Yesterday was our 6 month anniversary here in Ecuador. It is hard to believe that half of a year has passed already. When I think back to what we were doing when we first got here it seems like we've done a lot. But when I think about what we still want to do, I feel like we've hardly done anything.
For me, the first wave of "culture shock" is over and there are some things in my daily life that are becoming routine. But it is still far from being familiar. I'm learning (and re-learning) how to function in a very different environment. Sometimes it is fun, sometimes it is frustrating, sometimes it is exciting, and sometimes it is overwhelming. I've gone through the gamut of emotions. But the best part is that it is almost always challenging, and that keeps things interesting.
My latest challenge is getting behind the wheel. I finally got up the nerve to start driving again. Luckily Loja is a small city and I've been here long enough to know where the one-way streets are and which streets have the right-of-way. I've been doing the easy routes between our apartment and the restaurant or Lucho's mom's house. Pretty soon I'll make a foray into downtown Loja, which is usually a traffic nightmare. I'm looking forward to the day when I'll be able to hop in the car and drive wherever I want.
This week I've been watching the Democratic National Convention on CNN. So far I've seen Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden speak. I was reminded again how much I like both Hillary and Bill. They are just great. (Not perfect, but great.) I hope that I can catch Barak Obama's speech tomorrow. Every time I see him I just think "Wouldn't it be wonderful if he were president!" If he wins it would really be the dawn of a new era in the U.S. (and the world). It's about time someone came along to break the old "mold". By the way, both Lucho and I will be voting in the November election. We sent in our request for absentee ballots last week. It's one way we can keep our feet in two cultures at the same time.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
I am now (somewhat) employed
Today I accepted a contract position with a local, environmental non-profit called Nature and Culture International (NCI). I am going to be helping them set up a water quality monitoring project in the province of Loja. It should be really interesting and I'm looking forward to applying my knowledge in a new situation.
A little background:
Sandwiched between my trips to Quito and Guayquil last month I found time to take a 2-day trip to the province with members of NCI. The reason for the trip was to check out 4 small towns where there is a potential for developing a water quality monitoring program. The four towns are Celica, Alamor, Pindal and Macara. They are located west and south of Loja, and you can find them on this map from Google. Concidentially, it turned out that 3 of the 4 towns we visited were also where some old friends from the Peace Corps had lived as volunteers. The first town we visited, Celica, is located high in the mountains and is famous for its foggy weather. A friend of mine lived there as a Peace Corps volunteer back in the early 90's. He started out in the Peace Corps looking like a typical engineer - a short-haired, clean-shaven kid with a ball point pen in his pocket. By the end of his service he had grown his wavy, red hair to shoulder length and was sporting a full moustache and beard. One of the city engineers I met in Celica still remembered him and his many famous (infamous) exploits, including playing Jesus in a town parade.
After Celica we visited Alamor, another small town in the mountains and then we went to Pindal which is where another Peace Corps friend, used to live. Pindal is a big corn growing region and corn prices have increased drastically in recent years (some say due to the demand for ethanol) causing more land to be put into corn production. The higher prices mean that the locals have an improved standard of living. According to a local official most farmers now drive trucks and have refigerators and TVs in their homes. But it has also meant that land that was once devoted to organic coffee growing has been converted to corn, resulting in a drastic increase in chemicals applied to the land. These chemicals may end up contaminating the local waterways. In Pindal we visited a popular swimming area in a local river. The city government is very concerned about water quality in this area because of the chemical use in the surrounding fields. The swimming area is a beautiful place with cascading waterfalls and large boulders that people jump off to land in the deep pools. The city recently bought an adjacent parcel of land and has developed a big park with picnic tables and a play yard for the kids. I was slightly familiar with the area because way back when I was a Peace Corps volunteer I had spent a drunken weekend in Pindal with a motley crew of fellow volunteers (and Lucho!). We went swimming in the famous swimming hole during the day and in the evening we went to a local dance where my girlfriend and I (the only gringas in town) were accosted by a couple of drunk men who wanted to dance with us. All the men in our group were dancing with the local señoritas and didn't seem to notice our plight. I finally ended up telling the drunks that Lucho was my husband (a prophetic statement at the time) and that helped to calm them down a bit. This time around I didn't run into any drunken men and I was very impressed by the city employee we met, a young woman who was very bright and motivated.
