent has proven to be extremely difficult to understand (for the life of me, I can never understand a word that my host mother here, Nora, says, so I mostly just nod and smile when she talks to me). And this guy, besides being very difficult to understand, also quickly turned out to be slightly odd and more than a little creepy. He started out by asking me if I was married...then talking about how he wanted to get married...then something about money and trying to get rich...then asking me again if I was single or married...and throughout, every time a vendor walked by, he kept asking me if I wanted anything and while I was very polite ("Oh, muchas gracias, pero no...") at first, after about the tenth time, I got a little, ummm, testy.

All I had wanted to do was read my book in peace, but in an hour of sitting there next to him, I did not get to read more than maybe two pages. He did not seem to understand that I was really genuinely trying to read and he also did not seem to understand that I was not interested in talking to him more about me being single and unmarried (nor COULD I talk to him, since I did not really understand much of what he said). Around the time he pulled out his cell phone and first tried to give me his number (to which I told him that "Oh sorry, I do not have a pen") and then decided to play every loud, annoying sound and ringtone that his phone could make directly in my ear, I had had about enough. I was done being polite. So I blatantly more or less ignored him and his cellphone, reading my book as best I could, and occasionaly muttering, "Oh, uh-huh...uh-huh..." when he seemed to be pausing and waiting for a response.

When I finally gave up on this as well, I got up and stood in the surf with Lara, Merry, and Allison and they laughed, telling me they knew I would not get any reading done because he had been doing the same thing with them all day. Apparently, they told me he was the son of a prostitute and that he was thrown against a wall as a baby, which, among other things, may have explained why he was a bit strange. And while I felt bad for him for having such a terrible upbringing, I also struggled not to glare bitterly at him for ruining my nice, relaxing morning at the beach. Merry and Allison also said that the annoying-ness and creepiness of their host cousin was not limited to him alone. Apparently, their entire host family has been teasing Merry and Allison mercilessly about everything, from chasing after them with very large bugs to teasing them about being lesbians because they once saw them put sunscreen on each other´s backs. Their family later confided in them, apparently, that they are the first foreigners and first gringas to ever come to their village and did not want to offend them and wanted them to be comfortable there; yeah, so let´s tease the two gringas mercilessly and chase after them with bugs--good idea, nothing makes me feel more comfortable than that! And frankly, you do not have to be a gringa to be made to feel uncomfortable by that...

Eventually, we parted ways and Lara and I caught a bus (since the tide had come in and the way we had walked on the beach to get to Montañita would now be underwater) back to Manglaralto for almuerzo.

Tomorrow, we take a bus at 3:00Pm from Manglaralto to Alandaluz where we will finally (thankfully) meet up with the rest of our group. I know it has not been that long, but I miss them a lot. And while I do not think I am the most high-maintenance person, I cannot lie: I am glad to get back to somewhere where I can take a hot shower and where I am not covered in sweat and bugspray and sunscreen all the time and where there are not giant bugs and lizards sharing my bedroom with me. And more than that, I really do just like Quito and I like my homestay family and I only have a week and a half left with them before my ISP! And so I cannot wait to get back to them and make the most of that last week and a half in Quito.

Until next time, ciao!

-Alex

Behold! The Power of the Internet!

So I thought for sure that there was no way that there would be an Internet cafe anywhere within a hundred mile radius of Manglaralto, the tiny fishing town where I would be spending my coastal excursion. However, as you probably gathered by now, that is apparently not the case! Touring the town this morning with my classmate, Lara, who was assigned to stay in this village with me, I was shocked to walk past not one but TWO internet cafes! Apparently, the power of technology and the Internet reaches even into tiny impoverished pueblos in rural Ecuador!

We flew to Guayaquil Wednesday morning, bright and early, from the airport in Quito. The plane ride was barely half an hour, which was amazing, and we emerged from the airport into the hot, humid air and blinding sunlight of Guayaquil! It was kind of disconcerting, after being in the rainy, freezing Sierra for so long, like suddenly emerging from a rather dismal Spring into a blazing summer. As we rode through the city on our bus to our hostal, I was reminded of Miami (indeed the city looks and feels a great deal like Miami), I was reminded of North Carolina in the summertime (though even NC is not this humid), and even the Inner Harbor in Baltimore (after seeing all the ships tethered to the boardwalk--and I mean big, old-fashioned ones with sails). All of us immediately loved it and wondered why we could not spend more than a mere day here!

