Lessons Learned

So here it is… my final blog post. It’s taken me three weeks to sit down and start to write this, and I guess it has taken me that long to really comprehend how this trip has affected my life. If I would have written this post three, or even two, weeks ago I might have sounded idealistic…but now that I’ve adjusted back to my world, my transformation is slightly different than expected…

My first two weeks back in the US were overwhelming to say the least. I think it would be safe to have called me an emotional wreck at the time…(I cried for the silliest of reasons…which is quite opposite the person I was when I left for Ecuador)!

I remember sitting in mass my very first Sunday back home and getting emotional at the sight of all the wealth that surrounded me. I pitied all of us there in that church… seeing all of the things we filled our lives with in the pursuit of happiness.

Now you may be thinking this is a little extreme, but it really wasn’t when I had just spent the last eight weeks witnessing GENUINE happiness!

This is the happiness that taught me the greatest lesson of all, humility. I have said it over and over again in my reflections, but I had such an irrational, preconceived notion that I was going down to Ecuador to save millions of people from suffering…It wasn’t until I was down there trying to convince the most joyful people that their lives were missing something that I realized how flawed my sense of ego was…

Now please understand, I am by no means discrediting the work that NGOs are doing to help improve the health or the financial stability in developing countries such as Ecuador. I even believe that the work my organization was doing was truly making a difference, but the idea that there is some sort of martyrdom in the work is so incredibly twisted!

I guess to me it just seems like a simple business concept: we have a surplus of money and goods, they have a need, and so we trade. The key to what many people don’t realize is that the relationship is mutually beneficial. Speaking from my own experience, my colleagues and I had a surplus of business knowledge to trade and in exchange the Ecuadorians gave us family values, culture, and, most importantly, perspective.

I cannot even fathom any of us thinking that we are in any way superior to these people…

I felt like I was that little girl stepping on the ice again for the first time… You think you are so incredible because you can let go of the wall, until the experts come out and skate circles around you doing things you never thought were possible. My host mother in Pulingui, Paula, was like that professional skater, showing my how completely fulfilled and how incredibly happy a person could be.

To be honest I don’t know if I even helped one single person in my work in Ecuador, but holy cow did they help me. Maybe that’s the reason I was put into an internship in development work and not relief work…to teach me how to be humble…to teach me that sometimes the most life changing lessons are not all about me.

The question now is how I will proceed in my life after Ecuador. My priorities have completely transformed. I realize it’s no longer about how much I love myself, but how much I spread my love with the world. Happiness is not only inside of me, but rooted in the people I care for.  And most importantly, in what seem like the darkest, scariest moments there is always plenty of light if we just open our eyes.

I find myself mentally returning to Ecuador daily when I face a new challenge. Bringing myself back to reality…opening my eyes, putting things into perspective, and rooting me back in what truly matters.

Thank you to anyone who has followed me on this rollercoaster of a journey and I hope that my realizations and experiences can help you re-acknowledge the true joys of life.

Lots of love from the home,

Jen

Amor Brujo

 

Well my journey home has officially begun… I am currently on a bus heading to the coast for a midnight flight to Miami. This week has been filled with tons of work, finishing up all of our projects and presenting all of our work from the past eight weeks to our bosses. Putting eight weeks of work into two days of presentations really makes you realize how much you’ve done. My biggest project was to make a stove cost analysis and payment plan and after dozens of hours of work I am proud to say my Miami education was put to good use.

