Study Abroad '15: Ecuador
It was around two thirty in the morning on March 2nd, I remember lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and checking the time every few minutes. They day I had psyched myself up and made myself just as nervous for has come. I get to spend twelve days with likeminded peers exploring and learning about a new country. I have never really heard anything about Ecuador before Josh Crosby and Heather Hall announced to us Anthropology students that our discipline will be taking a study abroad trip there in the fall. I had made preparations for a whole year and finally I was leaving in a few hours.
When we all met up at Santa Fe to get to the airport, my classmates, and soon to be new group of friends, seemed to share the same anxiety and excitement that I was feeling. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Running water? Power? What will we be eating? I decided to leave my world that I knew back in America. I left my preconceived ideas and my cellphone behind to try and immerse myself in another culture as best as possible. This is my first time out of the country so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
On the plane, we got our first taste of Hispanic culture. Everything was in Spanish first, the pilot made announcements in Spanish, and we were the only white Americans on the plane. I have never felt like a minority until this trip, but others didn’t treat me like I was, so I never felt mistreated because of my skin color or nationality. I speak basic conversational Spanish and I never heard anyone on the whole trip say negative things towards America or Americans. I expected to stick out, but we all felt at home the next twelve days.
We landed in the capital Quito around ten or eleven at night and were greeted by Philipe, the owner of Latin Roots travel. He told us we were staying in the famous Hotel Quito were President Correa and other important figures will stay. I was expecting to sleep in a mosquito net for twelve days… The drive from the airport to the hotel took about an hour, but we all were fixated on the new surroundings outside the bus window. Not everything was new though. Familiar restaurants like KFC and McDonalds appeared every few blocks. I was told by our guide Tomas, that the U.S.A. has an economic influence in Ecuador. We buy what they grow and produce, and we establish our businesses there. We even saw places like Harley Davidson and Chevy dealerships.
The first day we spent touring the historic district of Quito. This was my favorite “tour” day because we got to see the President’s Palace in the main square. I was very interested to see what Socialism looked like inside a country. Our media makes it sound like 1984 but really it looks modern and well maintained. Not everyone dressed the same and there were obvious class differences. A shift towards socialism has given more resources and opportunity for the working poor to homologize a class system that has long been racially determined. We also got to tour a very famous cathedral on the first day. Ecuador is 95% Roman Catholic and the churches their ancestors have built continue to show how important and valued the church was to Ecuadorians. I took over one hundred years to complete. It was really indescribable. Gold plating covered every inch of the walls. The ceiling was painted with murals with a definite Euro-influence. Every saint seemed to have their own monument or statue you can pray to. Seismic activity and fire damage has made difficult to hold service but it was full of locals saying their prayers. Religion in any form is a huge part of daily life in Ecuador.
On the way to the jungle, we saw some of the exclusive beauty that the country had to offer. In the mountains we stopped to hopefully see the Andean Condor. Heather and Josh have been coming for over six years and have never seen one. That day we had such great luck, we saw two nesting on a cliff. Tomas had child-like excitement while explaining he has only seen one once before because of how endangered they are. There are less than one hundred left in the world and fifty live in Ecuador. They are a national symbol of strength and protection because of their 12ft. wingspan potential. We saw a flower infamous in South America that can be processed into a drug called Scopolamine that takes away ones free-will. The ethno-botanical knowledge by the locals I met was so interesting. While in the jungle, they had a use for almost every plant we came across. Tomas told us that researchers found a mushroom that helps degrade plastic. The guys at the Cacao and Mango farm knew not to use pesticides because it kills “good bugs” that allows the tree to flower and produce fruit. Ecuadorians know that their lands hold the key to fight every disease in the world. The concern is finding out the right compounds before it gets destroyed by those deforesting in search of profit.
The night before the jungle, we stayed at the base of a volcano in a warm springs hotel. It was the last hot shower we got for almost a week. We woke up before the sun a started the descent into the Amazon. We stayed with the Grefa family in their village Ruku Kasay. Augustine and his family changed my life and my relationship with the world. They had very little in comparison to what I’m used to, but what they lacked in wealth they made up for in knowledge and community. The idea of community was given new meaning to me. They believe that the closer personally one is to the surroundings and people around them, the better health and general wellness one will have. The more connected the bond to the Earth and family is, the better the return to one and one’s family is from the Earth. I was skeptical when I came there but after living there for a short time and experiencing the tobacco ceremony, I believe that the jungle holds a force that I cannot explain. During the ceremony we used tobacco to connect to that spirit and learned about ourselves through a religious ceremony. It’s a personal thing not really meant to be shared with those who weren’t there to feel that spirit. I give many thanks to the Grefa family for showing me how their family and ancestors has lived as well as the Amazon rainforest and their crafts and customs. It made the biggest impact on how I’m going to live my life, but makes up a little bit of the trip and what Ecuador is.
