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
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