Monday, June 16
Today we started with a breakfast that
showcased one of my favorite aspects of
Ecuador the fruit... well the fruit juice to
be exact. Having been here once before I was
truly thrilled to return to the fresh juice
of the multi-ecospheres of Ecuador. My
favorite is the mango juice but watermelon
and "tomate de arbol" are also high on my
list. After breakfast we had an orientation
so that everyone would be on the same page
in the different research teams. Now that
all the details had been finalized and
everyone from the different universities and
departments around the country were in
attendance we could all get informed and get
introduced. The orientation was great and I
learned more about Ecuador to supplement
what I had learned on my first trip. We even
got to discussing politics which is always
exciting to me. We also heard a talk from
two of the PhD students that work in the
infectious disease research lab at the
university (PUCE) that we are associated
with in Quito. They were both really great
and considering English is both of these
ladies second language I was blown away with
how awesome they did. I wish I could do as
well in Spanish. The first talk was about
water borne disease and it's effects on
people in Ecuador and the second was about
Dengue. I learned something (more than
something a lot of things) new in both and
got really excited about the work we were
going to do. I'm really excited about being
on the water testing team and am sure that
the work we do in the communities will help
them in some way.
After we all got excited about what we were
doing we headed out to some exciting stuff.
After lunch we went to the highest peaki in
Quito which allegedly was 4000 meters high.
We were brought up by an incline lift that
was really fun. The view from the top was
spectacular and literally breath-taking (the
air was really thin). There was also an
amusement park up there that I would love to
visit with someone special :)
My favorite part of the day was when we went
to a drug store to spend our $60 donation to
buy medicines to donate to a hospital we
will visit next week (yay!). Good deeds and
good times, I'm so excited.
That night we ate at an awesome restaurant
caused the Magic bean that had a great
varied menu. I really felt like the group
bonded for the first time over that dinner.
I love Quito and I've gotten familiar with
it these past few days but I'm ready to hit
the road and get the rainforest in Tena.
Tomorrow we go for more adventure.
Merrian Brooks
Tuesday,
June 17
Today our rather large group began our
morning by packing up the vehicles, rushing
through breakfast of eggs and coffee to
board for a long journey ahead. Everyone
piled into their chosen car or truck ready
to embark on the travel from Quito to Tena.
Quito is a metropolitan city high in the
Andes; everyone was wearing a sweater
because the weather is cold and dry. We
finally set out after (as always) a
substantial amount of waiting time. Our
caravan drove through really rough mountain
roads. There are always men at work on the
roads because of the constant need of
repair. Buses speed around the corners like
wild animals so the lead car of our group
was in charge of warning the other vehicles
via walkie talkie. As our travel pushed on
we descended down the mountains into the
jungle. There were comments coming back and
forth through the radios about how “we were
entering into Jurassic park,” and “where are
the dinosaurs?” Our group was very laid back
and fun to be around. We sang songs and made
jokes back and forth to each other during
the entirety of our trip that lasted about
10 hours. We finally arrived in Tena,
completely exhausted, at around 10 and ate
dinner, stumbled back to the hotel and
slept.
Christine Leistner
Wednesday,
June 18
Today we spent the morning hiking in Jatun
Sacha. It was beautiful! We were surrounded
by gigantic trees, bright green plants, and
all sorts of insects. Richard spotted a huge
black beetle and we passed around for some
fun photos! I’m excited to see how they turn
out. Halfway through the hike, we had the
opportunity to climb a tower to overlook the
canopy. It took a while to get up to the
top. If Margaret hadn’t been right on my
tail, I would have turned around about three
quarters of the way up. It was definitely a
lot higher than I had realized. I’m glad she
was behind me though. The view from the top
was breath-taking! We were able to see the
whole forest and this gorgeous river that
flowed through the middle of it all. I was
shaking a bit while I was up there, but it
was nice to sit back and enjoy the view!
It took quite some time for everyone to make
it up and down the tower. Half of the group
headed back for lunch while we took turns
climbing. By the time we returned for lunch
some of the girls were asleep in the
hammocks and the others were just enjoying
the down-time, relaxing, and talking. We are
really lucky to have such a flexible and
patient group on this trip. It’s not always
easy to be so patient. We do a lot of
“waiting and hurrying,” and everyone just
continues to go with the flow. I’ve been
really impressed.
In the afternoon, we visited some midwives
in the area. It was a very interesting
experience. They really seemed to take pride
in what they do, yet occasionally talked
about it as a practice that was losing
legitimacy in their community. They have a
huge and well-kept facility to work from but
expressed that they had not been seeing very
many patients. As they guided us through the
gardens, the women explained how each of the
plants is used to treat various maladies. It
was amazing to hear the faith they hold in
their practices even without support from
the surrounding community.
