The Jungle!

Hi All, I apologize for my EXTREME tardiness in writing this last blog entry but I have had spotty internet at best for the last several weeks. I shall first talk about the week we returned to Cuenca for a reflection week, then our two weeks on the field once again in both Loja and Zamora, and then my last remaining days in Ecuador spent in Cuenca.

Week 5: Cuenca

As I have said, we met most of this week to reflect on our first two weeks on the field, what went well and what could be improved upon for the upcoming two weeks on the field. We got a lot of time with our individual teams to talk about what we could personally improve on. I think the biggest thing was that we could have done more to promote our stoves to the people we went to visit, that way we could get more people's numbers who would be potentially interested. My host family also took me and my roommate, Asha, to a graduation party. This graduation party was unlike any graduation party I have ever been to and reminded me more of a wedding. It was pretty formal and we had a champaign toast and sat down to dinner as a whole. Also, the house where the party was held reminded me kind of of something I might see in the Hamptons: it was quite large with really nice furniture, beautiful hardwood floors and winding staircases. Yeah, they had some money going on. The next day, we had a much more informal party at our house. It was game day and Cuenca was playing Barcelona, the team from Guayaquil. A few of the Americans actually went to the game but the barbecue we had was super fun and had pretty good food.

Week 6: Loja

The following Monday, we set out to go to Loja, which actually is a fairly large city, not the country. It was also the only site where we stayed in a hostel rather than a hotel. And the hostel was actually more like a hotel because it was three people to a room and each had private bathrooms. Having so much time with my team of ten people worried me a bit because we spent a little too much time together the last time we were on the field, but surprisingly it was a great week and everyone enjoyed everyone else's company. The day we got there we went and explored and tried to see the museums but the only "museum" we found was the museum of music, seen below, and there was no museum, but rather just a bunch of people practicing their instruments because apparently Loja is famous for producing famous musicians.

First day out, we headed to the town of Gonzanamá to do our marketing for the campaign on Sunday. However, Gonzanamá was too big and had things like pharmacies, so we decided to backtrack a bit and go to a smaller village about 15 minutes away called Nambacola. There, we met a Dutch guy who, when he heard about our products and mission, gave us a few other suggestions of things to potentially sell, such as tarps to cover seeds so animals don't get at them and windup flashlights. We also did a few surveys to measure people's interest in the portable stoves. By the way, here is the picture of our stove, although we need to find a way for them to last longer because due to the extreme hear, it rusted after only two weeks as you can see:

When Sunday came around, we did a little bit of extra publicity but it probably wasn't necessary because the people already seemed to be swarming for their eye exams. A lot of people needed glasses so that day, the company ended up making $537 dollars and the entrepreneurs we work with made probably about $100 each. As for our stove, we built one during the campaign so people could see how it is built and then we did a demo making popcorn with it. However, on the ride home, we left the new stove in the town of Catamayo, where we had to transfer from pickup truck to bus. Knowing we had to replace it, what was a great day quickly turned pretty sour. Other work that we did during the week was giving our "charlas" to local groups working with Grameen Bank where the topic was conflict resolution. We were pretty prepared except for the fact that a lot of them said they work alone and therefore don't face conflicts, so we had to do some thinking on our feet and instead discussed what they thought was the most important point that we discussed, should they ever encounter conflict. The other organization we worked with was an artisan group in the town of San Pedro de Vilcabamba called "23 de junio." This was probably one of the coolest organizations we worked with. They make all sorts of cool products out of recycled paper, decorated with pressed flowers, such as these:

While there, we also got to try our hand at making the paper ourselves. I tried it and successfully made one sheet but unfortunately have no pictures of when I was making it. We ended up spending all day there. I forgot to put on sunscreen that day and was outdoors all day and it was super hot. Fortunately I was able to spend a lot of time in the shade but still expected to get sunburned and was pleasantly surprised when I didn't. Anyway, a bunch of people painted the walls and me and two other girls painted in the mural of their logo that one of the girls from the week before sketched. The black paint was a pain because it was oil based and I got it all over my hands and now, even two weeks later, it still is not completely gone from my nails. The next group apparently painted more flowers on their wall and wrote out the name of their organization. Here is what it looked like after we finished:

Another two people worked to update their brochure and help them redistribute it so they could get more business since they only work twice a week presently due to lack of business. We also spent about an hour or so doing surveys there to evaluate interest and/or need. For our free day, we decided to be outdoorsy and go ziplining and hiking which was an awesome decision. To go ziplining, we went back toward Vilcabamba (more on Vilcabamba in a moment) and stopped smack in the country about halfway there. It cost $6 for 5 rides which is a super good deal and we got to zipline pretty high up. However, the pictures actually aren't that exciting so you can check them out on Facebook if you really want to but I am not going to out them on here. After that we went to Vilcabamba, which we had heard stories about from other people about how strange it was. Roughly translated, it means something like the valley of life because a very large number of people there live to be like 100. Because of this rep, a lot of Americans go there to retire and as a result, there are just as many Americans as Ecuadorians there. Also there are just a lot of Americans there that are sick of America, so it is a pretty hippie town. Overall a kind of a strange place. Anyway, we hiked a mountain there called Cerro Mandango. The trail is kind of off the beaten path. Fortunately, we ran into some Americans that showed us where the trail was, otherwise we never would have found it. The hike was pretty steep but it was only like an hour to the top. Once we got within 5 minutes of the top, it got super steep and coming down, I think everyone wiped out a few times. But the hike was rewarding because it was beautiful at the top. My camera died after ziplining so I am going to steal some people's photos and put them up here.

A few miscellaneous notes from Loja. 1. The garbage trucks go around Loja playing a song like an ice cream truck. Except that the song is rather creepy and it sounds like something you would hear in a nightmare. I think one night it crept into my dreams that the garbage man was coming after me. 2. A comparison between Russia and Ecuador. They absolutely idolize Lenin in Russia and every down seems to have a statue of him. In Ecuador, every town has statues but of different people. The person they idolize though and you can see paintings and pictures everywhere of him is Che Guevara.

Week 7: Zamora/Timbara

The last place we went on the field was to the region of Zamora, which is a small city about 1.5 hours east of Loja. The village we stayed in however was called Timbara. This was one of my favorite places on the edge of the jungle. The first day we got there, we met our host families and I, for the first time, lived with other students. I also got the house that is a 10 second walk from the place where we meet everyday. And my host mom was awesome. She gave us all sugar cane the first day and for most of us, myself included, it was our first time ever trying it. Picture time!

Not wanting to pay to do my laundry, I waited until I got here to do my laundry and they didn't have a washer so for the first time ever, I actually washed my clothes. And I didn't exactly know what I was doing so my host mom watched me struggle. After I explained that I had never washed my clothes before she showed me how to watch and probably would have washed them all but I refused to let that happen. But now I know how to wash clothes. :)

The first full day, we went to do our marketing for our last campaign. This time we went to Guayazimi, which was truly in the middle of the jungle. We went via pickup truck and fortunately for me I got to ride in the cab rather than in the back. The day we went was super rainy and the road was for all intents and purposes not a road. It was quite a bumpy ride and I felt really bad for the two people in the back. But the marketing went really well and people were pretty receptive. Fortunately, for the day of the actual campaign the half of our team that went with the other entrepreneur to a much closer town was going to go there rather than having us return. That evening, after we finished some preparations for our charla that we were going to give later that week, one of the host dads took us on an adventure. It was fun but this guy has a sense of adventure almost to the point of being dangerous. He took us to a waterfall which was super cool and wanted to take us on a hike despite it being kind of a dangerous trail even during the day. But we did kind of get to see the waterfall with our flashlights. Unfortunately, that night I was kind of dumb and wore the rainboots they provided to us without socks, so I had some nasty blisters for the rest of the week. Next day, did surveys in Timbara about our stoves in the morning. Then we went to the town of Guadelupe to visit a mission where we actually met a bunch of other American volunteers working. We also saw the Andean model stoves that were in use, as we had been promised. Although built around the same time, one was in significantly better condition than the other.

                                                                                                    

The cement stove in much better condition

This stove is rusted on the metal and the cement is cracked

The next day was pretty chill and all we did in terms of work was final prep work for out charla that we did on Saturday. That afternoon, Manuel, the host-dad who took everyone to see the waterfall and the bigger one behind it. Fortunately, this time it was during the day so I could actually see how narrow and steep the path was and the waterfall and rivers we were hiking up had had plenty of rainy days to get good and high. But it was really fun and everyone but one person went. The waterfall was awesome, especially the big one, seen here.

After that, instead of heading back to Timbara, Manuel decided it was perfect time to hike a mountain. So we did, kind of. We started to then we couldn't find the trail so we used a machete to make our own trail and cut down some grass. The good news is since all there was around was grass, CLEARLY we had some good strong things to hold onto as we climbed up at a 45˚ angle. No, but seriously it really was a good time and sometimes you just have to have a sense of adventure. Here we are on the mountain.

