Attempts

I was pretty disconcerted when I first learned about the intense political tension happening in Ecuador two weeks ago. Some media outlets described it as a police protest, and others as an attempted coup. Not having been there, I’m not really in a position to give it a label, myself. At any rate, it seems to me like it was a pretty alarming situation.

The friends in Ecuador whom I spoke to about it said that things had been pretty chaotic, at least on the actual day when the police protests occurred. In Quito, Ecuador’s capital, most stores had closed, public transit had stopped running, people were looting shops, the airport had been shut down.

A friend who is in Quito teaching English told me about the situation as it was unfolding. He was concerned because he hadn’t had dinner and didn’t know where he’d be able to get food, since all the restaurants and supermarkets, like just about all the other stores in Quito, had shut down.

Another friend told me about how his brother, who was in Quito en route to Peru at the time, realized that there was something major happening when a teargas canister went whizzing by his head.

But it sounds like the following day, things were, for the most part, back to normal.

It seems to me like President Correa is one of the most progressive presidents Ecuador has ever had, with things like the social programs he’s put in place and the educational reforms he’s hoping to effect.  He’s not perfect, not by a long stretch, but I really hope he’s able to remain in office for a good while, yet. It seems like Correa really tries to do good things for the people of his country, especially the poor and marginalized.

This evening, I watched as the last of the Chilean miners who had been trapped underground for 70 days were rescued. I watched the rescue with a Chilean son and mother who are friends of mine (having gone to their place to tutor the son, as I do every Wednesday). It was a very exciting and emotional experience to watch the live footage with Chilean compatriots.

So many rescue attempts aren’t successful, so it’s really gratifying that this one was.

Speaking of rescue attempts, I’m going to try to rescue myself from the powerful pull of inertia. Part of this will involve trying to write regularly, and I’m going to try to blog at least somewhat often. I’m planning to use this blog. I probably won’t be writing a whole lot in this blog anymore – at least not until I return to Ecuador yet again!

 

 

 

 

Differences

It’s been a few weeks now since I got back from Ecuador, and the everyday experience of living there isn’t so fresh in my mind anymore, except when I make a concerted effort to recall it. So I want to document some of the differences I’ve been struck with, both while living in Ecuador and after returning to Toronto, differences between living in Ecuador and living in Canada – and more specifically, the differences between living in Quito and living in Toronto.

One of the best things about returning to Toronto was being surrounded once again by ethnic and cultural diversity. Upon returning home, what a pleasure to ride the subway and be surrounded by people from India and Pakistan, from the Middle East, from China, from Somalia, from Eastern Europe, from the Caribbean, from the UK, from Israel, from Italy, from Greece, from almost everywhere! In Ecuador I saw one family in traditional Indian garb and maybe one family that was clothed in Muslim attire the whole two months I was there. In Ecuador, most people are mestizo (whose ethnicity is mixture of indigenous Ecuadorean and white European), indigenous, or white. There is also a relatively small black population, and an even smaller Chinese population. But it’s a lot different from Toronto’s wide spectrum of diversity.

However, Ecuador possesses a great deal of diversity in many ways. One of the most remarked-upon is Ecuador’s ecological and geographical diversity. You can go from the coast to the mountains to the tropical rainforest in a little over a day! Well, more on this later.

Home again, home again, and my volunteer experience with UBECI

(I wrote this last Wednesday. I’ve now been home for 9 days, having gotten back on August 11th.)

So, here I am, sitting in the Bogotá airport, waiting for my flight home. I has a bit of a stressful time in the Quito airport when I couldn’t access the funds in my bank account. You have to pay an exit fee to leave Ecuador by air, and it seemed I was $5 short of the $40 fee. I had a $5 that had a small piece ripped out of the corner, but had tried to use it on two previous occasions and it hadn’t been accepted. So I was getting really upset. But then someone told me my bill would be accepted, and sure enough, it was. However, I’d exchanged all my Colombian Pesos for US dollars in order to pay my exit fee, and so I didn’t have any money for food during my 10 hour layover in Bogotá. I was glad there was food even on my 11 p.m flight. Before I got on that flight, though, I had a bit of  trouble because I forgot I’d gone through security in Bogota and told them I hadn’t and also because I lost my bag tag and boarding pass stub from my connecting flight from Quito. I was quite concerned about the bag tag matter since I had $500 worth of Esthela’s family’s jewelry in that suitcase! But I ended up being able to get on the plane and I found my luggage without difficulty at the end of the flight.

Now I’m back in Toronto. There are so many things I’m enjoying about being home that I didn’t miss while I was away but really am appreciating now.  For my next post, I think I’ll write about some differences between Ecuador and Canada, things I miss now and other things I’m really glad to have come back to.

Anyway, my trip started off slowly, but then  it picked up speed, and now I can hardly believe it’s over!

For the last 3 weeks of my trip, I was volunteering with UBECI in the mornings. We’d go to a different market every day and do a program for the children who work there. Well, not all of the children, just those whose parents had agreed to send their children to our program for an hour and a half.

All the volunteers would meet at the UBECI office, which was in the south of Quito. Most of the other volunteers lived close to the office with a host family arranged by UBECI, or in the UBECI volunteer house, but I had to travel a fair ways by trolebus from the north of Quito to the south. This, and even more so my characteristic poor time management skills, resulted in me missing one morning of volunteering, and part of another one. As well as being late a few other times. Augh!