After leaving the midwives we stopped in
Archidona for some juice and empanadas. We
walked around the town park for a while
until the rain started pouring out of sky.
We eventually made our way to the juice bar
and stationed ourselves under the canopy to
avoid the downpour. We sat there for a
couple hours; drinking juice, eating
empanadas, watching the Ecuador v. Colombia
football match, and enjoying each other’s
company. We had planned on visiting with a
Shaman later that evening, but he was unable
to meet with us. It’s funny how things work
out though. I think we were all just as
content to spend the evening sitting
together in the rain watching the match.
We eventually headed back to our hotel in
Tena - ate dinner and passed out. It was
definitely another long, eventful, and
exciting day. We’re all pretty lucky to be
here.
Abbey Wojno
Thursday,
June 19
This was our first day in which we planned
to visit and help some of our chosen
communities. Regarding the first community
we wanted to share the test results of
various drinking water samples that we had
taken the year before. Some of which
revealed unsafe bacteria counts from sources
of water the villagers believed to be clean.
We also planned on performing a skit for the
school children involving a hungry mosquito
named Sasi that was on a quest to lay her
eggs. The skit conveys the message that
mosquitoes are bad; they can cause diseases
like malaria and dengue fever. In order to
prevent such things it is a good idea to
dump out any sources of stagnant water that
could provide appropriate breeding zones for
mosquitoes.
We arrived to
the community of Apastanko de Ongota around
10:30 am. Our convoy of five 4x4 vehicles
rolled into the central point of the town.
We came upon a large number of people
gathered around what looked like a
ceremonial item, however at the time it was
difficult to get a good look at it.
Immediately upon meeting the stares of some
of the villagers I felt uncomfortable as if
we were intruding. The presence of five 4x4
vehicles filled with gringos in a small
community is quite conspicuous to say the
least. After a few minutes of sitting in our
vehicles covered by a thick blanket of
uneasiness we realized that the large group
of solemn looking Ecuadorians was gathered
there for a funeral. After this news, we
left with most of the vehicles to wait at
the outskirts of the community to be less of
a disturbance while last year's water data
was given to a community leader.
We then
visited a second community. Upon pulling up
to the school building (which is also
commonly the center and gathering point for
the town) the feel of the place was much
more welcoming. School was in session and
the teacher was happy to stop her lesson in
order to allow us to perform our skit. The
children were quite young perhaps from about
3 to 6 years of age and some were a bit
unsure of what to make of the large gringos
that had shown up in their classroom.
The play was
going pretty well and many of the children
were laughing, however there were a few very
young ones in the front still unsure of what
to make of us, especially Sasi the
mosquito(yours truly) a tall gringo dressed
up in a strange looking homemade mosquito
costume. When Sasi came up close to one of
the children and pecked him with her
proboscis one of the little ones burst into
tears. We got through the rest of the play
despite the frightened little one and
learned some valuable lessons to take with
us to the next communities.
After the
school let out we played a game of soccer.
Gringos versus Ecuadorians. One might
imagine who came out on top. I'll give you a
hint; it wasn't the gringos, although we put
up a valiant fight. We left the soccer ball
with the community much to the delight of
the kids that we played against.
Roger Sikes
Friday,
June 20
This morning we had to get up early since we
have a long road trip to do. We are heading
West, toward the Pacific ocean. We had a lot
of rain last night and it is still a little
bit raining this morning. With all this
rain, I wonder how the roads are going to
be.... not too much constructions I hope!
Our final destination for the day is Patate,
but were going to stop somewhere for lunch
on the way there. Finally, the more we
heading West, more we see the sun and less
and less clouds. The landscape is really
nice and mountainous. We had lunch in Banos
in a Pizzeria. We also had the chance to do
some shopping since there was handcraft
stands in this nice city. Then we got back
on the road to our destination, Patate. We
had diner around 8h30 at the hotel and then
had a little swim in the pool. There will be
some more road to come tomorrow since we
will continue our itinerary until Crucita.
Richard Trudel
Saturday,
June 28
Same, Ecuador
It was a rough morning. We had had a bonfire
on the beach and subsequently crashed a
salsa party until 3:00 a.m., only to be
awakened at 6:00 a.m. for our long drive out
of Crucita to Same. Many of us weren’t
feeling too well.
