The Adventure Continues...

Bob's Article: A Journey To Ecuador

2007-06-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

As I posted an article by Carmen Español, a volunteer (and my roommate)from my first Global Village experience in Ecuador, here is a second by Bob Glantz, a volunteer from my last group! The photos are also his.

"I recently spent two weeks building homes in Ecuador with Habitat For Humanity. We were a pickup team, a group of 14 volunteers from the USA, Canada and Australia, ranging in age from teenagers, to youngsters fresh out of college to those of us of in our 50s.

We met in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, a beautiful old colonial city of 1.5 million people. Though it lies 15 miles south of the equator, Quito is at 9,200 feet, giving it a cool and rainy climate quite similar to Berkeley in winter. After a one-day orientation and team get-together there, we flew down the western slope of the Andes to Puerto Viejo. At sea level, Puerto Viejo is hot and steamy. From there, we drove one hour into the jungle to Tosagua, a small farming community.

If the Inuit people have 100 words for snow, the Tosaguans must have 200 for mud. Set on a flood plain and lacking municipal drainage, the town is a sea of
mud and standing water in the rainy season.
To accommodate the annual flooding, many of the houses are built of bamboo and raised on stilts. The open space beneath such homes provides a shaded area for washing clothes, keeping chickens, lounging in hammocks, etc.

Our team worked on two homes. Built to a standard plan, each measures six meters by six meters (a little less than 400 square feet, or slightly smaller than a two-car garage) and includes two bedrooms, a living/dining room, a bathroom and a kitchen. The exterior walls are built of concrete block, the interior walls of lighter clay brick. The floors and foundation are concrete, the roofs are corrugated steel. The walls and columns are reinforced with steel rods for seismic safety.

We turned the first shovel of dirt on the first day of work at the first home, completing the foundation in our two weeks. (Another team was scheduled to fly in
a week later to finish the job.) We erected the exterior and interior walls at the second home. At both homes we worked with the owners and local maestros, or master craftsmen. The work was grueling.

Digging trenches, mixing and hauling concrete, bending rebar, and shoveling gravel beneath the equatorial sun is brutal. We laughed every morning at breakfast that this was the first vacation we’d been on where we hoped for cloudy weather. (Bob appears on the far right).

The Habitat For Humanity program enables people to own their own homes. Details vary by locale, but the basic plan is that the families acquire a plot of land and save up a down payment. After carefully screening applicants, the local Habitat office lends them the money at zero interest to build their home. The mortgage payments are reinvested in the program,enabling more homes to be built. It’s a helping hand deal, not a handout.

Families must provide sweat equity, which they did in spades in Tosagua. I worked with a delightful couple,Freddy and Tanya, and her brother Oracio on the second
home.
They are a gracious, loving and hardworking family. Though the average Ecuadorian is maybe 5’2” and 120 pounds, they’re built like iron. Whenever I’d get pooped out hauling cement or bricks, I’d take off my sweat-soaked hat, point to my thinning gray hair and explain, “Soy viejo!” (I’m old!) But it was all in good fun and spirits.

The families treated us very well. Señora Leticia, for whom we started the first home, and her family fed us a delicious crab dinner one night after work.
And both families threw a big fiesta for us on our final evening. I came home with a few blisters, some aches and pains but many new friends. I hope to do it again.
It was one great adventure for body and soul."

Experienced Global Village Team Given a Challenge

2007-04-22T23:05:00.000-07:00

Every Global Village team with whom I worked with in Ecuador (six in total) had a unique flavor. All were entertaining and included intriguing, inspiring people.

Ron and Gloria's team had the most "global" experience (through Habitat for Humanity and otherwise) of any other team with which I worked, and I LOVED their stories of travel, life and gumption!

(The picture above shows Ron and Gloria speaking on behalf of their Global Village team, the photo below includes the team, family, local Habitat employees and the site's "maestro" and family).

What an energetic and positive group they were! Ron was leading his 13th Global Village group! He had taken groups to various locations in Mexico, to Poland, Thailand, India and...? He and his wife, Gloria, worked as a team to lead this particular large team of 17 that had an average age of 65! The majority of the team was from the San Francisco area, and I look forward to visiting them:-). Most of the members had traveled with Ron and Gloria before on one of their past 13 trips.
Here are two members of the team, Diana and Howard. They also lead Habitat trips.

Ron's team, all 17 of them, were assigned to one house building site, a huge task-management challenge-- even though they should have had two houses on which to work. To make matters worse, this particular site had many hazards including mischievous, but cute children, barbed wire, confined space, bad access, a puppy named Felipe, uneven ground, mud and a ditch. The second house site, which was supposed to be ready for the team, had some sort of legal delay based on the proprietary paperwork for the house.

Here are the mischievous children (the girl with bangs is Brianiz, and was particularly in need of attention... however she could get it).

Thanks to the great attitudes of the team, the forward thinking of their leaders, and the talented on-site maestro-Jose- they prevailed in maintaining a consistent flow of work and positive attitudes.

We were building the house from ground up and the team volunteered for 7.5 workdays: 5 in one week and 2.5 the next week.

The family we built for consisted of a mother, her mother, several children and some grandchildren. They would likely be keeping the bamboo house that already existed on the lot, in addition to the new 36 meter square concrete house we were building. Here is a picture of the mother, her mother and her son with his dog Felipe.
The mother's mother was rather senile, but she had a great appreciation for the volunteers. She kept talking about how beautiful they were and how beautiful what they were doing was. The son included in this picture was the family's representative volunteer on-site all week, however he lived a few streets away with his wife (who also helped out on site).

The work that week in January was hot and arduous. Santo Domingo had entered its full rainy season since the last time I had been there, and that meant that almost every day we received rain.
That meant that every day we dealt with more mud! On the bright side, the landscape was beautiful: green and lush.

Ron and Gloria's team had to be creative in their work: materials had to be dropped off down a hill and around a corner, so everything had to be moved multiple times.
First things were moved to be out of the way when they were dropped off. Then they were moved to be worked with, then, in the case of the cement, it had to be moved a third time to be turned into the footings, foundation and columns. We used a lot of human chains, wheelbarrow relays and assembly-line style mechanisms in order to take advantage of our numbers.

To make matters more complicated, all tools and supplies had to be moved into storage each night... BEHIND the house and work area. Then each morning the supplies were removed again. Santo Domingo de los Colorados is known for its high levels of crime (particularly theft).

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Here is our "maestro" (teacher) Jose with his two daughters, Erica and Marienela, leaving the work site for the day.

I straighted nails for the first time in Ecuador with this group. We don't use a lot of framing for the houses, but the structures that form the columns' frames and the raised frames for the foundation can be reused.

Here the columns are formed.

Here the team sifts sand to be used in a mortar mixture.

Then blocks were laid with the mortar.

We had some very hard-working concrete mixers, one of whom constantly advised the group that the cement would not pass the rigorous and telling "slump test."

After this group, I will never forget about the concept of a slump test. The concrete we were mixing was very watery, however the teams must accept local building practices when working with Global Village.

Oh... what a pesky, pesky child!

Carnaval in Ecuador!

2007-04-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

The place to be for Carnaval (the few days before lent begins) in Ecuador is Ambato, a town 2.5 hours to the south of Quito. Ambato has a "Festival de Flores, Fruta y Pan" (Festival of Flowers, Fruit and Bread) as the centerpiece of the party.

Johanna, a friend from Santa Fe, had arrived in Quito to visit the weekend of Carnaval. We we traveled to Ambato with some new friends from our hostel: Rosalyn and Nick from Brighton, England, Damon from Sydney, Australia and Patti from Italy.

We arrived in time to catch the parade, which featured floats made from fruit, flowers, bread and nuts and beans, all grown locally. We did have quite a few people between us and the parade... but it was fun people watching, and we could see the parade over their heads...

Each float also featured one or more "Reinas", (RAY-Nahs, which are queens), from all different levels of Latin American organizational strata, for example reinas from each country, from the continent, from the city, selected specifically for this festival, etc.

The queens were very popular with the crowds and everyone vied for their attention.

It was this type of public interest in the reinas, that lets you know that when people refer to you as a "reina," they mean it as a compliment.

After the parade we checked out the big fruit/flower/bread presentations. This display (below), on the front of Ambato's Cathedral, is made each year with a different theme.

Here's a close-up of the use of bread and fruits:

The town was also showcasing the roses grown in the region; they were beautiful!

In the afternoon, attentions were turned to foam-wars (actually called "Kareoke"-kind of like silly-string in an aerosol can) and the most popular of the two Ecuadorian beers, "Pilsener." If I haven't mentioned it before, Pilsener is a ubiquitous and cheap drink consumed all over the country. It is, in fact, a type of Pilsner.

The foam wars apparently are a government-fix (a substitution, you might say) to the historic problem of egg and other types of food-throwing, and is hugely popular with the kids... and with everyone in town later at night.

It started off in the park, Damon had all the kids chasing him... Later in the evening we walked around town to people-watch. Several streets were filled with townspeople and tourists having street parties outside of bars. Traffic still passed by, but it had to creep at a snail's pace. A majority of the cars passing through, however, were participating in the foam wars!

A fun surprise that evening was that "Washington", a Habitat for Humanity driver from the site in Santo Domingo, appeared- to my confusion. He is actually from Ambato and had recently returned to start a hard-rock band. He introduced Jo, Damon and me to his family, friends, rocker-buddies, etc. He seemed to know everyone in town, and he had been participating in the party for the last three days! Washington is the one to my right in the pic.

He really wanted us to stay for a rock concert that night... but we wanted to get back to Quito before 5am.

I wore a "Carnival" face mask (future gift to James) from Otavalo (north of Quito, market town) to add to the festive atmosphere...

but I think wearing it may have contributed to my eventual role as a target for the foam-wars!

We finally left town, covered in "kareoke", tired and happy.

New Year's Addendum

2007-04-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

As an addition to my New Year's Eve entry (Burning of the Life-Sized Dolls), here are a few photos I didn't have access to before!

These dolls, who are supposedly Bush and Cheney, were placed on a stack of wood being prepared as a midnight-bonfire.

Here I am with a bunch of drunk fishermen who we ran into after discovering our Ecuadorian champagne was flat. They assured us that the "beach was safe, because all the fisherman kept watch." I am not sure how useful their watch was at this point...

Our Ecuadorian champagne was purchased from a gated-fronted liquor establishment which had to dust the bottle off before handing it through the gate. In this case, "aged" did not add to the quality of drink!

Here is a man/doll "begging forgiveness" for the things that he did badly the prior year.

Here's an example of an ode promising good behavior in the new year which was placed below the begging man/doll(Unfortunately, I am not sure a direct translation would be appropriate for this site):

Southern Coast Adventure

2007-04-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

Want to go windsurfing in Ecuador? Read this first.

Tourism development, and particularly sports-based tourism development, has a ways to go on the coast in Ecuador. On one hand, if you want to surf, it is easy to rent a surfboard--but beyond that the options are erratic.

After several days in Puerto Lopez, a small fishing village in the province of Manabi, Ecuador,(here's James, getting his hair cut at the most popular "barber shop" in town), our search for aquatic activities on Ecuador's coast commenced with full rigor....

James and I had looked into the possibility of wind surfing in Puerto Lopez, to no avail, but we had fit in a bit of kayaking. There were a couple SUVs toting windsurfing privately-owned equipment, but none was available to rent.

On the first day of the year we went on a boat trip to "Salanga" Island with three Ecuadorians and an Italian guy.

During the boat trip we saw blue-footed boobies and lots of pelicans, we snorkeled, kayaked a bit, and made an attempt at fishing.

Salanga is the closer of the two islands off the coast of Puerto Lopez. The other, Isla de la Plata, I had visited with the Habitat for Humanity Global Village team of University of Chicago students (see Blue Footed Boobies entry).

The next town James and I visited was called "Montañita", (little mountain), which is famous for its surfing. We took surfing lessons from two Spanish-speaking only instructors (I tried to learn and interpret at the same time for James). The English-speaking guide was with an international group. I would recommend the guides we had-we were both standing on the boards in the waves within a few tries! (In this picture I am already a bit tired, but I did make it up vertically a few times to rides the waves in!).

Our next stop on the coast was "Salinas", a pointed peninsula which is considered the Ecuadorian "Miami".

It was here that we thought windsurfing would be likely... and our search was epic! We asked hotel personnel, taxi drivers, people on the street and others where we might find the equipment to windsurf. We looked places up online and finally found ourselves in the lobby of the Hotel Barcelo Colon Miramar which was the only link we could find to the sport.

One of the "concierge" told us he could help us find what we were looking for, although he also was offering sailing, surfing,.... and almost every other water sport. We all jumped in a taxi and we began to meet everyone in Salinas-- or so it seemed! The guy pretty much introduced us to anyone who could get us on the water... in something. We found a catamaran, surfboards, sailboats, paddle boats, water skis, some other water vehicles for which I don't have names, and one windsurf board (which apparently was of the amateur size), at a surf shop. The wind was directed out to sea that day and James needed a smaller, more lithe, board. For anyone looking, it was at a surf shop about two blocks in from the coast near the part of the beach where jet skis and water ski rentals take place.

We ended up taking out the catamaran that day, and the next day renting a jet ski. Salinas was fun, but if you are looking for windsurfing (or at least the equipment to do it) we heard that Manta may have the capacity for this.

New Year: Burning Life-Sized Dolls

2007-03-04T18:01:00.000-08:00

Ecuador has many rituals related to bringing in the New Year, one of them includes the creation of and burning of large paper-mache effigies.

The "muñecos", or dolls, as they are referred to here, are made in the shape of famous people, cartoon characters, politicians, athletes... or yourself, family and friends!

Here Yana, from the University of Chicago Global Village group which built in Guayaquil, holds the hand of Ecuador´s newly inaugurated "President Correa." (the other guy , Naboa, won in Guayaquil) This particular muñeco is small in comparison to many others I saw during the next few days!

James flew into Guayaquil to spend New Years with me, and after we spent about a day there we traveled to the coast. We began in a small fishing-tourist village called "Puerto Lopez" (also the departure point for "Isla de la Plata", see post on Blue Footed Boobies- Prelude to Galapagos).

On the way out of town we witnessed many muñecos being transported out of the city for peoples New Years Celebrations. Here is the Incredible Hulk, tied to someones truck! The idea of the dolls in the shape of politicians and sports celebrities is that you get to burn a team that you don´t like, or a political figure... I didn´t really get the idea of burning the super heroes! I think James and I saw ... at least 5 or 6 Supermen. Here is the "squirrel " character from the Ice Age movie. This particular muñeco was driven all over town many times even though Puerto Lopez was his final destination. It seemed as the time grew near for their incineration, the dolls were moved to more prominent locations or taken for a spin!..

So, for those interested in making their own muñeco... and I considered it, you only have to worry about making the body (that is, if you are sticking to human forms). That is because your local stores are tuned into head salesmen! For all those head-hunters out there. Here is James hanging out with the selection of heads on the "main road in Puerto Lopez. The heads seem rather pink don´t they? So, the kind of doll that was made to look like you, or your family or other local people had a different context. Usually these dolls were accompanied with long written explanations of things that had happened in the last year that were lamentable, or that a person was pledging to not have happen again. Many times the statements included inside jokes and references to very confusing instances...
Here I am with a neighbor boy and his family´s group of four muñecos, playing cards.

Muñecos representing US President Bush and Vice President Cheney were burned by the most popular hostel on the Puerto Lopez coast. They were displayed holding weapons at the hostel entrance until close to midnight when they were taken to the beach for a bonfire.

James and I tried to bring in the New Year 2007 with an Ecuadorian Champagne... however when we went to "release" the celebratory cork... all pressure had long since dissipated! this did not damper our spirits however, we quickly recovered from the comic disappointment and got in some dancing at the local block parties:-).

Galapagos: Arid, Aquatic Christmas

2007-03-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

Out of nowhere, a week opened up in my schedule around Christmas - the perfect amount of time to go on a 7-8 day Galapagos boat tour. Here the view from the top of Bartolome Island, taken towards Santiago, or James, island. I flew from Guayaquil, Ecuador, where I had been with University of Chicago students (see last blog), to Baltra, Galapagos. My tour was on a "economy" class tour--- visiting the Galapagos is expensive in any way (the park has a $100 entrance fee for anyone who is not an Ecuadorian citizen, then there is the most expensive available domestic plane ticket and tour costs).

