National Symphony and....EARTHQUAKE

Friday night was the night to get cultural. After dressing up (so what if everyone just wants to wear every article of clothing they brought with them to Ecuador?!?), we went to the Duke office at night to enjoy colada morada and guaguas de pan. Colada morada is an extremely thick, sweet drink with lots of fruit and sugar and is el color morado, the color purple. Traditionally, the indigenous people created a form of colada, but it was corn based, and used it to give thanks to all of their Gods. However, when the Spanish conquistadoras arrived, they changed the tradition just in time to give thanks to the Catholic God. The color was also changed to purple because the color purple signifies death in the Catholic religion. We also had guaguas de pan, which is bread in the shape of a little baby and filled with sweet jellies (guagua means baby in Quechua, the language that the indigenous people here still speak). Guaguas de pan were also indigenous traditions and were used as offerings to their dead. When a loved one died, they would stick a doll made out of dough in the ground to show the burial site. It also had another significance- to offer food to the dead person (the indigenous believed there was life after death and that the dead would need food for their future lives). Both guaguas de pan and colada morada are the traditional dishes that are served on Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is November 2nd. On this day, families traditionally traveled to the cemeteries and pray and offer food to their deceased loved ones. However, the holiday is much more important to the indigenous people, while most Ecuadorians (but not all) use the holiday to vacation at the beaches.

Guaguas de pan!

Me, Kaitlyn, and Hannah with our guaguas

After eating the sweet treats, we all piled into a tiny van and drove to La Casa de la Música to see the National Symphonic Orchestra of Ecuador perform. The classical music they played (including Schindler's List and pieces by Mozart, Weber, and Verdi) was beautiful.

Saturday morning I tried out my new alarm...AN EARTHQUAKE!! Right before 9am my entire bed shook violently back and forth for a couple of seconds. I was too surprised to be scared so it was just really exciting! Later I found out that it was a 4.0 and another earthquake had also occurred that same day. After my exciting morning, I spent the rest of the day with my host mom and her extended family (my host dad's sister's extended family...so confusing) in Tumbaco, which is near Cumbaya. We spent the rest of the day talking, eating, and drinking (including lots of guaguas de pan and homeade colada morada). Following a long day of speaking and listening to Spanish, I went out to the Foch with some of my gringo friends. Most people were dressed up since it was the Saturday before Halloween and we found it to be really interesting how most Ecuadorians go the scary route instead of the slutty route (thank god). Since we didn't have scary costumes, my girlfriends and I tried to scare away creepy guys by using some choice dance moves and singing voices. Unfortunately, I think others mistook our horrible dance skills for bad gringo dancing and STILL asked us to dance. #gringoproblems

Puppies, Postre Pizzooki, Película, y Pizza!

After a long week of classes, Thursday was a day to de-stress. After class I went to Luis’ house because his two golden retrievers just had 9 puppies! They only opened their eyes about 4 days before we saw them, so they were still really tiny. 

Me with the cutest thing in the world (besides Emma, of course)

 
At night, I invited all of the girls in the program over to my house for a movie night. At first we ordered pizza and then we made a Pizzookie, which is a doubled recipe of chocolate chip cookies pressed into a small pan, barely baked, and then covered with two tubs of vanilla ice cream on top. The idea is to eat the whole thing because you can't save it and although it was probably THE most delicious thing I’ve had, we all felt sick afterward from eating so much. Regardless, it was completely worth it just to witness our excitement when we plopped the first tub of ice cream on top. After stuffing ourselves, we finished girls' night by watching Moulin Rouge.

"When the ice cream dropped"

With the 2 tubs of ice cream. Pure bliss

The painful aftermath.

The Amazon Cont'd - DD'ing Shamans and Pickup Trucks

When we woke up in the morning at 5:30am for our morning canoe ride, we were surprised to find that the shaman had just stopped his chanting about 20 minutes before. We then had the pleasure of DD'ing the shaman back to his house because, yes, he was too drunk to paddle himself back to his house. When we dropped him off at his beach, he was using both oars to walk and could not walk straight. Who else can say that they've seen a walk of shame shaman style??

After we dropped off the shaman, we continued on a beautiful canoe trip as the sun rose.