Besides work, it has been wonderful to be back in Cuenca. My host family and I have become very close and they did all they could to make my last few days in Ecuador as memorable as possible, starting with the day they found out that I like ice cream. We were in the middle of dinner and I was professing my love for helado and my family insisted that we immediately leave dinner to go get some. The tricky thing was that it was 9:00pm and no stores were open… but, they were determined to find me ice cream so, after an hour of searching, we found some. The “factory produced ice cream” (as my host family called it) was not up to par though, so as soon as I got home from work the next day we headed out again in search of the good stuff. In our search for the “real” ice cream, my family discovered that I had yet to try their favorite Cuencan delicacy:-pigskin. So of course before we could get ice cream we had to go find pigskin. Now I love meat, but when an entire pig is sitting on the street staring at you and they literally just cut off a piece of its skin and hand it to you… that tests how true of a carnivore you are. Luckily though, the pigskin actually turned out to be quite delicious and then we were able to finally get our Ecuadorian ice cream. (If you are wondering right now what the title of this blog means, it refers to a flavor of ice cream that is special to Cuenca called Amor Brujo…it has caramel and strawberries and may even be worth a trip to Ecuador just to try it…

If pigskin and ice cream weren’t enough, my family threw me a huge dinner party later that evening and invited all of their family and friends. With another four course meal, by the end of the night I came to understand why my clothes are all fitting tighter.

The family dynamics in my home were quite confusing…I still don’t know who my host mother was specifically because I had seven different mothers that took care of me in the house. But, when our mothers were invited to our graduation from Spanish school and I brought a posse of six people I could not complain about all the love! In the end I could not have asked for a more loving family and saying goodbye to all 10 of my family members was more difficult than ever.

I really grew to love Cuenca, from my beautiful house, to my beautiful view on my walk to work every morning, to my wonderful lunches with old KC friends. I could not ask for a better city to end my Ecuadorian journey in. And I have a very good feeling that I will be back…

Lots of love from Ecuador,

Jen

P.S. be on the lookout for one more blog post to close out my experience!

Virgen de El Cisne

After seven long weeks, yesterday was our final work day in the field. To conclude our work, we held a final campaign with one of our entrepreneurs in the community of El Cisne. El Cisne is particularly known as the largest Catholic pilgrimage site in Ecuador.

History indicates that in the 19^th century Ecuador wanted a religious host site centered on the Virgin Mary similar to how Mexico has Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. So, they had a statue of a virgin created in Quito (Ecuador’s capital) and chose to bring it to the town of El Cisne in the south. At the time the south was in an absurd drought, but as soon as the religious image of Mary, which they call Our Lady of El Cisne, arrived there was an incredible rain storm and all the crops were replenished. This is known as the first miracle of Our Lady of El Cisne and since that time many more miracles have been performed. Every year in August thousands of Catholics from Ecuador and around the world go on a pilgrimage to El Cisne to celebrate the Virgin of El Cisne.

The church in El Cisne is now the focal point of the whole community which only inhabits about 1500 people. Luckily we were able to host our campaign on a Sunday so we were able to see the incredible crowd that flocks to El Cisne every Sunday to attend mass. We also got to see a blessing of the cars that takes place every Sunday as well. All the people who travelled to El Cisne park their cars in the street and a priest comes around to each car and sprinkles it with holy water and blesses the travel and safety of the owner. Just imagine hundreds of cars parked in the street with their doors and hoods open and hundreds of people fighting over the priest’s attention trying to get their car blessed…for a religious ceremony it got pretty feisty.

I actually got to meet this priest later in the day, who is originally from Nigeria, when I gave him an eye exam. He has lived in Ecuador for three years now, and every Sunday travels four hours by bus to El Cisne to do blessings such as this. (I have to admit giving a Nigerian priest an eye exam in Ecuador and seeing him wearing our glasses later in the market makes the list of my favorite moments here in Ecuador).

The moments where you could see that a single pair of glasses completely changed their world…that is what makes this work so worth it. I will never forget the pride you could see on the faces of the people we helped when they could finally see clearly enough to read. We take these things, the accessibility of glasses when our vision is blurry or clean water when we are thirsty, for granted, but it just takes one or two people to remind you of how blessed our lives are…Isn’t it crazy that one or two humble people in a small community thousands of miles away can touch your heart so deeply and not even know it…

Our campaign in El Cisne produced a relatively modest outcome, but with an incredible entrepreneur and those few special customers it was the perfect way to end our work. To make it even more exciting, our bus back to Loja was incredibly overcrowded (like always) so I ended up sitting on the dashboard for the hour and a half ride back (and no I don’t mean in the jump seat, I mean on the dashboard). I have to admit, even though my life felt in danger, there is no better view of a country than driving through the mountains on the dashboard of a bus. To top off the incredible view I saw three different rainbows on the ride… I couldn’t ask for a better farewell image of the south to keep in my heart.