The animals and landscape were bizarre, and memorable. Here is a "Sally" Crab, which will eat its mate if it is larger (the male will eat the female, or the female will eat the male). Sometimes the the mate gets away with only one appendage eaten, like this one!

The marine iguanas of the Galapagos are particularly well known. They sleep on land and hunt in the ocean. They are great divers and can swim distances if necessary. Usually the iguanas are scavengers and vegetarians, however one was recently documented actually attacking and killing a live octopus! Here is a close-up of a marine iguana.

The boat I lived on for those 7 days is named the "Poseidon". Usually the Poseidon has 10 passengers and approximately 5 crew, including our bilingual naturalist guide. This trip, however, was "special", according to Jon, our guide.

A group of 7 passengers somehow where not able to get on their international flight to arrive in Ecuador. Thus, we were a group of three with the boat and guide to ourselves! Three days later we picked up three people and dropped off one, making us a group of five. I can´t imagine what it would have been like if there HAD been 10 people, the quarters already seems cramped! Here I am in my "two person room."

Each day we would have at least a morning and afternoon activity... or several morning and afternoon activities. We went on hikes, small boat rides into tidal waters, went kayaking and did a lot of snorkeling.

The snorkeling was my favorite and was when I got to swim with penguins! I also swam with sea lions, sharks and many.... many fish!
Sometimes we swam with schools of thousands of fish- I wish I had an underwater camera to have documented those experiences!

The Galapagos penguin is its own species which can withstand the warm temperatures of the Galapagos land and water. Here they are swimming in a pack and looking for food.

The penguin is at great risk of going extinct, however as during the last, "El Niño" year, the populations dwindled and would not survive another if they are affected in the same way.

Here are some sea lions on land, a baby and its mother.

We also swam and snorkeled with many female and young sea lions. The sea lions are very curious and playful and like to swim around people from below... above the side... you wouldn't know where they might appear from!

Before I arrived in the Galapagos I read a whole natural history book about the islands, their animals, geology, human history and current politics. I was so glad I did, as I was able to add to an better contextualize the experience I had with my islands tour.

While I was in the Galapagos, it was turtle mating season, and Blue-Footed Boobie mating dance season... Above two green turtles (who actually may be a different species, endemic to the Galapagos, the "black turtle"), mate while close to shore. Below a male and female Blue Footed Boobie. Unfortunately my video clips of the mating dance will not load on this site!Some of the other birds we witnessed were albatross (below), which was completing its mating season....

and masked boobies.

Here is a cactus that has grown a trunk to protect it from the land iguanas. Interestingly, only a sterile hybrid, a cross between the marine iguanas and the land iguanas, which only occurs on one of the Galapagos Islands, is able to climb the cactus! You can tell the hybrid is present when the cacti has bites out of its... and they haven't yet fallen to the ground.

In the above pic, a land iguana guards its territory and waits for its favorite food, the fruit of the cactus, to fall.The land iguana will wait months for this to happen! In the meantime they also eat other vegetation and other pieces of cactus.

One of the most different looking islands was ... which was covered in the tree-cacti and a strange red ground cover. It reminded me of a Dr. Seuss landscape. Here is a close-up of the red ground cover.

We visited the Charles Darwin research center for one afternoon of our trip, and witnessed the Center's breeding program in action. The center breeds and releases tortoises to several of the islands. The baby turtles are maintained separate based on their island of origin because the tortoise species has now differentiated into distinct sub-species. The tortoises were in need of a breeding program after feral goats had eaten much of their food sources. The Galapagos National Park now has feral goat eradication programs underway, and some have been completed.

Here is an adult tortoise, I think he looks like ET. One of the adult tortoises at the Charles Darwin Center is "Lonesome George", the last known of his sub-species. There is a huge financial reward being offered for anyone who can locate another of his kind. During the early 1900s, tortoises were removed from the Galapagos and sold all over the world as a kind of unique lawn ornament. So far no one has come forward with a mate for George. The center is trying to breed him with the most similar sub-species that exists, but George is not interested.

My roommate in the Galapagos was a Swedish girl named Marie who I am planning to have dinner with tonight in Bogota. She is working for a Swedish agency which provides an international presence to non-governmental organizations in Colombia.

One of the most entertaining, and ridiculous aspects of the trip were two German girls who got on the boat on Christmas eve. They demanded a special Christmas "program" for the next day, during which, they informed everyone, we would have to all sing Christmas carols in our respective languages. We tried this, however I knew more words to the Spanish Christmas Carols than did the crew and our guide, and I didn't know all of them. Also the Swiss guy and Marie did not participate.They brought a small Christmas tree and some other decorations, and gifts for each other and demanded that the cook make something special for Christmas dinner. Above they are posing with their Christmas tree. The girls did not stop their complaints and demands at Christmas- They were upset that the English/Spanish speaking guide didn't know the names of seabirds in German, didn't want to hike some of the island trails, and their opinion of the boat was very low... they couldn't imagine how 10 people could fit on such a boat.

Another point of interest for the Galapagos, at least for me, was that I became quite sick. I wasn't sea sick, I started with a fever the first night and things just got worse until I finally visited the Hospital on San Cristobal, one of the more inhabited islands. I started to get better on Christmas day. If I hadn't started feeling better I likely would have flown back early. Luckily I only missed out on about a day's worth of activity.

Despite being more sick than I think I have been in my whole life, the experience was amazing. If I ever go back it will be for the SCUBA diving (now that I am certified!) and to go check out the tortoises in their mountainous habitats up in the island volcanoes.

When U. of Chicago Hit Guayaquil

2007-03-04T13:45:00.000-08:00

Guayaquil is Ecuador´s largest city with over 3 million people (of the total 13.5 million Ecuadorians), and one of the three locations that Habitat for Humanity Ecuador builds.

Danit´s Team

Daniel (new Global Village Coordinator) and I (see below- he is usually happier... but I think this photo is pretty funny!) took a 5 hour bus from Santo Domingo to Guayaquil- leaving Amanda and Lisa´s Global Village group in the morning and meeting with Danit´s University of Chicago Global Village group that night!
The ten University of Chicago students arrived LATE on Saturday night. We didn´t meet the group until after 1am when they finally came out the international arrivals door! The students had just begun their winter break and would spend 5.5 days building and then spend a few days on the coast.

What a positive energy group! Daniel and I had been a bit worried after some horror-stories about other student group that came to Ecuador to "work with Habitat", who did not create such a good reputation for future groups. We knew right away however that this group would set the record straight about how awesome volunteer university student groups can be. Most of these students had been involved in projects locally with Habitat and other building groups.. .and many had traveled to the US South to help out in areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.

After the late arrival Sat we all had a day to relax in Guayaquil before the work week began. Here are Jayce, Race, Danit and Emerson enjoying the warm Guayaquil weather and the view of the river from "las Peñas" a small "mountain on the Guayaquil coast with lots of shops, restaurants and some museums.

Above are pictured a view from Las Peñas and the "Malecon 2000", which is the renovated boardwalk which was completed in 2000.

Our hotel, the "Rizzo" was located right next to "iguana park" also known as "Parque del Santuario" and by other names. The park is filled with iguanas- on the ground, in the trees, on the statues and crawling the paths. Above, Lee and Emerson hang out with a local boy, (who seemed to live in the park~!), and a large iguana.
U. of Chicago's group of ten worked on two houses in planned municipality neighborhoods for low-income housing. The Habitat houses there cost approximately $4,500 once the future owner acquires land and are the most affordable of any housing being built in these neighborhoods.
Above, Jayce works on sealing the concrete on a new wall. Below is the team from Daniel's site: Jayce, Emerson, Hallie, Lee and Danit.

Here's the team from my site, our maestros and the future owner. From the left, a maestro, the home owner, a assistant maestro, Bernardo (Guayaquil Director for Habitat), Shira, Julia, Neetu, Yana, another assistant maestro and Race.These houses were the standard 6m by 6m by 6m design currently being built by Habitat in Ecuador. Once the family pays off 80 percent of the no-interest loan, they are eligible for some additional floor space and bigger loan.

Here Emerson prepares here mortar palette.

Here Danit and Lee screw around on the work site... don't worry they didn't do TOO much of that:-). They are the president and vice president of their Habitat student organization!
Here they are at work with Jayce, creating the "chains" which create the foundation structure for the house.

Both houses started almost from ground zero, however Daniel's site already had the footings dug. My site however, which was composed of dirt as hard as concrete, was started the day we arrived with us using pick axes and shovels to break through the dirt.
We came along way that week and by Friday and Saturday, the walls where about halfway finished! Here Neetu works on smoothing one of our first walls.

Since U. of Chicago's visit, both John Hopkins University and University of North Carolina have arrived in Ecuador with Global Village teams as well!- I was not able to travel with either of these teams however, as I was with another Global Village teams or out of the country.

Kudos to all the University students participants! U. of Chicago, you guys were awesome! Keep up the good work!

Update: in Colombia

2007-02-24T14:04:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick update on the travels. Johanna came to Ecuador to visit and we spent three days in Ecuador before flying to Cartagena, Colombia. We spent a few days there before heading to Taganga and Santa Marta Colombia, where we are now.

We are getting our open-water SCUBA certification in Taganga and generally getting to know the area, then next week we are heading to Bogota! So far everything has seemed relatively safe, we took a bus from Cartagena to Santa Marta and have not done anything too crazy;-).

I will be back in Ecuador after the 9th of March for one week of another Global Village Habitat Group, and then for my last week in the country!- it looks like my dad may join me those last two weeks.

Unfortunetly it has been difficult to load and find time available to post most info that has happened since mid-December, including the Galapagos, travels with James, and Ron and Glorias Global Village group---but I hope to catch up when I am alone and with a better internet connection in Bogota!

Salud!
Erin

6 months -1 year Volunteer Opportunity in Ecuador!

2007-02-16T14:33:00.000-08:00

Interested in taking my job here in Ecuador?

Know of someone else who might be a good candidate? The position is an IVP ("international volunteer program"), "special project volunteer" opportunity which is offered through Habitat for Humanity International at this website.

I am leaving the country towards the end of March after my 6 month stint, and the position is posted on the Habitat for Humanity international website! There are also opportunities in other countries and with different responsibilities.

The next person will be continuing the work I started: program development in all areas of volunteer mobilization, and assisting with coordination of Ecuador´s MANY Global Village teams. The position is based out of Quito, but have many opportunities to travel.

Questions? Feel free to contact me.

"Un besito, choa choa", things are different here;-)

2007-02-14T23:20:00.000-08:00

For awhile now I have been meaning to write about some of the basic interpersonal interactions and the morning ruteine that differ from what I was used to when I arrived.

Simple things, for example arriving at work and greeting your coworkers. At the Habitat office, whoever arrives first has the least amount of greeting to do! When you arrive you may set your things down or make a cup of coffee (more on the type of coffee you are going to drink later!). Then you make a "round" of the office to see who else has arrived... it may be everyone, or a few people. Each person you greet with a "besito" (little kiss) on the right check. If you are male, you greet other males with a handshake. If you are female, you greet everyone with a kiss. If you are already sitting, you can stay sitting and the greeter bends for the "besito." The end of the day is generally the same... although, if you are in a hurry, you may not make a round of the office but rather only give "besitos" to those in your area of the office, or to those you pass on your way out of the office.

Regarding the coffee: this is a painful topic ;-(, as, even though Ecuador is a COFFEE PRODUCING country, instant coffee is consumed everywhere and Nestle is a brand of choice. If coffee is "real", it is called "cafe pasada", literally "passed coffee", meaning that it is passed though a filter. Some Ecuadorians tell me that about 50 percent of nationals will drink "passed" coffee and that the other 50 percent will drink instant. In the Habitat office, we drink instant... and although it was almost unbearable at first I have become used to it! The theory as to why the instant coffee may be popular is that it is a secondary product of coffee, making it seem like a more refined or sophisticated product. Similar to this is the almost exclusive consumption of white rice and white sugar.

When you hear someone here talking on the phone, or in person, to friends, family etc, it is not uncommon to for phrases like ¨luz de mi vida¨ (light of my life) or "mi amor" (my love), to be intermixed in the conversation in reference to the other person. When saying goodbye on the phone, a woman might say "un besito, choa choa!" (a little kiss, bye-bye!).

Quito from 15,100+ feet

2007-02-09T17:29:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I did something I had wanted to do since my second week in Ecuador: I climbed the 15,100 foot mountain that overlooks Quito. Here is the view of the city from on top!
Here is a pic from September, when I first went up the "Teleferico", the cable car which takes its passengers to just over 13 thousand feet.
That weekend that weather was REALLY cold (note the snow!--- which is very rare here, even at this altitude). The weather was only one of the reasons I didn´t climb the mountain that weekend.

This time, I once again rode the Teleferico. I met some other hikers, two from the US, two from Germany and one from Quito. We all took one of the first cable cars to the start of the trail (9am). The two guys from the US, Kalon (Mississippi) and BJ (Kentucky), let me join them in their trek to the top of Rucu Pichincha. Here´s a pic of Kalon and BJ.Although Rucu (old one) Pichincha is not as tall as GuaGua (Baby) Pichincha, the hike is longer. Apparently you can almost drive to the top of Guagua- which is the still active, growing peak of the Pichincha Mountain (Volcano). Here is a pic of the Guagua crater from Rucu peak.
Guagua erupted in 1999 and Quito was covered in ash. It is expected to erupt again someday, but it will erupt in the direction away from Quito.Here is a pic of the Rucu peak taken from the trail. The surrounding landscape is called "paramo", and is found in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela at 12 thousand to 14 thousand feet. It is characterized by low-lying plants and bushes and plants with amazing adaptations to the high altitude, strong winds, cold, the extreme sun and the often cloudy climate.Here is a really cool low-lying plant that covers some rocks ... I remembered it from trekking through the Andes in Peru as well.

I kind of feel like a smurf while traversing land coverings like this!These beautiful flowers covered some of the hillsides and the plant´s leaves have a waxy, protective coating. As the flowers mature they turn into wind-blown distributors of seeds, similar to dandelions.This plant, above, I originally thought was covered in spider webs. However, the cobweb like substance is actually part of the plant and appears to be a protective coating from either plant-eating animals or the harsh climate.

The hike to the summit lasted between 3 and a half and 4 hours. The primary trail splits for the last hour and a half of the climb into two trails: one that apparently includes thrills and chills and maybe you should have ropes for... and the other, which I did, involved a bunch of steep trails on sand. Kalon decided to try the more adventurous-deadly route and BJ and I opted for the difficult but soft-landing route.

We all made it to the top at about the same time. Here we are at 15,100+ feet.. we arrived around 1:30pmish and stayed until 2:30pm when the clouds began to accumulate and the temperature dropped.
On the way back down we noticed these beautiful purple flowers (below) that we hadn´t seen before. Behind the flowers on the hillside are what appear to be some sort of containment barriers (to prevent erosion? transfer water flow for other use?). They are not modernly used for anything and although upon first glance I thought they were part of a city project to prevent erosion, closer inspection proved that they were quite old. The Quiteño we asked said that there are many "stories" about where they came from... including that the aliens brought them!

From

Blue-Footed Boobies!- Prelude to Galapagos

2007-02-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

After the University of Chicago´s one week + one day Global Village trip to Guayaquil, Daniel (the new Global Village Coordinator) and I were able to join them in their "R&R", rest and relaxation... and after a month of Global Village groups and non-stop action, we needed it! We traveled to the coast, making a few stops on the way, and stayed in Ayampe, just south of Puerto Lopez.

The highlight of our time on the coast was a trip to "Isla de la Plata", Island of the Silver.
The island was thus named because the notorious pirate, Sir Francis Drake, is said to have hidden his silver on the island while he was being pursued and needed to lighten his load. He planned to return later for his hidden bounty. He kept the good stuff, the gold, and headed off to Panama... where he contracted some tropical disease and died, never to return to recover his silver. Isla de la Plata is now an Ecuadorian national reserve and a popular tourist destination, particularly during whale-season.

Unfortunately it was not whale season when we visited, however there is interesting bird life and decent snorkeling at the island year round.

I was super-excited to see the island´s blue-footed boobies. I had learned about these seabirds in marine biology in high school. Also, there had been a running joke between one of my HS best friends and I about the blue footed boobies mating dance (which I witnessed at the Galapagos and I will load that video later if possible). Above, a male and female bite at each other... the males are smaller, have smaller pupils and whistle. The females are larger, with larger pupils and honk. Their feet are thought to be blue due to the sardines that are the main food eaten by the seabird boobies.

