A Little Of It All.

Once again I have fell behind on writing on a relatively regular basis. Somehow I am making time to do this when school is the busiest. Procrastination at it's finest.

In mid October we went on field trip to the Amazon for 3 days and aside from getting very sick on the last day it was educational. Still not so sure what made me sick but almost all students got the same symptoms within a few days of each other. Apart from that, we spent time visiting a small community where we learned about the farming system called Chakras and the many plants in the forest. We toured through a women's farm in the jungle. Immediately we learned that Chakras are very different than traditional farms. She didn't plant crops in clean and neat rows in a pasture. Rather, Chakras are a plot of land where all kinds of different plants and crops grow in no specific order or in ay specific pattern. Everything is within close proximity to each other growing and feeding off of the life of the plants around one another. It was beautiful because her farm didn't need to look like a farm, it looked like the jungle and she takes from it what she needs. There were plants and trees of all varieties. We chewed on the leaves of a cinnamon tree and ate the fruit of trees I had never before seen. The woman, who was considered the local expert on medicinal plants because she knew them all, explained to us the function and importance of nearly every plant we came across. Some helped aid a headache, others help women with menstrual pain, and others are great stomach pain remedies. She continued to explain how absolutely everything she needs is in the forest and the people in her community are healthy because of it. When they're ill, in pain, or in need of food, they turn to their Chakras which provide for them. This was the most rewarding aspect of my time in the Amazon. Being able to see people using what they have and needing very little else because they make use of nature for what she is meant for was a  beautiful contrast to hearing so much about people taking advantage of Nature for what she has but shouldn't necessarily be used for.

October ended with Halloween or as its known here: Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. This actually takes place on November 1st. It is tradition here to eat and drink certain things on the days leading up. Wawa's de pan are bread in the shape of mummified children which are decorated and often contain a sweet filling in the centre.Coloda Morada is a drink which is made up of many blended fruits, and sweetened and then served hot. Both are delicious. On the 1st of November people head to the cemeteries with these foods and others. Cemeteries are filled with people spending the day eating and visiting with their dead loved ones. This is because many Indigenous people in Ecuador have long believed that a person's soul carries on after they die and they still have connections to them in which they can feel their emotions and thus they want to make sure they are fed and happy on the day to celebrate them.

November was mostly uneventful. I did, however book an 11 day trip to Chile in December from the 5th-16th. Stacey and I will fly to Santiago and spend half our time there and taking day trips outside the city. We then fly to Punta Arenas in Patagonia where we spend the second half of our time hopefully touring national parks and penguin colonies. I will soon be planning the remainder of my Christmas holiday touring parts of Ecuador I have yet to get to.
 Last weekend  I took a rather spontaneous trip with some friends to the southern city of Cuenca. It is beautiful there. We took a tour of the city by double-decker bus and ended at a beautiful look out high above the city. The next day we spent with a guide on a private tour of Parque Nacional Cajas. The park is located in various areas within the mountains outside Cuenca. At the highest point we reached we were around 4800m above sea level. Compared to the 2000 something meters in Quito it was quite the change! The simplest of climbs caused me to lose my breath so quickly. The weather in the mountains is cold, not Canada type cold but at least chilly and very windy. We went for a long hike through the mountains in the park and learned about much of the foliage there. Hiking wasn't difficult but as soon as a slight change in the terrain was noticeable, we could tell this meant a sudden loss of breath. It amazed me how difficult it was to climb a small hill knowing that in Canada this is never an issue because the altitude is so different. Near the end of our hike we had to climb up quite a ways as we had been working our way down and around the mountain. Never before have I dreaded climbing like this, but with reason. Every 100 Ft or so we would have to stop to catch our breath. Despite having spent many years of my life running cross-country I have never before struggled to catch my breath like I did then. This of course was made up for by the beautiful views which surround you at every angle.