The markets program, which I was involved with, was run by Ecuadorian staff named Danny, Johanna, and Susana. A changing roster of volunteers would  help the children wash their hands and faces, read to them or turn a skipping rope for them during the first part of the program, and would later help lead songs, and finally help the children do an activity such as colouring in pictures of people from different in typical attire from different regions of Ecuador, or drawing their family.

One week, the theme was the rights of the child. The activity involved colouring a sheet that had drawings of two families on it. Danny explained that the happy, united family was the ideal one, and the separated, angry one wasn’t, that children had the right to a united, happy family. I talked with Danny about this later, wondering whether this wouldn’t be unfair and unhelpful to children whose parents were divorced  or otherwise didn’t fit the ideal being put forth. Danny explained that many children in the markets, while not having a traditional nuclear family, considered their stepfathers or other males in their close families to be their fathers. I really liked the idea of discussing the rights of the child, but I wasn’t convinced that telling children they had the right to a united family (in the sense of their parents being together) was a good idea. The right to be loved and respected, absolutely. But sometimes staying together isn’t in everyone’s best interests, and I think that should be made clear.

The children in the markets are really different from most of the children I’ve worked with in Canada, and even from the children in my upper-middle-class  host family in Quito.  The children who work in the markets, well, the girls who have younger siblings, anyway, are very responsible and dedicated to looking after their siblings. They very rarely squabble, if at all.  And the younger siblings look to their elder siblings for protection and care rather than fighting with them. Fighting with one’s siblings seems foreign to their mindset. It is a luxury they can ill afford. They must focus on ensuring the well-being of their siblings rather than on having fun. But when the children have a chance to act like kids, when they come to our program, most of them are as exuberant, silly, and unguarded as any Canadian child.  But I wish they had the opportunity to act like children every day, instead of for two hours once a week with UBECI. According to Danny, only about half of the children in the program are enrolled in school. Many parents believe their children would be better served by working in the markets and continuing to learn the trade of their vendor parents than by going to school and spending many hours away from the markets, away from their responsibility to help their parents sell their wares.

Some of the children are immaculately dressed and groomed,  and a number of girls sport intricate braided hairdos. Other children are in dirty clothing and have messy hair. Some of the children are bursting with enthusiasm and affection, but others of them wear guarded or even listless expressions and are very wary. I want to really reflect on what I can take from this experience and apply it as I work with children in Canada.

At the Recreo market site. I can’t remember the name of the girl in my lap, to my chagrin. There were so many children and I only got to see them a maximum of 3 times so I ended up forgetting a lot of names, even though I tried hard to remember them.

At Sangolqui, a town a little ways outside of Quito that we went to on Thursdays. It took a long time to get to this site.

At an indoor site where the afternoon Sangolqui program was run

More photos from the Recreo market site, on my last Wednesday with UBECI.

At the Guamani market site, which we went to on Fridays.

There were beautiful views of various mountains from the Guamani site.  However, the Guamani market was the least favourite site of many volunteers because of the many dead fish and livestock hanging from hooks that were in plain sight (and sometimes smell)

Washing hands and faces.

Jumping rope. I really got a workout in terms of practicing my Spanish counting when I was turning the rope!

Receiving hugs from all the children after Danny announced that it was my last day with them, and told them to ‘dale un abrazo’. I was prepared this time – the day before, I had been sitting down with a child in my lap when Danny gave the directive to hug me. I got swamped with hugs and almost couldn’t breathe for a while. The little girl in my lap got bumped or otherwise discombobulated and started to cry. This time, however, I made sure I was standing up. I found myself losing my balance at times but ended up remaining on my feet.

I was affected by the poverty of the children, but not as much as I was expecting. This troubles me a little. On the other hand, it was a relief not to be an emotional wreck at the end of each morning that I volunteered. I do remember being pretty disconcerted when a boy seemed flabbergasted that I had been able to afford to go on a plane. I had explained that it was my last day with them, that I was going back to my country, Canada, soon.  After the realization that I could afford to fly, the children started to ask me how much money I had. Fortunately for me, I didn’t know. I was a little annoyed that I was the only volunteer that had gained this wealthy status in the children’s eyes. But perhaps it was better that they didn’t know that all of the volunteers had flown here from their home countries, that we were from a distinctly different economic category from them. The important thing was for them to know that they were truly valued and loved by the volunteers.

Wow. What a gift it was to work with these children. Even though I don’t remember nearly all of their names, they’ve had a definite impact on me. And I hope I’ll be able to see them the next time I go back to Ecuador.

Ya me voy.

Photos!

Here are some photos at last! I’ll try to add even more photos soon!

The Saturday market in Otavalo (the city near Ilumán)

This is Esthela and Alejandro, an indigenous couple who live in Ilumán. They make beautiful jewelry to sell at the market in Otavalo. I might bring some home with me to sell in Canada.

Esthela with her daughters Yarina and Angie

My previous host sister in Iluman, Nicole, and her aunt Gladys and cousin Maria Belen. This was taken after Nicole´s confirmation in the Catholic church.

A view of the altar at the front of Ilumán’s church

My former host family in Ilumán

A statue of  Otavalo indigenas in, appropriately enough, the city of Otavalo

Alejandro and others dancing San Juan (an indigenous style of dance) during Inti Raymi, a festival in honour of the sun god.