What was exciting at Isla de la Plata, and later in the Galapagos, is that the animals have no fear of humans. Here that is quite apparent! All the white seen in the dirt is booby-excrement. In some national parks, trails are built and the animals stay away from them. In the case of the blue-footed boobies, they prefer the trail as their nesting ground as it provides them a nice clear spot in which to nest... without any work! Here is one of the trails along the island, with nesting boobies all along the path. Both the males and females help to guard the nest and take care of the young. Here is a new-born.

We also saw some 1-year old young! The one-year olds are particularly funny looking, as they appear larger than their parents, with their fuzzy feathers and LARGE eyes! The blue-footed boobies were not the only birds nesting and caring for their young on the island.

We also visited the nesting site of the frigate birds, famous for the males mating ritual of blowing out a large red neck skin in a bulbous display of courtship. Mating season had already passed when we visited, and the males no-longer were courting their mates. We did get to see the offspring, which were in their nests in one of the few trees that was beginning to turn green.The island, although super-dry, the wet season would start in a month, did have some interesting plant life.
This bush has many uses! The berries, which we tasted (the guide told us we could!), are edible and supposed to be good for the stomach (but only eaten a few at a time, ... or they will cause problems!). The berries were pretty sticky and apparently were used as a hair gel in past generations. The leaves can be made into a tea which is supposed to relieve menstrual cramps.

Below are some of the angel fish we snockeled with... there were also several kinds of parot fish... and other bright and beautiful marine creatures;-)

Guanabana Juice, My Favorite

2007-02-04T18:03:00.000-08:00

The first challenge of making guanabana juice, is pronouncing the name of the fruit! It has four syllables: gwah-nah-bah-nah. With the last two Global Village groups in Santo Domingo, we have learned to make the fresh guanabana juice. You start with the above large green fruit, and peel off the skin from one side, revealing the hundreds of white, pulpy, capsule-like internal "pods." This juice required a lot of hand contact, so the cooks must make sure their hands are clean! Here Tamia, the daughter of the Santo Domingo Habitat Director, demonstrates the capsule-removing technique.As each capsule is removed, its seed must be removed. As with many Ecuadorian delicacies, the process is pretty time -consuming and very HANDS ON. When we made the juice with the Global Village teams, the process was lengthy despite our use of several people! Here Ron, John, Diana and Tamia prepare the fruit. After all the fruit capsules are removed the pulp is blended and strained, and blended and strained again. Then sugar and ice or water are added to taste. The final product is frothy, white, sweet and refreshing. Guanabana is also a popular flavor for yogurt and icecream.

All the Food is "Green?"..

2007-02-04T17:57:00.000-08:00

So, here in Ecuador, we have green empanadas ("empanadas verdes"), green bolones ("bolones verdes"), and green tortillas ("tortillas verdes") amongst other things ... but they aren´t actually green...

At first I didn´t get it, but the key to the situation is that green plantains are used for each of these dishes. Green plantains are actually green (at least their peel is), and they are also "green" in the sense that they are not fully mature. The fruit can be used to make a "maza" (dough), and rolled into the shell of an empanada, into a tortilla, into a ball, or into a football shaped roll. It is also popularly stamped into round disks ("patacones"), and I am sure it could be made into countless other things! The other color spectrum plantain, is the "maduro", literally "mature", which are ripened, yellow, plantains that are often served fried, sweet... and delicious! Pictured above are both a "platano verde," and a "maduro."

I have told some of the groups that visit Ecuador that it is possible to have five starches in one meal: green plantain, yucca, pasta, rice and ... potatoes. For a traditional "almuerzo", which is a set lunch including soup, juice, traditional plate (meat, rice and "salad"), and dessert, it is possible to have: potato and pasta in the soup, rice and potatos on the main plate, and a yucca dessert! Often, if you are served pasta, .... you will also be served a portion of rice!

Yucca here is not the same as the state flower of New Mexico. It is a tuber, (a specialized root with nodes from which roots and shoots grow) similar to a potato. I find its more fibrous texture great in soup;-).

Here are Gail and Dylis of of Ron and Gloria´s team peeling yucca:
Ecuadorian food can be LABOR-INTENSIVE! Below Peter, Brad, Brad and Jillian, members of Lisa and Amanda´s Global Village team, grate yucca.. .and Brad and reinforcements CONTINUE to grate yucca... The yucca was used to make a yucca dessert, and "muchines", which are football-shaped rolls of yucca dough and butter, filled with cheese and fried. Here, David and Tamia mash the cooked yucca into a mashed-potato consistency. Next the yucca mash is shaped into the "muchines", pictured here, Brenda and Gail of the Greenwald team are learning from Rosalio, the restaurant owner and cook, how to form the yucca football.Tracy and Stacy from Lisa and Amanda´s team below have successfully formed a pan full of "muchines."

15 Individuals Define Teamwork in Santo Domingo

2007-01-31T16:40:00.000-08:00

Amanda and Lisa´s Global Village team in early December (yes, that is a photo taken in December below!) took to building their house in Santo Domingo by storm: 15 people, some of them with lots of Habitat experience, all working on ONE house!This group consisted of 2 parts "returner" from other Global Village groups that Lisa and Amanda had led, and one part "new-comer." The team represented three countries: US (if I remember correctly there about 10 states were represented!), Canada, and Brazil.

Here's an album of pics from the Lisa/Amanda team:

Lisa and Amanda´s Team

The two leaders met a few years ago in Costa Rica at an intensive language program. Lisa had been involved in Habitat for Humanity almost since its birth and she invited Amanda to help lead teams and to practice her Spanish abilities during trips to Latin America (on the left, Amanda, to the right, Lisa.... I don´t think we got a picture of her NOT working!).

This is the first house in Ecuador for which I participated in the construction from the initial scraping of the ground (I soon participated in several more!). This site was located on a narrow, tropical, strip of land. To one side is a banana field and to the other was a neighbor´s residence where we used the well and the "bathroom."

A pleasant surprise at this site was that, each afternoon, neighborhood children would gather for a dance class on the dirt road! The girls would line up on one side and the boys on the other. We had help on the work-site from some of the neighborhood children later in the week.

Across the street was a more dismal site: this is exactly the type of housing Habitat strives to eliminate. There were SEVERAL young children who lived in this bamboo-plastic sheet residence.

Although we had planned to be working on two houses, a land-legalization holdup made only one site available. Luckily our "maestro", Jose, has become a master of work allocation and training diversification. We were able to keep everyone busy and tired all week!

Usually the Habitat houses in Ecuador have a front "sala", kitchen and bathroom, and two bedrooms. The first task was to clean the area while Narcisa, the engineer and Jose, the maestro measured out the plans for the house on the ground: 6 meters by 6 meters, 36 square meters. That is less than 400 square feet!

The family that will move into the house consists of Susanna and Miguel (the owners), their two children and their nephew, Victor. A brother in law of Susanna´s, and her nephew, Victor, were the family´s representatives working on the house all week. Prior to this house, the family was paying a rent that was too high to allow the family to purchase their "primary needs basket", and too high to allow for savings. With the Habitat no-interest loan, they will not only have lower monthly payments than they incur currently, they will also be putting their income towards an investment. In 8 to 10 years the family will have paid off their home! Susanna (left) often brought the group fresh juices as a mid-morning or mid-afternoon treat.
After the site was cleared, and the measurements made, the next task was to dig the foundation trenches.

The trenches are quite deep due to the risk of earthquake damage! The ground, however, was very soft and the team had the thigh-deep trenches completed by the end of the morning on the first day.

To ensure the trenches for the foundation would be level, long tubes of water were used, verifying the water level was the same on each corner and midpoint. Below "la ingeniera" (the engineer), Narcisa, and our "maestro", Jose, are pictured checking whether one of the back house corners was level with a front corner of the house. Water isn´t affected by what happens between two points in the tube, each end will demonstrate with its water the level of that point in the foundation.

After the foundation trenches were prepared, the group began creating the "cadenas" (chains) which would provide structure to the house´s columns and footings.

Each component of the chains was prepared manually: re-bar was measured and cut; wire for tying was wound into rings, measured and cut; narrow re-bar was measured, cut, and bent into squares. Then using the wire, the squares were tied to the re-bar, creating column frames.

Here is a pic of the site, and the team, after the first day´s work was completed.

To prepare the base of the foundation, large rocks and sand were used to partially refill the trenches. Moving the rocks with wheelbarrows and buckets is always a massive job... and then the endless task of cement mixing began!!

Although I have heard rumor that one of the Habitat sites in Ecuador has a cement mixer, it has not yet appeared at any of the sites on which I´ve worked! The human version, however, is always present. Who needs a gym???
The chain-columns were tied into foundation squares at each house corner, and at their midpoints, creating a framework for the entire house. When the foundation was poured, the cross-columns, which would become the frame for the footings, were created in between the column chains and tied into place. By the end of the week, the team had finished the foundation, footings, and poured the cement floor for the house. They had also poured the vertical columns for the walls of the house, dug a septic tank, and started to lay brick.

Tasks such as moving brick, and pulling water out of the neighbor´s well (for mixing cement--- we used A LOT of water!) are HUGE and take up time one wouldn´t guess in the grand scheme of building a house.

With all the action taking place, we attracted the help of many young children! I was impressed with their strength- they passed bricks in our "human brick chain" for as long as any of the other volunteers. was finished! When the group left Santo Domingo, they had made huge strides towards the completion another family´s dream of their own, decent house.

VISA Renewal: I love Bureaucracies :-(

2007-01-31T12:35:00.000-08:00

My first 90 days of allowable time in Ecuador expired the 6th of December, also the Foundation date of Quito, and a national holiday here (See "Fiestas de Quito, Chiva!"). I had a feeling this coincidence in dates might be a problem, so I had visited the Migration Services office two times before I left town in early December.

The first time I went, I wanted to verify that the 6th of December was the day that I needed to extent the 90-day tourist VISA, and to find out if the office would be open the 6th of December. Upon turning over my brand-new passport (see "Path to a New Passport" entry), we discovered that the new number was not available in the computer system and that I would need to bring a copy of my old passport. I was assured, by 3 independent sources in the office, that Migration Services would be open the 6th, despite it being a national holiday.

The second time I stopped by migration services, with a copy of my previous passport, and to re-confirm that I would have no problems getting my 90 day extension. We were able to locate my computer files using the old passport, and I was once-again confirmed that the offices would be open and that I would be able to renew my tourist VISA the 6th.

On the 5th of the December I had to leave Lisa and Amanda´s Global Village group in Santo Domingo (see previous post), in Daniel´s capable hands, to return to Quito. This in itself was an adventure as there was a "paro" (stop) due to a "huelga" (strike) in between Santo Domingo and Quito. The bus I took, left late to start off, and then traveled via an alternative route to avoid the huelga, so that we arrived in 5 hours, rather than 3. By that time in the afternoon, everything had closed in anticipation of the following day´s festivities.

The next day, December 6th, bright and early, I arrived at migration services to find... That it WAS OPEN! Great. Except, it was only open for services I didn´t need. Extensions to VISAs would not be give ´til the following day! I was rather upset, and worked to argue the point that I had asked three people on two different occasions and all had assured me I could take care of the extension on the 6th. Although my insistence did not change anything, I was assured that I would not be penalized because I had no way of renewing the day my first 90 days expired. I didn´t believe this, but there was nothing else to do. I stayed in Quito another night.

Luckily, this time the information I received was correct and I was able to renew the next day and return to Santo Domingo where we were learning to cook, Ecuadorian style (see next post).

Witnessing Ecuador´s National Elections

2007-01-29T13:03:00.000-08:00

As many of the readers may know, Ecuador recently inaugurated a new president on January 16th, Rafeal Correa.
Correa won with a healthy margin... after trailing in the polls! A large percentage of Ecuadorians polled had responded that they were "undecided" between the two finalist candidates. The undecided proportion remained very high up until the final day of the election. After the final tally, Alvaro Noboa, the candidate who had been ahead in the polls, was the favorite in coastal provinces, while Correa was the favorite in the Sierra (mountain) and Oriente regions (eastern jungle).

I was in Tosagua for the second round of elections and I decided to visit one of two voting cites which was held in the courtyard of the towns technical high school. Several things were very interesting to witness.First, a group of enterprising Ecuadorians had set up laminating stands outside the voting site and charged each customer 25 cents to have their voting "receipt" laminated. Below are two of these "lamination stands."

Lamination cost 25 cents. Having a good copy of one´s voting "receipt" is a good idea because proving one´s voting record is required for many financial transactions and for all Ecuadorian "permission to leave the country" which are required in addition to visas and passports! There is a "multa", a fine, for anyone who does not vote.

The second thing that I found particularly interesting was that the men and women were separated into different lines to vote.

The first side and a half of the voting "booths" were for men and the second half and third side where for women. This picture includes the sign designating this particular "booth" for "mujeres." Those "booths" for men where almost entirely maintained by men, and those for women where also staffed accordingly. I have not yet recieved what I consider a likely answer for why the voters are separated in this way. Several people told me that it was because "you can find your line more easily", and that "it makes the lines go faster".
The voting "booths" where cardboard tri-folds, set up on tables, with signs which announced that "your vote is secret."

The second round of presidential elections where held on Sunday, November 26th. Elections in Ecuador are always held on a Sunday to give citizens time to return to their city of registration. In my earlier post on the first round of Ecuadorian elections, I mentioned that voting is required for Ecuadorian citizens between the ages of 18 and 65. After 65, voting is optional. Military members cannot vote, and this was the first year that Ecuadorian citizens living abroad had the opportunity to vote. More than 60,000 Ecuadorians in Spain voted in the second round of presidential elections.

The final presidential race and election themselves were very interesting as they were between two pretty polarized characters. The first round of elections were held between 13 candidates (see "Ecuador National Elections- This Weekend!" post). (By the way, a Google search on "Ecuador National Elections", are somewhat alarming as my blog appears as one of the top few finds...).

Alvaro Noboa is the richest Ecuadorian and is one of the ten richest people in the world. He inherited a fortune, but has increased this fortune as a businessman with dealings from bananas to health care. Naboa had unsuccessfully run for presidential office 2x before. He was decidedly the more conservative candidate from the PRIAN party.

Correa was the younger, more charismatic, candidate, whose only political background was a 3-4 month stint as the Minister of Economics under Alfredo Palacio the outgoing president. Correa completed his PhD in Economics in the US and was the candidate supported by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Correa represented a group of interest groups rather than a single party. He wants to have a constitutional convention and referendum to replace the current constitution.

Thanksgiving Ceviche and Cooking Adventures

2007-01-28T20:05:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving 2006, aka "Dia de Gracias" will go down in history for all those who shared it in Tosagua, Manabi, Ecuador. (below, the traditional Thanksgiving "kids table!").

It was a day full of food, creativity(!), and cultural interchange. Karen´s Thrivent team (see "Tosagua, the Heart of Manabi"), habitat personnel, the house-recipient families, some neighbor kids, the hotel owner and workers all joined for a huge meal which included many familiar foods, and variations on traditional themes.

The preparations for the dinner required creative planning, beginning with the turkey! The hotel kitchen did not have an oven. My day started with Daniel (new Global Village Coordinator) and Maria (Tosagua Habitat Director). We wondered around town, seeking to borrow an oven!

We had been fairly certain that any of the friendly bakeries would be certain to accept us as temporary users of their ovens, since our hotel kitchen did not have an oven to lend us. It soon became apparent, however, that the bakery ovens were made specifically for... bread! All the ovens were specially designed so that flats of bread would efficiently fit in a multi-layer stack of drawer-like compartments. We ended up baking the turkey at Maria´s family house with the help of her mother (and nephew)!

After we got the turkey going, Daniel, Maria and I had a "ceviche date" with Hugo, our interim National director for Habitat for Humanity. Here I am below, enjoying my first crab-ceviche, which is now my favorite of the Ecuadorian ceviches. Ceviche is usually seafood, "cooked" and marinated in lime juice. The Ecuadorian ceviche is served as a kind of soup, with tomato, onion, and limes and "chifle" (fried plantain chips) on the side. That was the second meal of the day (after breakfast.... and would be one of four!!... and I thought I ate too much in the US on Thanksgiving!).

Daniel and I took a trip to the local outdoor market for the veggies for the big meal, and I picked up the apples for my pies;-).