Upon returning to Quito I have done little other than catch up on school work and try to figure out my placement. As a student who had expected myself to be living in Ghana this year rather than Ecuador, I am always finding new struggles. I knew it would be difficult to be here and that I would have to constantly adjust myself and especially my mind but I think the aspect of my placement has been the hardest. I had known what I  would be doing for placement if I were in Ghana and I had known for some time but had to switch my mind so suddenly to think in terms of Ecuador which has left me quite lost many times. Unfortunately, In Ecuador I cannot work in elephant conservation, so I've had to find a new interest. I am and have been very interested in sustainable agriculture due to its importance in world food systems. I am trying to find my placement within this field but I fear that I may be unhappy and not enjoy it because I had my mind set on something different for a long time. It hasn't been easy to be here and I have not been able to simply let go of my want to be in Ghana. Because I had to make a decision so quickly about coming to Ecuador, I had little time to switch my mindset and I knew this would catch up to me and cause me confusion. I am dealing with this and trying to find a way to balance myself. I have to try hard to let my mind be here in Ecuador instead of wandering so much and hopefully once my mind can be less nomadic and find its home, it will be easier for me to discover where I am supposed to be for the second half of my journey here.
This hasn't been much of a critical examination of my experiences but more of an outline of how my last month and a bit has been but there is plenty more to see here and plenty more to try to understand.

A Month in Review

I haven't written in over a month, and this didn't occur to me because I hadn't realized a month had passed! time is flying while here in Ecuador. Aside from my classes and continuing to progress in Spanish, I have been trying to give myself as much of a cultural experience as possible through my love for adventure and trying new things.
A few weeks ago some of my friends and I travelled about 3 hours to Otovalo. This is an old town with great indigenous history. Every Saturday Otovalo is the host of one of the world's largest artisanal markets that takes up the entire downtown with vendors selling food, clothing, scarves, jewelry, art, etc. Most of the locals can be noticed by their clothing. The women wear white hand-crafted dresses and often a distinct hat. We walked around the market for hours deciding what to buy (literally everything was worthy of being purchased). Upon arriving in Otovalo the da before, we walked along train tracks out of the town and into a rural area on the mission of finding  Cascadas de Peguche (a large waterfall). After about an hour's walk we came to the park where the waterfalls were rushing from about 40 ft up. Otovalo was a beautiful place that I will undoubtedly be returning to soon, likely for Christmas shopping.

About 3 weeks ago, we travelled to Canoa, a small and quite coastal town. As school has been getting busier we were all in need of a relaxing weekend with no homework. The bus to Canoa took 6 hours and we travelled at night to maximize our time at the ocean. We arrived around 5 in the morning to a warm breeze. We slept at a hostel and when we woke up we headed straight to the restaurant for breakfast. Soon after we found ourselves in the white sandy beach. Throughout the whole weekend there was little sun but we made the bet of it. The air was warm and that's all we needed. I spent more time exploring the beach and checking out the shells, crabs, and birds I came across then actually lying on the beach. The beaches of Canoa are extremely quiet, especially because we went as winter was beginning to set in. This was great because there were fewer people to embarrass ourselves in front of when we took surfing lessons the next day. We came across an awesome deal where 6 of us got 3 hours of surfing lessons for $10 each. Although I had surfed before, I was not used to the large waves in Canoa. At one point the surfing instructor told me to follow him out further into the ocean so that I could practice swimming through the waves. t this point I didn't have my board to lie on so my arms and legs got tired quickly from the pressure of having to push through the waves which were incredibly strong.  After swimming out far,  I finally got my board and the instructor insisted that I  try to ride those waves. They were huge and quite frightening. I tried it out but whenever I fell I was beaten up by the huge wave. When we got back to the beach, the instructor told me that in 5 days I could become a pro, which was reassuring because after been hit by many a wave, I thought I was sure my amateurism was evident.