So now we are headed back to Cuenca for the final presentations of our work to our bosses. Only a few more days until I head back to the US!...

Lots of love from Ecuador,

Jen

Pagodas in Loja

Yesterday was our very first day off since arriving to Loja and we decided to spend the day exploring the city (because our work makes us travel so much we rarely have time to actually see the city we are living in during the daylight). To be honest, after living in and visiting so many cities in Ecuador all of them are starting to feel more or less the same. We always find a big indoor market with fresh vegetables, fruits, and meats, and then row of little stores selling clothing. As far as markets go, once you see one you’ve pretty much seen them all.

We did find a few unique areas of Loja, including one little street dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes which was filled with little artisanal shops. The churches here are beautiful as always but I have found that the art here in Loja is especially graphic. Latin American religious art is known for their gruesome depictions of the crucifixion in general, but Loja takes it to a new level…it’s is incredibly powerful (I don’t have pictures so use your imagination).

In our exploring we also found a park known as the “Epcot of Loja” (actually it was called Parque Jipiro). The park took famous monuments from around the world and turned into a playground for kids. Even though we were about 2 feet taller than every Ecuadorian (the adults included) there we tried to blend in and channeled our inner child for a few hours. We rode a slide from the top of St. Basil’s, climbed Chichen Itza, and paddle boated around Big Ben.

After our fun filled day of travelling around the world, we ended with an incredible meal at a steakhouse here in Loja. I have to admit the food here has gotten a little monotonous, especially with so much rice, but a huge steak was just what I needed to wake up my taste buds…it was soo delicious!

Our time in Loja is dwindling down and we will soon be heading back to Cuenca, but we sure are enjoying our time here in this fun city.

Lots of love from Ecuador,

Jen

The Land of Unselfishness

I am officially spoiled here in Loja! Because of the landslides we have been staying in a hostel and with nice rooms and hot showers life is grand. So far our work here in Loja has mainly consisted of travelling around to small communities, meeting the people, and diagnosing whether the community would be a good target for our work in the future. As always, the people are incredibly friendly in all the communities and as soon as we mention our eye exams it becomes evident that this is an incredible need.

In almost every community we encounter organizations that have been formed by the people of the community to help their economy. In one community the wives of the coffee bean farmers created an organization in which they make recycled paper products. In another community the women make handmade, beaded jewelry from seeds. What I am noticing more and more, is that these organizations are not created or sustained by the financial incentive of the individual, but instead merely for the betterment of the community. At the recycled paper organization for example, the women work full time making the products and are only paid $.75 an hour, but their motivation is always to help better the economic stability of their town, so their town can eventually start producing its own coffee. It is a mind-blowing concept that honestly seems irrational from the perspective of an American, but to work purely for the betterment of the collective and not purely for yourself is so admirable. That is such a common theme here in Ecuador—money is never an incentive, taking care of your family and your community is always the motivation behind their work.

In one community we visited a mission that had been started by Catholic missionaries in the 1920s. The purpose of the mission was originally to help the Shuar people form more stability in their hunter gatherer type lifestyle. The mission first taught agriculture but soon added a hospital to help treat the people. Still to this day, the clinic stands and doctors from all over the world come and volunteer their time for a few weeks to help keep treating the people. We made friends with a Korean man from southern California who had followed his doctor wife to Ecuador to lend a hand. If you can imagine a little Korean man who loves golf and speaks no Spanish… that’s Joe. Joe was so funny and his culture shock was so entertaining.  He tried to teach us some of his Spanish, but when we realized it only included “Good Morning” and “Step on the scale” we decided to instead take Joe under our wing. Joe has about 2 more weeks in Ecuador and luckily he got one of the locals to carve him a make shift golf club so I’m hoping he will make it through.