The Global Village team took a half day at the work site and then helped to prepare for our big dinner. Karen made pumpkin pies; Tim and James helped me with the apple pies;

Kim, Colleen and Sharon helped with the fruit preparation; Jenny and John sought out cheese and bread; A bunch of people helped prepare green beans; Hugo brought the requisite white rice (no Ecuadorian meal is complete without it!) and Maria brought the finished turkey and stuffing that we had started that morning!

Our meal began with the "story of Thanksgiving" told by Ricci and Jane. It came complete with props and theatrical elements... and Daniel interpreted so that the Habitat families, staff, hotel staff and random children would understand this foreign holiday.

Below is Rick in his "pilgrim hat."
After the story, Hugo said a prayer for the meal and much food was shared. The turkey stuffing had been prepared by a local woman, and was amazing! It included pecans, raisins, olives, wine, beer, local bread, and who knows what else.. Pies are not typical in Ecuador and the pumpkin and apple pies were a huge hit with our local guests.

After dinner, the festivities continued with bubbles and story time for the neighborhood children.

A Renewed Respect for Interpreters

2007-01-24T10:21:00.000-08:00

I always knew it was difficult, but it was not until the 2 hour dedication and blessing of houses in Tosagua that I truly gained an appreciation for the exhausting work of translating speech, particularly publicly!!! I understand why court interpreters rotate every 30 minutes!

Here Maria, Tosagua Habitat Director, prepares me with the sequence of events that was to take place during the ceremony.

Ecuadorians enjoy both giving and receiving speeches, particularly having to do with the work in which organizations such as Habitat engage. Thus, I have had many opportunities to interpret welcome and farewell speeches during my time here!

On this occasion, the schedule included: words of welcome from the local Habitat office, words from the National Director, words from a local collaborator, words and a blessing from the Global Village Coordinator, words from a city government representative, words from the team leader and members, words from the SEVEN families and a blessing from a Catholic priest.

Until I saw the following pictures.... I did not realize how outwardly my thoughts were expressed during these ceremonies!

In the above picture, the priest was blessing the habitat families, and volunteers. I do not think this particular man had experience working with interpreters: he did not stop his flow of speech until he finished his blessing, and would not pause for me to interrupt with the translation.

Next, I am concentrating extremely hard to remember everything that the priest said. When he finally paused, I tried to recover his complete oration. With so much material, I was able to extract main ideas rather than a well phrased translation!

Although difficult, it was quite exciting to know that I was providing the link between the volunteers and the representatives of the town of Tosagua that had assembled that evening.

Below, I am providing a simpler service: helping the police chief pronounce the name of a volunteer to whom he is presenting a certificate of thanks.

Building with clay brick in Tosagua

2007-01-20T22:14:00.000-08:00

Despite all the events and festivities going on while we were in Tosagua (see "Tosagua, the Heart of Manabi" post), we found time to finish two houses, and "dedicate" an additional 5!!
Here I am in my now requisite on-site working hat... I feel incomplete without it! (it's quite useful at the equator with the sol FUERTE (strong sun)).

Karen Pickett's Global Village team put in 1.5 weeks of volunteer labor: laying brick, pouring concrete floors, digging and lining a septic tank, and plastering walls. Pictured below is one of the houses in a close-to-finished stage. The windows and doors were installed the day after this photo was taken.Karen had been in Tosagua the previous February and loved her experience so much that she wanted to return to the town for her first trip as a Habitat for Humanity Global Village team leader. She brought her husband, John, along with 10 other eager workers (above photos taken after day 1)! Her only disappointment she couldn't show John the lush green vistas she had seen in February (because the wet season begins in January).

Below on the left is the house one of the families (mother, father and children) was living in, along with a cousin(s) and the mother's parents (the above house with the team will be Marta's new house).

The house below is the second of the two houses the team worked on...Karen's group was a "Thrivent" global village team, meaning they were all members of the financial services business, "Thrivent". The financial services company has made a pledge to Habitat for Humanity International to make an additional donation to Habitat for any of its members who participates in a global village team. The team-members donates $450 ($100 to the international Habitat office and $350 to Ecuador), and Thrivent donates an additional $800!
This team was really fun and included many world travelers, and experienced volunteers. They were all from the U.S., and represented states from Washington, Texas, Michigan, Kansas, Tennessee, and the District of Colombia and spanned ages from their 30s to their 70s. Those who weren't world travelers were not inhibited with the new surroundings. They were ready to explore, learn about the local culture, eat the food, and try out their rusty (or newly acquired words and phrases) in Spanish.

The teams (one on each house) were immediately put to work learning to be brick masons:
First we unloaded brick, then soaked the bricks in water.

Pictured are Ricci and Jane soaking and passing the red clay bricks and Karen and Colleen working on an interior wall.

The bricks are made locally and cost less than one third what concrete blocks cost in Tosagua. The red clay bricks cost 9 cents a piece while concrete blocks cost 33 cents.

We were instructed in the art of brick laying by the "Maestro" (teacher/brick master) and his helpers who are contracted workers for Habitat. Pictured here are Tim, one of the volunteers, with Freddy, one of the "maestros."

Next, James builds an exterior wall from scaffolding on the outside of one of the houses.

The laying of bricks is a detail-oriented job which requires precision-placement, the squaring of each brick with the rest of the wall, the floor and the rest of the house, and use of the proper amount and consistency mortar by mixing cement and water.

Above, Jenny helps pass mortar to Sharon. Below, John sets a string to a consistent height for his next row of bricks.

Above, John taps a brick into place and below Clare mixes mortar to perfection.

To the left below, Jane demonstrating the art of the final "tap" required to set a brick.

Next pictured is Sharon, working on "her wall" and using scaffolding to reach the top rows.

The maestros frequently checked on our work. Actually, I should say "their work", ... because I mostly went around "llenando huecos", filling holes, which is my favorite activity involving cement:-). Here I am pictured below, filling my trowel to smooth out the wall and eliminate holes where bugs may have lived.... making it "pretty."

As days passed, much progress was made on the houses' walls. As the houses became full- fledged, four-walled structures, we added the less obvious parts of the house, such as the floor, the kitchen counter and the septic tank. Here are Kim and Colleen, lining the septic tank with a small red brick. They were pretty vulnerable in that hole.. we had to bring them water and lower a ladder to let them out! When they were digging the hole, it reminded me of the book, "Holes" in which the boys who have been sent to work-camp are forced to dig perfectly round, perfectly deep, holes... all day! Well, our volunteers only had to dig for less than a day to complete this hole, but they were in it for awhile afterwards in order to line it.

As always, the work site was also a site for play:

above, Kim tries to kiss a cow and below, Rick really enjoys his watermelon (it was grown fresh in Manabi)!

To celebrate the completion of the two houses at the end of the 1.5 weeks of building, and to dedicate the houses, and 5 others that had been finished recently, we had a big ceremony that lasted over 2 hours!~!!!! .... I interpreted, and it was truly EXHAUSTING. I must say it was my biggest language challenge yet.

The ceremony included entertainment by some local high school dance teams, such as the one pictured below. They incorporated traditional and modern themes.

Above, they are dancing with clay pots and bowls. Below, they are pictured towards the end of a dance during which each girl placed a bottle of juice on her head and danced with it balanced there, until the bottle fell.

When a particular girl's bottle fell, her style of dancing would change. Eventually only one girl was left and then they all started a new portion of the dance; it was choreographed, but a competition for was built in!

During the Ceremony, each family was presented with keys and a bible and Auster's house was blessed as the symbol of all the houses blessings. In this particular dedication, a Catholic priest blessed the houses. Families in different areas of the world elect to have different religious/spiritual leaders bless their houses. The reason that so many houses were dedicated at the same time is that the house-owners, of the five previously finished houses, wanted Hugo, our interim National Director, and the man who started the Tosagua affiliate, to be present during the ceremony.
Pictured above I am interpreting a portion of Hugo's speech to the assembled crowd about the importance of decent housing to a community.
When I say crowd, I am not kidding: we had representatives from the mayors office, the police department, local collaborators, members from all seven families (if not the whole family), habitat employees, and the 11 Global Village volunteers.

Here is a pic of me with Auster's family, his wife and three daughters, behind their new house, after the dedication ceremony. Once again, one of the best parts of the house-building experience was working with, and getting to know the families.

Check out the view!

2007-01-19T14:26:00.000-08:00

This is my morning view during breakfast... (if I choose to eat inside rather than out!): the valley of Quito and "Pichincha" mountain.

Casa Bambu, the hostel, is my "Quito residence" now. That is.... whenever I actually am in Quito! Right now I am in Santo Domingo de Los Colorados again, but I will soon return to the capital city.

Here is the patio/balcony view, where you can view the city from a covered table or hammock:-)!

Mail from Ecuador: Faster by barrel!

2007-01-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick funny story:

Many Galapagos tours stop by the "Post Office Bay" on Floreana Island. The "post office" consists of a barrel on a stick in the volcanic rocky shore of one of the islands. The barrel was originally placed during the early 1800s by a sailor from a whaling ship, so that sea-faring travelers could leave correspondence in the barrel, and remove for delivery any correspondence left in the barrel addressed to their destination city. The mail would be delivered by hand.

We visited the barrel on Christmas when I was in the Galapagos- here is a pic of the barrel (on a stick with a pitched roof), our guide, Jon, and some of the other passengers from my "cruise"-- the German girls, Veronica and Eva, on far right, then moving left- the Swiss guy, Marcel, Jon, and my Swedish roommate, Marie. The barrel and acommpanying signs have been "decorated" by visitors over years...
Today the tradition of leaving mail and hand-delivering other people's mail continues! I left a card for my family in Albuquerque, but didn't find any mail to retrieve for the state of New Mexico. I wondered how long it would be before my family would receive my note~!

I have sent various things from Ecuador back to the states (actually just postcards and letters), and the fastest the letter has ever arrived was 2 weeks. The slowest letter delivery took over 2 months!!~!

My family received the letter I left in the barrel within, drum roll please......: approximately 15 days~! Too bad their aren't barrels posted all over the country, I wouldn't have to pay postage, AND things would travel faster!

Tosagua: the "Heart of Manabi"

2007-01-16T19:36:00.000-08:00

One of three places Habitat for Humanity builds in Ecuador is the town of "Tosagua", named for its annual flooding, in the coastal-plain, and agricultural center of the province of "Manabi."

It is nick-named the "Heart of Manabi" because it is not only located in the center of the province, the people also assured our volunteers that the residents of Manabi have the biggest, and most open hearts~!

In late November the new Global Village Coordinator, Daniel, and I, supported a Global village team to work on two houses in Tosagua. I was quite excited to visit and construct in Manabi for a week and a half, not only because it was a new region of Ecuador to explore, but also because the interim Habitat Director is from the province, and he never misses an opportunity to talk it up: the "rich" food, the climate, the people, and the lifestyle!

So-- I was excited to eat the best ceviche and fruits, experience the richest weather, meet the "most macho" men and "most beautiful" women, and experience the laid-back and friendly way of life. I must say that I was not disappointed!

Here's two kids swimming in the river, they really wanted their pictures taken as I walked over a bridge nearby. Each afternoon, many Tosagua residents would enjoy a river dip. The river was also a common place to see people washing clothes.

The only let-down was the brown and dry landscape...away from the river basin. Manabi is a very agricultural province, but the rainy season starts now, in January! When the rainy season starts, everything turns green in a matter of weeks.

Here's a photo of a typical Manabi house: raised on stilts, made of flattened bamboo, and with a tin roof. This one is in fairly good shape. The typical lifespan of a bamboo house is 6-8 years, after which families often start "patching" with whatever materials are available. Many Habitat families are replacing dilapidated bamboo house, which have been used well beyond their lifespan (see future Guayaquil entry for an example), with concrete houses (the one pictured above, however, is in good shape).

The town's people were all extremely welcoming, and the kids were quite curious about the group of foreigners. However we were not the first of our kind- Habitat has built approximately 40 houses in the town and groups of volunteers , from both Ecuador (mostly Quito) and other countries have frequently visited as volunteers.

Several of the families living in finished Habitat homes invited us into their homes, upon initial site of us, because they were so proud of their living quarters and wanted to show the volunteers what they would be building that week. Here is the entrance first house that Habitat built in Tosagua, one of the Global Village volunteers (Colleen), and the house owner and her sister.

I had been told that the town of Tosagua was a tranquil and mellow type of place...HA.

We happened to arrive the week during which all possible festivities seemed to be taking place:

The "Juegos Cantonales" (province-wide games featuring primary school athletes from each "canton", similar to a county, held approximately every 15 years in Manabi)
The town "Fiestas" (annual),
The national elections (every four years),
The local "Saint's Day" (annual and correlates with the town fiestas)
and ....we celebrated the US national holiday, Thanksgiving!

Whew. It turned into a crazy week! Here's the Ferris wheel and its side-kick, set up for the town's fiestas.
Here is one of the local sports centers, painted to welcome all the young athletes and their coaches into town: "21st School Sports Games- Welcome!"
Here's the "Gusanito", "Little Worm" that ran amok every night through the dirt roads of Tosagua. He is a definite recipe for whiplash!

The town of Tosagua was very, very welcoming to the Global Village group, and I think every resident knew we had arrived within the first afternoon of our time there!

This group made friends with everyone, from store owners, to the salsa dancing 9 year old neighbor, to the town's firemen, to a band practicing down the street, gaggles of children and some local politicians. Actually... our "chofer" (van driver in this case) was also a town councilman:-)- Here's one of his election signs, he is the one in the middle.

The town was small and we were able to walk everywhere: from our hotel to the work site, from the habitat office to any store, from the "cabinas" (phone booths) to the open-air market... to the ice cream store...etc. However, don't try to use the Internet there: there are much better things to do with you time than count the number of times you loose your connection!

Race to the Middle of the Earth!...and shrunken heads?

2007-01-11T12:30:00.000-08:00

On November 16th, Steph (see "Repelling Down Waterfalls" entry) and I ran the "Quito Media Maraton al Mitad del Mundo"-- Quito´s Half Marathon to the Middle of the Earth--as a team. So we each ran a 10.5K.

Here we are before the race posing in front of all the military high-school students who "assisted" in the setting up of the event by creating barricades, such as the one behind us in these pics.

I thought maybe they would run the race as well,... but they did not.

The "Middle of the Earth" is the site where the equator was first measured to exist in the early 1700s by Charles Marie de La Condamine. A representative of the French Academy of Sciences, Charles Perrier, confirmed the result in the late 1800s. There is a huge monument and some museums locatedat the "Ciudad del Mitad del Mundo", the "City of the Middle of the Earth" where our race finish line was located.

The site is located 18 miles north of the center of Quito, however we started 13 some odd miles away.

We ran the race as a relay-team, so each of us actually only ran one fourth of a marathon, about a 10.5K. Despite the high altitude of the run, starting at over 9 thousand feet, almost the entire distance was downhill, and we didn´t have any problems. It was fun to run to the Spanish cheers of "Si se puede!".... " You can do it!"

I got a lot of support just for being a female running the race "Viva las Mujeres" yelled one woman! (Long live women! ... or Go women! would be the translation for that one). There was a defined difference between the percentage of females running this race and the ratios I am used to in the United States.

Above, Steph and I pose in front of the huge monument that has been built to commemorate the "Mitad del Mundo" site. The line I am straddling was the line calculated in the 1700s and 1800s.

In modern times, the equator has been measured with GPS to be located about 150 meters away from the monument and original site! A private museum has been created commemorating the newly measure equator. We visited this museum as well, as we had heard it had lots of fun and interactive activities....

Here is the second "equator line" we visited that day!

The first thing that we witnessed at the "new equator" was water (with a floating leaf for the full effect) draining through a basin clockwise on one side of equator, counter-clockwise on the other, and straight down the hole on the equator. Our guide may have had to help a little, but it was still pretty convincing.

Next we were told that another proof of the equator´s presence was the power of the Earth´s two polar axis pulling in either direction which could diminish a persons strength at the equator. To witness these equivalent and weakening powers, our guide took volunteers and had them first put their clasped fists above their heads on one side of the equator while she pulled down on their arms. Then she did the same thing on the equator line. She did the same thing on and off the equator line by trying to separate a volunteer´s thumbs. The volunteers all seemed to feel a difference, including Steph (above), however she wasn´t sure if the guide had pulled harder on the equator line than off the equator line. (also, wouldn´t the volunteers generally have less strength the second time regardless?, just a thought.) Anyway, we tried it again later and I am not sure I could feel a difference.

The museum has a demonstration about balancing an egg which is supposed to show again the equalizing forces of the north and south poles at the equator.
I can´t speak in support, against this one, although our guide was able to balance the egg... I could not, and I am not sure I could WITH polar equalizing forces!