The road to
Same took about 9 hours with a lunch break
at a beach town on the northern end of
Manabí. The road was quite possibly the
worst road that I have ever traveled with
potholes the size of swimming pools. I
considered that this was what a road looked
like after a carpet-bombing campaign, or
after a meteor shower crashed into the
earth. It was comparable to driving Lunar
Rover across the moon with a bad hangover.
Same,
Esmeraldas is beautiful. The hotel is broken
into cabins that line a long and peaceful
warm beach. Upon arrival we went for a swim
to shake off the road weariness, body
surfing and floating on the buoyantly salty
sea.
After
swimming Sarah hopped into the shower and
was electrocuted by the water-heating
element, which is attached to the
showerhead. Sarah was traumatized. To
complicate matters, her wet bathing suit was
draped across the water knob, through which
electrical current was flowing. Each time I
prodded it with a plastic bottle the lights
dimmed. Finally we got the suit free, turned
off the water and showered with a hose
outside.
Dinner was
uneventful but very good. I ate vegetable
cream soup and an omelet, both of which were
exceptional. Unfortunately our beer was
skunked and I didn’t have the stomach to
consume it. I sat with the drivers, who gave
Matt a pretty hard time over his capacity to
endure ají, which was amusing and guided the
majority of the dinner conversation.
Now I’m
exhausted and ready for sleep. Tomorrow is
another 8 hour drive, out of Esmeraldas and
into the Andes, to Otavalo. Be well, fight
the good fight and may peace be with you.
I’m off to bed.
Joshua O’Donnell
Sunday,
June 29
Today was the
first day that I spent more time working
than in the bathroom. Beyond that, working
in the communities has proven to be more
fruitful and less complicated and then I had
expected. I had feared that the loss of the
radio and GPS equipment would make much of
my work impossible and communication with
the group impractical. While it has made the
synchronization more difficult, we have
moved on. Working closer to the communities
has, overall been a good plan. While we have
entering more highly developed areas than
last year, we have also been able to spend
more time in each area because the
communities are much closer to our base;
today’s was just 15 minutes down the road.
Food was one
of the driving issues last year. The crew
lost a lot of time driving to and from lunch
in addition to eating. I think next year we
can improve our impact in each community by
providing picnic lunches, not just for the
research team , but BBQ style for the
communities, while the community members
eat, we can put on the play and speak with
them (do surveys). If we are feeding them
while talking, the interview might not seem
like such an imposition.
Next year we
might also consider doing “focus groups”
rather than individual interviews. Ok well
time for my first wine in 4 days. Hope my
stomach can handle it.
Asher Balkin
Monday,
June 30
Otavalo market, trip to Hacienda
Guachala
The night before, we had stayed at the
beautiful La Casa Sol, a brightly painted
hotel perched above Otavalo. I woke up early
and packed up my things, and then went
downstairs to enjoy a great breakfast with
Joshua and Sarah. We ate in the large, airy
dining room, and had fruit and coffee and
wonderful bread. After breakfast, we all
dropped off a bit of laundry, and then
packed up the trucks with our bags. A few of
us spent a few last minutes in the dining
room before we left, enjoying the view out
over Otavalo and the mountains.
After the
trucks were packed, we all piled in once
again and headed down to the market in
Otavalo. The market is in the center of
town, and is one of the largest and
best-know native markets in Ecuador. We
parked and then had a few hours to explore
and shop. I had not intended to buy all that
much, but some of the textiles and jewelry
were just too lovely to pass up, and I ended
up buying presents for all of my family (and
myself as well!). The main market day is
Saturday, so there were fewer vendors than
on regular market day, but there were still
a great variety of different types of
handicrafts. There were alpaca sweaters and
blankets, silver jewelry, bright wool
sweaters, rugs, hats, intricately etched
gourds, painted pottery, stone carvings, and
much more. Adam and I walked through the
whole thing and bought our presents and
souvenirs, and then he headed off to the
internet café while I looked for a final
present for my younger sister. I finally
found the perfect necklace, and really
enjoyed seeing all the Ecuadorian culture
and people at the market.
After the
market, we all went to a small restaurant a
few blocks away from the market for lunch.
The restaurant was small and friendly, and
we had a great lunch. We finished up and
then had another hour or so to either shop
or walk around, so a small group of us
walked around and looked at some of the
shops near the market. We bought some wine
for later in the evening, and then met up
with the rest of the group at the trucks to
set out again.
