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| The place where we stayed was an ecological station. |
What’s better than having to wake up at 5:45 am on Friday after a late night out ? Nothing. We had to wake up nice and early to go to the coast, which was about an 8 hour bus ride (I slept through most of it). We stopped in Atacames to eat some food, which was… well it was sorta a bad experience for me (and my friend Dita). We thought we would share our food, I was going to get pasta with mariscos and she was going to get ceviche because we both hadn’t eaten it yet. The ceviche was good, but we had no idea that the pasta with fish was going to be so massive! And that it was going to have soo many baby squids!! We both sorta lost our apitite after we saw them…and did I mention that there were not one, not two, but three HUGE shrimps. Well I love seafood, but this…this was something that I had never experienced in my life and has made me think twice about seafood. Well after this interesting lunch Dita and I felt a little down, so we went on a hunt for ice cream, which we were able to find, praise the lord. We arrived at our site and the first thing we saw was mud, and more mud and then muddddddd. We were then told that we needed rubber boots because of all the mud we would be walking through...oh yeaa we came during wet season is what we were told, a fact that would have been good to know BEFORE we got there. About 45 minutes later we changed into our shorts, and boots ( they had to lend me some) and off we were to go see the near by town called Bunche. The town is pretty small and pretty poor, most people there live from what they farm and our guide, Andres, explained that this was due to the shrimp bust that really hit the people there and in the surrounding areas. After that pleasant walk we went to the beach, got in, threw mud all over the place, and then headed back to the site. We shower, had dinner with all these German volunteers that were also staying at the biological site, and then headed off to see the very anticipated Ecuador vs. Colombia partido. In case you didn’t know Ecuadorians (I am generalizing) don’t really like Colombians, because the thought is that they bring a lot of the violence over to Ecuador. Well we saw some of the first half and then the Germans came over and invited us to their bonfire, and so we left the game and went to chill by the beach with Germans around a bonfire and then went to sleep.
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| On our way to the monkeys. |
Once again we had to wake up at 5:45 am, but we were all soo excited to go see monkeys!! We got into a motorboat and went to go see monkey, mangroves, and learn about king tides, the life cycle of shrimps, mangroves and other interesting things about the shrimp farm industry and how the 1989 shrimp bust gravely effected Ecuador’s economy and the lives of the people in these areas. Then we came back to the bus, changed into our bathing suits, had trouble getting the bus driver to leave so we could change (he ended up staying in…) and then got into another boat and went to the island of Muisne. We had dinner and then got into the water and although there was no sun, we had a great time at the beach and some people played soccer with the locals. After words we went to this bar/marimba presentation which was fine, they even asked some of us to dance with them, and then they went to change for the second dance. And this is when things got interesting. The girls came out with short skirts and little tops, and when they started dancing it was pretty sexual and of course I would get picked to dance this one and not the first one. Well it actually wasn’t too bad, we were all laughing until the little 7-year-old boy tells me to get down and lay there. All the girls sort of just looked at each other, and then slowly went down. Once I saw the little boy get down and crawl towards me I laid down and covered my eyes, because I had seen what was going to do down (he was directly on top of me doing a thrusting movement). We all experienced a little cultural shock that night. However, Andres had told us that the number of teenage pregnancy was high here because of the lack of education, but he also pointed out that education was free but most of the people there didn’t really see it’s value. Yeah they could go to school, but then if they wanted to go to college they would have to leave and go to a big city, but how could they pay for that? They couldn’t. So why waste time learning, when they could be helping around the house, get a job, and wait until they meet a guy and reproduce. It was a different side of Ecuador that I value because up till this point we have been in the big city.
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| MONKEYS!! They actually started to throw their fisis at us...that's when we decided that we should leave. |
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| These were some of the illegal shrimp farms that we had to walk through to go see the monkeys. |
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| Jameson and I after we had some more breakfast on some beach. |
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| Jamie and Scott on a triciolo in Muisne. |
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| The first presentation of Marimba was really cool. |
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| This girl was the best, she knew how to dance sooo well...I was a tade jealous. |
October 10th :
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| One of many pictures we took. |
Woke up, ate, and then got on the bus. Now I know it took us about 8 hours to get to Esmeraldas (the region) but it took us about 12 hours to get back to Quito, no joke. In part if was because we kept stopping to get snacks, buy souvenirs in Atacames, food, and bathroom breaks. About 2/3 of the way back we sorta went wild on the bus, and started taking pictures, playing games, and sticking our heads out of the windows. This is more or less around the time that we decided we were close like a family but cooler, hence we became a band! Oh yea, we are tight like una familia but we rock like a band ;) I tried to do some reading, and I was half successful. Anywho once I got home I skyped with my parents, showered, and then hit the sack.
October 13th:
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Elizabeth and Malcolm blowing thier candle! |
Well this was Malcolm and Elizabeth’s 21st cumpleanos!! We decided to go to a Mexican restaurant in El mariscal aka Plaza fosh then went out to dance. We went to El Bungalow and the bouncers were like, “its ladies night” which apparently meant we got in for free, drink were free until 10pm, and we could go to the dance floor. The guys on the other hand, had to go in threw another door, and wait upstiars until 10pm when they were allowed to join the ladies on the dance floor. This was a good night, and the birthday people seemed to have had a great time J
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| Ummm foood and friends!! |
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Me and the birthday boy!! |
October 14th:
I went to go see the office of an organization where I think I am going to do my Integrative Cultural Research Project (ICRP) called Asamblea permanente de derechos humanos (APDH) and the people there were super excited to have me, it also helped that they had a Geneva (a girl from kalamazoo) volunteer there and she did a lot for the organization. I had talked to Geneva and when I told them about that they were like “ you know her? Ahhh that’s good to know” and so I think I definitely have an “in”. I then went to classes until 5pm and then came home ate, and slept until 6am the next day.
October 15th:
I went to go visit another organization called Fundacion regional de asesoria en derechos humanos, but the people there weren’t as thrilled to see me, and we tried to see if there was enough work for me there and she said she was going to e-mail me and let me know. The next day I check my e-mail and she sent an e-mail saying she didn’t think she had enough time to “train” me and that she would need me to help out with more hours starting this month, but seeing as I still have classes to do I don’t think its going to work out with them. This was another chill night, we went to el mariscal but just chilled at a swarma place and then went home.
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