Other cool things in the outdoor museum were several precise solar clocks which worked quite accurately, and a cultural museum showing traditional practices of some of Ecuador´s native tribes. We even got toshoot darts out of a bamboo rod, a method for hunting monkeys, and view a real shrunken head (below)! A tribe called the "Shwar", who still live in the Ecuadorian jungle, used to practice head shrinking on their captured enemies, and other ill-fated persons. They now only practice the techniques on monkey skulls to retain their traditional methods. The methods include removing all skull bones except the bridge of the nose, and boiling the head for an extended period. This particular head was of a "bastard child."

Fiestas de Quito: Chiva!

2006-12-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

Every year the city of Quito celebrates its founding through the "Fiestas de Quito". These fiestas last from the 24th of November until the 6th of December!

Ecuadorians from other parts of the country join their Quiteño brethren and visit the city during this time, and visitors from all over the world partake as well. Typical festivities include bull fighting, parties in the streets, at least one day of vacation from school or work for the actual anniversary date (December 6th, if not several days), Chivas (I will soon explain this concept!), concerts, local music, and general celebrations. I happened to be out of town for the majority of the Fiestas (I was in both Tosagua and Santo Domingo with Global Village teams), however I did get to try out one of the traditions.....

Chivas are open-air passenger trucks with benches and a roof which holds a band. Businesses, groups of friends, organizations, etc. rent these vehicles out (complete with band, driver, and alcohol) for a few hour Quito tour including the historic district and part of the new town. Chivas are particularly popular during the Quiteño Fiestas... However, they can be rented at other times during the year and are also found in Guayaquil (the largest Ecuadorian City). Here is a picture of the chiva on which I was a passenger... I appologise for the very bad quality (see below for a back-view)! Other signiture chiva-traditions are the plastic whistles with which all the passengers "keep time" with the band- ---ha.

The passengers are often no concentrated in the seats, but rather on the back of the truck and on top... with the band! The band plays a short selection of local "songs of the pueblo¨ ... over and over again and you can hear strains of the music during all hours of the day through parts of the city during those ten days!

During part of the city tour, the chiva stops at a park so that all the passengers can get out and dance to the music without the constraints of the truck. Here I am (above) with the band during one of their breaks. This particular band had chiva gigs for at least 8 of the 10 nights of "Fiestas."

Volcano Trip!

2006-12-28T18:00:00.000-08:00

A couple months ago I went on an excursion to the Volcano, Tungurahua, with a group from the South American Explorers Club (see link to the right, it's a great group in which to be involved as a traveler in South America; they have "clubhouses" in several South American cities.)

This volcano is active and has erupted several times this past summer. The last time it had erupted was the week before our trip! The material being ejected from the volcano is mostly ash and rock, there is no lava. In the time since I went on this trip, the volcano has again spewed ash and rocks...

Our trip leader was Dr. Theo, a geology Professor at the Univerdidad San Francisco, one of the private universities in Quito. Dr. Theo teaches some classes in English and some in Spanish. He is also quite a character: he was born in Germany, grew up in Greece, and teaches in Quito.

He speaks at least German, Greek, Spanish and English fluently and was joking in all the languages, sometimes simultaneously in a couple, ... an indicator of his fluency levels~! To the Right is a photo of Dr. Theo with the French geologist from a French organization which monitors all volcanos in the world.

One of the interesting things about this trip was that Dr. Theo did not just focus on the geology of the volcano and the surrounding areas, he highlighted the social involvement the scientists have had with the local communities during the last few years. This interaction was mostly to educate local leaders and communities so that they would develop emergency plans, warning systems and local refuges during eruption periods.

Several community leaders spoke to the group

about the progress they had made to implement new systems and to alert the towns´ populations about potential dangers. Dr. Theo pointed out a highway stretch to our group where 7 people had died because they didn´t believe warnings that exceedingly hot material (ashes, gases...? somehow I missed this particular point), would be a danger, particularly during late night hours. He considered this a major improvement over what the numbers of dead could have been...

An interesting scene presented itself when we first arrived at the foothills of the volcano... A music video in the making! I am not sure who the signer was, but he was giving an emotional appeal to the camera in front of an ashflow...

March of Hope for Decent Housing

2006-12-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, November 17th, I chased a group of hundreds of people all around Santo Domingo, Ecuador...

I was acting as photographer for a Habitat publicity and fundraising event: The First March of Hope for Decent Housing.

Jefferson Perez, (below left) the country´s first Olimpic medalist, lead the event and raised the level of awareness for Habitat´s walk, multiple-fold. Perez is a speed-walker from the city of Cuenca. Cuenca is located South of Quito, in the Andes.
The day before the walk, Daniel (a co-worker, below) and I folded event t-shirts for hours!!

The night before the event, we held a press conference in which Perez was pressed for his views on housing, politics, Ecuador as a country and athletisism in Ecuador. I was really impressed with his answers to the press and he spoke quite a bit about the country´s peoples´ responsibility to take upon themeselves a change before expected the government, and the country, to change.

For some reason, I was targeted to partake in a radio interview...twice! That was definately my first national "pubic" appearance speaking in Spanish... (but has not been the last...); I am not sure if they aired or not! First the reporter interviewed me at the press conference, then again during the walk to get some "on-site feedback."

During the walk, through the high-interest of the press: tv, radio and written, we accomplished the organization´s goal of raising awareness about themeselves, and the issues that Habitat faces.

Perez signed hundreds of shirts, posed for hundreds of pictures and took the stardom in stride. Parents came out to the streets with their kids and camaras with exclamations of "there he is!".

Because I was running around with a video camera, and my camera... a co-worker assigned two military high school students to be my "body-guards"... I think they had fun with the post and I didn´t have to worry about watching my back with the equipment. Here I am with my "guarda-espaldas."

The walk lasted at least three hours and it was REALLY hot, Habitat passed out bags of water. These are common at large events around here... and seem like a pretty smart idea:

They creat less trash and are probably less expensive too!

After the walk there were plenty of formalities, speaches, and some musical and dancing performances. Here´s a local HS dance team and a group of children performing an andinan dance. I thought the younger kids had the best rythm... they were really good!

Galapagos Navidad

2006-12-20T08:56:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to post a Merry Christmas to everyone, as I will be on a boat for the next week!

I am taking a 7-day Galapagos trip on the ¨Posiedon¨ until the 27th of December. I will be checking out blue-footed boobies, tortoises, penguins, lots of aquatic animals, and cool volcanic terrain!

To my family and friends, much love to you all!

I will be catching up with my blog posts as soon as possible when I return!

Caiman, bugs and fungi :-) Camping in the Amazon.

2006-12-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

During the long holiday weekend here in Ecuador, November 2nd-5th, everyone has a holiday to celebrate Dia de Los Difunctos and the Independance Day of Cuenca.

I took the opportunity to visit another region in Ecuador, "el oriente", the east. The "east" is basically the Amazon Jungle region of Ecuador on the eastern side of the andes, bordered by Colombia and Peru.I took a trip with a group of 7 to visit the "Limoncocha National Biological Reserve." Below is a photo of the group along with our guide, the nephew of the other guide, and a man who lives on the shore of the lake in the reserve.

Our group consisted of three Ecuadorians (one of which is also Colombian), one English, and three Americans (US). The English guy is my yoga instructor, and he planned the trip. He wants to start taking groups of yoga students out to the jungle for retreats.

Above left are Robert (our guide), Ruth, Paula, and Katherina. Below are Robert, James and Kristen.

The trip to "the orient" was a long one: first a 9 hour bus ride from Quito to the city of "Coca", also called "Puerto Francisco de Orellana". 5 of us took the early bus (a la 6:30am) to get to Coca between 3 and 4 in the afternoon.

Coca is a town that has grown considerably in the last 20 years due to the oil boom in Ecuador. It is known as one of cities that the oil workers come into after working out in "the field".

We spent the evening there, staying at a hotel owned by our weekend's guide, Robert, and prepared for our morning departure to Limoncocha.

On day two we traveled farther east from Coca to the Limoncocha reserve. This is a pic of me at the bus station in Coca. I have two eggs on toothpics, a local girl had created a hard-boiled egg stand and would sprinkle salt and pepper on them.. yum!

Limoncocha is a town proximate to the Biological reserve with the same name. It was a 2 hour bus ride to get to Limoncocha and a an hour stop in another oil town. After a lunch at a research station we took a boat around the Limoncocha lake to view birds of the area.

On the other side of a lake we arrived at a dwelling where a family lives that allows people to use their "cabanas" as shelter. We stayed in the Cabanas the first night and hiked further into the Jungle to camp on the second night.

A man who lives by the Limoncocha lake showed us his catch for the evening when we arrived at his dock. The fish on the top is a pirahna, and had begun to eat one of the other fish (see the fish below the pirahna, the tail is half gone!).

Our first night in the reserve we went out into the lake to find the black caiman that live there. The one we were able to approach most closely, below, did not hide because she was guarding a nest of eggs. She was about 4 meters long!

The second day at limoncocha we hiked further into the jungle to make camp. Before we hiked too far in, we had the opportunity to try out a vine swing, made by the family that lives on the shore of the Limoncocha lake. Many of the junge trees were HUGE, and pics don´t do them justice... The pic above of the entire group was taken in front of a tree the size of building!

We recieved a fair amount of rain which made out hike through a bog pretty exciting! there was alot of difficult footing to manuver in order to not sink in the muck!

That day and the next we saw many amazing insects and fungi. Our night-hike uncovered many insects we had not found during the day!

We also found many reptiles and frogs such as these.....

And lot´s of fungi such as these!

Below, Richard holds a "tagua" nut, also called "vegetable ivory". This nut is used to carve into all sorts of figurines, jewlary and other objects and below its brown outer shell, it has an ivory-white color.

Here is a tree which has developed a creative defense mechanism against intrudors... we were careful around all the vegatation with spines, needles, and other pleasentries!Although we saw three types of monkeys, including a "leonito", little lion, I didn´t get any good pictures of them! They were either too fast, or too far away! The leonito was the size of a squirrel and has the face of a lion. The other two types we saw were much larger and had prehensile tails with which they were able to swing from tree to tree!

Happy to be Homeless!

2006-12-06T19:56:00.000-08:00

I am now officially homeless in Ecuador!

I moved out of the house, in which I was living with an Ecuadorian woman, on November 30th. During the month and a half beginning December 1st, I may only be in Quito for 5 daystomorrow being the fifth). It isn´t worth paying December and January´s rent while I will be traveling so much! That is one of the many reasons I moved out. Details need not be posted online...

This week I am working with a Global Village team building in Santo Domingo. For most of the week I will be with them, however I had to come to Quito yesterday to get an extension stamp in my passport today (which ultimately did not happen... another buracratic story, coming to a local blog soon). I hope to return to Santo Domingo tomorrow if all goes well.

Next week I will be with a team building in Guayaquil. This will be my first trip to Guayaquil, Ecuador´s biggest city, and I am pretty excited for it!

Between the 20th and 28th I contemplating a few options for travel. Galápagos are a possibility, going to Colombia with a co-worker I believe has ceased to be an option.

December 28th James comes to visit and we plan to check out some coastal locations and activities and bring in the new year!

After James´ visit I will working with another Global Village group in Guayaquil. Finnally, I hope to return to Quito in mid-January, at which point I believe I will stay long-term in the hostel where I am staying now, Casa Bambu! Casa Bambu has some beautiful terraces overlooking the city and plenty of hammocks to relax in; also, there are two kitchens, a movie room, free internet, and friendly people. I am so relieved to be here!

Erin Habitat Website Interview (english version)!

2006-12-04T18:52:00.000-08:00

Habitat Latin American and Caribean is highlighting the International Volunteer Program participants, such as me, on their website. I am the first to be "profiled"! For the spanish version, check out this website: ERIN´s Interview

I am posting the english version of the interview here.

AREA OFFICE VOLUNTEER PROFILES

NAME: Erin McSherry
BIRTHPLACE: Pheonix, Arizona

ARE YOU A UNIVERSITY STUDENT? IF SO, WHAT ARE YOU STUDYING? WHERE ARE YOU STUDYING? IF YOU ARE NOT A STUDENT, WHAT DID YOU STUDY IN UNIVERSITY?I have degrees in Environmental Science y Spanish from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I have plans, and I am admitted to the University of New Mexico School of Law for the fall 2007 semester.

WHERE HAVE YOU LIVED AND/OR TRAVELED?
I have lived in Phoenix, Arizona; Rockville, Maryland; Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe New Mexico; Amherst, Massachusetts, and Quito, Ecuador.

I have traveled in 36+ USA states, Canada, Spain, Sweden, Israel, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador.

WHEN AND HOW DID YOU FIND OUT ABOUT HFH? WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR PAST EXPERIENCE WITH HFH?
I first found out about, and volunteered with, Habitat for Humanity during fall 1999, when I participated in the Newman Catholic Student Center´s "Building on Faith" fall build with the Mesilla Valley, New Mexico Habitat Affiliate . My spring 2000 semester, I joined the student chapter for Habitat for Humanity. For four spring breaks, I traveled with a team of students to a different state each year to build for a week as part of the HFH "Collegiate Challenge" program. Our student chapter built locally at least once a month with the Mesilla Valley Afillate and supported and participated in their fundraisers. Our student chapter also organized a "student house", built entirely by student groups.

WHY ARE YOU VOLUNTEERING WITH HABITAT FOR HUMANITY?I have always enjoyed my volunteer experiences with Habitat "in the field" in the United States and felt they contributed the the actualization of a worthy cause. I chose to volunteer abroad because I studied Spanish in school but never lived in a Spanish-speaking country for more than five weeks.

I think if everyone volunteered several months to a couple years of their lives to helping others, the world would improve considerably. Leading by example is my way of demonstrating this and I hope to inspire others into action. By volunteering abroad, although more difficult than volunteering locally or nationally, I have the exceptional opportunity to enrich my experience with multiple levels of learning and personal growth.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO DO/ACCOMPLISH WITH YOUR SERVICE?
I hope to give the IVP program in Ecuador a strong start and greater definition so that it may succeed and grow in the years to come.

I am starting an individual volunteer program and providing support for the existing brigades program by creating orientation, support and follow-up tools for volunteer management.

WHAT ARE YOUR INTERESTS? HOBBIES?Outdoor sports, ecology, nature, dancing (salsa and other partner dances, flamenco), reading, foreign affairs, law and policy, reading, themed parties and events.

Dia de los Difuntos (Day of the Deceased)

2006-12-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

In Ecuador, the 2nd of November is NOT known as "Dia de Los Muertos" as the 1st is in Mexico. The word "Muertos", dead, is considered crude. Instead, "Disfuntos", deceased, is the way in which one's dearly departed are referred.

In the more indigenous communities of Ecuador, visits to the cemetary and picnics at graves are common Day of the Deceased activities. In Quito, there are traditional foods which are available the weeks prior to the day: GuaGuas de Pan and Colada Morada.

GuaGuas de pan are Bread Babies. "GuaGua" is actually a Quitua word, the language of the indigenous sierran peoples here. To the left is a picture of a Guagua de pan that I bought. The eyes are made of raisins and the bread is light and sweet.

Colada Morada is a drink made from blending a BUNCH of different fruits, primarily blueberries to make the purple color, and consumed as a hot drink. It is really yummy! Here is the recipe~

Purple Blend, Colada morada
Ingredients-Ingredientes
For 30 People ---- Para 30 personas

1 pound of black corn meal, 1 libra de harina de maíz negro
20 fruits called Naranjillas, similar to an orange, 20 naranjillas
2 punds of blackberries, 2 libras de mora
1/2 pound of blueberries, 1/2 libra de mortiño
-1 pineapple, 1 piña
- 1 mountain papaya, 1 babaco
1 pound of strawberries, 1 libra de frutillas
-3 ishpingo (ecuadorian spice), 3 ishpingo
6 sticks of cinnemon- 6 pedazos de canela
15 pieces of sweet red pepper- 15 bolitas de pimienta dulce
- 10 clavos de olor
1 bundle of herbs(orange leaf, lemon grass, myrtle)--(1 atado de hierbas (hoja de naranja, hiebaluisa, arrayon).)

Instructions, Elaboracion:

Into 10 liters of boiling water, put all the herbs and the seasonings for 10 minutes. In the same pot, cook the naranjillas. When they are soft, take them out, squeeze them strain them, and save the juice. (Poner a hervir en 10 litros de agua todas las hierbas y los aliños durante 15 minutos. En esta misma olla cocinar las naranjillas, cuando están suaves, retirarlas del fuego licuarlas, cernirlas y reservar su jugo.)