Last week we went on a class field trip to a farm just outside Quito. We had been learning about sustainable food practices as well as the importance of food sovereignty and food security in Ecuador. This trip was meant to put what we had read about into our minds through a more practical and realistic approach. The farm is a relatively small plot of land that had been broken up from a larger hacienda estate. Upon arriving we first learned that the farm has no access to running water and thus they use a very different system for their bathrooms. The bathroom is in a separate building from the house made of beautiful brick. Because the farm doesn't have running water, they rely on rain water for their needs. Thus, the bathroom is not equipped with a flushing system. All waste is reused as fertilizer fort he grass and the trees.
The farm grows fruit and vegetables and uses them for their own subsistence in addition to selling to the local town down the mountain. The owners of the farm are also a part of the Via Campesina movement where small-scale producers work with local populations to provide healthy and affordable food bundles to the communities. It's a movement that created food sovereignty or the ability to have control over their own food production. The farm also uses no pesticides in their growing process. The trip to the farm was of great interest to me as I am a proponent of small scale sustainable farming as opposed to corporation production for trade on international markets.  

This past week we left very early Wednesday morning and travelled about 5 hours North of Quito to the Intag Cloud Forest Reserve. We stayed at the lodge of a well known activist against mining exploitation in Intag, named Carlos Zorrilla. Carlos has worked very hard for Intag by resisting and pushing out the Canadian mining corporation Ascendant. Carlos founded the grassroots organization DECOIN (Organization for the Defense and Conservation of Intag) to resist World Bank sponsored projects for mining exploration in the cloud forest. Carlos has been targeted and officially criminalized by Ecuador's president, Raphael Correa, as been one of the people who are hindering Ecuador's development. But is the destruction of natural resources, the displacement of people, and the creation of major health issues really "development"? It's certainly debatable.  Carlos talked to us about his resistance to the mining initiatives as well the continuous motions made by various corporations in tandem with the Ecuadorian government to push mining as an economic benefit. Mining relations between Ecuador and big corporations through bilateral treaties are written and designed to create jobs and wealth for the exploited country(Ecuador) and emphasizing that the two countries will protect the other's mining interests. The problem here is that Canada, for example, mine in Ecuador and thus under the treaty Ecuador must protect Canada's mining interests, however, there are no Ecuadorian mining companies in Canada, so Canada does not need to protect anyone and therefore they benefit from these relations, leaving Ecuador with a mass loss of resources and Canada with more money. Being Canadian and always proud of it and never ashamed to say where I'm from, that changed after listening to Carlos.
In addition to leading DECOIN, Carlos' lodge is also a farm where grows sustainable shade-grown coffee to offer a economic alternative to mining in Intag. Shade grown coffee allows for more life because trees can be planted in the vicinity of other types of trees rather than in an open field that has been created for cultivation. There is also less erosion because rain hits the leaves above the coffee trees before hitting the ground and contributing to th erosion. The food that we ate while at the lodge was all fresh and most grown on his farm. I have never eaten such good food. It's not an exaggeration to say one can taste the difference between GMO/large-scale production goods and sustainable, pesticide-free food. That first night Carlos set up a light with a sheet hanging in front of it to attract moths. The purpose was to show us a simple explanation of the diversity found in the cloud forests. Within minutes of turning on the lights there were 30-40 different types of moths all clinging to the same sheet. Carlos told us that nearly every night that he sets up the light for the moths, a new type of moth that he has never seen before will appear. Carlos has lived there for about 20 years and that night he still saw 2 knew moths that he had never before come across.