After a big breakfast, we split into three groups and went on a 4-hour walk through the jungle. Unfortunately, we didn't space out enough, so we weren't able to see any big animals, but it was still beautiful.

One of the guides creating a purse- solely from leaves!

In the middle of our hike. It was so hot!

After our walk, everyone was happy to return to the beach from the day before. After splashing around for a while, Juan permitted us to go back to the community…by floating in the river. Several locals were a little baffled to see 20 gringos bobbing about in the river, and it is probably because they knew that the river was contaminated with oil and contained anacondas (although they told us that they were further downstream). Still, "When in the Amazon...."

After canoeing back to the bus, we drove for another two hours and arrived at the same hotel from Thursday in Lago Agria. After a couple of days roughing it in the Amazon, the soft bed, AC, hot showers, and flat-screened TV's were a slight step up.

Sunday morning we went on a "Toxic Tour" of the different oil spills caused by Chevron-Texaco. For an awesome summary of the Chevron-Texaco case, read the article written by Noah, one of my friends in the program. First we went to the first pump that Chevron-Texaco had, which still produces 27 barrels per day.

The first oil pump

After this, we drove to different sites around the region and Hannah, Noah and I had the distinct pleasure to ride in the back of a pickup truck. Other than almost getting hit by another car, it was a much better than the stifling bus.

At the next site we saw a "piscina" which is the place where the dump the extra oil and other gross materials that they didn't need. This was one of the sites that Chevron-Texaco had paid to clean up and although at first it seemed perfectly healthy (with green trees everywhere), after our guide dug one shovelful of dirt up, we could see that the site was the opposite from clean.

Shining dirt filled with petroleum

The dirt was actually shining it was so iridescent with oil. When we took a whiff of the dirt, it smelled like we were sniffing straight gasoline.

The next site was even more shocking. We went to a large clearing covered with ferns, but from the black ground, it was obvious this piscina had not been cleaned up. The guide walked into the pit (the entire pit moved when he walked on it) and stuck a stick into the pit to show the depth. As you can see from the photo below, it was probably about 8-9 feet deep.

Showing the depth of the piscina

He used gloves and picked up the black goo and when he was done, he threw his gloves into the pit. Seeing our shocked faces, he explained that he used to bring the gloves home and put them in his trash until the trash company contacted him and told him that they couldn't recycle any of his trash because the gloves were contaminating all of it. I think that shows pretty well how toxic the stuff inside the pits is.

There was a pipe inside the pit that used to drain directly to the river. Although it no longer drains to the river, we walked down to the stream to see for ourselves. Upon first site, the stream looked completely clean. After the guide stuck a stick in the stream, little black and iridescent bubbles appeared on the surface. He wiped his hand on the surface and his glove came up oozing black goo. What is even sadder is that the oil company paid to “clean up” this site. In a news interview, some of the men from the oil company came to the river, boasting about how clean it was. After some environmentalists did the same thing our guide did, they asked the oil guys if they wanted water. They quickly responded that they had brought bottles of water, but thanks. In general, I really enjoyed the Toxic Tour because it was fascinating, albeit sad, to see the impacts of poor oil drilling techniques firsthand.

As of this far, this was my favorite trip because we got to spend so much time in nature with simple and endearing people while learning some environmental science at the same time.

Trip to the Amazon

Last weekend, we got to take advantage of one of the unique aspects of Ecuador and traveled with the program to the Amazon! Thursday morning we met the bus at 4:50am and spent most of the day in limbo (aka in a sleepy stupor). We arrived at Lago Agria and had lunch, which was followed by everyone's favorite-a charla. Luckily this talk was actually interesting because it concerned Chevron-Texaco, the oil spills, and the subsequent case that has been going on since 1992.

After lunch we drove the remaining two hours to a river where we all piled into canoes.

The group enjoying the canoe ride

We rode in the boats for 30 minutes through a beautiful sunset until we arrived at the Sequoyan community, where we would be staying for two days.

The Sequoya people speak their own language, Tucanoan, and all of the kids under age nine don't even speak Spanish, only their native tongue. The entire campsite was lit with candles because there was no running electricity, although there was a toilet that sometimes flushed and a sink that sometimes worked.