We dropped our things off at our hostal, Iguanazú, and spent about an hour unwinding and playing in the pool there. It was a beautiful hostal (and like everything in Ecuador, was an amazing deal at $15/night!), perched on a hill overlooking all of Guayaquil. I so wish we could have stayed longer!

After an hour or so, we all piled back on the bus and drove down to the Maricón (boardwalk). Now this area used to be very dangerous, where pickpockets and thieves LOVED to hang out, but apparently the mayor of Guayaquil has done wonders of the city in recent years, including using a LOT of money to refurbish the boardwalk area completely. We ate lunch at a restaurant on a section of it that has been constructed to resemble a giant ship, which was cool, overlooking the huge river that leads to the sea.

After lunch, we divided into groups and strolled down the boardwalk, admiring the water and all the sights. There are AMAZING gardens lining the boardwalk--apparently, it was constructed AROUND the giant, old trees there, which makes it incredibly gorgeous and mercifully shady! There were also statues of famous figures in Ecuadorean history, benches where people lounged, and tons of playgrounds throughout where kids ran and shrieked joyously.

When we arrived at the end of the boardwalk, we found ourselves at a museum (also newly refurbished), where we looked at some amazing contemporary Ecuadorean art by a guy named Villafuerte and some Pre-Colombian art, as well. All in all, very cool and a welcome break from the intense heat outside.

After the museum, we took our bus to a small, square park in the middle of the city which, although it has another name, is basically known to all as the "Iguana Park" because the iguanas (original inhabitants of this area) roam around just about as normally as squirrels do in the US. It was INCREDIBLE--iguanas everywhere and so many that you kind of did not even realize you were seeing them because they were literally strewn across every tree branch and every bush! There were HUGE ones, like dinosaurs, with spines and huge, long tails, probably almost six feet in length, and then baby ones as well, skittering up tree trunks in a flash of bright green. And as they are pretty accustomed to people, they just sort of sat there and looked at us as we pet them tentatively. Perhaps my favorite thing thus far this semester!

After the iguana park, we went back to the hostal to change, and then were dropped off on a street lined with restuarants to go have dinner. Since we have all been having Ecuadorean food every day for every meal, more or less, a group of us decided on a little Italian restaurant. We were the only customers and the owner and waitress happily pulled a bunch of tables together for all of us. It was really funny, because as they were taking our orders, I at first thought they were speaking to us in Italian--only after a minute for my ear to adjust did I realize they were just speaking Spanish with a very STRONG Italian accent. Once they took our orders, we watched as they literally made all our food from scratch in front of us--from the pizza, dough and all, to the pasta to the sauce. And it was INCREDIBLE. Eventually, a young Italian-Ecuadorean guy joined us. He spoke English fluently, but with a mix of an Italian and British accent because he learned his English at a British school here. Quite an international experience just talking to him.

The next day, we all piled in the bus after breakfast and took a driving tour through Guayaquil. Now, I have to say, I have mentioned before the strange looks and stares we get as we drive anywhere here in our big old bus full of gringos. However, Guayaquil is not a tourist town whatsoever, so not only were we probably the only gringos there but we were also definitely the only gringos cruising around in a big, conspicuous bus (as my friend Kari once kind of sang under her breath, I think at the wedding we attended, "I feel conspicuously white..."). And while the stares we receive elsewhere are usually kind of passively curious, these reactions were MUCH stronger. People waved, people stared, people glared, and some immediately began talking animatedly and gesturing when they saw us. And walking around, we got a lot more of the reactions we were warned about by Lenore and Faba at the beginning of the semester (lots of men yelling, "I love you" in faltering English and whistling). A very interesting and at times uncomfortable experience, to be sure.

We eventually reached the outskirts of Guayaquil, where the suburbios are. Now, these are NOT like the suburbs of the US at all--suburbios here are the shacks and lean-tos built by incredibly impoverished people squatting on the land around the city. Eventually, the government might recognize them and put in basic sanitation and stuff. MAYBE. It was a very stark contrast--tiny shacks built from sheets of plastic and metal and wood, surrounded by garbage and appearing very close to falling in the river. I looked at them and I think we all thought, "Oh shit--that´s like what we will be living in the next five days."

