Día 72: Yo espero

I’ll blame it on “Ecuatime”: the reputation earned by some Ecuadorians of having a distorted (or perhaps enlightened) sense of timeliness, whereby 1-2 hours late may actually qualify as on time.

Whether it’s Ecuatime or that I’ve been too busy to write or that the things that have happened have been too daunting or mysterious to put into words—whatever it is, I apologize for the delay in updating this blog.

To make things up to you, I’m going to pack so much into this entry that you’re going to wonder about the things I’m leaving out. And those things I might tell you too someday, perhaps over a beverage.

After returning from the rainforest on March 9 we moved in with our new host families in Quito and lived there for about a week and a half before embarking on our next excursion. In that time we attended classes in the mornings at EIL (Experiment in International Living) and wandered the city in the afternoon/evenings. Classes consisted of lectures (in Spanish) from Ecuadorian academics or professionals on topics like development, politics, poverty, feminism, migration, indigenous activism, bilingual education and LGBT issues, among others.

The second Sunday after our arrival in Quito, we got to see one of the two big Quito-based soccer teams, Liga Deportiva Universitaria de Quito (a.k.a. La Liga), in a game against Club Deportivo Cuenca. The game was moved from their normal stadium to the old Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa (ten minutes from my host family’s house) because a fan was killed at their normal stadium during a feud at a game two weeks prior. That game was played against Club Deportivo El Nacional, the other Quito-based team, so things were more heated. Fans were still pretty riled up at our game though, and we were warned several times not to wear red clothing (the color of Nacional and Cuenca).

The game seemed to me part fútbol match, part choir practice, as the fans spent most of it singing victory chants (or swearing). The guy in the green is my host brother, Martín.

Fans were obviously disappointed when Cuenca scored (and later won), but never for long: the victory chants kept coming and it was almost as if Cuenca's goals/victory were ignored.

Two days later a few of us returned to Estadio Atahualpa (named for the last emperor of the Inca Empire) to see Manu Chao and Calle 13 in concert. Manu Chao’s a multi-lingual reggae/ska musician who was born in Spain but emigrated to France as a kid to escape Franco’s dictatorship. Calle 13 is a Puerto Rican hip hop group with songs that often deal with political issues. Cost of general admission: $15

The crowd at the Manu Chao/Calle 13 concert.

Manu’s show was wild because toward the end of almost every song, he’d transition into a kind of fast-paced ska mosh that always drove the crowd crazy. It had been raining earlier so we were all wearing ponchos, and during the show a thick fog hung over the stadium, which exaggerated the light emanating from the stage and drew my eyes and attention toward the energy at the head of the crowd. We followed the lead of the Ecuadorians and bounced around to the beat.

Manu’s a tough act to follow, but Calle 13 pulled it off. The crowd really let loose and sang along to their final song, “Latinoamérica”.

The following day we left for our one-week excursion/village study on the Ecuadorian coast. After flying to Manta and eating fish on the beach, we were deposited in groups of two or three at various points along the coast, from which we made our way to our respective host families and villages where we lived for five days and four nights. As there are only three guys on my 18-person program (Grant, Emerson and me), we were grouped together and sent to Río Blanco, a village of 25 or so families (~250 residents) about 9 km inland from the sea. This is where the whole “there are no words” part comes in, but I’ll do my best.

To get to Río Blanco, we took a camioneta (small pickup truck converted into public transportation) along a dirt road through the forest. The sun was setting as we got going, and the wind blew strong against our faces as we stood in the back of the pickup. We were excited to be on our own and to find out what lay before us.

Riding on the back of a pickup truck on the way to a new adventure.

The road to Río Blanco was winding and hilly and surrounded by thick forest.

We were not disappointed. Upon arrival at our house, we were greeted by seven or so family members of ages ranging from four to 77. Our host mother was Elvira Catagua, a short, energetic and extremely kind woman nearing 62 years of age who worked so constantly and with such devoutness of duty you’d think she were Irish. And she cooked rice—a LOT of rice.

The Catagua House of Río Blanco. The four boys are all grandsons of our host mother. Those two little ones in the front are twins, known appropriately as "los terribles".

"Absurd and disconcerting amounts of rice": a defining feature of the Ecuadorian coast diet.

We came to Río Blanco expecting perhaps not to bathe for five days, but instead ended up cleaner than normal, thanks to the cool, clear waters of the Río Blanco itself, which flowed some 20 ft. in front of the Catagua house. That first night, after meeting the 4-year-old “terribles” and declining their offers for us to eat mariposas (moths), Elvira’s 42-year-old son and our closest friend during our stay, Gastón, led us to the river so we could take a swim. We went at least once every day.

The next morning we rose early, ate a huge breakfast (because we were going to work, Elvira told us), and set off with Gastón on what we later learned (but which we were oblivious to at the start) was a 25 km trek through the mountainous and muddy forest surrounding Río Blanco in search of tagua. It turns out that the biggest industry in Río Blanco, at least for working men, is the collection of this egg-shaped, hollow nut that falls from a palm tree unique to the rainforests of Ecuador.

Our muddy path along the sendero (forest trail) in search of tagua.

Not my photo, but this is tagua. They're used to make buttons, jewelry or artisanal items.

An individual tagua nut is light, but not when you collect 240 pounds of them, which we did. Thankfully we had a horse with us to bare the burden of the weight on the return journey, but our trip lasted eight hours in total, and we were exhausted at the end. However, our saving moment came about 2-3 hours into the hike, when, running low on the insubstantial amounts of water we had brought and sweating profusely, we came upon an idyllic cabin in the wood. Once inside, Gastón (both a tagua harvester and tour guide) pulled a fresh pineapple and two mangos out of his sack, and proceeded to cut them into slices for us.

Now, I don’t know what your relationship to pineapple is, or if you’ve ever had the experience of going for a long run just before eating a delicious and refreshing meal, but those next few minutes or so reached a whole other level of fruit consumption I didn’t even know existed. The slice of pineapple that Gastón handed me was bursting with juice just sweet enough to quench my thirst and just sour enough to remind me not to devour it in one bite. I sat there in emotional and gastronomical ecstasy, listening as Gastón told us about his peoples’ legends of forest spirits like “El Diablo”, whose late afternoon roars scare little children and reaffirm the omnipotence of the forest. With that pineapple in my hand and in my stomach, and with the forest spirits around me, I think it’s fair to say I felt something of that omnipotence in that moment, perhaps without understanding it and perhaps only fleetingly, but it was there. And it tasted like sweet, sweet pineapple.

Rehydrated and more refreshed than we thought possible, the remainder of the walk and tagua expedition proved manageable. We saw some wild looking plants and even managed to catch a glimpse of the elusive howler monkey.

Looks like fine hand-crafted jewelry; in fact it grows on a tree.

With the help of Gastón's eye, we came upon four members of a family of howler monkeys, who were just as interested with us as we were with them.