We drove for
about 3 hours to our hotel for the night,
the Hacienda Guachala. The drive was
gorgeous (as they all were!), through the
highlands. There were many small settlements
and farms, and native people with animals
along the road. The Hacienda is one of my
favorite places from the first time that I
was in Ecuador, so I was very excited to be
going there again. It is the oldest Hacienda
in Ecuador. We arrived and got our room
assignments. I was in a room with Courtney,
Velma, and Allie. We settled in, and then I
went out to explore a bit.
The whole
compound is behind a large, ancient-looking
wall next to the road. The kitchen, the game
room, the dining area, and some of the rooms
for guests surround a large center square
with a huge bonfire pit in the middle.
Another wing contains many other rooms for
guests, and on the other side, there is an
old church and what appears to be old
servants quarters. The rooms are large, with
high ceilings, and heavy wooden furniture.
Each room has it’s own fireplace. I walked
around a bit, and then went to find Asher,
Aaron, Richard, and Adam. They were up on
the second floor at the end of the wing,
drinking wine, and starting fires in the
fireplaces. We sat and talked, discussing
the trip and how beautiful the Hacienda was.
Around 8, we went down to the dining area
and had dinner, and then continued
throughout everyone’s rooms, starting fires
in the fireplaces for everyone.
During the
evening, we sat and talked, and shared
bottles of wine and beer. Adam and I met a
couple of other guests at the hotel and
played pool in the game room for a while.
The bonfire in the center of the little
courtyard had been lit, so we all sat
outside for a bit, and enjoyed the fire, the
stars, and the wonderful, historical place
we were in, and then we all headed to bed to
get a good night’s rest before the final
drive back into Quito planned for the next
day.
Elia Tait
Tuesday,
July 1 (1st entry)
After
shopping in Otovalo, we spent the night in a
very old (1500s era!), very beautiful
Spanish hacienda in the mountains. Each room
came with large fire places and lots of
blanket. It was a cold night, but the fires
and blankets kept us warm.
In the morning before departing for the
equator, we took hour horse rides throughout
the hacienda property.
After trotting through the mountains and
around a beautiful hacienda, we left the
hacienda for the equator. There we took A
LOT of group pictures and even played leap
frog along the equator. We even used the GPS
to measure the accuracy of the stone
line....it was exactly at 0 deg. Lat and 0
degs long!
After a very wonderful morning and
afternoon, we headed back to Quito where we
ate one last group dinner and said our
goodbyes.
Velma Lopes
Tuesday,
July 1 (2nd entry)
We started
out the day with horseback rides at the
hacienda. I got the slowest horse of the
bunch, which was fine with me. The scenery
was beautiful, and I had probably the
longest Spanish conversation of my life with
the guide. I was pretty thrilled about that.
Asher’s experience on the horse was a bit
more invigorating than mine, as his horse
spent the first ten minutes of the ride
trying to buck him off. Asher, however,
handled it true to form and “came to an
understanding” with his horse. Yay for the
Jewish version of Indiana Jones.
Our next stop
was the equator, el mitad del mundo. We put
a GPS right on the line, and sure enough it
read 0’0’0. We took about 10,000 pictures in
various poses on, over, and through the
equatorial line marked in the pavement. We
even played leap-frog (and yes, there are
photographs documenting three masters
students leap-frogging on the equator). But
apart from the fun and games, we heard a
very interesting and short talk about the
creation of a new world map that was aligned
vertically with the equator, rather than
horizontally. It was a really neat idea, and
seemed so logical that I wondered why maps
like this were not more common.
The drive
back to Quito was pretty uneventful. In the
evening we said goodbye to the drivers,
which was sad because we had all become
quite attached to them. Then we had a
de-briefing in which we discussed ways to
improve future workshops, and what we had
all learned from our experience in Ecuador.
I personally learned so much that it is
going to take me six months to digest and
fully process it all. Our trip has
completely changed my general perspective on
life, not to mention the Spanish skills that
I picked up, the international traveling
experience, and everything else I learned
from meeting new people and doing something
completely outside of my previous academic
studies. Because of this trip, I am now
thinking about getting a double master’s
degree in public health (global health) and
international affairs.
The trip to
dinner was exciting, because Joshua had the
opportunity to gain some driving experience
in Quito. He was pretty thrilled. We got a
bit lost on the way, but he did well
considering the traffic in Ecuador is
nothing like the traffic in the states, and
we ended up at the restaurant safe and in
one piece. Dinner was delicious, especially
because there was salad, good wine, a
fabulous ice cream sundae (with lots of
chocolate), great people, and wonderful
conversation.
And so ended
our last day of the workshop. It was an
amazing experience, and I can’t wait to
travel to Ecuador again.
Sarah Diamond |
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