We drove for a while in the bus, through winding roads that cut through rolling hills covered in tall, waving grasses. Finally, we came around a bend and there, to our left, was the Pacific Ocean in clear aquamarine blue! We stopped along the road at a tiny restaurant for lunch, then continued on to our villages. The way it worked was we had been assigned in pairs to different villages all up the coast. We would drive and, village by village, dump each pair out along the way with the name of their community and family and the pair had to find their way to their house. Given that each community is incredibly small and has MAYBE 400 people at most, you can ask anyone who your family is and they can point you toward their house.

My partner, Lara, and I were assigned to Manglaralto, which is one of the last communities, and were dumped out in the heat and sun with our bags after a quick kiss on the cheek and a "¡Buen suerte!" from Lenore and Faba. We walked no more than a block or so from where we were dropped off and, after asking some people, were directed to a small, three-floor hotel where our family apparently lived and worked. We met our host brother, Patterson, first, who was out front working on his car. Then we met Nora, our host mother, who I cannot for the life of me understand most of the time (but she is incredibly nice nonetheless). We pretty much had our pick of the rooms in the hotel, as there was no one staying there at the time. We picked a room on the second floor, in hopes of a breeze at night, and left our things there.

Pretty soon after we arrived, Patterson invited us to a meeting of representatives from all the surrounding communities, including Manglaralto, as well as any citizens who wanted to attend. That was an experience! We sat in an impossibly hot room for about two and a half hours while people made impassioned speeches about their desire for a change in the respresenation system for the communities and their desire to create development and more jobs, as many people here are unemployed. Apparently, the women there and some of the men wanted to change the respresentation system so each village had one man and one woman rep. Right now, the reps from all the communities are all men.

As I watched it all happen, though, I could not help but think that this is why direct representation and participation democracy does not work very well. Anyone there could (and did) speak--thus, it was a lot of people in a room shouting at one another and not really making any real decisions or progress. Eventually, it degenerated into a bunch of people talking over one another and yelling, so they scheduled a meeting for the following week and that was that.

After the meeting, we returned to the hotel, where Nora had prepared a merienda for us. Now, I had some apprehensions about the food. Being poorer and not too familiar with strange gringo stomachs, I was very afraid of the food. Lara is vegetarian and, as a precaution, I told our family that I was vegetarian as well (also just to make things easier). Well, as soon as we got our food, I knew there was nothing to worry about. Besides the fact that we had rice, chifles (green platanos mashed, fried, and mashed again and fried again), menestra (lentils), and a little tuna, we each got a plate of fresh veggies, which could have been a problem until I tasted them and immediately recognized the strong, slightly lemony flavor of antiseptic often used on fresh foods before eaten here to clean them. They had been just about soaked in it! Immediately, I knew that there was nothing to worry about.

After dinner, we talked with Patterson for a long time--about his hopes for the future, the community, about why he supports Correa. And finally, exhausted, Lara and I went up to our room...only to realize that we then had the very lengthy process of filling in our work journals for the day ahead of us! We each changed into our pajamas and climbed under our bed nets and set to work, writing about everything that happened that day. However, since we had to have the light on to do this, many rather large insects kept flying in from the outside and then fluttering all over our rooms. On more than one occasion, I looked up at the net around me and uttered, "I love my bed net..." Lara, for her part, loved hers perhaps even more than me, since we saw a rather cute but very fast lizard skitter across the wall right by her bed.

Finally, at around 2Am, I finished journaling and curled up into sweat-filled, hot, yet exhausted slumber (I do not know how we can be so near the beach and so totally without even a hint of a breeze!).

Today, Lara and I strolled around town, getting an idea of the layout and talking to people along the way. We are here until Monday, when we will take a bus to the Alandaluz Lodge in the north where Faba and Lenore will be waiting for us. Wednesday, we drive to Manta and head back to Quito!

Until later, ciao!