Returning from our hike, we sold our 240 pounds of tagua to a local tagua middleman (who ships them out on Fridays) and were paid $17.50 for our efforts, part of which we used to purchase and enjoy estúpidamente cold beverages with Gastón. We wrapped up the day with a few rounds of billiards and a swim in the river.

Day two was spent chopping weeds with machetes on the Catagua farm (located on the other side of the river) with Elvira’s 77-year-old husband (who goes by Chilán, his family name) and touring a huge farm down the road that Gastón brought us to, where we were lucky enough to taste some just-picked papaya.

Digging into some fresh papaya at a farm in Río Blanco. My hand was all cut up and blistered from chopping weeds with machetes that morning.

On Saturday we took a break from Río Blanco and traveled to the coast to spend a few hours at what our academic director Fabián had told us is one of the best beaches in the world, Los Frailes. We hiked a 2-mile-long forest path along the coast, jumped in the Pacific and walked to a nearby fishing village where we ate warm, cheese-filled empanadas.

Emerson and Grant approaching the fishing village along the beach near Los Frailes.

We returned to the Catagua house (by camioneta) to discover that the lights had gone out in the town (and, as we found out later, across several kilometers along the coast), but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. As Elvira’s 62nd birthday had been the day before, a few family members came up from Guayaquil and we all ate dinner together by candlelight and sang Happy Birthday around Elvira’s cake (in Spanish and English). Just as Elvira was blowing out the candles, Gastón gently tapped Elvira’s head into the cake and she came up laughing and smiling with cake all over her face. We all joined in her laughter.

Elvira blowing out the candles on the cake for her 62nd birthday, while her niece Paola and son Gastón stood by. Gastón gently pushed her face into the cake just after this.

We spent a few hours that night before going to bed talking with Gastón and his brother-in-law from Guayaquil, and at one point I stepped outside to take a look at the stars. You may think you’ve seen a starry night, and you may even have seen such a night from a remote place out in the dark of the wood or the sea. But the stars this night were like nothing I’d seen before—they carpeted the sky like a million tiny candles lit up from Ecuador to Newton, Massachusetts, and back again. I felt like I could see whole galaxies of stars that night, as if the stars you might normally see were just the first layer of an incomprehensibly deep field of stars, stretching off into infinity beyond the mortal comprehension or light pollution-limited scope of my eyes. And I guess in a way that’s exactly what they are.

On Sunday we woke up and knew it was our last day in Río Blanco. On that day the town erupted into celebration, partly (we think) because of Elvira’s birthday but mostly (we guess) because it was a Sunday, and that’s what people do on Sundays: they go to be with their families and celebrate life and good health and family. We danced and ate and “knew time” (as Dean Moriarty might say), and at the end we took a photo and said goodbye. I hesitate to write any more out of a fear of detracting from whatever that day was, in all its glory and mystery.

We had to be stubborn to get Elvira to stop working and dance with us (her daughter here is trying to take away the towel she was using to clean), but eventually we succeeded.

The "extended" family at the Catagua house on Sunday. From left: me, Angel (friend of Capitán), Gastón, Elvira, Emerson, "Capitán" (cousin from Guayaquil), Grant and Chilán.

And then we left. As before, we jumped on the back of a camioneta and road it to Puerto López, where we grabbed a bus to the hotel to meet the rest of the group. There wasn’t much to say on that ride and little to do but smile at one another and know that we had taken part in something unique and important. Emerson pointed out that it was the same time of day as when we had come into Río Blanco, so the sun was setting and the light was peculiar. Everything it hit was lit up with a final burst of fading golden light—the gasping last breaths of the sun as it sinks over the horizon. There was a heavyset woman riding a motorcycle with a skinny man nestled behind her when we entered Puerto López, and the side of a mustard colored building was lit up in such a way by the sun that it looked like the brightest yellow leaf of a fine New England autumn. And the air was thick—with a smell like the fruit and fresh fish for sale at the market that day and like something we couldn’t identify, something like happiness and sadness and a promise and a hope that what had happened had indeed happened and what would come to pass was unknown and exactly as it should be.

Riding on the back of a pickup truck on the way to adventure.

So that was most of what I wanted to tell you. We spent a few more days on the coast, testing our lives against the not-so-pacific waves of the Pacific, drinking coconut juice out of coconuts on the beach and passing through the huge city of Guayaquil for a day and a half, where we toured the Parque Histórico Guayaquil and Museo Antropológico y Arte Contemporáneo before finally flying back to Quito.

We spent about a week and a half in Quito, listening to some final academic lectures and finishing up papers and exams. Last Friday I had the opportunity to see an amazing traditional Ecuadorian folk dance performance from a group called Humanizarte in a small theatre off La Ronda, one of the more beautiful and famous colonial-style streets in Quito’s Centro Histórico (i.e. the Old City).

And that’s about it. On Saturday, April 7, I bade farewell to my Quito host family, stored my laptop in a hostel near the Mariscal and jumped on a bus with a few other students from my program to Cuenca to begin each of our four-week-long Independent Study Projects (ISP), which will mark the last and most important segment of our study abroad program. Later this morning I’ll board a bus for Loja and on Tuesday I’ll head further south, to a small town near the Peruvian border, where I’ll be living with a family and working on a project related to sustainable forestry for the next several weeks. I’m sure I’ll have more to say in a week or so once I’ve settled in.

Call me cliché, but I can’t help but feel like Red from Shawshank right now: “I find I’m so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey, whose conclusion is uncertain.”

I hope.

Día 43: Llévame mamá, hasta el mar

In the rainforest the rain comes down in mad waves, and you are almost always wet.

We left on Monday for the eastern lowlands of Ecuador, a.k.a. the western edge of the Amazon Rainforest, specifically Pastaza Province near the town of Puyo, which is basically as far east as you can get while still within close reach of major roads. East of Puyo there’s another 200 miles or so of solid rainforest before you hit Brazil and the largest chunk of the largest remaining rainforest in the world.

As with Intag, getting there was part of the fun. We descended something like 5000 ft., rambling through tunnels reminiscent of the entrance to Zion National Park and cutting through valleys and around mountain passes next to roaring, curving rivers lined with lush plant growth and verdant fields and farms buried in the foothills. I listened to this song at one point along the journey; maybe it’ll give you some idea of what it was like:

We spent our first two nights at what I believe was an encampment of a nearby community located southeast of Puyo designed for overflow community members and adventurous tourists. We accessed it by taking a small road that—no joke—ended at the community of Pomona (which we unfortunately never saw), and by walking a short distance off the road to the bank of a river, the name of which escapes me but which flowed into the Pastaza River and, eventually, as with pretty much every body of water in the northern part of this continent, into the Amazon.