A view from Esthela´s roof.

My current host family in Quito eating a traditional Peruvian meal (courtesy of Maria Elena´s Peruvian sister-in-law).  From the left: Cecilia, Maria Elena with Bruno, Tadeo, me, and Maria Elena´s sister-in-law

A view of Cayambe from Maria Elena´s house

The house, and nearby view, of my former supervisor, and sister of Maria Elena, Cecilia. Cecilia lives near the town of Puerto Lopez, on Ecuador´s coast.

One of the many animals that live at Alanaluz, the eco-resort where Cecilia lives and works.

The beach just behind Alandaluz

Alandaluz, as seen from the beach

Kairu, Cecilia´s son, in the ´tree house´ at Alandaluz

During my whale-watching tour!

On the way back from my whale-watching tour

Eating ´viudo´, Alandaluz´s specialty.  Seafood in a delicious peanut sauce served in a pice of bamboo. Shortly after this photo was taken, Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, arrived at the restaurant and sat down at the table directly behind mine!

Cecilia, Kairu, and a friend of Cecilia´s

Moroni, Esthela and Alejandro´s youngest child.

Castillos (wooden structures rigged with oodles of fireworks) going off during Ilumán’s Festival de la Virgen del Carmen

Alejandro and Esthela dancing up a storm during the fiesta

Alejandro and Esthela’s family

Esthela’s family’s puppy. I think they ended up naming him something like Snowy.

The Basilica del Voto Nacional in Quito

A view of El Panecillo (the Little Bread Loaf) which is topped by the Virgen del Quito,  from partway up the Basilica’s bell tower

A number of days ago, I climbed to the top of the Basilica’s belfry and also its tower. This is the top of the tower, as seen from a flight of stairs below it. The gargoyles protruding from the roof are condors, Ecuador`s national bird.

This is me pointing at Kiti Killa, an important site for the pre Incan civilization Kitu or Quitu. This is where the equator actually passes through, rather than in the nearby tourist-ridden Mitad del Mundo complex, as explained by my guide Fernando.

And this is a view of Pululahua, one of the largest inhabited volcanic craters in South America. Possibly in the world. It’s about 30 minutes from Quito.

The big mound behind me is actually a formation in the middle of Pullulahua, not part of its edge. The crater is actually 4 km in diameter!

Me with my friends  Astacianna and Paige, who both live on my street! Out of all of Quito, they live just steps away from me! And Paige is from Toronto. I met her and Astacianna at the market in Otavalo when I was helping Esthela and Alejandro sell their jewelry. Paige had a Canadian flag on her backpack so I started talking to her, not suspecting we were neighbours in Quito!

From an indigenous dance performance in Old Quito

In La Ronda, a street in Old Quito that has been renovated and now is a nightlife hotspot. I love the atmosphere of La Ronda!

Me practicing my salsa moves before heading out to a salsa club (which I couldn’t actually find… but the next week I went with my friend Katty and actually made it there. I even danced with somebody! I was afraid I´d be too shy, but I overcame my shyness and salsaed my heart out. It was really fun!

UBECI? Why, yes I am!

Warm greetings to everyone!

I am alive and well, and have really started to enjoy my time in Ecuador to the fullest! I have a bit of a cough, but the fresh air in Ilumán seems to be doing it good. I´ve been getting plenty of exercise, am making new friends, am connecting with old ones, and am going out and having fun, and am about to begin an exciting volunteer placement.

Si señor, it feels like lot has happened since my last post! I began salsa lessons over a week ago. I had tried two different salsa schools (in addition to the gym I had one lesson at) before deciding on the Ritmo Tropical Salsa School. I found it really friendly, plus they didn´t ask me to pay in advance for my lesson, unlike the other school I checked out. I´m loving my lessons! Usually I have an instructor named Marco, but I´ve also had 2 lessons with Arcaelí, the school´s director. She helped me learn how to dance the woman´s moves in salsa more correctly. Now I´m able to move my hips more – although I still have trouble remembering to move my hips if I´m doing a complicated step. The lessons are quite tiring – but so much fun!!!!

I had hoped to go to Seseribó, a really popular salsa club, on Friday night. There was a free concert there, and I figured it would be amazing to get to hear live music AND do some dancing. But the Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmen is this weekend and began on Friday, so I headed to Ilumán instead of staying in Quito for the concert. More about that in a bit.

Two Wednesdays ago, I went to the South American Explorers Pub Quiz. It was great fun. I met a number of other ex-pats (some from the U.S., one from Estonia, one from France, one from Barrie (yay Ontario!) and two Ecuadorians, and I got to show off my considerable knowledge of random facts about things like books, geography, and films. My team won 3rd place (out of 6 or 7) and we received a pitcher of Pilsner as a prize. I decided to have some since we had won it (and a teammate told me they couldn´t have won without me, hee hee) and I ended up a little giddy and silly later on in the evening.