Next day was probably one of the coolest days in Ecuador. It was our free day and we went on a jungle tour. It took some convincing for me to go because those blisters I had gotten earlier in the week were really bothering me and it was a little pricey to go, but looking back I have absolutely no regrets about going. The three hour ride we took to get there was the same road we took to get to Guayazimi and then went about an hour past that. From there we got in a boat and went up a river for about an hour seeing all sorts of cool things. The thing that captivated me was the massive amounts of different types of butterflies that I saw. When we had almost reached the trail where we were going to do our jungle hike, I saw something else super cool: two rivers that met, one with blackish-red water and the other with light blue water, and the waters didn't mix. Of course I snapped some pics of that:

That is not a beach off in the distance...

When we started the hike, I was a little scared because I found a prickly caterpillar on me and it is the jungle and there are all sorts of crazy things in the jungle. But after that, I just embraced it and the hike was super awesome. I got to swing on some of those tree ropes like Tarzan, saw a tree that is thought to be something like 300 years old and super tall, cool rock formations like flat bottom boulders you can sit under, and some cool wildlife. I managed to get some good pics of butterflies like these:

And some cool plants:

The old, giant tree called "La Abuela" 

Sangre de Drago, which has red sap and medicinal properties

Some people also saw a toucan, but I unfortunately was not so lucky. We had to turn around when we saw a sign that said there were active landmines, at what I think was the Ecuador-Peru

border so that was cool. On the way back, we "bathed" in the river and saw a community of the Shuar indigenous people. All in all, an awesome day. Next day, we gave our charla to the restaurant Amor y Fortaleza, but in true Ecuadorian fashion, we had to wait over an hour for them to show up. When we started, there weren't many people there. Most of the host families were there, since most of them were involved with Amor y Fortaleza. My host-mom, who is not involved with Amor y Fortaleza and has her own restaurant was there. It went pretty well though and they said we provided them with some valuable tips in conflict resolution; some didn't even know what it was. As for marketing, we created a model business card for them to use, and they liked that idea a lot. In the afternoon, we actually went to the restaurant and got to try our hand in taffy-making from sugar cane. It was pretty fun and the President of the Asociación Amor y Fortaleza's daughter was there and two days later, she left to go compete in the Olympics in London for Racewalking. She gave a couple of the Americans a lesson in racewalking then raced them. I can't post it on here but I recommend you watch it on Facebook because it is highly entertaining. That night, I went to a party for some saint with my host family, meaning I went to a party with every single one of my host families. Any excuse to party, right? Next day was campaign day but it was pretty slow and in total we only made like $174 dollars.

A few miscellaneous notes about Zamora: my host mom was an awesome cook and I tried some really new foods (but in all of Ecuador, not just there), such as Yuca which I think is cassava? in English. It is something like a fibrous tuber. Aji, which is an awesome sort of hot sauce, great for putting in soup that can be kind of bland. Cuy, guinea pig meat, although I didn't actually eat that in this region. Whole fried Tilapia, sugar cane, mote, some sort or corn that has absolutely no taste, boiled green bananas, which also have no taste, and lots and lots of rice, which I never want to eat again. And lots of different fresh fruit juices, such as my favorite, tomate de árbol (Tree Tomato), guayaba (Soursop), and maracuyá (passionfruit). Also, I got bitten alive in Zamora, my bugspray probably didn't even do anything. I didn't realize the blisters I got were as bad as they were but I spent my first day back in the US doctor hopping. Lastly, my cheap phone broke for no reason, so I had to fork over $35 for a new used one, that ended up breaking 4 days later. That wasn't fun but was merely a blip in an overall awesome trip. 

Week 8: Cuenca

Next day, we travelled back to Cuenca and had to just wrap things up by Thursday, which was when we all left to go back to the US, or Peru or the Galápagos for some. Tuesday, we had all day just to prep for Wednesday, when we did our final presentations on the charlas we gave to organizations, the articles we all wrote about various aspects to healthy living, and what each team learned about their respective projects. Hearing about what all the other teams did during their time was really interesting to hear about. Wednesday night, Asha and I gave our host family gifts and finally took pictures with them. Here is the pic with me and the whole fam:

L to R: Anabel, Sylvania (mother of the three girls), Maria Eliza (the crazy 3-year old), Olga (my host mom), me, Mikaela, and Maria Eugenia. The dogs Toby and Goofy.

The last day, we had our graduation from Spanish school where we said goodbye to the host families and in the afternoon we headed out for Guayaquil to catch our flight. I will leave you all with one last picture (hopefully you enjoyed them) in this very long (sorry...) blog entry from that ride, where we were above the clouds. Until my next travels, so long!