The guys’ cabin was about as close to the river as possible, and we fell asleep each night to its constant and soothing rhythm. There was also a small open air hut next to the river with a fire pit and benches and a hammock underneath it. There we stayed up late into the night talking, singing and listening to the sounds of the river and the forest. One of my favorite songs among those we sang goes like this:

The river is rolling, rolling and rolling;

The river is rolling, down to the sea.

Mother carry me, a child I will always be;

Mother carry me, down to the sea.

 

During our two days there we took a couple nature walks through the forest, we heard from the son/grandson/nephew of Kichwa shamans (known in Kichwa as “Yachajs”, pronounced “Yáwchawks”) about traditional Kichwa medicine and spiritual beliefs and we had the opportunity to spend one hour alone in the forest.

We also walked to the biggest waterfall I’ve ever seen and swam beneath it. We were led there by Byron, one of our guides. It was in many ways like the first waterfall we saw in Intag: you could hear it before you could see it and, once there, you found yourself in the midst of what felt like a hurricane, with high winds and greats rings of mist blasting upwards and outwards from where the water hit the river. The water launched off a cliff at least 50 ft. in the air into what seemed like a giant amphitheatre with steep, vertical walls, to which thousands of plants and small trees and probably some insects clung and swayed in the wind like raucous audience members.

This photo doesn't adequately capture the depth and power of the waterfall, but that rainbow was pretty awesome. We waded in close to the center of the falls.

Byron directed us to a path that encircled the waterfall and led to a small rocky beach of sorts behind the falls, where we stripped down to boxers or bathing suits and waded in. We were instantly hit with the tremendous power of the water that forced my eyes shut and dried out my contacts. We pushed further and further towards the center of the falls, walking backwards at times so as to protect our eyes, well aware that we’d never be able to reach it but drawn ever closer to this unbelievable force of nature, like moths to a light bulb in the night. Finally we turned back and walked to shore, where we caught our breath and admired what was before us. Emerson said afterwards he felt cleaner than he had ever felt in his life.

Walking back from the falls I fell behind with Emerson and Grant and Byron, who told us about the high rates of erosion besetting the riverbank at some points, which he attributed to global warming. When we reached the main road that connected the path to the waterfall with the path to our cabins, we looked out over the field across the road and, at that moment, saw Mt. Sangay erupting. At first we were so stunned and amazed we just yelled and jumped and watched as a small cloud of ash rose from the top of the volcano. It turns out Sangay does these mini eruptions quite frequently (we saw it erupt twice more during our time there), and has been doing so since it began its third and most recent eruption cycle in 1934. But we were still pretty pleased.

Sangay seemed to do this every day around 6 p.m. Must be its stomach growling for dinner.

It got better.

The next day we traveled upriver to a Kichwa community known as Cotococha, where we learned about their farming and fishing practices. We watched a woman squeeze juice from shredded strands of what looked like sweet potato into a pile of smashed-up yuca (of mashed potato consistency) and massage them together on a low wooden table. She was making chicha, an alcoholic beverage used in festivals and rituals that is made by placing this mixed substance into a vase, covering the opening with plantain leaves and leaving it to ferment overnight. We also got to taste some pre-prepared chicha, which someone said reminded them of Kombucha.

Later a woman showed us how to harvest yuca, the “meat” of which turns out to be in its roots, and how to correctly replant the branches of a harvested tree so that a new tree will grow in its place (the seeds of the yuca tree are stored in small capsules that sit beneath notches along its branches). We also watched one of the older men in the village smash up some type of root with rocks so that it would release a white pasty substance, which the man later dipped into a small river that ran alongside their community. The river turned smokey white with the substance, which apparently paralyzes small fish (for 30 minutes tops) and makes them easier to catch. Finally, just before leaving the community, we played an epic soccer game between gringos and Ecuadorians (most of the Ecuadorians being children). It started to rain towards to the end of the game, but we played on, until finally we called it a draw, waved goodbye to our brief hosts and crossed the rickety bridge over the river separating the community from the main road.

Harvesting the roots of a yuca tree.

Cotococha fishing trap, with the root paste infused water on the right (upstream) and two of the green, handwoven cylindrical traps on the left.

Gringos vs. Ecuadorians. I almost scored a couple goals but I couldn't quite tuck the biscuit.

On Wednesday we took a short canoe ride downstream to our second and last riverside accommodations of the trip, an outrageously beautiful sight along the Pastaza River with candlelit pathways between cabins and a rope swing that would be any summer camper’s dream come true. We went for a evening walk in the dark, during which I managed to see the bright red eyes of a caiman (with Byron’s help), and we sat alongside the river watching the sunset over Sangay. It was beautiful.

Emerson launching off the rope swing along the Pastaza River. We were tempted by the higher swing (nearest), and I swung out and back on it, but we decided against jumping off it.

Our cabins sat at the convergence of two rivers, creating some interesting ripple effects.

Not too shabby.

Oh yea, and Sangay was erupting.

On Thursday we saw several animal species I’d never seen before, including the peccary (which in large groups can be extremely dangerous) and the tapir, the largest South American land mammal (pictured). We also visited a wildlife refuge and rehabilitation center near Puyo, where several abused or threatened primates, birds, weasel-like animals and reptiles are cared for (often by young European volunteers).

The tapir has a short, prehensile snout, which it used to play with us.

One of the monkeys at the rehabilitation center near Puyo.

After spending Thursday night in Puyo, we returned to Quito on Friday. We went out in the city that night and on Saturday we moved in with our new host families, this time in Quito proper. My family seems great so far. They are Paola (45), Luis (46), Álvaro (19) and Martín (15). So far all I really know about them is that they have an even crazier sleep schedule than I do: Álvaro and Paola regularly go to sleep early (around 8 or 9 p.m.) and wake up around 1 or 2 a.m. to study or work. I too was pretty tired yesterday so I fell asleep around 5 or 6 p.m. and woke up around 11 p.m. to write this blog entry, so we’re now all awake in the house, listening to music and working on our laptops at 5 a.m. Ecuadorian time. Since my real mother is Bonnie Katz, I’m feeling right at home.

On Monday we begin our Culture & Development seminar classes (all in Spanish) and our first taste of independent life in Quito. Stay tuned.

-Globally Gallogly

Día 37: Salgamos el valle, saludamos la selva

Stage One of my travels in Ecuador has officially ended. And in four hours, Stage Two begins.

This week marked the end of Spanish classes, the end of our time with our first host families in el Valle de los Chillos, and the beginning, I think, of an increased independence and responsibility over our affairs that we’ve all been waiting anxiously for (and maybe fearing a bit as well).

On Wednesday morning we had the opportunity to teach for a few hours (in Spanish) various grades of students from a nearby primary school. I was assigned, along with my co-teacher Lindsay, 23 fifth grade students. Though the first hour or so proved difficult (with kids getting out of their seats and almost none of them knowing as much English as we had hoped they would for an English conversation exercise we had planned), we won them over during the second half of class with a modification of a game I developed last summer at Exploration Summer Programs in Wellesley, MA.