Also on that Wednesday, I received an email from the person I had planned this trip in order to visit!!!! He explained that there had been signficant misunderstandings on both our parts, and filled me in on what had happened. The summary is that he had been upset my by apparent accusation. Anyway, he let me know that he was sorry for the misunderstandings and that he very much did care about me

Also, his email address hadn´t been working, so he was unable to contact me until that day. A day later, I called him, let him know I was in Quito, and we met up that afternoon. It was really good to be in touch again, and even more so to  be able to see him in person! His schedule is very, very full, but we´re going to hang out again on Monday. I am being cautious, but I am also really, really glad we are friends again. I truly hate being estranged from people I care about.

This past Wednesday, I met with the directors of UBECI (Unión de Beneficios de Educación y Colaboración Internacional), the organization that works with street children and working children. It was quite the production to get there, because first I needed to go to the bank, but found I had come to the wrong bank, and then had to walk quite a ways to another bank, which ended up being so full that after waiting a while for my number to come up on the digital screen in the waiting area, I just exited the bank and used the ATM outside. That meant that I had to return to the bank the next day in order to exchange the $20s that the ATM had given me for smaller bills that are actually accepted at most stores and by most street vendors here.  Next, I walked to the bus stop that I had been told to go to, only to learn it was the wrong place. So I took a break from my quest and ate a healthy, cheap lunch (including spinach!!!!!!!! and broccoli!!!!!!! And BROWN rice!!!!!!!!) at an Indigenous restaurant that a new friend had shown me the day before.

After that, I finally hopped on the right bus (well, actually a trole bus – a  bus with a streetcar-like antenna that raises to connect to an overhead power source and lowers when the power source wires are not overhead). I rode right through the Centro Historico (Old or Colonial Quito) and all the way to el Recreo, a large shopping complex in South Quito. (I had passed by el Recreo once before, during an ill-fated, VERY long bus trip that I mistakenly thought would involve the bus turning around and returning me to where I had come from and close to where I needed to go…)  UBECI´s office is in a part of Quito that very few tourists visit, and which has its fair share of poor neighbourhoods. I meet with Byron and Monica, who are in charge of the organization, and learned more about it. I am very impressed by UBECI. On Monday I will receive my orientation, and on Tuesday, I´ll start volunteering. I plan to volunteer every weekday morning. I feel like I should be volunteering full days, but I still have a lot of things I want to do before returning to Canada on August 10, like visiting a lot more of Old Quito´s churches, monuments, and museums, as well as teaching a lot more English to Bruno and Tadeo. I really haven´t taught them anything yet, except for random words that I tell them the English for, and occasional pleasantries and queries that I issue in English.

Back to UBECI: I will be working in the markets in Quito, gathering children to come and participate in a program I will be helping to implement, which will involve songs, games, academic and practical lessons (e.g. teaching them about things like math but also about hygiene), and I´m not sure what all, really! A lot of the children who work in the marketplaces helping their parents sell fruits and vegetables or candy haven´t had the opportunity to go to school. Even though it is officially mandatory in Ecuador, in reality many children don´t receive an education because of the need for them to contribute to their family´s livelihood. In other words, the children don´t have time to go to school because they are spending 10 hours per day selling goods in the market.

I´m currently writing this from an internet cafe in Otavalo. I went to Ilumán on Thursday night (which involved me taking one wrong bus and not getting off at the right spot on another). The Fiestas de la Virgen del Carmen are taking place. Yesterday there were processions of people that made their way to the central park of Ilumán, singing hymns (I think) and led by someone bearing a shrine to the VIrgen del Carmen. I didn´t go down to the park because I was helping Esthela, whose family I´m staying with this weekend, to make bracelets which she is selling at the Otavalo market today. And then it began to rain. I did go with Esthela and her family (husband Alejandro and children Yarina, Angie, and Moroni) to the park at night. We watched some indigenous dancing, and I ate some local snacks, including some fried dough treats, corn-on-the-cob and a shish-kebab consisting of whole baby potatoes, a hot-dog-like meat, grilled banana, and some tasty BBQ beef.

Afterward, I went to visit my former host family, and had tea at their house while they and a bunch of their relatives chatted and had supper. They were very amused by my recounting of how I had, a while ago, accidentally referred to my eyewear as contact LENTILS. I didn´t regale them with the tale of how I had accidentally told my Quito host family that in Canada, instead of going to small local bakeries, it is generally more common to buy bread at the supermarket, and that there are lots of ¨PRESERVATIVOS¨ in the bread, I expect. Unfortunately the word doesn´t mean ¨preservatives¨ as I had thought…

Tonight there is supposed to be more partying. It has been raining on and off all day, and I really hope the weather is better ths evening. I really want to do some traditional dancing!

Oh, and as I was helping at the market today, I met a fellow Canadian, who is in Ecuador doing a veterinarian internship. She´s also from Toronto. But the uncanny thing is that we both live on the same street in Quito!!!!! She´s just a handful of doors up from Maria Elena´s house. Her American housemate had been telling me about how it´s a really steep walk uphill to her house in Quito, and I said that it was the same with my street, La Gasca. Turned out that was her street, and that she lives at the same intersection, too! Out of all of Quito, we live steps away from each other! I love coincidences like this!

Well, I´d better go and find Esthela and Alejandro before they pack up and head back to Ilumán without me!

Coasting along

On Sunday, I returned to Quito after spending 5 days on the coast of Ecuador.