In another container, liquify the blueberries and the blackberries with a little bit of water, strain and set aside. (En otro recipiente licuar el mortiño y la mora con un poco de agua, cerner y reservar.)

In a cup with 2 liters of water disolve the cornmeal and strain (En un tazon con dos litros de agua disolver la harina y cerner.)

In a large pot, strain the water in which the herbs and seasonings were cooked and boil the strained cornmeal, stirring constantly. When it begins to bubble, add the naranjilla juice, then the blueberry and blackberry juice. Add suger, al gusto (2 pounds). While this continues boiling cut the pineapple and mountain papaya in small pieces and add them to the mixture. En una olla grande, cerner el agua en la que se cocino las hierbas y los aliños y poner a hervir la harina cernida, meciendo constantemente. Cuando esta en ebullición añadir el jugo de la naranjilla, después el jugo del mortiño y de la mora. Añadir azúcar al gusto (2 libras). Mientras esto continua hirviendo se pica la piña en cuadros pequeños y se le añade a la colada y igual procedimiento con el babaco.

Leave everything to boil and continue stirring for approximately 30 minutes. Just before turning off the flame, remove the pieces of fruit. Se deja hervir todo y se sigue meciendo por aproximadamente 30 minutos. Ya casi al retirarla del fuego colocar la frutilla picada.

Serve hot with bread babies. Servir caliente y acompañar con las guaguas de pan.

Avoid being a "Corazon Azul"!! (blue heart)

2006-11-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

The Ecuadorian transportation department started painting blue hearts on the streets where deaths have been caused by traffic accidents in an attempt to remind drivers of their potential threats, and danger while on the road. There have been several horrible bus accidents in the country this year. The crashes seem to be more the result of unsafe driving practices: brake problems, late night driving with unsafe drivers, etc, rather than bad roads. The roads and highways are actually in decent shape, particularly compared to many of the roads I saw last year in Peru. Apparently the influx of oil money during the last 20- 30 years has allowed investment in safer roads... also the use of the roads by oil companies resulted in highway investments (something I noticed last week on a trip to "la selva", the jungle, where most of the oil production takes place).
Here's an example of the nice roads going through small eastern Ecuadorian towns with their accompanying oil pipe! Ecuador doesn't make nearly the revenues, however, which it could from its oil production. Only 30 percent of the country's oil is refined within. The remainder is exported to other countries for refining and creation of oil byproducts and Ecuador must buy these byproducts internationally rather than domestically. The same scenario is true of many Ecuadorian products: despite the fact the country has rich agricultural and natural resources, they are sold (and exported) in their primary forms, the cheapest products, rather than developed products which have greater profit margins.

Repelling Waterfalls with Ecuador´s Future "Eco-tour" Guides

2006-11-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

A new friend of mine down here, south of the Equator, is a girl from Colorado-Minnesota named Stephanie. Steph is taking classes and teaching English until December in Quito. She lives with a woman. her "mom" and the woman´s daughter, her "sister." The mom works for a tourism-supporting national agency and was involved in the planning for the "Third Annual Adventure Sports Workshop" (Tercer Taller de Deportes Adventuras). Steph´s mom told her about the workshop and Steph invited me to come along... so I did;-).

It was a fun time and a whirlwind introduction to "adventure sports." Ironically, I think Steph and I had more experience with outdoor sports than most of the future-guide participants. Enjoying the outdoors is just now becoming more "de moda" (in style) among those who can afford leisure time in Ecuador.Steph and I actually missed the first day of "classroom" training, but from what I heard is was pretty straightforward stuff... basic camping and outdoor skills.

The first morning, we first hiked through a reserve, Cuichocha with a crater lake, which was absolutely beautiful! (see above). Below is a model of the landscape in the area.

The majority of the participants (we were a group of 90+) in this workshop were students in Ecuadorian universities studying either Eco Tourism, or Hotel Management. Below is a pic of some of the participants during a bus game we played to build our "team" for the weekend´s activities.
Also participating were professionals already involved in Ecuadorian tourism, hotel management, and government tourism representatives... Oh yea, and two random high school art students (German and Italian nationals), and two random US citizens (Steph and me). The instructors were from the Ecuadorian Red Cross, Ecuadorian Diving Confederation, and national tourism agencies.

The afternoon, evening of the first day we got to "dive" with an instructor in the crater lake. This was pretty cool, even though it was a short (both in length of time and depth) experience. We only went down about 5-10 meters and checked out some of the thermal vents. Below is a pic of me being outfitted for the dive;-). Unfortunetly the only live things I saw was seaweed, so I was a bit dissapointed about that.

Here is a view from between the two islands in the lake, where we did our "diving." The itty-bitty point sticking up over the crater lake rim is the tallest part of Volcan Cotacachi.
The next day we left for our camping site near a river in one of the valleys that in the model pictured above. We did a bit of rafting and had a first aid-safety workshop.

During the first aid workshop I decided I would make a first aid kit for my jungle trip the following weekend! Putting this kit together in Quito was actually quite a challenge, but I must say it is pretty impressive given the circumstances.

Conveniently our camp was located at a Cabañas lodge with thermal pools and we got to use them to relax during the evening.

The last morning´s activity was "canyoning", repelling down a waterfall. This ended up being pretty fun....

EXCEPT I made a really bad decision in wearing my glasses... sans any sort of strap (I had lost a contact). Here´s a pic of me... blind!, after losing my glasses.

Path to a New Passport: PART II

2006-11-08T06:11:00.001-08:00

This is a continuation of the previous post: Path to a New Passport

Step 6. The US Embassy in Quito (trip II)
Now that I had my two reports (the police report and the migration services report), a copy of my previous passport, 2x2 special passport pictures, the passport forms, a stolen passport report, and $97 dollars ($55 for a new passport, $12 surcharge for applications made outside the country, and $30 because the former passport was not submitted-a lost of stolen surcharge), things went fairly smoothly at the embassy.

Interestingly, I was not asked to provide proof of identity or proof of citizenship as was described in the requirements section of the passport application. The consular officer had me swear that everything in the report was true and I signed the forms.

Step 7.The US Embassy in Quito (trip III)
I picked up my new passport on Monday. They didn´t ask for my receipt or any identification!

Step 8. Migration Services (trip II)
I had to get a new arrival stamp and date on my passport to avoid problems when I leave the country. Step 8 was pretty ridiculous and had many "sub-steps".

Ventana 7 (Window 7): I submitted the report I had receivedwhen i visited Migration Services the first time, and my passport. This woman printed a report and stamped it.
Ventana 4 (Window 4): I submitted the new report, and my passport. When this guy found out the passport had been stolen, he told me I needed to submit copies of my new passport and a copy of the police report.
Copy Shop down the street for document copies (10 cents)
Ventana 4: I submitted the copies, the new migration services report and my passport. Upon inspection, this police office realized that my name had been entered incorrectly at the airport when I entered the country. The ¨H¨ in my last name had been omitted .He told me I need to get the airport report changed and that to do this I needed a color copy and go to window 6.
Copy Shop down the street for a color copy ($1 dollar)
Ventana 6: this officer compared the names on all the documents and decided we could change the airport report to reflect my passport´s spelling of my name.  He sent me back to Window 7 to get a new report with my name spelled correctly
Ventana 4: this officer printed a new version of the airport report.
Ventana 6: Finally, a new stamp and date in my passport...!

While I was being "helped" at Ventana 6 for the third time, down at Ventana 2 another US Citizen (I think, although I suppose he could have been Canadian), was having a rough time and not dealing with it too well "I hate this ... country!" Anyway, he was giving the office vocal samples of "groseos" (cuss words) in English in between boughts of Spanish conversation with the police officer.  Apparently he was having a more rough time than I... or just not taking it so well.

In less than a month, I will have to go to a different Quito Migration Services office to get my 90 day tourist visa renewed... I am sure it will be another eventful experience.

How to get involved: at home and aboad!

2006-10-31T10:16:00.000-08:00

Habitat´s vision is: "A world where everyone lives in a decent home"

This post is in response to the inquiries I have received, both before I left the States, and since I have arrived here in Ecuador, about what it takes to:

Fly to Ecuador (or other countries...) and build a house with Habitat?

As an individual, or
With a team.

Be a long term volunteer with Habitat International?, (similar to what I am doing now);
In general, get involved with Habitat.

I have linked this entry (click the title) to the "Get involved" site on the Habitat for Humanity International website. There are also MANY links below!

Answer to Question Number 1 (Travel to another country to build):

Global Village is the primary program through which Habitat receives international-building groups. We recive groups here in Ecuador which have formed online and are made up of complete strangers, university students, church groups, interest groups etc.

Individuals can apply online to join an ¨open team."

Currently forming groups

This site has a list of currently scheduled trips all around the world!!

Groups which are already formed (friends, family, colleagues, students, churches, etc.) can create ¨closed¨ teams which are not posted online.

Team leaders must attend a Habitat Global Village leaders training before the trip.

Other ways to volunteer as a builder internationally:

If you are traveling individually, or with less than 4 people, you can contact individual international offices (such as Ecuador- ivp@hphecuador.org) to determine what work is available and how you may assist.
If a global village team is already scheduled to build in the location you are interested in, you may be able to join them.
Global Church Partnerships

Answer to Question Number 2 (Longer term, 3 months up to two years, individual international volunteer opportunities):

International Volunteer Program (IVP) is a new pilot project in which I am participating; I believe it is about to complete 2 years of existance.

Answer to Question Number 3 (In general, how to get involved with Habitat):

Find your local affiliate! (they are in every state and 100 countries)

local builds

local governing board

local family selection

local support programs

recommend a family or apply for a house

family education

local fundraising

local school, church and community relations

womens builds

blitz builds

Join or start a Campus or Youth Habitat for Humanity Chapter

Volunteer in a different domestic affiliate

Collegiate Challenge spring break trips

RV Care-a-Vanners

In Americus, Georgia, Habitat for Humanity Headquarters

Seek Habitat for Humanity Employment

Donations and Business Support

Used car donations (to be sold)
Direct financial donations (multiple manners)
Business partnerships

special builds
product and supply donations
public awareness

Biking with the "Dutchmen" from 15,000 feet!

2006-10-31T08:40:00.000-08:00

I went on a two-day trip with "The Biking Dutchmen" the weekend of the 21st-22nd of October.

The guide owner really is a Dutchman. Apparently he showed up in Ecuador 30 years ago, planning to be here only a day... and then he found his future wife (an Ecuadorian who speaks German) and eventually started this mountain biking business. (I have included a link- click on this entry's title).

Two refitted landrovers follow group of bikers around for trips of generally 1 to 5 days and provide food and simple lodging. Apparently there are also trips for a few diehard groups from Europe that do multi-week , all over the country, tours!
I needed to get OUT of the city, and this seemed like a good way to do it! This particular "tour" included downhill from the refuge parking at the Parque Nacional de Cotopaxi (Cotopaxi is the tallest "active" volcano in the world), and then down hill from Quilotoa (an awesome volcanic crater lake) and a then a bunch of ups and downs through a gorgeous valley system! (see pic above).

Below is Cotopaxi from a much lower point than our initial 15,000 feet! The terrain here is called Paramo, a highlands grasslands which is only found in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru (and maybe a bit of Chile).

This next pic was taken from the top of our decent from Cotopaxi. You can see the refuge in the background where travelers stay and sleep for a few hours before attempting to climb. The cyclists in the forground were all part of the two day trip and are from Scotland, Germany, Switzerland and Holland.

Here is the sign at our initial point of departure, citing the altitudes of the park... I have a metric/british system conversion web page included in my links on the left!

Below are some of my fellow cyclists, Hernan from Argentina and Tine from Scotland.

Here is the crater lake Quilatoa. After our Cotopaxi adventure (and my one and only dramatic fall, from which I still have some nice bruises... I am not sure I am a natural downhill biker!). Our group split, and those doing the one-day trip returned to Quito, while 14 of us continued on.... to a hostel to get some rest before the next day of biking!
The hostel, and the WHOLE town... of 20 families.... had lost electricity that night, so we had an adventure finding places to sleep in the dark. The original plan in the morning was for everyone to take a morning hike down to the crater lake, return for breakfast and go for a fairly easy downhill ride for about 35 km. We were given another choice, however, to take a longer and more challenging route, but to not have time to hike to the crater lake. Everyone decided they wanted the longer challenging ride.
Four of us decided that we ALSO wanted to hike to the cater lake, and I am glad we did! The lake was beautiful with the sunrise. We had to complete our hike by around 730am in order to get breakfast, so we started it at 6am. I decided to jump in the lake to have the full experience:-). It was COLD! No thermal vents still active in this crater (actually I am not sure)!
The days biking was absolutely awesome with views around every corner. We were on an old , barely used, dirt road that went through a few towns.

We ended our trek when the road turned to steep, unkept, cobblestone! I definately would recommend these trips to others... as long as you have spent at least some time on a mountain bike.

Path to a New Passport

2006-10-25T12:52:00.001-07:00

Losing a passport (ehhem... having it stolen by force), is definately not a travel experience many of us daydream about. However I am finding the replacement an interesting process and I hope that it ends sucessfully... in a depressingly blank, but new and good for many more years, US passport.

Step 1. Contact the local Embassy-Consulate Section.
I called the US embassy here in Quito the morning after my passport was stolen. I asked what I needed to do. I was told I needed to make a police report at the police station which covered the area where the crime took place and that I needed to bring a report to the embassy. I was told I could make an appointment for that afternoon at the consular section, however I decided to be a bit more realistic about the time it would take to make my report at the Ecuadorian police (smart thinking Erin!).. and I made the appointment for the next morning (today).

Step 2. Report the stolen Passport to the Ecuadorian Police.
This was actually more complicated... but at the same time ridiculously suferficial... of a process than one might think. First I tried to look up the coverage areas for the local police online. After many unsuccessful leads, someone remembered that our secretary´s uncle works for the Ecuadorian Police. She called him and found out there really wasn´t anything near where I was mugged. Rather I should go to the "Policia Judicial" downtown. Valeria, a co-worker, and I headed to the "mariscal" the most touristy area, and the area most full of bars, restaraunts in Quito. When we entered we thought it was the right place: lot´s of pissed off-sad people were making "denuncios", reports of robberies and other crimes. However when we described our situation and the word "extranjero" entered the conversation... it was "to the tourism police" for us.

Step 2. (Continued). Report the stolen passport to a differentEcuadorian Police.
Next we went down the street one block to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where a Tourism police attache is located. As soon as the problem was discerned at the front gate we were escorted with gusto to the third floor, which appeared to be the police lounge. This police station was much better off than the former.... nice couches, TV on, police officers lounging around and socializing. We were the only "clients" in the office at the time and were immediately seated and address. Unfortunetly, it was soon apparent that this was also not the right place. The officer was surprised to find out that I didn´t have anything, other than the passport, of much value to report. Apparently this police stations sole function is to help tourists recover insurance funds for expensive items. This officer could write me a report to be used to give to an insurance company but he assured me that I needed to go to another type of police office, "a comisaria."

Step 2 (Continued for the 2nd and last time). Report stolen passport to Policia Comisaria.
The third station was a bit further away and not in such an obvious location. We finally spotted the sign and then walked right by it again by accident. When we finally found ourselves in front of a guy with a computer... and a typewriter(!). All I had to do was tell him where I was, what was stolen, and the passport number. He didn´t ask for identification although I did show other forms of identification. It was lucky that we had made copies of the passport (although, then again... that is the only reason I had the passport with me in the first place when it was stolen), as I was able to get the number through the office. I had the number saved in other places as well... but just not with me. After paying 25 cents for the paper on which the report was going to be typed-printed (both), I was the proud owner of a "denuncio". yeah!