Giving back to the community of Rio Blanco gives me some memories that will make me forever humble. We played some soccer with the locals and spent time in the little school house with kids age 4 to 12. They barely had enough supplies but all the kids were happy to be there every day to learn. The teacher does it because he loves to not for money. We exchanged words in Spanish and Kichwa and English. They taught us more than the school supplies were worth. It makes me sad to think of all the days I wanted to stay home from school growing up. It really makes me grateful now that I had the education I have because there are places where what I had isn’t available.
It was a sad day saying goodbye to the Grefa’s and the jungle, but we were mutually in need of a hot meal and shower. The only meat we ate while in the jungle was a palm grub, so after scrubbing the Amazon off we satisfied out carnivorous craving (except the vegetarians). After the meal we set out to see a waterfall. We were in Baños at the Devils Pot. I had never seen one in real life and the power the water was generating was incredible. The surrounding landscape was truly breathtaking.
Leaving Baños we drove up to get through the highlands to the coast. We stopped for multiple picture opportunities on the drive to snap some photos of us above the clouds and looking over a city or town in the valley. The altitude made the sky look like a cloudy puddle of crystal clear water blended into the mountains and green valleys below. It was so beautiful that words don’t describe the landscape at points.
We stopped in Cuenca which is a big University city filled with art and things that kind of reminded me of Gainesville. It was my favorite city we got to experience. Almost every wall in the city was filled with art work. There was a huge market and square where vendors were selling everything from food to medicine to clothes. There was so much culture there. It was a place I could see myself returning to or living in at one point in my life.
Cuenca was a city built on top of an old Incan city. We got the opportunity to see the ruins of Ingapirca. It was an Inca city built into a hill. There were two temples, one for the sun and one for the moon, which aligned with the capital of Cuzco and the rising and setting of the sun. It was amazing being able to see the construction techniques and seeing first-hand the presence of one of the most powerful empires in history in the Inca.
Going towards the coast we saw a cacao and mango farm that grew much more than that. It had things I’ve never seen before and things I knew like vanilla beans and rice. They showed us how to make a chocolate and lemongrass drink as well as told us how important agriculture is to the economy. Bananas and cacao is Ecuador’s top resource and tourism is number two. They depend on the land to keep producing food globally and to keep people coming as tourists. This is where I learned that Ecuador is the only country in the world that has the Rights of Nature written into their constitution. In summation, it states that nature, or Pacha Mama, has the right to regenerate, to exist and maintain, to be restored, be unaltered, and protected from the excavation of non-renewable resources.
With only a few days left, we made it to the community of Rio Bamba. We got the chance to preserve boxes of previously excavated objects from their ancestors that were improperly stored. We got to touch and save pottery and remains that the community can do something with instead of it getting weathered away. It was long and tedious work but it made it worth it knowing that we saved and got to handle history. We stayed on the coast, a walk to the beach, where we all enjoyed our last days together on this once in a lifetime adventure.
The last day was a bus ride to Guayaquil which is the most populated city in Ecuador. We passed the huge soccer stadium for the Ecuadorian Barcelona Soccer Club which reminded me how different the sporting worlds were but how passionate we are with our football as they are with theirs. ESPN was nothing but fútbol highlights and replays which was nice to learn about. It also helped me learn some Spanish.
The last night we had a toast before dinner where we all went around and said our favorite part about the trip. When I came my turn I talked not about how beautiful the country was or how once-in-a-lifetime it was. My favorite part about it was making friends and building relationships with everyone I met. I built a friendship with our guide Tomas which will help me when I return or help him when he comes to visit the States. I lived with a group of eleven people that at some point pushed me to do something I didn’t think I could or raise my spirits when I was feeling down. I got to pick both my teachers brains about questions I personally had about them or their views and closed the gap between teacher and student and became mentors instead. Learning the idea of community together brought us together like a little family and the memories of the trip will be built upon the memories we continue to build today.