On a more serious note, we found out that the clinic at the Mission is nearing its end. Ecuador has free universal care but the caveat is that this only covers very basic needs and all needs above that must be handled by a specialist which can be very expensive. This clinic was so amazing because it offered all services and even major surgeries for only one dollar each. All medicines prescribed by the doctors were donated from other countries and were set at extremely low prices for the patients. These medicines were previously imported for free, but with recent governmental changes there is now a $1500 import tax on all medicines. This coupled with the fact that the doctors are not board certified in Ecuador means that the lifetime of this clinic is sadly running out very quickly.

It’s been so amazing here to see all the organizations, whether it’s support from other countries or the people in the communities helping themselves, everyone is working to make life better for the neighbors… there is an unselfishness we all could learn from.

Lots of love from Ecuador,

Jen

Adios Timbara

So our days living in Timbara have ended. Due to the landslides we are forced to move to another city so we can continue our work in Loja. While I am excited for the change, especially because it will speed up week seven, I am so sad to leave my wonderful family here. Goodbyes here are so final, and after a family has taken you in and accepted you as one of their own it is really difficult to leave knowing you will never see them or talk to them ever again. Maybe one day in the future I will come back down to this little town of Timbara and visit my family again… man I sure hope so.

My favorite memory of this town, besides the empanadas and the banana trees, was the day my host mothered purchased a water filter from our organization. During the rainy season especially, the water here in Timbara is brown as mud and even though they boil the water the safety hazards are horrendous. With a huge family of so many children it was heartbreaking to know that this water was putting them in such danger. The day we assembled the water filter, and my host mother saw how clear the water was when it came out…it was so heartwarming.

Our work does not have a lot of external reward and, by the last leg of our trip, it has been difficult at times to completely believe in the work we are doing. This instance though, when my host mother was able to drink clear, clean water and couldn’t wipe the smile off her face… that was made it all worth it! I remember cleaning the filter off after two days, and seeing the thick layer of mud that was left behind and humbly realizing the reality of life here. Life in Timbara is just so beautiful. Sometimes I would wake up in the morning and think “why am I here?” these people are happy and are leading relatively comfortable lives… and then I am put in a situation where I see how dirty the water is that they are expected to drink…

Dirty water or not, the people of Timbara love a good party, and so for our final night they threw us a big going away party. From goodbyes to cake, it was just like our last going away party until they turned the music on and someone started the conga line. For two hours straight we all packed ourselves on the dance floor and tried to pick up some suave dance moves from our host families. Even though they found out that gringos can’t dance, it was the perfect way to end a wonderful week with such an amazing community.

Lots of love from Ecuador,

Jen

Hiking through the Amazon

 

 

So first and foremost I must apologize for the lack of blog posts. Life here has been beautiful but work has been slightly monotonous, so not too much to blog about… well at least not much until we this jungle tour of the amazon!

It all began on Friday morning when we met at 7am to catch our van to take us two hours south to the Peruvian border. This two hour ride though, became the longest ride of my life… First and foremost the entire ride was off road, and with no seatbelts my 9 peers and I were like popcorn bouncing around the van on every bump we hit. One of these bumps even resulted in a flat tire in which we were stranded on the side of the road for a little while (and my tire changing skills were of no help since they don’t use jacks here…). Once we got back on the road I proceeded to get extremely car sick but luckily a short FIVE HOURS LATER we arrived at our jungle spot.