Here’s the gist: we split the kids into four groups and gave each group a map of Ecuador labelled with its three geographic regions minus the Galápagos: Costa, Sierra, Oriente. Then we gave each group six pieces of  individually-wrapped candy and asked them to use whatever knowledge/expectations they already had to rank various things among the regions, with three candies on the region with the most and one on the region with the least (first we did population, then biodiversity, then natural resources). We had each group share their decisions to the class, after which we revealed the correct rankings and allowed the kids to eat the candy (chocolate and caramel in this case). For each topic, we distributed another six pieces of candy to each group. It’s an interesting game because the kids have to think about what they already know and they learn about the relationship between the various topics (i.e. is it important that, of the three regions, el Oriente has the most biodiversity and non-renewable natural resources, many of which are the targets of mining operations?). It also helps that kids love chocolate and caramel.

Our class had some troublemakers, but they were smart and funny and they were sad to see us go when class ended ("¡Ciao profe!"). They all wore uniforms or full-body sweats/jumpsuits.

This week also saw the end of our Spanish class, which we’d been attending Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Our class of five was lucky enough to be taught by Elías, a Carchi native (near the Colombian border) and Peace Corps alum who also teaches Kichwa. He’s a really cool guy and a great teacher and I hope to see him again someday.

Our Spanish class. From left: Sarah, Lynnzie, Profe Elías, Carrie, me and Steph.

On Saturday we celebrated the end of our los Chillos homestays with a goodbye party at Grant’s host mother’s house. It’s a truly beautiful place with a huge lawn and “Equavoli” court (basically volleyball with three people on each team) and wide valleys and mountains in the background. We played and ate and laughed and cried and it gave us some wonderful closure to a wonderful month.

Emerson launches a serve in an Equavoli match while Kenny does some kind of jig thing.

We were fortunate enough to be serenaded with a few songs from Matías (left), the son of one of our program directors, Fabian (right). At one point he busted out Avril Lavigne.

Some students and family members dancing at Saturday's party, probably one of the best I've ever been to. Family/house parties are serious business in Ecuador.

Of course, no neighborhood family party would be complete without some friendly athletic competition between the younger and older folks. I found myself embroiled in an epic, two-game Equavoli match with Grant and my host brother Gonzalo on my team playing against Kenny and the host fathers of Emerson and Haverty. After cruising to a victory in game one, we let up late in game two and lost, leaving it at a draw because the sun was going down. It reminded me of wiffle ball or football with the Gallogly family on July 4th.

Haverty's host father Fabian (left) left it all on the field during our epic Equavoli match.

Needless to say, throughout the entire past week I’ve been saying my goodbyes to my family and the neighborhood of Capelo, the area of los Chillos in which my host family lives. Here are some nostalgia-inspiring photos to put you in the mood:

The sun setting over Quito, as seen from very near my host family's house in Capelo.

My first host family's street. The graffiti on the stop sign always brought Banksy to mind.

My room.

I spent much of Sunday at my host father’s military club (a service provided to all current and former servicemen and women in the Ecuadorian army), where I catapulted down the water slides that feed into the outdoor pool and spent some time in the sauna and “turco” (humid, “Turkish” sauna) listening to old Ecuadorian men discuss politics and their week’s struggles. It was an interesting way to finish my stay in los Chillos, because I spent my first Saturday with the family at the same club, standing out as the only gringo in an otherwise very much Ecuadorian club and listening to many of the same old Ecuadorian men discuss politics in the saunas. Only this time I understood more of what they were saying.

And then at 5 p.m., having packed up my belongings and given a mix CD to my host brother and the Spanish-language version of The Shawshank Redemption to my family (the translated version is called “Sueños de Fuga” here), we headed over to the old Capelo church, where the bus that had brought us there one month ago was waiting to bring us to Quito. I hugged my family goodbye and told Fabian the Equavoli King I’d play him again someday and said goodbye, for now, to los Chillos. I also got a last photo with my family, minus my brother Gonzalo:

My host family minus Gonzalito at the goodbye drop-off. From left: Gabi, Gonzalo, Marcia, me.

It’s been an amazing month, and I couldn’t have asked for a better family. On the way back from the military club on Sunday, a song came on the radio that my host mother Marcia knew, so she started singing it, throwing her head back and belting out the words like a high schooler might on the way to the prom. I sang along as well, if only to the rhythm:

And now it’s Monday morning, and in four hours we leave once more, eastbound for el Oriente and the Amazon Rainforest for an excursion until Friday. I’m anticipating something as magical as the cloud forest of Intag, and yet I hope and know it will be different and exciting. One activity already planned is for everyone to go off into different parts of the rainforest alone for one hour and just…be.

En el camino otra vez…

Día 28: Y los sueños, sueños son

My friend Emerson said it best: “I am now 100% certain that I will remember my time in the Intag Cloud Forest as a dream—a vivid dream, and one with photos, but still a dream.”

We spent four days and three nights in the Intag Cloud Forest Reserve of northern Ecuador last weekend (they call themselves a “One-Million Star Inn”). Leaving Saturday morning, we bumped and bounced Magic School Bus-style along a muddy mountain pass through the Andes of Imbabura Province. At one point we almost had to turn back when we encountered a minor mudslide/collapsed tree that left a large branch blocking our path (fortunately a guy driving along the same road had a machete, which he used to clear the way).

With a bit more rain and a little less luck, this thing would have landed on our road, and we might have had to take the long way around—an estimated four hours longer.

I don't really have the words to describe the beauty/extreme danger of the road we took to Intag, so here's a photo. There are crosses on the side of the road where people have died.

Welcome to the land before time.

Upon arrival at camp, we ate our first of many delicious, completely vegetarian meals made with fruits and vegetables grown either in the forest reserve or very close by. One of my favorite dishes among those we ate was guacamole coleslaw (not pictured). We also made a new friend, though he was shy.

Our first lunch in Intag. The tablecloth was almost as interesting as the food...almost.

Our friend, the "tutamono" (something like a blend between a monkey and a squirrel).

After lunch, I spent Saturday afternoon/evening and much of the next two days exploring the forest surrounding the reserve. We ventured down a steep, narrow path behind the men’s cabin to a river, whose waters were white where they rushed over boulders that sat along the riverbank (we didn’t actually reach the river that day, but we made it all the way down on Monday). We also walked to a nearby waterfall, where the river raced downwards over a cliff’s edge, smashing into the small pool below and shooting bursts of water and mist outwards like the waves of Harry Potter’s Patronus. But that was only inside a small, canopy-enclosed “cavern” that immediately surrounded the waterfall, whose colossal power created winds like a Florida hurricane. Outside the cavern, with only a few plants and stones separating us from the waterfall, it was much quieter, and less windy, with only the river flowing by and two thick but questionably sturdy logs laying across it, forming a bridge. It was a magical place.