Step 3. Go to the Embassy for Passport Appointment.
This was an experience. I went to the Embassy this morning and there were all sorts of people waiting at the embassy this morning in the Consular Affairs section (did I really want to work at one of these!¿¿?... Foreign Service offices usually have their first two years´ assignments working in a Consular Affairs office doing VISA interviews... yikes!).. People were waiting for visa interviews... passport applications for foreign-born citizen´s etc. I actually was the only person to walk into the United States Citizen´s Passports office after going through security and then finnally figuring out which direction in the large internal office and multiple waiting rooms was appropriate. When I finnally talked to someone I found out that whoever I talked to on the phone had been obtusely incomplete in their directions (you need a "denuncio" and an appointment here). I actually needed another report, from the Ecuadorian Policia Migration Services office, varifying when I used the passport to enter the country... and that I actually did use the passport to enter the country. Also, the photos that I had planned to use for my Ecuadorian Visa before I left the states would not meet the requirements for the Passport, so I needed new photos. Lastly I needed to fill some forms and have proof of: 1. US Citizenship, 2. Indentity

Step 3. (the former will actually be Step 7). Get a Migration Services Report.
The "Servicios Migratorios" office was, of course, at the other side of town. After I left the Embassy I stopped by the South American Explorers (see side-bar link, these people are awesome) to pick up my nalgen bottle I left there on Tuesday (the fateful day of the mugging), and to check out the location of the Servicios Migratorios on the Club´s BIG map. After determining my route, I headed North. This part of the process was relatively painless, all I had to do was produce the "denuncio" and pay $5. The wait was only about 15 minutes.

Step 4. Obtain Passport Pics.
At this point it was only 11am and my appointment at the Embassy had been at 9am. I figured since I was making such good time, I should continue in pursuit of the remaining components required for the passport. The embassy had recommended a photography shop and I was familiar with the area of town, so I decided to make things simple and take their recommendation. 4 photographs, 2x2 inces, on white backing, in color, without certian types of finish ....etc, etc, etc.... $6.

Step 5. Fill out documents and Collect Proofs of Citizenship and Identity.
This doesn´t seem too bad... I am filling them out now. The problem is that an address for mailing of the passport purposes is requested... and I think I would rather pick it up. The paperwork also lists forms of Proof of Identy that are considered approipriate. It appears my driver´s license and international "youth" cards should prove sufficient for this. The problem is the "Proof of Citizenship". The list of possible proofs includes ... a passport (an old one will suffice), an original birth cirtificate, or notice of registration or proff of approved registraion in a US consular office. This is a problem: I obviously do not have the passport, because it was stolen. I don´t have my orignal birth certificate, although I suppose it COULD be sent via mail and then i would have to keep track of another document. I did register online with the US Department of State. HOWEVER, I never recieved any sort of confirmation, or proof of excepted registration. I am able to access my registered account, and all the information is there. I decided to contact the Embassy again to ask about this point.

Step 6. Contact the Embassy Again... for another appointment and to inquire about proofs of Citizenship.
So... the person I talked to at the embassy this time said.... "they can get proof here". So I made another appointment for Monday. I will also bring a copy of the former passport and the report of the registration I filed with the State Department. We´ll see how it goes... stay tuned.

"My Heart" in Santo Domingo

2006-10-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

An unexpected activity during building in Santo Domingo was the "gardening" our group did. The area the house was located had a small garden plot in the front yard and many of the other houses on the street had well-tended gardens.... so Reymundo, the house owner we worked with was excited when we offered to plant his.

Joselyn, the daughter of a "maestro" (teacher) on the worksite, and I became the planters and the two Northern Ireland guys, Mark and Andrew, became the fencebuilders (the fence-building became an epic task, see photos). As we started, I asked Reymundo how he wanted the design of the garden laid out: stripes, certain plants in certain areas?... He wanted me to put my name! "I can't do that!" I told him (that seemed really wierd, to have my name in his front yard!). Then he told me to put a big heart in the middle, to symbolize the love that was going into the house.

The plants we used in the garden came from a nearby park! Joselyn had some gardening experience and knew which plants grew from runners, so all we had to do was cut chunks off witha machete and stick them in the dirt. I had some misgivings about letting the 12 year old hack away with a machete... however it was obvious that she had more experience with the knife than I did... so I couldn't really object.

As we planted and the garden started to take shape, Reymundo was very impressed and said that the heart was mine and that I was leaving it there at his house...

Here's a photo of me, with my fellow gardener Joselyn, after we had finished our multi-colored plantings: yellow, red, and a few shades of green.

Wow. Ecuadorian Election Trivia

2006-10-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

In Ecuador, voting is obligatory once one reaches their 18th birthday.

However, once a citizen reaches the age of 65, they are no longer required to vote.

Military and national police are not allowed to vote. I am guessing this has something to do with preventing the politicization of the armed forces... there have been attempted and successful military coups.

If you do not vote, and you were supposed to (legally required to), you cannot leave the country legally, process passport-visa papers, make certain transactions at the banks... etc.

No alcohol will be legally sold in Ecuadorian liquor establishments from today (Friday, the 13th of October) until Monday, the 16th of October, because the elections will be held all Sunday.

The election workers are randomly selected citizens! This process sounds kind of like jury duty in the US. If your name is selected, you must be at your assigned table, at your precinct, in order to manage that table from 7am until 7pm! (as far as training, oversight ect... I have no idea how that part of the process works at this point).

The TSE, ¨Tribunal Supremo Electoral¨ ¨garantees¨(according to their propaganda) democracy. Here is their candidates page link: http://www.tse.gov.ec/Candidatos2006/

National Elections: This Weekend!

2006-10-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

There are 13 candidates for president of

the Republic of Ecuador

Elections will be held SUNDAY, this weekend, for President, Vice President, Diputados (“Deputies,” for congress representing the country’s “provinces” which are similar to the US states), Concejeros (similar to state representatives, but here for the provinces), Consejales (similar to city counselors) and Parlamentarios Andinos (these representing Ecuador in the multi-nation Comunidad Andina de Naciones, Community of Andean Nations). Voting is mandatory for Ecuadorian citizens over the age of 18 and is, for the first time, available for Ecuadorians who have migrated to other countries (mostly the US, Spain and Italy).

There will almost certainly be a presidential run-off; in order to win a candidate must have 40 percent of the vote and win by at least ten percent. With 13 candidates, this would be an incredible feat. Not all the candidates represent national parties; some represent alliances which gained enough support to be recognized in the elections.

There are considered to be 4 front-runners in the presidential race: Rafael Correa, Cynthia Viteri, Alvaro Naboa, and Leon Roldos. These four candidates took part in a live forum last week (see link on right if you are interested).

The woman pictured above is Cynthia Viteri. I have posted her propoganda pic, so you have an example of the typical ¨woman candidate pose.¨ Ecuadorian colors on the bracelet, over the heart, are particularly standard! Viteri is the only woman candidate among the 13 and seems to be well liked as a person. However there is much apprehension about her financial backing originating of the ¨old politicos¨, and she currently stands as fourth in national polls. She is considered to be on the right, more conservative range of the political spectrum.

The candidate pictured to the right is Naboa, the richest Ecuadorian businessman, and considered to be the farthest right of the four leading candidates. He has run in two previous presidential elections. He has been traveling around the country working hard for the ¨poor vote¨by distributing gifts and healthcare. Naboa is currently second to Correa (below) in the national polls. Naboa has spoken of cutting ties with Venesuela and Cuba if he is elected.

To the left is Correa, currently first in national polls. He definately has the most ¨catchy¨campaign with an upbeat theme song, commercials featuring a snapping belt, and the most vibrant colors: neon green and electric blue. Of the forerunners, he is the candidate most supportive of Hugo Chavez in Venesuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia. Correa is an economist who had a three month stint as the Minister of Economics, during which he established a national following. Correa obtained his doctorate in Economics in the US. Many Ecuadorians are concerned about Correa´s potencial to make irratic decisions and his general stance against any action that ¨the government¨ has previously taken. He is the only candidate of these four who has suggested he would support a change, or at least the addition of, another currency other than the US dollar (which has been used here since 1998).

Below is the candidate currently in third place in the Ecuadorian polls. He is considered a moderate left (as compared with Correa), and is the candidate of the alliance of two parties, the ¨Red Etica Democracia¨ and the Izquierda Democrática.¨ Roldos is a former Vice-president, former Deputy (congressman) and attorney by trade. His foreign policies lie somewhere in between Correa and Naboa (as do Viteri´s), and are more diplomatic in nature.

Up until about two weeks ago, 70 percent of Ecuadorians were unsure of their choice for president. I am not sure what the uncertaintly number is at this point, however it is still high enough to swing the election in a variety of directions.

This election should be very interesting as Correa, the candidate currently rated first in polls, and Naboa who is second, are the most extreme of the four in terms of their foriegn policies (however in opposite directions). Also, Correa is one of the candidates who does not represent a party, but rather an alliance. He has suggested disbanning congress and states plans for a national assembly to reconsider the national constitution.

The next round of elections (between the two finalists), will be held the 26th of November.

When the new president takes office in January, it will have been 10 years since the last time an Ecuadorian president completed a full 4-year term.

The current president is Palacios. He is not a candidate for President, he was the Vice President under Lucio Gutierrez, who was the last president elected to ofice, in 2003. Palacios was elevated to President when Gutierrez was removed during a popular uprising in 2005. Gutierrez, among other things, had tried to remove the Ecuadorian Supreme Court, . When I represented Ecuador for NMSU’s Model United Nation’s team in 2003, Gutierrez had just taken office. It is interesting to see the next phase of Ecuadorian government first hand.....!

Carmen´s Article (words from a Global Village Volunteer!)

2006-10-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is the second part of a two part article that Carmen wrote documenting her experiences with the Habitat for Humanity Global Village program. Unfortunetly I had a bit of trouble adding some of her pics, so the article is not entirely complete! Carmen was my "roomie" my first week in Ecuador, and nursed me back to health when I was pretty ill for a couple days... and then I went to the doctor with her the next day!

Have Hammer, Will Travel…Part 2

Thoughts on the Road with Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village Program

By Carmen Español

*Carmen taking a break

Take 1 Family + 1 part Sweat + 2 parts Love = 1 Habitat Home (and Global Village Community). This is the basic “recipe” of my Habitat experience. It’s hard to put into words as I sit here writing a description of the project. It was truly an incredibly amazing experience that I’ll never forget, and I am sure that my whole team would agree with me. I learned that a house is more than bricks and mortar and a building. It’s a home that represents the community of individuals that create it. I left a big chunk of my heart in a home in Santo
Domingo, Ecuador.

(*Carmen and baby Aliso)

I worked alongside the “maestros” Raymundo and Jose and 16 other Habitat volunteers from the US, Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, New Zealand and Puerto Rico, as well as the local affiliate staff of Ecuador. In the short course of our stay, we became a small “family” as we physically worked together, ate, played, and interacted with one another.

(*Pic: James Plastering)

There were many construction lessons to learn on the project – how to mix cement, how to plaster, etc. But many life lessons as well. From the children I learned that language is not necessary or required for having fun or falling in love. No directions necessary for blowing bubbles. We all fell head over heels for the children and easily had fun without knowing a word of Spanish. It was easy with the innocence and sincerity that is a wonderful quality children have. Erica, Marianela, Anita, Natalie, Andrea, Diego, Santiago, Leann, and baby Aliso’s smiles will be forever etched in my memory.

(*Pic: Erin getting water for the cement mix)

So too, will the hard work, companionship, and solidarity I witnessed from my team members – Jad, Lacy, Prissy, Betsy, Mike, Jimmy, Steve, Dave, Erin, Greg, Andrew, Marc, Francisco, Hugo, Ana Lucia, Valeria, and Narcisa be remembered. Many hands make the work light.

(*Pic: Dr. Marianela)

On Day One, I thought, I’m not gonna make it to the end of the week! I was exhausted and spent. Then we got to the hotel, showered, and were off to the welcome reception arranged by the local affiliate staff. The families and staff would all be there to meet us and get to know us. It was great to hear in our introductions, the various reasons people came and how their first day went. I was glad to hear that I wasn’t the only one who felt TIRED and then felt really proud of all our work when Hugo announced that our team had accomplished 3 days scheduled work in 1 day. We all went, WOW! Then the families shared their stories, and it felt like we were a team helping to make a dream come true. We worked together on something tangible and we could see the fruits of our labor and progress each day. The kids shining faces and hugs made all the soreness fade from memory and motivated us.

(*Pic: Greg, Prissy, Lacy & Dave taking a little siesta after lunch)

Each day we had activities planned after our work day ended and so our days were full of hard work and cultural activities. Day One we had the welcome reception and dinner with the families, Day Two a soccer match with the families (we won!) and dinner with them, Day Three a visit to the Tsachiles indigenous reservation, Day Four a visit to an orphanage for boys, and Day Five the dedication and blessing of the mostly-finished house and farewell reception. Our R&R day we had to head back to Quito, and stopped on the way back at Mindo Rainforest for hiking and rafting. Of course, we managed to squeeze in a little dancing and karaoke on a few of the days we weren’t totally exhausted.

The farewell reception with the families was joyous and wonderful, until the end. It was difficult emotionally and wrenching trying to say goodbye to everyone. We had formed attachments to the children. They were crying and clinging to us. After half an hour, the parents had to quite literally pull them off and drag them away. We were all upset, especially the guys.

I would encourage anyone reading this, to consider a volunteer vacation such as this. It is truly a rewarding and wonderful experience. Here are a few words from my team upon arrival home:

(Pic:v*Jose pulls Marianela from Ken to go home)

“I wish you all to settle back into normal life with fond memories of our team and our time in Ecuador. Never forget what we did there, and how we did it, with love.” ---Marc from Armagh, Northern Ireland

“You have certainly set the bar high for any teams I will work with in the future. Excellent team spirit, excellent hard work, excellent company and excellent memories. Please keep up your social contributions. As we saw our efforts truly change the lives of a family.” ---Jad from Washington DC

“Thank you all for making last week a very . . .very good week. Even with the rain forest experience (laughing) . . . If any of you meander your way to Chicago, please do give me a call . . . Mi casa es su casa . . .OR. . .as Jad would have said in Spanish . .. ‘My houso is your houso’, subsequently punctuated by "buEEENO!!!!!!" ---Ken from Chicago

For more information about Habitat International, go to:

http://www.habitat.org/gv/

For information on the Ecuador project, go to:

http://www.habitat.org/gv/mytrip/9201-6731

For Part 1 of this article go to page 4 of:

http://www.cpo.washington.edu/DOCMAN/WEB_FTP/DOCMANFTP/2006_Newsletter_September_20060906.pdf

Carumba! Some random things…

2006-10-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

Last summer in Peru I saw these animals kept as domestic pets, and eaten. Cui, (COO-EE) or guinea pig, is also eaten in Ecuador. I have not tried it, although I thought I would.

However, after seeing these guys being roasted, I am having second thoughts!

Here’s a flower that is blooming all over Quito right now. It looks like a type of hibiscus, but I haven’t ever seen hibiscus plants that are full -sized trees like these!

We have entered ¨Winter¨. There are two seasons in this high altitude, equitorial city of Quito: winter and summer. ¨Winter¨ apparently lasts until somewhere between March-May and is characterized by increased rains and cooler-colder weather.

From my neighborhood, three volcanos are visible, depending on the air quality and weather on a given day. Here is COtopaxi, the most famous of the three.

Provinces are named after their volcanos or mountains. I live in Pinchincha, because the primary volcano is the Pinchincha.
This is a phot taken of Quito from part-way-up the Pinchincha volcano. The was only snow on the mountain... my understanding is that it never snows in the city below. The Andes are the longest mountain chain in the world... aren´t they beautiful!?

Here is a pic of one of my favorite fruits here. It is mostly fun because it has a brittle, hard “shell” and you open it by cracking it.

The inside is full of greenish jelly filled membranes which each contain a seed (Definitely not for those of you have problems with weird textures! And I know there are several of you out there!). The seeds are kind of crunchy and the jellylike parts are sweet, (but not overly so).

So… pretty much it is an alien-fruit! (at least to me!).

Here’s an animal that was being maintained as a pet by the “Colorados” in Santo Domingo de los Colorados. It was trying to fight with a cat, a dog and its owner family! It actually bit a little boy on the ankle! I thought it looked like a cross between a mongoose and a ferret.

It is a …..? probably some type of amazon ferret? If someone knows please tell me!

There is a large public park a close walk from my apartment, “Parque Carolina”, which I was pretty excited about. It has three “zones”: the sports zone, the arobic zone, and the aquatic zone. The sports zone has playing fields and courts of all types: tennis, soccer, volleyball, basketball… a short moter-cross bike circuit along with bikes to rent, horses to rent, a skate/bike park. The arobic zone has a whole maze of exercise stations and the aquatic section has a small lake with paddle boats. You can rent a horse, a motorcross bike, or a boat in this park...