We arrived just in time for it to torrentially downpour for a solid hour… our first leg of the tour was supposed to be by boat so we decided to wait out the rain (let me disclaim that our tour guide said we were waiting just because he finds people usually don’t enjoy boat rides when it is pouring rain and not because of the safety factors…I found this to be quite alarming…). As impatient as 10 American 20 year olds are, we couldn’t sit and just watch the rain, so we (I have no idea why I am including myself in this because I was in no way apart of this…) convinced our guide to let us start the boat tour in the rain. 10 minutes later we found ourselves drenched and sitting in a boat on a river in the middle of the jungle with rain smashing us in the face… I have to admit, by this time I was not the biggest fan of this day.

Finally the rain cleared up though, and the waterfalls all around us were unveiled. Everywhere you looked there was a cascada—big, little…they were all so gorgeous! After an hour boat ride on the river we reached our hiking spot. The hike was 6 km through the jungle and amidst this labyrinth of rocks. We trudged through mud and swung on vines, completely engulfed by the jungle. Whatever you imagine the jungle to be, I can assure you the reality is far superior. Some of the plants are so crazy I can’t help but think God was just letting his creativity out when he created them! The only bummer was that we didn’t really see many animals. No monkeys, but we definitely saw some weird bugs, and the spider that was as big as my hand definitely takes the cake. (I tried my best to stay calm in that situation…but I was not very successful).

After the hike we were extremely muddy, but before we could go wash off in a waterfall we went to visit a community of people that live in the middle of the rainforest, the Shuar. The Shuar are the indigenous people of the Amazon Rainforest, and are known specifically for their shrunken head rituals and use of hallucinogens (don’t worry we did not participate nor inquire about either of these). Our guide introduced us to a Shuar family and we were invited into their home to meet them. It is particularly interesting in some of the areas where we work, because there is little distinction between indigenous people and “modern” communities. Especially when we are in the campo, sometimes I expect loin clothes and war paint, but there is little differentiation because the clothing has become so modern.

Our final leg of our tour was to the Cascada del Dios, the most magnificent waterfall I have ever seen!  It is believed that if you bathe in this waterfall you will have good luck (I opted out of this one because I was so hungry…for reasons which I will now explain). We were told that we would be provided lunch on our tour and to only bring snacks. Well, after our five hour car ride all of my snacks were gone and I was ready for lunch. Little did I know though, that lunch was going to take place after our tour… so by the time we got to the waterfall at 6pm I was not the most pleasant character (if you know me, you know that lack of food makes me the worst person ever). We finally got our LUNCH around 7pm, but with fresh fish from the river there was nothing to complain about.

The two hour trip back only took three hours this time, so 16 hours after we left for our tour we finally arrived back home… EXHAUSTED. Riding a boat, hiking, and wading in a waterfall in the rainforest was definitely one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had, and even after all the obstacles, it was so incredible. So far in this trip I have hike the Andes in Cuenca, a volcano in Pulingui, and now through the Amazon… this trip is so crazy!!

Lots of love from Ecuador,

Jen

 

Welcome to the Jungle

Well we have arrived in Timbara and holy cow this is a change... No more cold and no more Cuenca because this is the jungle! It is so lush and beautiful here on the edge of the Amazon and I am in love…the sounds of the birds & waterfalls, the smell of the flowers… everything!

Our drive to Timbara was long, but with waterfalls everywhere I was glued to the window. When we arrived here we were in awe of the landscape…every inch of everything is covered in green. I have to admit my favorite plants so far are the banana trees (see picture below) solely because I think it is sooo cool to see where the bananas I eat everyday come from.

My homestay family here is so kind. There are 7 people in the house including 5 girls, a father, and a 15 day old baby. One of the girls Nidia is 5 and we have become fast friends after I sang her Happy Birthday on our first night here. (it was in fact her birthday…) I’m sharing this house with a fellow intern, Annalise, which has helped us both adjust to our new family quickly. Our house is beautiful (I have to admit it is even better than my first house in Cuenca) and besides the mosquito net and lots of work, I feel as if I am on vacation.