The second day in Intag was a busy one! We started the day by hiking for 4 hours through the primary forest (meaning nothing has been cut down and replanted, all life is primary). As we climbed up and around one of the mountains, our guide Roberto (the only full-time worker on Carlos' farm) would stop along the way to explain to us aspects of the forest's biodiversity. At one point we stopped beside a tree where Roberto dug his large knife in the trunk. A black liquid emerged onto his knife and explained that this substance can heal external cuts and scratches as well a stomach ulcers. To apply the liquid to your skin hardens it and creates a protection on top of the cut. Essentially, it is a completely natural polysporin. When we returned from the hike, a local artisanal group explained t us how the make their products. The group is comprised entirely of women who use their handicrafts to supplement their income from farming. The women use Agave, which is basically a 10 foot tall aloe plant to make their products which we later got to purchase. These women also became our host mothers for the remainder of our stay in Intag. That afternoon we had to climb back up the mountain to get to the homes of our new host families. this journey up the mountain was a long and difficult one. Some families(like mine) owned horses or donkeys to take us up the mountain. I didn't ride the horse until the last half hour. The paths were narrow and the terrain was steep, soft, and rocky making for a rough ascent. Upon arriving at the home I would b staying at I was not really too surprised. What I saw was more or less what I expected. The home was made of cement and the walls didn't completely reach the roof making the house extremely cold and a place for not just people, but for mosquitos and many other bugs. The next day I was to follow my family and assist them with their daily work routine. The family I stayed with were bean farmers which meant waking up at 5am with he roosters. A about 7:30 we left for the work day and needed to climb further up the mountain in order to scale down it to get to the valley. The walk down the mountain was unlike anything I had ever done. There were no paths or ruts in the ground, all we had were trees and plants to grab ahold to steady ourselves so that we didn't fall face first hundreds if feet down the mountain. Once we reached the valley, my calves were burning in pain but work began right way. We started by laying out tarps and emptying sacks of shelled beans onto the tarps so they could dry out in the sun. About an hour later we checked the beans and because they were dry enough we could take long ticks and began beating the beans. We spent about an hour completely pulverizing the shells so that all the beans would fall out of their dry shells. We then needed to separate shell from bean. The next step was to ensure there was no dirt or debris with the beans when they get put in the sacks. The beans are scooped into baskets and held over heads and dumped into another basket. This is don so that all the debris can fly out with the wind as the beans fall straight to the basket. Then the beans are put into sacks and are ready to be sold locally. Most farmers in Intag are subsistence farmers, so they produce food to consume for themselves but there isn't enough to sell. The work was extremely labour intensive and very difficult in the hot sun. I was glad that I didn't have to harvest anything  off the mountain. Farmers need to make use of all available land, so their are full crops growing on the sides of the mountain, top to bottom. When we finished working, we climbed back up the mountain. I dreaded this all day knowing how tired I would be and how exhausting and physically challenging it would be. The Grandmother, who was likely around 70-years-old, climbed up and down the mountain with incredible ease while wearing croc-like shoes. The 3-year-old son also climbed down and up again with little effort. I, wearing my hiking boots, still struggled to find good footing. I could not complain as the view on the way up was the most incredible I have witnessed so far in Ecuador. The clouds were beginning to set in around the mid section of the mountains. To look on each side of me and see nothing but foliage, cloud, and mountain left me needing to stop often to turn around and take it all in. My explanation of this beauty does not do it justice, but unfortunately it was impractical for me to lug my camera with me to work so I have only my memory to allow me this scenery from now on. While walking up they explained to me that they do this routine every day. Day after day they descend the mountain, work hard for 8 hours, and then climb back up. I was impressed but also saddened that the worked this hard with barely any economic return, especially for the Grandmother who still had to exhaust herself everyday at her age. That night I slept for maybe 2 hours. I had discovered a mouse in my bedroom, a large black spider across from my bed, and a multitude of black grasshopper-like bugs around the room. This combined with front door that continuously swung open all night allowing more bugs to enter, kept me awake. In the morning I found a large beetle making it's way up the blanket toward me. I was surprised that I was bothered by these conditions, but I was and I didn't like myself for it. Part of studying what I do is understanding that not everyone lives the same. It is one thing to be aware and understand, and very much another to experience it yourself. I learned so much from my time in Intag and loved working as a bean farmer for a day, learning the ecology of the cloud forests and hearing Carlos' first-had experiences with mining "developments". To be here requires me to constantly ensure that my mind is open and aware. To close it for just a second could mean losing or jeopardizing my own knowledge and reality, and to do that would be a crime in itself to me, the people I learn from, and Ecuador from whom I take so much and hope to give somehow in return.

3 weeks in.