After Pindal we headed to Macará which is located on the border between Ecuador and Peru. The elevation is lower there and it is warmer and more desert-like. On the way we saw lots of really neat ceibo trees, which have wide buttressed trunks and big, rubbery branches and look like something from a Dr. Seuss book. Macará is the former home of two other Peace Corps friends. One of them was another young engineer who started out his service as a strapping young lad and ended up looking like Grizzly Adam's younger brother. The other volunteer was one of my best friends in the Peace Corps. She and I lived together in Loja for a while until she left for greener pastures in Macará. They were later joined by another volunteer, a Gulf War vet with tattoos covering much of his body. The three of them were famous for their exploits in Macará, many of which involved copious amounts of alcohol. Lucho and I spent several drunken weekends in Macará with an assortment of Peace Corps volunteers, other foreigners, and Ecuadorians. One of the houses we gathered at had a pool and a big balcony overlooking the town and surrounding hills. It was a great place to hang out with good friends on a warm night.
(Don't get me wrong - all of these Peace Corps volunteers worked very hard doing things like installing irrigation systems, building latrines, helping disadvantaged children, teaching English, and many other helpful projects. But we all had to blow off some steam once in a while.)
On my recent trip to Macará we visited the city hall and talked with the local officials about water quality in their local streams. They have at least two places where they collect water for their drinking water system. One of them is located in a watershed that is almost completely protected and has an intact forest cover. The other collection spot is located in a watershed with no protection that is almost entirely deforested and eroded. It is no surprise that the water from the protected watershed is much better quality than the water from the unprotected one. These are the kinds of things we want to find out more about so that we can inform the public and the local politicians about the importance of protecting water quality.
So in September I'm going to start working part time for NCI. The project will only last about 4 months, but there might be an option to continue working there if things work out. I'll be working in the mornings while Christina is in school. I'll also have to make several trips to the country to check out the sites.
A little background:
Sandwiched between my trips to Quito and Guayquil last month I found time to take a 2-day trip to the province with members of NCI. The reason for the trip was to check out 4 small towns where there is a potential for developing a water quality monitoring program. The four towns are Celica, Alamor, Pindal and Macara. They are located west and south of Loja, and you can find them on this map from Google. Concidentially, it turned out that 3 of the 4 towns we visited were also where some old friends from the Peace Corps had lived as volunteers. The first town we visited, Celica, is located high in the mountains and is famous for its foggy weather. A friend of mine lived there as a Peace Corps volunteer back in the early 90's. He started out in the Peace Corps looking like a typical engineer - a short-haired, clean-shaven kid with a ball point pen in his pocket. By the end of his service he had grown his wavy, red hair to shoulder length and was sporting a full moustache and beard. One of the city engineers I met in Celica still remembered him and his many famous (infamous) exploits, including playing Jesus in a town parade.
After Celica we visited Alamor, another small town in the mountains and then we went to Pindal which is where another Peace Corps friend, used to live. Pindal is a big corn growing region and corn prices have increased drastically in recent years (some say due to the demand for ethanol) causing more land to be put into corn production. The higher prices mean that the locals have an improved standard of living. According to a local official most farmers now drive trucks and have refigerators and TVs in their homes. But it has also meant that land that was once devoted to organic coffee growing has been converted to corn, resulting in a drastic increase in chemicals applied to the land. These chemicals may end up contaminating the local waterways. In Pindal we visited a popular swimming area in a local river. The city government is very concerned about water quality in this area because of the chemical use in the surrounding fields. The swimming area is a beautiful place with cascading waterfalls and large boulders that people jump off to land in the deep pools. The city recently bought an adjacent parcel of land and has developed a big park with picnic tables and a play yard for the kids. I was slightly familiar with the area because way back when I was a Peace Corps volunteer I had spent a drunken weekend in Pindal with a motley crew of fellow volunteers (and Lucho!). We went swimming in the famous swimming hole during the day and in the evening we went to a local dance where my girlfriend and I (the only gringas in town) were accosted by a couple of drunk men who wanted to dance with us. All the men in our group were dancing with the local señoritas and didn't seem to notice our plight. I finally ended up telling the drunks that Lucho was my husband (a prophetic statement at the time) and that helped to calm them down a bit. This time around I didn't run into any drunken men and I was very impressed by the city employee we met, a young woman who was very bright and motivated.