I have a friend who works at Hosteria Alandaluz, an upscale eco-resort near the the town of Puerto Lopez, and I visited her, staying at her house while I was there. I didn’t have to pay for lodging, nor for food, since I ate with the staff.  Alandaluz is a beautiful place, with lots of gardens full of different species of palm trees, bright hibiscus flowers, and lots of butterflies, birds, and lizards. As well, Alandaluz is right next to the beach, whose soothing sounds can be heard from all over the grounds. While it´s dangerous to swim at this beach because the waves are so strong, it´s really relaxing to just stand on the shore and watch the waves.

On Thursday, I went on a whale-watching tour. Beforehand, I was convinced I wouldn’t see any whales; even if there were some to be seen, I’m usually terrible at spotting things. But I ended up seeing about 10 humpback (I think) whales!  I saw lots of dorsal fins, a few flukes (tails) and one  jump.

I met a really nice couple from the Chicago area who was also staying at Alandaluz, and I enjoyed getting to speak English for a change, and having people closer to my own age to hang out with.

I also loved getting to know the Alandaluz staff, and spending time with Kairu, my friend’s 8-year-old son. I discovered I have a minor talent for foosball – or maybe it’s just that it’s not one of Kairu’s fortes. Either way, I had fun playing with him.  It was also fun pretending to be a shark in the pool, and telling Kairu about Weird Al Yankovic´s spoofs of Michael Jackson songs. Kairu adores Michael Jackson.

Last night, when I was playing a card game with some people from Massachusetts, one of them remarked that Ecuador’s president was currently at Alandaluz; she had seen him come in. I was initially skeptical, thinking she’d probably just seen a doppelganger of the president. However, while I was having dinner in the restaurant with Kairu (having decided to splurge on a meal for my last night there), Rafael Correa himself walked in, and cordially greeted the staff nearby,  including my friend Cecy. He and his wife proceeded to sit down at a table right behind mine and Kairu’s.

I almost went up to Correa  and told him I was a fan of much of what he’s been doing for Ecuador (since he seems to me to be a very progressive president, concerned with improving areas such as education, health, and improving the quality of life of the poor), but it’s a good thing I first asked Cecy whether it would be appropriate to approach him, because she told me that he had expressly requested to be left alone. But it was a huge surprise – and  a good one – just to have been able to see him in person!

My host family aren’t such fans of Correa; my host father Marcelo is a journalist and basically says that Correa hates all journalists. I think that at times Marcelo has somewhat extreme opinions. Sometimes Maria Elena, his wife, steps in and counters with her different, usually-less-extreme, viewpoint. From my perspective,  anyway, Correa seems to be doing a lot of good things for Ecuador.

I had a 12-hour bus-ride back to Quito from Puerto Lopez, and I really enjoyed the views from the bus of  beaches and cliffs, chiseled hills covered in nubbly vegetation with tall palm trees rising up here and there, bamboo groves, banana plantations,  trees covered with a silky green skin that had wrinkles where branches met trunk, farms with a lone horse or donkey meandering through lush pasture, towns  traversed by open buses with people riding fearlessly on their roofs, and then the changing vegetation and fast-flowing rivers as we entered the mountainous sierra region. For much of my bus ride,  I sat next to a friendly older woman named Zoila who ended up being a great conversation partner. We talked about ourselves, about politics, about the scenery. I enjoyed listening to the various kinds of latin music playing over the bus´s sound system, most of it traditional kinds of music like salsa, mererengue, and old-fashioned Spanish-language love songs.

Well, I can’t find the adaptor I need in order to be able to charge my laptop’s battery, so I’m going to have to end this entry soon. In brief, today I went to the Centro Historico with Cecy, and later took a salsa lesson at a gym near my host family’s house. But It was a private lesson taught by a woman who sometimes left me alone while she went to attend to other clients in the gym. I’m going to try to find a salsa school where I can at least learn to dance with a partner.

I’m loving it here in Ecuador! I had been feeling dizzy and light-headed during the last few days before I went to the coast, and I had a cold, and had been feeling a bit sad. But now I’m as happy as a spondylus (rather than a clam – hee hee).  I have lots of energy, and lots of plans, including hiking a mountain called Pichincha (the mountain which overlooks Quito) with friends of my host family, volunteering with UBECI, an organization that works with street children and other at-risk youngsters and their families.  Here´s their website:  http://www.ubeci.org/

Well, that’s all for now.

Chao,

Sarita

Edit:  Yesterday I learned a lot from my host grandma about how Alandaluz has resulted in a lot of  natural vegetation being restored to the area, and that it has benefited the local communities and people a great deal. I also learned my friend Cecy (my host grandmother´s daughter) was a lot more involved in the development of Alandaluz, and related eco-projects, than I had known.  More on that later!

Ecuador 2.0 so far – friends, family, fútbol and fiestas

Well,  I´ve been in Ecuador for over a week, now, and it still kind of feels like I´ve just arrived.  I haven´t yet carried out my plans for establishing myself in Quito for the summer, which include signing up for salsa lessons, registering for workshops at the Alianza Francesa here in Quito, and checking out the South American Explorers clubhouse down in La Mariscal, a neighbourhood also known as ´Gringolandia´.

But what I have done so far includes getting to know my wonderful new host family in Quito, visiting my old host family and students at the school where I volunteered in Ilumán, visiting the legendary market in Otavalo, eating cuy (guinea pig), crashing a party and participating in indigenous San Juan dancing, successfully navigating Quito´s bus system on  my own, making pineapple jam with my new host grandma, and watching more fútbol than I ever thought was  possible!