The waterfall closest to our cabins. The "hurricane/Patronus cavern" is accessible through the hanging branches to Emerson's left. Monte the dog often accompanied us on our walks.

Me planking the bridge, more or less. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

On Sunday morning I embarked with half the group on a 3.5-hour nature walk led by Roberto (an Intag local who works at the reserve and maintains the trails through the forest) and his jokester son Jordí, who made sure none of us fell behind. We sloshed through mud, crossed the river, cut through thick undergrowth, climbed a slippery rock wall next to a waterfall and finally took a dip in the freezing waters of the river and dunked our heads in a waterfall that poured into it. Roberto also taught us about what he called the “perfect” system of survival adopted by the plants of the forest and about the diverse medicinal properties that many of them have, including the plant resin “Sangre del Dragón,” a dark red liquid that he drew from a large, veiny tree. He said Dragon’s Blood has many applications, particularly the relief of stomach sickness and ulcers. He also rubbed a bit into his hand, showing us how the liquid is transformed into a thin white paste which makes pretty good “protector solar” (sunscreen).

Roberto lives with his family in the Intag Forest Reserve, where he leads nature walks. That's a machete at his side, which he uses to clear trails of overgrown plants or fallen trees.

Roberto's son Jordí. We hit it off immediately.

The forest is like nothing I’ve ever seen. I kept expecting some gigantic Carboniferous dragonfly to burst out of the bushes; someone said the ubiquitous green life reminded them of Jurassic Park. Jordí said himself at one point, while passing through a gate of long vines that hung between two trees at either side of our path, “This is the door to another galaxy. And further ahead, there is another galaxy still.”

Grant surrendering to the forest spirits.

Just hangin' in the cloud forest.

Sarah G (yellow coat) and Lindsay rounding the bend to the last leg of our nature walk.

Of course, I know you’ve been waiting for it, so here it is: on our last evening in the forest, after a tour of the farm/garden, I decided on a whim to take one last walk to the close waterfall (pictured above) with Ellicott and Haverty, two girls on my program. We left after 6 p.m., and it was getting dark. But when we arrived, Haverty suddenly stopped, ducked down and pointed in the direction of the waterfall. Just to the left of it, about 3/5 of the height of the falls up, was perched a dark red medium-sized bird with a huge head: we had found el gallito de la peña, a.k.a. the Andean Cock-of-the-rock.

It's not Nat Geo-worthy, but this photo is proof that spontaneous early evening walks to mystical waterfalls in the rainforest are usually a good idea.

So that was my weekend, in a nutshell. We did many other things, like a focused drawing session during which we practiced the art of looking at something (a face, a leaf) with such concentration that, when you draw it, the need to look down at your paper becomes less and less important, even counterproductive. We learned about Ecuadorian/Latin American history and heard from two representatives of the environmentalist organization DECOIN, which is seeking to prevent mining operations in Intag, particularly around the Junín area. And on Sunday night everyone on the program gathered in a roundhouse hut near the center of camp to sing songs by candlelight.

But those are all pieces of what seems a dream now, images and sounds and scents all blurring together to paint a perfectly imperfect memory of a time not too far off but long forgotten, where the voices in my head were blissfully quiet and what seems hardly imaginable now was then acutely, desperately real.

And as with all dreams, I’m finding it difficult to communicate what it feels like, to immortalize something that at its core seems to remain so stubbornly mortal. I’m reminded of a column published in The Student Life last year by Peter Chinman, Pomona College Class of 2012, who was studying in Cambridge at the time: A Dreamer Unable to Communicate the Dreamfeel.

A nice dream it was.

Día 19: El Veredicto, La Meme y La Casa de Kingman

Buenas tardes mis amigos. All is not well in Ecuador…

Today, Ecuador’s highest court upheld a criminal libel verdict against the editor and two owners of one of the country’s largest newspapers, El Universo. The case was brought by President Rafael Correa following a Feb. 2011 editorial in El Universo that called the president a “dictator” and accused him of causing the deaths of several policemen in the Sept. 30, 2010, “Ecuador coup attempt”. From what I’ve heard, this alleged “coup” may have actually been staged by Correa, perhaps in an effort to rally support among Ecuadorians (both my Spanish professor and host family have suggested this). Regardless, during that conflict, around eight people (mostly policemen) were killed, the blame for which El Universo assigned to Correa, earning its editor and two owners a federal lawsuit. For more info on the Sept. 30, 2010, crisis, see Wikipedia’s article about it.

In any event, yesterday at the court in Quito Correístas (supporters of Correa) were torching and ripping apart copies of El Universo and beating journalists from other newspapers that were reporting on the scene. Nothing got too out of hand, but it nonetheless made headlines (thankfully). The result: El Universo, its owners and the ops editor who authored the Feb. 2011 piece have been ordered to pay $40 million (to Correa) and serve three-year prison sentences.

Supporters of President Rafael Correa tore apart copies of El Universo and El Comercio, two major newspapers in Ecuador, at the El Universo verdict hearing yesterday. Photo: AP

Let’s just say it’s an interesting time to be in Ecuador…

In other news (har har), on Tuesday I made this journalism meme:

© 2012 Ian Gallogly

Ecuadorian democracy and free speech aside, everything continues to go well here. Today I went with my Spanish class to the former home (and current museum/gallery) of Eduardo Kingman, one of Ecuador’s most famous and well-respected artists of the 20th century. It’s about a five minute walk from my host family’s house. Kingman’s expressionist paintings of the Ecuadorian indigenous people and his depictions of strong, oversized, intensely-emotional hands has earned him the name “Painter of Hands.”

Eduardo Kingman is from Loja, in the south, but lived in San Rafael, near my host family. Above: "Unidad"

Kingman's "Rebozo Amarillo"

Kingman was heavily influenced by perhaps the most respected Ecuadorian artist of the 20th century, Oswaldo Guayasamín. A painter and sculptor, Guayasamín was a strong advocate for the rights of Ecuador’s indigenous peoples and depicted their struggles in many of his works.

Oswaldo Guayasamín's "Maternidad"

Guayasamín's "Sed"

Guayasamín was also a fan of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Above: "Las manos de Fidel"

It’s a funny thing about Kingman’s house: it’s truly a hidden secret of Quito, and it’s five minutes from where my host family has lived for years, but they’ve never been. I suppose there are loads of parallel examples in Boston, where I’m from. I wonder if they have a saying in Spanish for “take for granted”.

On Saturday we leave for a four-day excursion to the Intag Cloud Forest in Imbabura Province, where we’ll be staying in an ecological preserve far from any kind of urbanization. Our academic director Fabian Espinosa advised us to “surrender to the mythical figures of the cloud forest.” Oh yea, and there will be two waterfalls, both of which spill into swimming holes that we can access. Need I say more?