I have been here in Ecuador for nearly 3 weeks. I feel as if I've been here 3 months. I have started school, I have moved in with my host-family and I have begun touring the country. My life here is certainly starting to take shape.
On the day that I met my host family (which consists of a mother and my 15-year-old brother), I was taken to their home to unpack. That day was a strong indicator of what my lifestyle would be like living there; busy and exciting. I spent maybe half an hour in the house before my brother, Jose-Maria, took me and a few friends on a gondola up one of the nearby mountains. We hiked and took in the scenery of the mountainous landscape and the city of Quito below. That night they rushed me off to centro-historical, the historical and colonial area of Quito. It's a place filled with incredible architecture, great sights, and lots of interesting stories. The next day I found myself ziplining through the jungle and spotting my first sight of a Tucan.
The next weekend, the one that has just passed, my host-family took me with them on a road trip to the Esmerelda's. The area is an odd mix of beauty and devastation, rich in diversity, but poor in living conditions. Upon entering the city we drove past slums and neighbourhoods of houses propped up on stilts above the murky waters of Rio Esmereldas. Soon later we drove past one of the many beaches situated along their coast by the Pacific. The beaches are beautiful and large, sunny and sandy. To have driven mere kilometres from slum to beautiful beach seemed  strange to me. How could the area change so drastically, and so quickly? The houses are small, and the living conditions severely different than what I have become accustomed to in Quito. Before leaving, my brother informed me that some days there is water, but other days there isn't and you can never be sure when you will have the luxury of running water. For the majority of the weekend that I was there, there was no running water, which meant no way to wash your hands. For a period of a weekend, I wasn't much bothered by this as I had prepared myself at least minimally for different conditions. After returning to Quito, I wondered whether I would have the capacity to live like that for more than a weekend. I still cannot be sure that I would. This is not because I'm a materialistic person or need to live with certain luxuries (because I don't), it's more because I am not sure I would mentally be able to confront myself daily with the reality that I may never know what will or could happen.
While in the Esmereldas Jose-Maria and I took surfing lessons. This is something I have wanted to do for a while and finally got a chance. A background n snowboarding certainly helped. The motions and balance were very similar, so we both picked it up quickly. I have yet to receive my pictures from the instructor so those will come later.

Ecuador is always surprising me and amazing me. Although I had not expected to be here (because my initial choice to study abroad was in Ghana), I am finding meanings to why I was led to Ecuador instead. It is difficult, because the country rarely resembles anything to Canada, and because my Spanish is still not great (but I'm learning each day), but difficult is not a bad thing. I'm embracing it. If it were easy to be here, then I may wonder why I am here at all. As I work through this first semester, I am essentially preparing myself for second term where I will find myself in another part of the country. Second term is where I finally get to jump into the field of development work by volunteering with an organization and researching, learning, and eventually writing on what I find. I expect this part of my journey to be even more difficult. Again though, it should be. Whether I find myself learning the way of sustainable coffee farming, or restoring habitats that have been displaced by extraction I know that my knowledge ad learning will be endless while here in Ecuador. To be in this place is beautiful and is constantly opening and stretching my mind. And in the grand scheme of my entire life, this journey is but only 8 months. A very miniscule period, with major implications.

 

Las montanas delante de mi.

I left Ontario for Quito, Ecuador 5 days ago. I have never spent 8-9 months outside of Canada before. I have never been to South America. I have never had to speak so much Spanish.

 Ecuador differs from Canada in more than one way. Although both countries are mountainous, the mountain ranges are not similar. Living in Ontario, I have never had the luxury of waking up and seeing grassy-topped mountains out my bedroom or classroom window. In Quito, everywhere I have gone I am constantly surrounded by the view of the mountains. As Canadians we are more accustomed to snow-capped mountains on the west coast and Quebec. We are also accustomed to seasonal temperatures matched with natural seasonal elements. In Quito, the day may begin chilly and foggy, but by 10am it can be sweltering for a few hours and by around 2:00 it will cool down and maybe rain, and as the sun sets around 6:30, the temperature drops quite low.