I have also been playing quite a bit of soccer, not just watching it. Eight-year-old Tadeo is a worthy opponent, even if he does have the tendency to stretch the rules of the game to his advantage a bit. I even have a lovely red-and-purple toe to show for my incursion into the wild world of fútbol, having launched a powerful kick at the wall instead of the soccer ball I was aiming for. Maybe it´s a good thing after all that I can´t currently upload any photos (having forgotten to pack the card reader for my camera…)!

I´ve really been enjoying getting to know eminently gracious Maria Elena (whose name is usually pronounced  ¨M´Elena¨, which makes things a lot easier), Tadeo, 4-year-old Bruno,  their father Marcelo, who is a TV journalist, and, of course, Cecilia, Maria Elena´s mother, whom I met in Ilumán last year. Cecilia took me on a tour of colonial Quito (el Centro Historico) a week ago, and it was fun meandering about with her. We watched a musical protest at Quito´s City Hall, got our photo taken  inside the Presidential Palace, and toured a church and abbey called San Fransisco, which had lots of sacred art displayed in its rooms and corridors, including much art of the Quito School, which apparently was much more well-known and influential than I had supposed.  Cecilia is a really vivacious – some might even say outrageous -  woman, and I´m really lucky to be staying with her and her family! Cecilia is very outgoing, for example, greeting the staff at medical clinics and convenience stores alike with good-natured extravagance: ¨¡Buenas dias, mi bellas damas! (Good morning, my beautiful ladies!)¨

On Monday, I´m planning to return to Ilumán for Inti Raymi, an indigenous winter solstice festival of the sun which has roots in Incan times or even earlier. It includes a ritual of purification where participants bathe in the Cascada de Peguche at midnight, and a huge fiesta the next day involving much dancing and brighly-coloured traditional costumes.  Esthella, who was the host mother of one of the other girls in our Internship group last year, has invited me to come to Inti Raymi with her. I´m really excited!!

Last Sunday, I was drawn toward the source of some loud San Juan music that was emanating from somewhere not too far from my host family in Iluman´s house.  I found that the music was coming from a partially-enclosed tent-like structure attached to the back of a house, where many indígenas were dancing, a few were drinking, and  everyone was generally partying it up. I watched timidly from outside the tent until a woman beckoned me to join a small group of people dancing San Juan in a circle, and then I danced with them for a while. When the music ended, I snuck away, somewhat ashamed for having crashed the party, which had turned out to be the tail-end of the celebration of a youngster´s confirmation into the Catholic church. But I ended up being confronted by an older woman who asked me who I had come with, so I confessed I had arrived, well, sans invitation. I can´t wait until Inti Raymi, where I will be an invited guest at one of Ilumán´s biggest fiestas of all!

But why did I decide to go back to Ecuador so soon after visiting it for the first time (last May), you may ask? Well, when I was originally planning this trip, its main purpose was to spend as much time as possible with someone I had met in Ecuador last year, and with whom I had corresponded quite a bit by email (which involved learning quite a bit more Spanish on my own, in order to be able to commnunicate with him better).

It had seemed to me that he and I had been becoming closer, and he had stated a number of times that he really hoped I could come back to Ecuador soon so that we could spend more time with each other, get to know each other better.  I started to really go out of my way in order to make this trip happen, being extremely careful with my money and putting a great deal of effort into planning and preparing for the trip.  However,  a couple of weeks before I was scheduled to fly to Ecuador, this person began making requests and suggestions that seemed a little unusual, such as suggesting it would be a good idea for me to buy a car in Ecuador (and then sell it when I left the country) and asking me to bring him basketball shoes, a netbook (computer) and glucosamine (a non-prescription medical supplement) from Canada, which, he assured me, he would pay for.  When I alerted him to my concerns and questions about his motives and behaviour (while trying to be honest but respectful to both myself and to him  throughout), he ended up asking me to neither call nor email him anymore.

OUCH!

I had really respected and trusted him, as he had seemed very much to be a thoughtful, caring and compassionate person. I had encountered men in Ecuador who clearly were not the kind of guys you´d want to have anything to do with. But this person seemed different.  So his request to break off contact was quite unexpected. I can only surmise that a) he wasn´t the good-hearted person I had thought him to be, and was trying to take advantage of me, or b) he was very offended by something, likely my doubts about his intentions, but wasn´t willing to help me understand his point of view. Either way, this wasn´t the kind of behaviour I expected of him, nor did his behaviour show him to be the kind of person I would want to spend time with.  Better I found out before I arrived.

But, anyway, my flight was non-refundable, and also I really was looking forward to seeing my friends and former host family in Ecuador, as well as being enchanted by so many aspects of Ecuador itself, so I decided to continue with my trip as planned. Which is turning out to have been a very good decision! I just need to get moving with my Salsa lessons, French workshops, and exploring of this amazing country! Wish me luck!

Hasta luego,

Sarah

My Return to Ecuador

That’s right, I’m going back!

I’ll be in Ecuador from June 9 to August 10. I’m resurrecting this blog in order to let people stay connected with me.