If we’re lucky, we might see a “gallito de las rocas” (known to English-speakers as the Andean Cock-of-the-rock). They are known to have a “lek” (kind of like a bar for birds, according to Leonore, our other academic director) near the reservation we’ll be staying at. The video below shows a couple males hollerin’ at some ladies.

Día 15: En el camino

I submitted the following post as a composition for my Spanish class. It charts a trip I took last weekend through the Andes with my host father and brother to Imbabura Province, specifically Cotacachi, where my host mother is a city councilor. An English translation is below.

Íbamos por la Carretera Panamericana en el carro de mi familia anfitrióna, una Lada Niva rojo de 2001. La carretera estaba llena de baches y el Niva luchaba por subir a las montañas en el camino a Cotacachi, nuestro destino, donde estaba mi madre anfitrióna.

La Carretera Panamericana es increíble. Excepto una parte al sur de Panamá que se llama el Tapón del Darién, esta carretera consiste en una red de carreteras que une Prudhoe Bay (en el norte de Alaska) con las ciudades al sur de América del Sur. Según el Libro Guinness de los récords, la Carretera Panamericana es la vía más larga del mundo. Ya he manejado a través de los Estados Unidos tres veces; ahora tengo un nuevo objetivo…

En esta parte de la carretera estábamos en el corazón de los Andes. “Subidas y bajadas,” dijo mi padre anfitrión. “Eso es todo.” Y tuvo razón. Me recordaba la carretera que pasa a través de Colorado, al oeste de Denver, cuando se llega a las montañas Rocosas. Esa carretera hace curvas por las montañas mientras que el río Colorado corre hacia el este. Hay vías antiguas del tren al lado del río y minas abandonadas en la ladera de la montaña, evocadoras de un tiempo anterior que ya no existe.

Los Andes son similares, pero son infinitamente más inmensos y expansivos. En un momento, hicimos una curva (sin barandilla) y miré abajo del precipicio, que probablemente era una caída de 1000 pies. Vi el río Pisque, que probablemente ayudó a crear los valles a través de los que íbamos. La magnitud de la vista me recordaba el “Arches”, un parque nacional en Utah en los EE. UU.

Increíblemente, había muchas granjas allí. Uno de los primeros pueblos que vimos fue Guayllabamba, en donde se cultivan el aguacate y la chirimoya, me dijo mi padre anfitrión. Dijo que Guayllabamba es famoso por el Zoológico Metropolitano, el zoológico más grande del Ecuador, y por el locro, un guiso a base de papas y queso que es la comida típica de esa región.

Vimos muchísimas plantaciones de flores, con sus tejados blancos y grandes muros de protección contra el viento. Las más increíbles estaban en Tabacundo, “la capital mundial de la rosa,” me dijo mi padre anfitrión. Incluso había un monumento a la rosa en el centro del pueblo.

Llovía cuando entramos en la provincia de Imbabura, la ubicación de los pueblos Cotacachi, Otavalo, Atuntaqui e Intag, donde visitaré la semana que viene con los otros estudiantes del programa de SIT. Las casas rurales y los jardines pintorescos con las montañas detrás me recordaban a Switzerland, pero aquí había pequeñas mujeres ecuatorianas caminando por el lado del camino. Llevaban ponchos hechos a mano, sombreros tradicionales de color negro o verde y pequeñas zapatillas. Algunas me parecía que podían tener más de cien años cuando miraba sus caras viejas y experimentadas.

Tenía una fascinación con esta gente, pero no era recíproca. Cuando estábamos en Atuntaqui (después de dejar Cotacachi), pedí a una indígena que vendía uvas si me permitiría sacar un foto. Me miró y dijo, “No.”

Me di cuenta que hay muchísimos gringos en este país y, probablemente, hay algunos que no dan respeto a los indígenas. Vi muchas cosas en ese viaje al norte, pero tengo que encontrar una manera de ganar el respeto de los ecuatorianos si voy a ascender por encima del estatus de “gringo.”

Siempre,

Globally Gallogly

————————————————————————————————–

We were driving on the Pan-American Highway in my host family’s car, a 2001 red Lada Niva. The road was bumpy and the Niva struggled to climb the mountains on the road to Cotacachi, our destination, where my host mother was working this week.

My host family drives a 2001 Lada Niva. Stick shift with close to zero suspension.

The Pan-American Highway is incredible. Except for a part in southern Panamá called the Darién Gap, it consists of a network of roads that connects Prudhoe Bay (in northern Alaska) with southern South America. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the Pan-American Highway is the longest roadway in the world. I have already driven across the United States three times; now I have a new goal…

This part of the highway went through the heart of the Andes. “Climbs and descents,” my host father said. “That’s all.” And he was right. It reminded me of the road that passes through Colorado, west of Denver, when you reach the Rockies. That road curves around mountains while the Colorado River rushes eastwards underneath. There are old train tracks alongside the river and abandoned mines in the mountainside that are reminiscent of a time long since past.

The Andes are similar, but they are infinitely more vast and expansive. At one point, we rounded a corner (without a guard rail) and I looked down from the cliff at what was probably a 1000 ft. drop. I saw the Pisque River, which must have played a part in shaping the valleys through which we drove. The view reminded me of Arches, a national park in Utah.

Fun fact: most of the roads through the Andes are one lane (both ways). So no one hesitates to pass in the opposite lane in the face of oncoming traffic...

Incredibly, there were many farms up there. One of the first towns we saw was Guayllabamba, where they grow avocado and cherimoya, according to my host father. He said that Guayllabamba is famous for the Metropolitan Zoo, the largest zoo in Ecuador, and for “el locro,” a stew made from potatoes and cheese that is a typical dish for that region.

We saw many flower plantations, with their white roofs and high walls that protect against the wind. The most incredible of these were in Tabacundo, “the Rose Capital of the World”. There was even a monument to the rose in the center of town.

It was raining when we entered Imbabura Province, the home of Cotacachi, Otavalo, Atuntaqui and Intag, which I will visit next weekend with the other students on my SIT program. The bucolic homes and quaint gardens with the mountains behind reminded me of rural Switzerland, but here there were small Ecuadorian women walking alongside the road. They wore handmade ponchos, traditional black or green hats and small sandals. Some were young; some looked like they could be 100 years old.

I was fascinated with these people, but they weren’t with me. When we were in Atuntaqui (after getting to Cotacachi), I asked an indigenous woman who was selling grapes if I could take a photo of her. She gave me one look and said, “No,” turning away to return to her trade.

This is the best photo I got of an indigenous Ecuadorian (right). We were in Atuntaqui, a textile town. Many Quiteños go there to buy cheap clothing, bedding or other items.