-Alex

The Most Terrifying Day of My Life

I do not know how much of it has been covered in US news, but in case you did not know, the world kind of went nuts down here in Quito yesterday in more than one way. Firstly, as you might have heard in the news but then, maybe not, as a result of some insanely heavy, constant rain yesterday, the Trebol (a crucial portion of Quito city streets, kind of a giant mixing bowl where everyone from Los Chillos and the South get into Quito and get back out) collapsed. As Lenore explained to us this morning, Quito is located between two mountain ranges and is thus very long but not very wide, being squeezed between the mountains. However, originally, before the city, there were gorges and valleys and crevasses here rather than a city. As a result, in order to build the city, those valleys and gorges were filled in, which is great for creating more space for constructing houses but not so great for facilitating the drainage of rainwater. Therefore, when it rains insanely hard, like it did yesterday, in addition to mudslides and landslides, we also can get the city apparently caving in beneath our feet since there is not really anywhere for the water to go. So, all over the news last night and today were rather dramatic photos and video footage of this giant gaping hole, over a 100 meters deep and 17 meters in diameter, where the Trebol used to be. Not only is it a huge hole, but as they showed on the news, it is getting even bigger (multiple shots of huge portions of road just giving way and collapsing into this growing sinkhole in the road). Quite spectacular, for sure.

So, in addition to the craziness that you may or may not have seen on the news, our incredible, amazing academic director Fabian was driving home yesterday afternoon and some idiot (well, just like pretty much every other person on the roadways of Ecuador) cut in front of him. He turned to try not to hit the guy, but, as another wonderful result of the rains we have been having, the road was slick so he swerved. And, to avoid hitting a bus full of schoolkids, Faba turned and crashed into a pole instead.

Luckily, he is okay (just some rather impressive cuts as a result of broken glass, including a rather handsome one on his head) and his car is not totaled, although it is pretty trashed. Needless to say, we were all very happy and relieved to see him this morning!

Lastly, yesterday around the time I updated this blog was just another normal day. However, pretty soon after I wrote, my day turned into hands down the worst I have had here and probably the most frightening of my life thus far.

So, I was standing in the pouring rain for a while waiting for a bus to go home yesterday afternoon and, out of desperation, I hailed one down I never had before because most buses go more or less the same route and I assumed this one would, too (it did not, but we´ll get to that later...). I got on, grateful to be out of the rain even though the bus was crammed full of people. But behold! Just my luck--a woman sitting in the frontmost seat near the door got up and left, allowing me to sit down and relax, which was awesome.

I had only been on the bus for about five minutes when all hell broke loose behind me. Now, there are all sort of racial tensions and undertones here and I do not know how much of a part they played it what occurred, but judging from some of the insults I heard been thrown around, it is a definite possibility.

I turned around at the sound of yelling and saw a thin, wiry Latino guy in a suit and tie arguing with a Afroecuatoreano guy, both gesturing wildly and getting more and more heated by the moment. I assumed that, as the bus was very crowded and slippery from the rain, they had probably simply jostled each other accidentally or something. People generally tried to ignore them and after a minute or so, the Latino guy stalked to the front of the bus as if to leave. However, just as he got right in front of me (in my wonderful front seat nearest the exit), he turned back around and renewed his screaming (involving a lot of insults that definitely involved "negro-"something) before suddenly pulling back his jacket and pulling a gun out of his pants.

At this point, pretty much everyone started freaking out. I wanted nothing more than to get out of the bus, but since the guy with the gun was about a foot from me, not to mention between me and the exit, I could only sit there, plastered against the window, absolutely terrified. The Latino guy yelled a few more moments, waving his gun around in my face, at the general crowd, and gestured wildly with it at the black guy. FINALLY, he put the gun back in his belt, turned, and leapt off the bus, throwing one last insult over his shoulder.

At this point, I kind of just burst uncontrollably into tears and cried quietly in my little corner of the bus. These two little kids, who were sitting across from me when it happened, just sort of looked around with huge, terrified eyes, and everyone else on the bus was deadly silent. I felt stupid for crying and as it was happening, I was thinking, "God, why am I crying?" But it truly was one of the most genuinely terrifying moments I have ever experienced. I had only seen a gun once before that in my life and it had been in the trustworthy hands of my father and uncles at my grandparents´farm, not in the hands of a raging hothead on a bus where I could not get out.

Once I recovered from my shock and pulled myself together, however, I realized I was, in fact, on perhaps the ONLY bus that does not go the typical route and thus was not going to pass anywhere near my house. SO I got back out into the pouring rain and had to walk back to where I knew I could catch the right bus, stood in the rain a while longer waiting for one, and FINALLY caught the right bus to get home.

ANYHOW, I am just happy that day is over. Now, on to the coast! I will not be able to update my blog for about a week, until next Thursday most likely, since I am going to be staying in an impoverished fishing community on the coast and, since they may not even have running water, I am guessing there probably is not an Internet cafe. :)

Until next week, ciao!

-Alex