After Pindal we headed to Macará which is located on the border between Ecuador and Peru. The elevation is lower there and it is warmer and more desert-like. On the way we saw lots of really neat ceibo trees, which have wide buttressed trunks and big, rubbery branches and look like something from a Dr. Seuss book. Macará is the former home of two other Peace Corps friends. One of them was another young engineer who started out his service as a strapping young lad and ended up looking like Grizzly Adam's younger brother. The other volunteer was one of my best friends in the Peace Corps. She and I lived together in Loja for a while until she left for greener pastures in Macará. They were later joined by another volunteer, a Gulf War vet with tattoos covering much of his body. The three of them were famous for their exploits in Macará, many of which involved copious amounts of alcohol. Lucho and I spent several drunken weekends in Macará with an assortment of Peace Corps volunteers, other foreigners, and Ecuadorians. One of the houses we gathered at had a pool and a big balcony overlooking the town and surrounding hills. It was a great place to hang out with good friends on a warm night.
(Don't get me wrong - all of these Peace Corps volunteers worked very hard doing things like installing irrigation systems, building latrines, helping disadvantaged children, teaching English, and many other helpful projects. But we all had to blow off some steam once in a while.)
On my recent trip to Macará we visited the city hall and talked with the local officials about water quality in their local streams. They have at least two places where they collect water for their drinking water system. One of them is located in a watershed that is almost completely protected and has an intact forest cover. The other collection spot is located in a watershed with no protection that is almost entirely deforested and eroded. It is no surprise that the water from the protected watershed is much better quality than the water from the unprotected one. These are the kinds of things we want to find out more about so that we can inform the public and the local politicians about the importance of protecting water quality.
So in September I'm going to start working part time for NCI. The project will only last about 4 months, but there might be an option to continue working there if things work out. I'll be working in the mornings while Christina is in school. I'll also have to make several trips to the country to check out the sites.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The trip to Guayaquil
Last Thursday we returned from a week-long trip to Guayaquil. This time we drove. It was weird getting ready for the road trip. I was packing up food and suitcases like I'd done many times before going on the road in the States. But this time we were in Ecuador and as soon as we stepped out the door everything was different.
Guayaquil is about 260 miles from Loja, but the roads are so bad, especially in the mountains, that it took us about 8 hours to make the trip. We drove from Loja, which is in the mountains at an elevation of about 6,000 feet, down, down, down narrow windy roads, full of potholes, and flanked by small, dusty towns to Guayaquil, a sprawling metropolis located on the coast. The scenery was breathtaking. At one point we were driving on the top of a ridge, on either side of us valleys and mountains stretched for miles.
Driving in Ecuador is tricky, to say the least. Passing lanes are nonexistent, and there are many slow moving vehicles (especially in the mountains). Driving on these roads feels like an extended game of "chicken" with oncoming traffic. People pass each other with just enough room to spare. More than once we looked up to see two vehicles heading towards us, one passing the other. Lucho would hit the brakes, flash his lights and honk while the other car would move over into his lane just in time. It is just a little bit consoling to know that everyone is only going about 30to 40 mph, so there is a little more reaction time. It's not like one of those two lane freeways in the U.S. where everyone is rushing at each other at 70 mph. At any rate, Lucho is a very careful driver and he kept us out of trouble.
Guayaquil is Ecuador's biggest city (population about 2 million) and its climate is about what you'd expect on the equator - hot and humid. While we were there we stayed with Lucho's uncle. He lives in a huge, air conditioned house with a pool that located in a very nice part of the city. Near his house there are numerous malls, restaurants and other shopping centers. Everything was new, neat and orderly. I felt like I was in Miami. It was fun to ride around in his air-conditioned Ford Explorer and see the sights.
Guayaquil has everything, from extreme poverty to dizzying wealth. It also has a lot of tourist attractions and fun things to do. We ended up spending a lot of time in the malls. Three of Lucho's nieces were also visiting Guayaquil with us and they were mostly interested in shopping. And we bought a new camera to replace the one that died in Quito. It was our first case of sticker shock. After spending almost $300 on the camera we went home and found the same model online at Best Buy for $150. Cameras and other "luxury" items are heavily taxed in Ecuador. We have little choice but to pay it. If we had someone send us a camera from the States we would have run a very big risk of having it "lost" in the mail.
In Guayaquil, and in Quito, shopping malls are cropping up everywhere. These malls are full of clothing stores from the U.S. - the GAP, Abercrombie & Fitch, Payless Shoes to name a few - all with outrageously expensive clothes. What surprised me was the number of familiar restaurants I saw. Besides McDonalds, Burger King and Pizza Hut (which you would expect to be everywhere) I also saw TGI Fridays, Applebees and Tony Roma's. The only chain restaurant that we would actually have liked to see, but didn't, is Starbucks. For better or worse, Starbucks hasn't invaded Ecuador yet. We're aren't gung-ho about globalization or anything, but the reality is that, despite the fact that Ecuador is a coffee-producing country, it is very hard to find a good, strong, cup of coffee around here. The average cup of coffee in Ecuador has about as much caffeine as a watered-down Pepsi. Ahhh, what we really need is a Peets!