I realized that there are many gringos in this country and, probably, there are many indigenous people who have mixed feelings toward them. I saw a lot on that trip to the north, but I have to find a way to earn the respect of the Ecuadorians if I am to rise above the status of “gringo”.

Always,

Globally Gallogly

P.S. On Saturday, my host family was gracious enough to take me to Cuicocha Lake, a caldera and crater lake near Cotacachi (toward Intag). Named after “cuy” (Spanish for guinea pig), which is a delicacy in many parts of Ecuador, it was formed by an eruption 3000 years ago of the Cotacachi Volcano, which has been dormant since then. Several lava domes lie at the center of the lake, with a canal between the two largest that is called “the Canal of Dreams.” We took a short boat ride around the lake and through the canal, and we learned about the sulfur gases that are still continuously released from the bottom of the lake (about 200 meters down), keeping the water warm and swimmable. There is even a “Lagoon Crossing” swim race every year.

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Día 11: Estamos en la Pachakutik de la Luz

This entry was published in the February 10, 2012, issue of The Student Life newspaper and online at tsl.pomona.edu.

¡Buenas días Claremonitos! Estamos en la pachakutik de la luz.

What is “pachakutik de la luz,” you ask? Aside from being one of many things I’ve learned while studying abroad that are Unlearnable from Google, Pachakutik is an indigenous political movement in Ecuador that is associated with CONAIE, Ecuador’s largest indigenous organization. But that’s just the political manifestation of the original pachakutik, which, we learned from our Spanish professor Elías on Wednesday, comes from the indigenous language Kichwa (or Quechua) and can be broken down into pacha (world) and kutik (rebirth). As historian Nils Jacobsen defines it, pachakutik is “the Andean notion of a turning point of cosmic dimensions and the beginning of a new era through which what was below would be on top and vice versa.” Chévere, no?

Pachakutik de la luz, according to Elías, is the current 500-year-long pachakutik in which we find ourselves in 2012, the last one having begun in 1492 (when that guy sailed the ocean blue) and ending in 1992. That pachakutik, spanning 500 years of colonization and destruction of Pachamama (Mother Earth), was called “la pachakutik de la oscuridad” (of darkness). “La luz” means light. So, all that Mayan 2012 stuff aside, things should be looking up.

At the equator, the light shines bright. On Tuesday night I went with a friend from the program and her host sister to a festival in Quito in celebration of the full moon. We arrived to find 100 or so young Ecuadorians dancing wildly around an open fire while a circle of drummers thundered out the beat and others blew into flutes or shook maracas. Someone near me was playing the marimba. We watched from behind the drummers as men and women thrust their knees toward the sky and bowed their heads toward the earth, pulling from and giving to the fire that burned at the center of it all. We joined the circle.

This guy knows how to do it.

There are challenges, too. Living in close proximity to people—especially people you don’t know—can be tough. But try doing that in a foreign language you’re in the process of learning and with people from a culture very different from your own. It’s inevitable that sometimes you’ll feel like an ignorant gringo or just a lonely stranger in this semi-strange world. Kind of like college.

Sometimes it’s the little things I appreciate most. In Ecuador, where around 45 percent of the population is sub-employed, many people make a living selling things or performing on the streets, often at red lights in the hope that bored drivers will offer up some spare change. On Sunday, while driving with my host family, we passed one such performer wearing a traditional puppet costume depicting two figures yelling at each other and playfully sparing like an old married couple. My host family smiled and laughed as we drove by. Despite all the massive changes this country has undergone as a result of globalization and the 21st century, the Ecuadorians are a people who value their history and identity.

Of course, like any good gringo abroad, I watched the Super Bowl on Sunday. My host family didn’t know what this was, so I explained to them that it was the championship and that my team (not the Giants) was playing. At 6:30 p.m. EST, we piled into my host parents’ room and watched the game.

Though that early safety threw them (and me) for a loop, they quickly caught on to the general object of the game, with my host mother in particular getting hooked. They all thought it was violent. We watched Madonna’s head-in-crotch halftime extravaganza and threw our arms up in dismay when the infallible Wes Welker dropped that crucial fourth quarter pass. And no one blinked during those last few seconds as Tom Brady’s final Hail Mary pass fell just beyond the reach of Rob Gronkowski.

When it was over, I sat back in my chair and sighed. My 75-year-old host father, who hadn’t spoken a word of English since I arrived, turned from his chair and looked at me.

“How you say… I’m sorry,” he said.

I smiled a huge smile, and thanked Pachamama or my actual mama or Rhoda Borcherding or whoever was responsible for bringing me here.

Día 7: Pesca de la Chucha en Ecuador

¡Buenas días mis amigos!

I ordinarily wouldn’t have written again so soon, pero dos cosas muy chistosas pasaron, and I felt the need to share.

Last night we had our first dinner as a family. We ate steak, potatoes, tomates riñones and aguacate (avocado), and everything was delicious. Near the end of dinner Gabriela (my sister, 24) arrived and she is very friendly. Together, she and her brother Ganzolito are both my greatest allies (ellos hablaron inglés cuando absolutamente lo necesito) y las bromistas grandes (they waste no time in laughing at my linguistic lapses). Por ejemplo:

1. At the dinner table Gabi brought up my allergy to mariscos (shellfish), which they already knew I couldn’t eat, but I told them that I could eat other fish, including salmon, tilapia and trout. It turns out that Marcia, my host mother, has an allergy to pescados del mar (fish from the ocean) but not to fresh water fish (del río). Anyway, I asked Gabi how to say “trout” in Spanish and she answered, “trucha.” Desafortunadamente, I misheard her and asked if she had said “chucha,” which means something along the lines of pu— or f— and is used as an insult. I guess this interaction was bound to happen sometime. Needless to say, Gonzalito got quite a kick out this story when Gabi retold it this morning at breakfast.
2. Due to Spanish overload at dinner last night, I zonked out around 11:30 p.m. and woke up at a sprightly 8 a.m. this morning, before anyone else in the family. I read for a bit and made my bed before attempting my first shower in my new home. First thing to note about the faucets in Ecuador is that “Hot” is actually labeled with a “C,” for “Caliente.” I had overcome that obstacle in San Antonio, so I stepped in and turned the “C” nob to the left. To my dismay, only freezing cold water came out, and nothing changed when I turned the “F” nob (which stands for “Frio”). This lasted for about five minutes or so, during which I was shivering in cold bursts of pain/ecstasy and wondering if this was how my Ecuadorian family chose to bathe. Turns out it isn’t: because I was showering so early, Gonzalo hadn’t turned on the gas for the water heater that was connected to the bathroom I share with Gonzalito and Gabi, so all I got was cold water. This, too, provided some quality family laughter at breakfast this morning.