For the majority of the time, I will be staying with my former supervisor in Ilumán’s sister Maria Elena, who has a house in Quito.  I only spent a few days in Quito last year, but there is so much to explore there! I can’t wait to get better acquainted with the city!  I love the ornate colonial architecture of the Old Town, and the frenetic energy of Gringolandia (the main entertainment district, and frequented by many tourists, hence its name). I like the vibrancy of the city parks and the  I want to hike Guagua Pichincha, one of the peaks of the volcano Pichincha that rises imperiously above Quito to the east.

I will be tutoring Maria Elena’s 8- and 4-year-old sons in English. I will also be trying desperately to improve or at least maintain my French, since I will hopefully be teaching (in) French, in some capacity, in September. I’m going to try to read French blogs and write to my French-speaking friends in French. Whew, that’s a bit of a tongue-twister!

I originally planned this 2-month trip in order to spend time with someone I met in Ecuador last year, corresponded with online, and became quite smitten with. However,  this person and I have become estranged, so I will instead be spending my trip visiting friends on the coast (and maybe whale-watching there!), visiting my host family and students I worked with in Ilumán, hiking through my beloved Andes,  and taking salsa lessons and visiting museums in Quito! As well as chatting with everyone I can manage to engage in conversation!

Hurray – I have a second chance to send post cards to people like I said I would last year! If you would like a postcard from Ecuador, email me your mailing address at worrywert@gmail.com, and I’ll do my best to follow through this time!

There are no direct flights to Quito from Toronto, and I booked a flight with a 12-hour overnight stopover in Bogotá, Colombia because it was almost $100 cheaper than any other flight I could find. I have reserved a hostel for the night. My friend Yan is currently in Bogotá and I’m going to meet up with him and hopefully see a bit of the city.

When I arrive in Quito on Wednesday morning, Maria Elena is going to pick me up at the airport. I can’t wait to meet her, and the rest of her family, too, including their dog Frodo!

Ayayay, I’m tired!

Hasta luego,

Sarah

School Days: Difficulties and Differences

While my experience in Ecuador was an overwhelmingly positive one on the whole,  I did have difficulty in adjusting to some aspects of the way things are done, especially in the school setting where I was carrying out my practicum.

The second last Thursday of my practicum was really difficult.  Although I’d felt I had adjusted really quite well to the new culture and to my specific situation, I kind of lost it that Thursday. I feel I acted unprofessionally.

Late in the day, the teacher of my class returned to the classroom while students were running around outside and  chided me (though in a civil and respectful manner) for having let the students go outside.  I cracked.  The teacher had been out of the classroom for a long time, perhaps an hour, as he usually did more than once a day,  and I was having great difficulty getting the students to continue working on the pages their teacher had instructed them to complete. Many of the students had run outside before I had decided to try engaging them by having them all play a game outside.

What had happened first was that the teacher had left, and many of the students went berzerk, running around and fighting. I tried to get them to sit down and do their work, but I wasn’t successful.  I wanted to still enable/encourage the students to learn, so I sat down with one of the books I’d purchased in Otavalo for the class (since the class doesn’t really have any books other than workbooks available to the students) and read to the students who came and huddled around me. Soon, most of them got up and started running around and fighting, too,  so  I tried to get all the students engaged in learning together through organizing a game of What Time is it, Mr. Wolf? outside. This sort of worked for a while, but then most of the students dispersed and just ran around the schoolyard. It was at this point that the teacher returned.

I was very frustrated with being scolded for what I felt had been resourceful, if ineffective, actions. I  told the teacher, in a heated manner, that I didn´t know where he went all the time, leaving me along for long periods, and that I was supposed to be there to support him, not to replace him. That wasn´t my responsibility, I stressed. I also explained tearfully how I tried to get the students to do their work, but they just would not listen to me. I said I was leaving, and would see him on Monday (since our group was leaving on Friday for a group weekend trip). But after crying at home for a little while, while several of the students called out to me from the gate of my host family’s home, I went back to school. There, I apologized to Vinicio and to the class for my words and behaviour, saying I wasn’t proud of the way I had acted,  and asked for us to all try to make a fresh start. I suggested going over the class rules posted on the wall, which Vinicio helped me with, and he had the students apologize to me (which I didn’t entirely feel was necessary), and promise to try to behave better. I left school feeling good.

Later, when reflecting on this experience, I realized that my expectations for how schools should operate (and my experiences of how they do operate in Canada) had conflicted with the cultural practices and economic situation of Ecuador, and in particular, of Iluman.  In Iluman, children are not disciplined nearly as much as they are in Canada as a general rule. They are given the opportunity to learn from experience rather than being told all of the right ways to do things, and being indoctrinated with rules about what one may and mayn’t do.

From a theoretical perspective, I agree with this system (though I do have concerns about the kids’ safety). From the perspective of someone entrusted with the task of getting 24 feisty students to complete worksheets on the letter Q, perhaps not. It felt to me like I was stuck in the middle of a fundamental disconnect between the type of work students were expected to do,  and the structure and substance of classroom management that the students were familiar with, or at least those aspects that I was able to work with.

Another difficulty I first experienced earlier on in my practicum was with a student who clearly had a learning disability, but for whom extra support and resources weren’t available. I tried to help the student during my stay, but it seemed that some learned helplessness had already been developed. The student shone in certain areas of the curriculum, like art and some elements of math, but significant difficulties with reading and writing meant that these strengths didn’t seem to be reflected  in assessment or  evaluation of the student.