Besides spending too much time in malls we also went to the beach one day, which was about a 2 hour drive away. It was a little windy (this is the "cold" time of year) but we had a good time. We ate seafood and Christina got her hair braided in cornrows. Another day we went to a "historical park" that had restored buildings from colonial Guayaquil and people walking around in period costumes reenacting daily life in those days. There was also a small zoo with native animals in their natural habitat. Christina was very excited to see the crocodiles.
Guayaquil is about 260 miles from Loja, but the roads are so bad, especially in the mountains, that it took us about 8 hours to make the trip. We drove from Loja, which is in the mountains at an elevation of about 6,000 feet, down, down, down narrow windy roads, full of potholes, and flanked by small, dusty towns to Guayaquil, a sprawling metropolis located on the coast. The scenery was breathtaking. At one point we were driving on the top of a ridge, on either side of us valleys and mountains stretched for miles.
Driving in Ecuador is tricky, to say the least. Passing lanes are nonexistent, and there are many slow moving vehicles (especially in the mountains). Driving on these roads feels like an extended game of "chicken" with oncoming traffic. People pass each other with just enough room to spare. More than once we looked up to see two vehicles heading towards us, one passing the other. Lucho would hit the brakes, flash his lights and honk while the other car would move over into his lane just in time. It is just a little bit consoling to know that everyone is only going about 30to 40 mph, so there is a little more reaction time. It's not like one of those two lane freeways in the U.S. where everyone is rushing at each other at 70 mph. At any rate, Lucho is a very careful driver and he kept us out of trouble.
Guayaquil is Ecuador's biggest city (population about 2 million) and its climate is about what you'd expect on the equator - hot and humid. While we were there we stayed with Lucho's uncle. He lives in a huge, air conditioned house with a pool that located in a very nice part of the city. Near his house there are numerous malls, restaurants and other shopping centers. Everything was new, neat and orderly. I felt like I was in Miami. It was fun to ride around in his air-conditioned Ford Explorer and see the sights.
Guayaquil has everything, from extreme poverty to dizzying wealth. It also has a lot of tourist attractions and fun things to do. We ended up spending a lot of time in the malls. Three of Lucho's nieces were also visiting Guayaquil with us and they were mostly interested in shopping. And we bought a new camera to replace the one that died in Quito. It was our first case of sticker shock. After spending almost $300 on the camera we went home and found the same model online at Best Buy for $150. Cameras and other "luxury" items are heavily taxed in Ecuador. We have little choice but to pay it. If we had someone send us a camera from the States we would have run a very big risk of having it "lost" in the mail.
In Guayaquil, and in Quito, shopping malls are cropping up everywhere. These malls are full of clothing stores from the U.S. - the GAP, Abercrombie & Fitch, Payless Shoes to name a few - all with outrageously expensive clothes. What surprised me was the number of familiar restaurants I saw. Besides McDonalds, Burger King and Pizza Hut (which you would expect to be everywhere) I also saw TGI Fridays, Applebees and Tony Roma's. The only chain restaurant that we would actually have liked to see, but didn't, is Starbucks. For better or worse, Starbucks hasn't invaded Ecuador yet. We're aren't gung-ho about globalization or anything, but the reality is that, despite the fact that Ecuador is a coffee-producing country, it is very hard to find a good, strong, cup of coffee around here. The average cup of coffee in Ecuador has about as much caffeine as a watered-down Pepsi. Ahhh, what we really need is a Peets!
Besides spending too much time in malls we also went to the beach one day, which was about a 2 hour drive away. It was a little windy (this is the "cold" time of year) but we had a good time. We ate seafood and Christina got her hair braided in cornrows. Another day we went to a "historical park" that had restored buildings from colonial Guayaquil and people walking around in period costumes reenacting daily life in those days. There was also a small zoo with native animals in their natural habitat. Christina was very excited to see the crocodiles.
Here are some pics we took with our new camera:
This is the view from the car as we arrived at the beach in Salinas.
Here's what I ate - ceviche. It is a soup made with fish, shrimp and other seafood marinated in lime juice. Yum! It is also the only thing I've found that will actually cure a hangover (not that I had one at the time or anything..)
We saw this guy trimming weeds using a machete.
On the way home Lucho stopped at a fruit stand and bought 25 oranges for $1.
On the road back to Loja we passed miles and miles of banana plantations. The bananas you buy at your local grocery store may have come from this area.
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