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.