The whole park is surrounded by bike trails and walking trails with marked distances. I was happy to find so many runners at Parque Carolina my first weekend here--- I hope to have amazing lung capacity, after running regularly (still working on this part) at 9 thousand+ feet, when I return to the States!

My new favorite park, however, is the ¨Parque Metropolitano.¨ It is on a mini-mountain (so higher than 9 thousand feet) in the middle of the city! I believe I read somewhere that it is larger than Central Park in NYC!! and it does seem to be! I went running there last weekend... and my run turned into a very long exhausting hike... because I was having such a good time exploring the park! Pics to come, the views from the park are awesome (I didn´t bring my camera on my ¨run¨).

My Habitat Job

2006-10-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

I am working in the “Volunteer Development” office within the National Habitat Office in Quito.

Here’s a photo of my co-workers in the Volunteer Development department: Hugo, Jonathan, and Valeria. Valeria and I have the same birthday!—except she turned 25 and I turned 26;-).

A LOT is changing organizationally in Habitat Ecuador!... I unknowingly picked an ¨era of flux¨ as my time to arrive here! This is both exciting... and will make things more challenging.

The first change is that the national organization is consolidating affiliates, from 7 to 3, in order to achieve greater outcomes in the areas that need it most. Building will be taking place in: Guayaquil, Santo Domingo, and Tosagua. These towns-cities are in the provinces with the greatest need in terms of housing deficits and poverty. Also, Habitat Ecuador must become financially independent of Habitat International (Americus, Georgia, USA) within the next few years and they are pursuing this goal by concentrating on the areas where houses are most needed and are most easily erected in order to both conserve resources and accomplish the greatest impact.

The next change is a shift in leadership and personnel! Already, I have been to the farewell party for the current director. Hugo, former Volunteer Mobilization Church Relations Coordinator, will be our new Director... which means the Volunteer Mobilization Department is losing a person. On top of that, Valeria is finishing school and cannot travel with international brigades until February! So our office of 4 (including me), is now staffed at 2.5, and I will be traveling with brigades from the end of November until March.

This is the Habitat Office building (you can see the Habitat sign on the second floor window), and the view of the mountains from the street in front of the office.

In addition to:

a. General support within the National Office and Volunteer Development office
(I have already helped out with several translations, the annual report and project proposals), and

b. Traveling with the brigades almost non-stop beginning in November,

my job is to strengthen the volunteer program by:

(not necessarily in order of importance)

1. Define and further develop an individual volunteer program:

Expand the breadth and depth of volunteer opportunities for individuals
Create mechanisms for general and profesional volunteerism
Coordinate with all Ecuador Habitat departments to gain participation from all areas
Promote the new and expanded opportunities through national and international means

2. Improve the brigades’-general volunteers´ orientation process:

Create materials and method to convey the global, national and local housing and living conditions context in which the volunteers are working.
Educate volunteers as to the country-specific economics, politics and cultural factors which contribute to, or aggrivate, the country´s housing problems.

3. Build the international volunteer brigades program:

Increasing the number of brigades
Broadening the geographical representation of the brigades to have a greater proportion of the world represented (volunteers are currently primarily from the United States).
Creating an “alternative” brigade volunteer track for those volunteers who either feel they are not capable of building, or for times during the year that construction work may be saturated.

4. Improve volunteers´ follow-up process:

Create mechanism for volunteers to share their experiences in their home countries to be shared with their families, clubs and community orgs, friends, coworkers and classmates.
Improve follow-up communications with volunteers by creating news bulletins and other materials regarding Habitat Ecuador, and Habitat International.

Living Situation In Quito

2006-09-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

I live a short walk from the Habitat for Humanity Ecuador office, in an area which is considered the more modern part of Quito.

Quito is a very looong city, and I am in the northern region. Quito is in a valley (or actually, many valleys, but one primary one). As Quito grows is expands along the basins of the valleys

I am sharing an apartment with a 33 year old woman, Francisca, who works at one of the “Fybeca” pharmacies in town. She works a lot and is not at the apartment much. Here’s a pic of the apartment building in which we live, and the view of the city from outside our gate:

This is neighborhood about a street away from where I live:

Here is part of the inside of our apartment:

Here is the part of the house that was most confounding to me when I moved in! The shower water is heated at the point of release; there is no hot water tank.

What is the advantage of this system? We don’t ever run out of hot water.

The disadvantage? There is only so much water the shower can heat at any given point, so the water pressure can only be so high if there is to be hot water. Also, this means that the bathroom sink and kitchen also do not have hot water.

More Santo Domingo Photos

2006-09-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

Ok so here are some more of my favorite pics from our week of building in Santo Domingo. Below, the sign that hanging on the house I helped to build.

To the right is Diego, the youngest of Reymundo´s kids. I think this was his first experience with an ipod:-)!

On the left is the house that the other half of the group worked on. The primary difference between the houses was that this one has a cement brick ceiling.

This is Hugo (far left), soon to be the new Habitat for Humanity Ecuador Director, with Reymundo, two of his children, and the "Padre", a polish priest from the local church who blessed the house and the family at the house dedication.

This is Andrea and her baby (Reymundo´s grandchild). I took this picture because it was sooooo different to have young children on the worksite for me, but here it was not weird at all! The kids accompany their father where he builds frequently (as do other children with their fathers).

Building Houses in Santo Domingo

2006-09-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

My first full week here in Ecuador I was able to join an international ¨Brigade¨of volunteers building houses with Habitat for Humanity Ecuador in a town called ¨Santo Domingo de Los Colorados.¨ The town is named after an indigenous group ¨los Colorados¨who where called such by the Spaniards because they color their hair red using a local fruit´s seeds.

Below is a photo of the brigade, one house on which we worked (and almost completed), and the family that is moving in this week! This picture was taken immediately following the completed house's dedication (see the chairs to the left). I am second to last on the far right bottom.

I have lots of photos, and I am working on linking albums to this blog... this is just the beginning!

Santo Domingo is one of seven affilates in Ecuador, and is one of the three most prolific in terms of the number of houses being built. Also interesting, the city of approximately 200 thousand is the fastest growing in all of South America.

14 volunteers arrived last Saturday as a Brigade, a group of volunteers, through a program called ¨Global Village¨which is the manner in which international teams of 4 or more persons are sent all over the world to build at other Habitat for Humanity affiliates (also see my links on the right for more information). Along with a one to two week building experience, the volunteers make a donation to Habitat for Humanity International and the local affiliate and participate in cultural activities. The volunteers also participate in social activities for the Habitat families (those moving into the houses) and the community.

In addition to the global village group (2 Northern Irelanders, 11 United States residents, and 1 Puerto Rican) we were joined by two travelers (1 British and the other from New Zealand) bringing the volunteer group to a total of 16.

Starting my experience here with a week-long build was a great kick-off! We worked on two houses and finished one of them. The families help with the building throughout the entire process- this was a bit different from the US where the families have specific ¨sweat equity¨hours, but they do not necessarily do all their hours on their own house, or for the amount of time a house needs to be built. (to the right is "Reymundo" the owner of the house on which I worked)

I was thrown immediately into the position of a translator because the Brigade only had one Spanish speaker and they put each of us at one of the sites. Usually a Habitat rep, Valeria, leads the Brigades and she speaks both English and Spanish. However, she was in Argentina for a Habitat training. None of the Habitat officials (local, or the national office representative, Hugo) spoke English. So, I have now been a translator on a construction site, and at the doctor´s office (I got pretty sick one day and the next day a volunteer from the other site had a concussion).

Reymundo house was somewhat of a special case as he is employed by Habitat in Santo Domingo as a ¨maestro¨( teacher) for other Habitat builds. That meant that on this build, instead of having a Habitat teacher and the homeowner on site, he was serving as both. Reymundo had been working on his house the year before, and would have been working on it for many months (year+?) to come, had we not been able to pitch in last week. He and four of his children (ages 16, 12ish, 10ish and 8) and one grandchild (age 4 months) are moving into the house this week! They had been living ín a house with a dirt floor and with poor conditions for the children in Reymundo´s parents-in-law´s house. The 16 year old daughter quit school four years ago in order to be the mother figure for the other kids.

I have participated in many week-long builds in the United States, in particular through the ¨Collegiate Challenge¨Program, so this was somewhat similar to those experiences. However, the houses are quite different in that we learned to make cement by hand, lay a cement floor by hand, lay cement bricks, and spackle a bathroom and kitchen (well, I was actually sick during the brick laying). Not included in a Habitat House here are: paint, glass windows, or appliances. The houses do have running water and some electricity. Other differences are that, usually, in order for Habitat to build here in Ecuador (and other Latin American countries), the family has to already own their land. In the US, usually the land is part of the interest-free loan cost.

Because in Santo Domingo there are A LOT of squaters, approximately 20 thousand (10 percent!, out of 200 thousand total residents), none of these families are eligible at this point for a full Habitat House. HOWEVER, and this was pretty exciting, Habitat has started a micro-loan program so that families can improve their dwellings and begin to build credit so that they will likely have a decent place to live before the 20 years it takes to own your land. Within the first three months of the micro-loan program in Santo Domingo, there are already over 46 participating families. Quito is also starting a micro-loan program.

During the last fiscal year, Habitat Ecuador had 13 international brigades and several domestic brigades (primarily from churches). There is also a large High School volunteer project-- all students must have 120 hours of volunteer service in order to graduate here! (Habitat is only one of MANY organizations with which the high school students work; because they usually are all volunteering during one or two weeks as groups, it is too difficult to have work for all the students at once).

Delayed Departure for Quito

2006-09-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

Despite plans to leave the US on the 28th of August, I only arrived in Quito on September 7th! I had numerous problems in my quest to obtain a visa... and then at the final hour, I did not receive my passport back from the Ecuadorian Consulate.

According to all Ecuadorian Consulates in the US, visitors planning to be in the country for longer than 6 months (90 days as a tourist, plus one 90 day extension) must get some sort of non-tourist VISA. I tried to comply with this as my original plan was to be here for 10 months...

The Ecuadorian Consulate which services New Mexico residents is in Houston, Texas. I planned a trip to this consulate for about 2.5 weeks before my trip. (The consulate said I HAD TO appear in person, and that they were open every day, 9am-3pm).

Habitat for Humanity in Ecuador sent me a packet of documents after I requested them and I prepared by obtaining my certificate of health, police record (0), financial docs, etc. When I arrived in Houston, problems arose almost immediately. I called the consulate to see if there was a preferable time between 9 and 3 for me to appear. The office, however, was going to close early in celebration of the national day of independence, the next day. I was the last person permitted to enter the office that day and my buffer day, friday, was worthless due to the national holiday. The consulate reception, up until I left the office, was still not informing people that they would be closed the next day ¨we´re open every day, 9-3¨ they said... oh, you want to come tomorrow? we´re closed tomorrow¨

The second problem (after the holiday confusion) was that being the first volunteer to need a VISA with Habitat for Humanity (HFH) Ecuador, the office had never prepared the paperwork before. Signitures that needed to be originals were not, seals that needed to be present were not, letters which were supposed to be on letterhead were not. The consulate did not issue the VISA.

I tried to contact HFH Ecuador, along with the help of the US international office and the Latin American office, on Monday because I was still in Texas and was considering extending my stay if we could somehow produce the correct documents. The Consulate said if they could recieve word from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Quito that they had recieved the documents from HFH Ecuador, that they would issue the VISA. We couldn´t get back word from Quito, however, that this would be possible during the week and the international office recommended that I return to NM. I also was able to convince the consulate to let me request the VISA via mail, since they had already seen all of my documents and I had arrived in person. The Habitat office in Quito still only had to bring their documents, with original signatures, to the Ministry of Foriegn Affairs in Quito.

I returned home to Santa Fe and sent all the required documents via express mail (overnight and certified), with a return express mail pre-paid envelope. The Habitat office in Quito assured me and the international office that they would take the documents to the Ministry of Foreign affairs and have them contact the Houston Consulate. Apparently the documents were eventually taken to the Ministry... however, the ministry would not accept them and said they would requrie additional documents which the Habitat Ecuador office said they would not be able to prepare until after the 15th of September.

At this point I had requested that the Houston Consulate send my passport back to me! I wanted to at least make my flight and go for 6 months, or figure out a way to stay once I arrived in Quito. The Houston Consulate told me they were sending the passport on the Tuesday before the Monday I was scheduled to leave. They said they would send it that afternoon (in my pre-paid, express mail envelope). On Friday, I had not received the passport and I called to find out what had happened. They still had not sent it.... but said they would ¨ahorita¨, ¨right now.¨ It was before 3pm and express mail is guaranteed to arrive the next day if it is sent by 3pm (even on a Sunday). I thought it would arrive Saturday... until it did not show up as registered online. On Sunday when I had still not recieved the mail, I had to change my flight. I changed it sufficiently so that if the consulate had still not sent it, that I could ask friends or family in the Houston area to pick it up and send it themselves.

The passport finnally arrived on the Tuesday after my originally planned Monday flight. So... now I am here and ready to share my adventures. I may be in Ecuador for less time than originally planned, due to the lack of VISA... however there will still be plenty to convey.

I now find out that one of the reasons the Ecuador office did not seem to concerned about the possibility of not aquiring the VISA is that Valeria, which whom I will be working most closely, has various friends from other South American Countries, in particular Argentina, who leave and come back to Ecuador every 3 months and that they have now problems. I think this is likely a South American-specific phenomenon for three reasons 1. When I arrived in Quito and told the customs agent that I was going to be in the country for 3 months, she looked at me critically and checked each page of my passport and asked if I had ever been in the country before. I haven´t, so I told her no. After checking each page she stamped my passport. 2. When I visited the consulate in Houston there was a family thre getting the same VISAs which I was trying to obtain. This family told me that they would not be able to return to Ecuador for one year if they did not get their VISAs. 3. The only consistant information which I recieved from any of the consulates was that I COULD NOT obtain a visa while in the country (which remains to be seen, I seem to read information to the contrary in online unofficial sites) and that after 6 months it was required to have a VISA in order to not be given a large fine upon leaving the country.

A few other interesting facts about this adventure--- No one in the Houston Consulate spoke English... it was kindof funny, the first guy looked at my police report and said ¨que es esto¨ (what is this?) even though it is a document that they request and must recieve all sorts of versions every day! (maybe). Also, apparently no one in my volunteer program (which, granted is only about 1.5 years old) has actually obtained a VISA in ANY of the countries where it exists... however obtaining one was listed as one of the required expenses to participate. Everyone else has just been leaving and returning to their countries....

A Few Words on Ecuador's Geography

2006-08-31T17:26:00.000-07:00

Ecuador is the size of Colorado, is nested between Columbia and Peru, and is one of the smallest countries in South America.

Despite its relatively small size, Ecuador has an INCREDIBLY diverse landscape! Within its boundaries are four distinct natural geographic zones:

(As someone who majored in environmental science... this is pretty exciting~!)

The Andes (violet)
The Amazon (green)
The Coast (yellow)
The Galapagos Islands (blue)

Quito, the Nation's capital city, is located in the Andes at an altitude of over 9,000 feet and is surrounded by towering mountains and volcanoes!

The Equator lies approximately 18 miles to the north of Quito. I'm sure I will be visiting the site of the "center of the world" during my stay in the country.

About 80 miles to the south of the city, the Tungurahua Volcano has erupted several times this summer and .... just erupted again the 17th of August! The agricultural villages at the base of the volcano were evacuated; hundreds of acres of crops were covered in ash. Predictions of further volcanic activity include a possible larger eruption from the Tungurahua volcano sometime within the next year.

Stay tuned, as this is only the pinpoint beginning for this blog...

Moving to Quito, Ecuador!

2006-08-31T15:03:00.000-07:00

An Introduction to My Adventure

Next week I'm moving ...

(a happy and sad face during my last day at work).

from Santa Fe, New Mexico

to Ecuador.

I will be living in the capital city, Quito, and volunteering for Habitat for Humanity International as a "Volunteer Coordinator." I'll be the first "long term" volunteer (longer than a few weeks) for the national organization in Ecuador. See my links (right) for Habitat for Humanity International's website and related sources.

My original plan was to volunteer for 10-11 months, returning next summer in July or August. Due to some Visa complications, the time period may change. (see my next blog entry for why these plans may be changing).

Whatever happens, the setting of my adventure will be particularly interesting due to its geography, politics, and current social movements.

I will use this blog to share my experiences relating to volunteering with an international non-profit, exploring all Ecuador has to offer, and thoughts on the local culture and politics.

Please ask about anything which inspires questions, or if there is anything I neglect in my posts!