Anyway, as you can probably tell things are going very well. I’ll try to snap some photos of my room and family and upload those soon. In ten minutes or so we’re leaving for a local piscina (pool) for an early afternoon dip, after which we’re heading to some kind of shopping area where Marcia wants to take me to the Supermaxi (Quito’s equivalent of Shaw’s or Publix) so we can buy some groceries and so she can show off the many types of fruit that Ecuadorians are privy to as residents of the equator.

¡Hasta luego!

-Globally Gallogly

Day 6: La Mitad, La Prensa y Una Nueva Familia

¡Buenas tardes mis lectores! ¿Están listos para otro post de mi blog?

Pués, ¿por dónde debo empezar? Casi no hay palabras para describir esta aventura…

On Monday, after breakfast at Este Café, where we were served a coconut drink that was thick and delicious and which had chunks of coconut in it, we drove to San Antonio, a peaceful little town north of Quito. San Antonio is famous for la Mitad del Mundo (the Middle of the World), a touristy site built in the late-1970s that marks the point where the equator passes through Ecuador (or very close to it).

The Monument at la Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World).

In San Antonio we stayed at Rancho Alegre, una hostería owned and operated by a very nice man named Roberto, his wife, his assistant Liliana, and Roberto’s son, Roberto José. R.J., as I’ll call him, is 19 and studies biotechnology (pienso que sí) at a university in Quito. ÉL ES EL HOMBRE. He joined us for our Salsa class, we played poker with him a couple times, he serenaded us with some guitarra (including an Ecuadorian rendition of Fool’s Garden’s “Lemon Tree,” a 1995 song that seems to be more internationally popular than I thought), and, más importante que todos, we played PING PONG. IN ECUADOR. That’s one more item to cross off the bucket list.

We were in San Antonio through Thursday morning, during which time we had orientation, courtesy of our program directors Fabián Espinosa (Faba) and Leonore Cavallero, who are great. Faba was born in Ecuador along the coast, and speaks quietly and slowly and with such equanimity and experience that we all shut up when he opens his mouth. Leonore is American by birth but has lived in Ecuador for decades, and seems to successfully strike a balance between motherly warmness and no-nonsense toughness that ultimately results in me feeling reassured about being a stranger in this semi-strange land.

On that note, here are a few strange/funny/interesting things I learned about Ecuador:

• Ecuador has become one of the top destinations in the world for (American) retirees, particularly in Cuenca, a city to the south. There is even a website about it: http://cuencaecuadorretirement.com/.
• In Ecuador, a “friend with benefits” is known as “una amiga con derechos” (a friend with rights).
• In Ecuador, you may catch a bus after it has left the station, but it will not stop for you. That means you have to board while it is moving. (Another item crossed off the bucket list…)
• Ecuador is a mother-based country (according to Leonore). I’ll come back to this in another post.
• In Ecuador, “tranquilo” is one of the best complements you can give a city or town.
• According to Faba, there is a surrealist quality to Ecuador, earning the Ecuadorian thought process the title “Ecualogic.” Another thing I’ll have to return to in a later post.

During one of our days in San Antonio, we heard from the editor of a newspaper based in Intag, Ecuador, which is the site of a Cloud Forest Reserve and, consequently, several confrontations between locals and business/government interests who are looking to commence resource extraction in that area. We will visit Intag during our stay here, so I’ll explore that later.

One of the most interesting things we learned from Mary Ellen, the journalist, is that Ecuador’s newspapers have almost zero freedom under the current administration of Rafael Correa. The man who co-opted several indigenous and progressive causes as he swept into the presidency in 2007 has, amazingly, criminalized dissent and brought charges against an editor and the owners of a newspaper that called him a “dictator” in one of its editorials (Correa’s government won the case, and the editor was ordered to pay millions and maybe serve time in jail, but he is currently living in exile in the U.S. and awaiting progress in his appeal). This has given me some ideas and motivation for my Independent Study Project (ISP), a independent research project that all SIT students conduct for three weeks at the end of our program.

Many Ecuadorians have protested Rafael Correa's clampdown on the country's newspapers.

The editor and owners of the newspaper El Universo, who called Mr. Correa a "dictator" in an editorial, were charged with defamation of character and ordered to pay $80 million.

On Thursday, we left San Antonio and made our way in groups of three to various regions outside Quito, from which we had to find our way back to our Hotel in Quito using our limited Spanish and the public transportation system. I went with two girls (Megan and Laura) to Pruembo (es muy tranquilo) and made it back fine.

Today, after much anticipation, we met and moved in with our first host families. Mi familia, que se llama Bahamonde Haro, lives in the town of Capelo (in the valley of Los Chillos) and consists of a father (Gonzalo, 75), a mother (Marcia, 49), a sister (Gabriela, 24) and a brother (Gonzalo, 22). I’ve met the father, brother and mother so far, and they seem nice. Gonzalo, Jr., is preparing to take the entry exams for the military school, which he hopes to attend as his father did. Marcia is some kind of district counselor or administrator (del Cantón Cotacachi), but I have yet to learn more than that. In ten minutes or so we’re going to eat dinner, after which I’m sure my brain will be fried from Spanish-overload.

Buena suerte mis amigos, y espero que yo tenga tiempo para escribir otra vez pronto. ¡Hasta luego!

-Globally Gallogly

Day 1: Quixotic Quito Finally Grounded

We made it. It was cloudy, and I was sleep deprived, and they served questionable tortellinis for dinner on the plane, but we made it to Quito, the capital of Ecuador.

A little background for those unaware: this is the (travel) blog of Ian Gallogly (gah-LOW-glee), Pomona College Class of 2013. I am currently studying abroad in Ecuador through SIT’s Culture & Development program. I arrived today, and I have a plane ticket home for May 30. As often as possible I will be updating this blog with notes on my life, observations, emotions, acquaintances, relationships, gastrointestinal experiences, etc. Ven conmigo…

So this is sorta what Quito looks like:

The clouds hung low when we flew into Quito's airport, which sits at over 9000 feet above sea level. It is currently the rainy season, which last from January to late May.

Immediately after exiting the plane we walked to customs and were confronted by a huge (like, floor to ceiling) Coca-Cola advertisement: two cute, young Ecuadorians drinking Coke and listening to some tunes. Gotta love that dominant American commercialism. Made me feel right at home. (We also passed a KFC and McD’s on the way to the hotel).

There are three prostitutes outside our hotel. They seem friendly.

Once inside the hotel, they fed us (there was conversation and laughter throughout this time as well, FYI. Not just fast food chains and prostitutes and food, if you were wondering). An assistant director of the program served us what I think were Humitas (corn-based tamales) that her mother had made. They were warm and delicious and I had two.

We ate these homemade corn-based tamales when we got to the hotel. Don't eat the skin.

That’s about it for Day 1. Spanish is everywhere, but for the time being we’re speaking mostly English with each other and the directors. We have orientation for this first week, then we’ll be deposited with our respective homestay families in Los Chillos (a suburb of Quito).

Buenas noches a mis lectores.