Home Sweet Home...

Sadly, I am writing to you from the cold, cloudy city of Quito, having earlier today left the sunny shores of San Cristobal. I truly would have liked nothing more than to have stayed in Jatun Sacha these next two weeks--bugs, heat, humidity, and all--but unfortunately, I had not choice but to return to Quito for a week of furious, feverish writing of my research paper and then another week of grading before returning to the US on May 24.

I think I must pause here and write out some of the things I am going to miss most bitterly now that I have left Jatun Sacha and all my friends there behind:

1) The People: I met more people from different countries in the past three weeks than I think I have ever met in my life--Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, and more! I´ll miss Claire, for her awesome sense of humor and amazing attitude, no matter what. I´ll miss Ricarda and how she never took any shit from anyone and for her love of music and adventure. I´ll miss Fran for quirky, hilarious sense of humor and how understanding she always seemed to be. I will even, in a weird way, miss Angelika´s complaining (mainly because then Claire and I could laugh about it together) and Gerda´s wild gesticulations and strange body odor (again, mainly because then I could laugh about it with Claire). And generally, I will just miss getting to meet new people from new countries each and every week.

2) The Work: Believe it or not, there was something rewarding about the work at Jatun Sacha, for sure. Make no mistake: it was painful, exhausting, torturous, and frustrating at times (not to mention sweaty and bug-infested), but there was a strange sense of accomplishment every day when I finished as long day of hard work and could feel that hard work in every muscle of my aching body. It was worth it, somehow, and I will miss it greatly.

3) The Stars: There is nothing quite so beautiful as the stars over Jatun Sacha. One of the benefits of being in the middle of nowhere: no lights to obscure the brilliance of the stars overhead.

4) The Peace and Quiet: Another benefit of being in the middle of nowhere, with no Internet, telephone, or television closer than an hour´s drive away. Without such distractions, you have so much time to think, to relax, to read (I read more for fun over the past three weeks than I have in a very long time), and to just be. I´ll miss my hammock time in the evenings, watching the light grow dim while swinging in my hammock on the porch with everyone. A lot.

There are countless things I will miss about Jatun Sacha and could not possibly list them all here, but there are some things I do not want to forget:

1) Richard and I, picking oranges to make juice for lunch. Since Richard had previously gotten fire ants in his eyes while picking oranges, we were both very wary and proceeded to pick oranges with me holding the sack out, as far from me as possible and Richard pulling the oranges off the tree and throwing them in the sack, all with our heads twisted around and ours necks craned as far as possible from the plummeting orange. Good times.

2) Walking to the bar at night, under the stars, and playing pool/Cuarenta until the crazy late hour of 8:00PM!

3) Going to bed and rising with the sun.

4) Mealtimes. Nothing tastes as good as, well, ANYTHING after five hours of macheteing and digging!

5) Gerda: "Mmmmmmm, errrrr, grrrrr....cookie! Puddin´!" (Claire, if you ever read this, you´ll know what I mean)

6) Angelica: "I got the black lung, pa...ah-he, ah-he!" (Claire...you know what I mean)

7) Sunset over the port while having batidos at Casa Blanca

8) Spiders and cockroaches in the toilet

9) Moths emolating themselves in my candles at night

10) The sweet lullabye of Gerda and LJ´s snoring

11) "I love the smell of DEET in the morning."

And tons more!

Thursday evening a bunch of the volunteers went on a Booze Cruise, essentially--one of the tour agency operators that gives great deals to Jatun Sacha volunteers offered up a SUPER nice boat and caipiriñas for us for a really good price, so a bunch of us went. It was, in a word, amazing. About 20 of us on this awesome boat at sunset and, once the sun set, we all jumped off and swam around the boat, checking out the amazing stars overhead and the even more amazing phosphorescents glowing all around us in the water.

It was Fran, one of the volunteers´birthdays, so the crew gave her a birthday shot of tequila. However, Fran is a VERY petite person and pretty soon after that shot, she proceeded to start dancing nonstop in the middle of the boat, her voice rose about ten octaves, and anytime someone tried to get her to go in the water, she would cry, "Oh, I couldn´t possibly! I couldn´t possibly! My glasses! I couldn´t possibly!" (much funnier when you imagine that in a British accent, as Fran is from the UK...somehow, the way she said it just made it hilarious).

Friday, Fran and I went to the beach in the morning and ended up going to a bit more secluded beach that I had never visited before. Turned out to be an AWESOME decision: we were the only two people and when we got there, there were these two sea lions playing and flipping and darting around in the bay just off the beach. Suddenly, I noticed something BIG swimming near the rocky shore and at first thought it was a sea lion. However, it wasn´t: it was a GIANT black marine iguana, swimming around in the water. I had never seen them swim before and they are incredibly graceful. They just sort of slither from side to side, almost in the way a shark swims. One of the coolest things I have EVER seen.

Friday evening, we went out for a bit to one of the local bars, but then came back to our hostal and just sat on the balcony, overlooking the boardwalk and the ocean beyond, enjoying the peaceful, beautiful evening.

Saturday, unfortunately, was spent in an Internet cafe beginning to write the lengthy paper I have to do for my ISP. However, in the afternoon, I did get to go out to the beach one more time. We then all went to this restaurant we often went to, La Playa, where, after weeks of watching other people order and enjoy them, I had a langostino (Galapagos lobster, essentially).

This morning, I woke up early and went out to get some breakfast with Claire, only to find that literally EVERYWHERE was closed because of Mother´s Day. Luckily, we ran into Minolo, a tour agency operator that knows all us volunteers, and his aunt runs one of the little restaurants where we go for breakfast. Even though she was not there, he let us in and told us to make whatever we wanted, so we had some toast with jam and coffee and talked with Minolo awhile before I had to leave for the airport.

After a rather sad goodbye, in which I was sure to insist this was only "See you later!" and not "Good-bye," I got a taxi to the airport and set off back to Quito. It was good to see my host mother again and she was happy to see me, for sure.

Tomorrow, the marathon writing commences. Yay! Til next time, ciao!

-Alex