The city of Quito also differs in comparison to Toronto, for example. The colonial area of Quito is bustling with people and cars, everywhere! The architecture is old and beautiful. The buildings; colourful. There are shops painted pink, yellow, and blue, and important buildings clean and white. There are fountains and cobblestone alleys. If Toronto, with it's high rise buildings and glass architecture, is to be considered modern, then colonial Quito is very much pre-modern.  

At home, if I were to order lunch at a restaurant I would normally get Iced-Tea or maybe a pop with my meal. However, in Ecuador we are often served fruit juices that are so exotic in comparison to the selections at home of orange, apple, or cranberry. So far, I have drank fresh papaya juice, pineapple juice, passion fruit juice, and the juice of a large yellow football-sized fruit of which I cannot remember the name. Just today I went for lunch with some other Trent-in-Ecuador students and got a delicious bowl of potato and chicken soup, a plate of some beef, a large portion of rice, and cooked vegetables, as well as a glass of that lovely pineapple juice, and small cup of fruit in some type of sweet sauce for dessert. This filling and over-all delicious meal cost me $3.50 USD.

In my time here so far I have certainly noticed signs of development (the amount of schools, and business people, for example). I have also noticed signs of underdevelopment (certain standards of living and overcrowding). In addition, I've noticed pockets of Westernization here and there. I did not expect to come to Ecuador and see a KFC, a Pizza Hut,  or two Payless shoe stores; but I did. My immediate thought was whether these conglomerations are indicators of development. That's a topic for another post though, and perhaps something worthy of a thesis paper.

I could go on for a very long time writing of the differences in culture, lifestyle, geology, and environment between Ecuador and Canada, but I have may more months to write.
Hasta luego! 

 

Pathways to action.

This is my first ever blog post and I feel it appropriate to write about something that is strong and very present in my life currently. I am nearing a major change where I will move not only out my province, but out of my country, and even further where I will find myself out of the continent of North America. As of late August I will be moving to Ecuador where I will stay for approximately 9 months. This change in lifestyle is the result of being a student studying international development. There is only so much one can learn from being lectured to in a classroom, not to mention a classroom in Canada. I need to experience first hand the ideas, theories, and stories that I've learned and make use of this knowledge in a country so different from my own. After spending the first few months studying at a university in Quito, I will be volunteering with an undetermined organization somewhere in the country gaining field experience and conducting research to write a report based on a subject tied to the ideology of the organization. I have considered a few areas of interest for my field placement and narrowed it down to three. 1: sustainable agriculture (coffee, banana, cocoa farms, etc). 2: resource extraction issues and the displacement of indigenous peoples in the Amazon. 3: habitat restoration after mining corporations have cleared land for extraction. This is the component of my year-abroad that intrigues me the most. I am looking forward to the opportunity to learn the fabric of Ecuadorian culture while working with the people toward a common goal of development; social, economic, political, environmental.

 I am a strong believer in the prospect of good. In the world today it seems we struggle to seek out optimism when the people surrounding us are the products as well as the catalysts of tragedy. It is a rare breed, those who see hope and choose to act on it. I would never consider myself naive or idealistic. my perspective on the world, rather, is that we are all creative beings with creative minds. It is how we choose to use our minds that will determine which direction the state of the world will flow. The mind is an immensely powerful tool, and if wielded wrong it can be destructive. I believe this is where the power-hungry are separated from the modest. I have chosen to use my mind productively for good. I do not expect myself to change the world, for that is a goal that is far too loaded. In actuality, I expect of myself that I keep my mind creative, balanced, and open, and that in doing this I can create influence on others. I do expect that I will help, improve, develop, and change what I can whenever I can, while always remaining true to the people that I come across in doing so. It is one thing to want to change the world, but very much another to want it all to be the same. Change comes with recognizing and respecting difference, and this is something that our creative minds have the ability to comprehend, it just needs to produce more influence and take shape through the people who control these minds.