Differences in how school supplies are procured and distributed also threw me for a loop. Although public education in Ecuador doesn’t require fees to be paid, students must buy all their own pencils, erasers, scissors, plasticine, tissue paper, glue, and paints. I think they must also buy their own uniforms. As well, food is sometimes provided during recreo, or the half-hour recess break they get every day, but students must have paid for the food at some point in the year in order to receive it.

Time was also treated differently. School began at 8 a.m., but often the teacher would arrive after most of the students. School officially ended at 1 p.m., but often the students would still be working until 1:3o or so. One day, I arrived at school expecting it to be a regular day, but found out at 10:30 that school was now over for the day due to a staff meeting. I found the lack of foreknowledge about changes in schedules to be a little challenging, at least for a while.

The teacher often led the students in didactic rhymes or songs, which really engaged them, and which was in accordance with my OISE-based pedagogical philosophy, but much of the teaching was direct teaching and many of the activities the students had to do were drill-based worksheets. I think this was due in part to a lack of resources as well as to a strong cultural emphasis on rote learning in Ecuador’s educational system.

Following my mini-meltdown on that Thursday, I made a conscious effort to adjust my attitude and behaviour to better flow with the classroom philosophies and practices surrounding me. I was a fair bit more laid back during that last week, and I focused more on my relationships with the students than on anything else. I think this was the case throughout my internship, but even more so during the last week.  And it was certainly the most rewarding part of my internship.

Last Week of Practicum

The last week of my internship, which culmintated on Thursday, May 21, was the best week of them all. I had a lot of fun with the students, and felt more connected to them than I had before.

They had outdoor traditional dancing three days in a row from Tuesday to Thursday, and I joined in with them and had a lot of fun.  The dancing involved having the whole school (about 100-150 students, maybe) dance to Andean music around the schoolyard in circles of various sizes, with students playing instruments or wearing masks (boys) or carrying dolls on their back or baskets in their hands, dancing in small circles in the middle.

(Only later did I learn that the students were practicing for a dance performance that would occur later on as part of a Mother’s Day program. Mother’s Day seems to last a month in Ecuador, to my initial confusion.)

During my last week of practicum, I taught greetings in English to the students, as well as having them each do an activity where they wrote ¨My name is…¨ in Spanish, English, and Quichua, their traditional indigenous language.  Then they drew a self-portrait, and surrounded it by things they like or are interested in. The next day, my final day, I had them write ¨I live in Iluman, Ecuador¨ in the 3 languages and then draw what their Iluman and Ecuador look like.  I really wanted to make my lessons relevant to the students and to validate them as persons, and to affirm their language and  life experiences as well.

I consciously modelled the Spanish writing first, since it is their primary language of instruction, and then demonstrated the Quichua (with Vinicio’s help, since I don’t know Quichua), and finally, theEnglish.  I almost put the English second, but caught myself; I didn’t want to give English dominance over Quichua, a marginalized ingigenous language, but rather, to give it legitimacy, even if only in a tiny symbolic way.

I made a huge card for the class, with a heart-shaped window you could open to find a little cartoon face of each student inside. I brought in cookies for the students, and also gave each of them a little Canadian flag pin.

That  night,  I’d looked at up the stars as I stood out in the courtyard long after the family was asleep. I’d been excited two days prior when realized I could see the Big Dipper; although I loved looking up at the stars in the dark sky,  so exquisitely visible from my host family’s courtyard,  I had been a little disappointed that I hadn’t been able to recognize any constellations.  It was comforting to see the Big Dipper suspended there along with all the other inscrutable  scatterings of stars.  Now, when I see it at home in Ontario (though it definitely won’t be visible in Toronto), the Big Dipper will  remind me of how my experiences here are connected to those I had in Ecuador.

I was  emotional when I popped in on Friday morning to say a final goodbye to the class before leaving with our group for Quito at 8:30.  I also took the pages the students had created during the previous two days,  and bound them together into a book form. I  added covers with pictures I had taken of (and with) the students pasted all over them. The professor had all the students line up and hug me goodbye. One student even presented me with a card with his photo pasted on it and a personalized artisanal tapestry his mother had woven specifically for me, an act that left me immensely touched.

With a few more hugs, and an exchange of phone numbers and email addresses, I walked the two minutes to my host family’s house, and bade them a poignant goodbye.  My host mother, however, was out delivering her children to school , and while I had already said goodbyes to my host brother and sister, I didn’t have a chance to to the same with my host mother. But Ceci, one of my supervisors, had a rented truck waiting so I had to pile my luggage into the back of the truck and then hop in with it myself, and be driven away, waving energetically to my onetime family  as I bounced away from them  along cobble-stoned main street.

We picked up the rest of our group, and then headed along the Pan-American Highway to Otavalo. The wind blew my hair all over my face, and  as I held on tightly to the bars on the sides of the truck’s open back so I wouldn’t fall out,  I reflected on how attitudes toward safety and toward personal freedom are so different in Iluman from in Canada.  I knew that I would miss this sense of liberty when I returned to the highly regulated and, in many ways, constraining, society of my home country, just as I was already missing the freely given grace, candor, and friendship of the people I’d had the privilege of living among in Iluman.