The weather here is warm, 80s all the time, but because it is rainy season is rains dozens of times a day. The rain doesn’t bother me at all though (especially since I haven’t showered yet…and I think rain counts… right?). In fact the sound of the rain on the tin roofs puts me right to sleep at night. (I then am woken up immediately by all the wild chickens, but I am hoping I will get used to that).

I have been wearing all my bug repellent clothing to protect me from itching, but honestly I haven’t had any problems with bugs yet. Because it is raining constantly it has kept the bugs away (but don’t worry I still reapply bug spray multiple times a day). While we might be bug free, we are definitely not snake free… some of the Timbaran construction workers found an 8 foot boa constrictor and thought it would be a good idea to bring it to the main street to show everyone… I opted out of seeing that one… (Plus I think they are going to cook it, so I may see it on my plate soon anyways…)

Let’s see… nothing major has happened here yet, we are enjoying the scenery and have just been working on projects. We head out to different communities today, but our schedule keeps changing a little because of landslides here. I am learning that during rainy season landslides are incredibly common, and recently there was a major one on the main road so we are having to be flexible…

I’m just going to end this by saying how happy I am here. Timbara is paradise and I hope these next two weeks go as slow as possible so I can soak up every minute of it.

Lots of love from Ecuador,

Jen

Flying Over Cuenca

From day one of my stay here in Cuenca my view of the mountains been speckled by one little white church on top of everything. After dozens of recommendations that I visit, I decided to go check it out. Little did I know that this church was 4 miles and 575 stairs away… But, a two hour walk (and a lot of heavy breathing) later, I ended up at Turi. The Iglesia de Turi is a beautiful white church surrounded by lots of artisanal shops overlooking the city of Cuenca. The view was beautiful, and it got even better when we found Adventure Land!

For the expensive price of one dollar, five of my coworkers and I were able to zipline, trapeze fly, and then swing on the cliff that overlooked Cuenca. I have to admit this was a liability nightmare and probably one of the most dangerous things I have done in Ecuador so far… but wow it sure was exhilarating! And, for the 45 seconds that I was swinging over the city it was the perfect moment to put everything in perspective.

There is nothing like the view from the top to help you appreciate all that is below.

Lots of love from Ecuador,

Jen

Back to Normalcy

This last week has been as close to normal as it gets here in Ecuador. We are back in Cuenca where we began our trip and knowing my way around is incredibly comforting. After such crazy work hours in Pulingui our schedule here has been much lighter and we have been able to enjoy some more of the social pleasures Cuenca has to offer. From the World Cup to swings over the city (I’ll explain in my next blog) this has been a week of rejuvenation before we head back to el campo for the next two weeks.

Another luxury has been my new home here in Cuenca. My last family had a medical emergency, so I was moved to a new family and… oh my goodness do I feel spoiled. My new home is HUGE and so beautiful (I will try to sneak pictures when I come back in two weeks). We have a cook so the food is incredible, and my host family is the best! There are seven adults (all brothers and sisters) and the son of one of them who happens to be 15 year old rockstar. Meals are crazy with so many people, and the atmosphere is always so lively and fun (and I smell better too because there are actual hot showers…).

With my new family and the comfort of Cuenca, this week has been so enjoyable. My favorite moment by far was attending mass at Cuenca’s big cathedral this morning. I absolutely love being in a catholic country, it helps so much with the homesickness to know that I share something so deep with the people here. As I was sitting in mass with the hundreds of people who filled the cathedral around me there was an absolute, incredible peace. I have always adored going to mass in other countries, because no matter the country or the language it is fundamentally all the same. Each Sunday mass here in Ecuador has been so uplifting, and with the beauty of the cathedral and the incredible crowd of people, this morning was by far the most special. It’s a unity such as faith that makes you realize how small this world is and how similar we all really are.

So tomorrow I head down south to another tiny town (I think bathrooms are indoors down there), and after all of my adventures so far I have such a new love for this country and these people and I truly can’t wait to experience more.

Lots of love from Ecuador,

Jen