Our little tent village (#wannabeK-ville)

We quickly learned that the community was just starting their eco-tourism business and that before, they had only had groups of 5-7 people while we were a group of 25. In general, we all agreed that this made the experience much better than San Clemente, who have turned tourists into objects of money and treat the entire experience like a business. Instead, the Sequoya people were much friendlier, down to earth, and willing to share their culture with us. Although it was a little hard to sleep in the extreme humidity and heat (even at night), everyone went to sleep early.

We woke up before 6am in the morning (although I doubt anyone would want to stay in the sauna-like tents past sunrise) in order to walk through the Amazon forest in hopes of seeing pumas and monkeys. We walked along the "puma trail" for about 30 minutes and although we didn't see any animals (traveling in a group of over 25 people probably had something to do with it...), the trees and greenery were mind boggling-ly pretty and fascinating to witness.

Into the jungle!

After breakfast, we spent the rest of the day under the shade of the main building. First we got our faces painted with berries and sticks to make us feel a little more legit.

The berries used as paint

Cesar painting my face

Hannah, Melody, Luis, Me, and Katie S with our painted faces

We also received a pottery lesson using clay. from an elderly woman from the community. Although the rest of the group was mostly successful, I couldn't make a bowl or plate to save my life. Needless to say, this woman is a pro...it was so much harder than it looked!

We also made jewelry from string and little seeds from the forest that we poked holes in.

Making jewelry

Additionally, we got to try our hand at crushing corn with a huge, heavy wooden paddle. They told us that the entire process takes over an hour! Some of the group practiced with a huge blow-dart gun, but it was so hot that I couldn't even take the two steps from under the building into the sun to try it (I'm guessing that with the heat-index, it was 110 degrees).

Throughout the entire day, several women had been preparing the cazabe (yucca that's pancake-thin). First they grated about 25 huge yuccas by hand, then squeezed the meat by hand, and then dried it again using a towel like thing to squeeze out all of the juice. Finally, they sifted the dried yucca until it looked like cheese and spread it over a large pan over a fire. The entire process literally took all day.

Front: about half of the grated yucca. Back: sifting the yucca

Cooking the pancake-like yucca over a fire

After chowing down, we piled into the canoes again and drove to a nearby beach on the river. Although the first day everyone remarked about how they would never go in the water, which was dark brown and rumored to be filled with piranhas and anacondas, everyone stripped down to play in the river.

After swimming for about 30 minutes, we split up to go back to the community. I got to ride in a small wooden canoe with three other people. The ride back was extremely tranquil and we were even able to see about 20 monkeys in the trees! Apparently the other groups also saw a pink dolphin, which are endemic to the Amazon region.

Later, after dinner, we got to see another indigenous medicine ceremony by the local shaman (luckily no cuyes [guinea pigs] were harmed in the process). The shaman was dressed to impress and performed the healing ceremony on two members of the group. The process involved shaking a branch of leaves over his or her head for 20 minutes while chanting/singing in a different language. Most importantly, the shaman also smoked like a chimney and drank several glasses of rum throughout the process. Afterward, he gave them a bowl of crushed plants to drink, but I don't think he really diagnosed them.

Bethany being healed by the shaman

Although we went to bed, the shaman continued to serenade us ALL night long while he continued to drink and heal people...

Beachin' It

I decided to take a vacation from the city life and head to the beach with a group of my friends. On Thursday night, we caught a bus at 10:30pm (yes, the p.m. is correct) and rode the bus for ELEVEN hours. Although the bus ride wasn't terribly fun, we arrived Friday morning to a small, and very cloudy, beach town called Canoa. We checked in to our hostel and then ate breakfast with another group of gringos who were also studying abroad in Quito. After a long run on the beach (a wonderful break for my lungs from the high altitude of Quito), we read in hammocks on the beach, even if it was cloudy and cold. At night we cooked pasta at our hotel, which was cheap and delicious.

With our homeade meal!

Saturday morning I went for another long run and then spent the rest of the day alternating between eating and reading on the beach. Unfortunately, we had bad luck with the weather and there was 0 sunshine all weekend. Still, it was perfect to have a relaxing weekend sans the sunburn.

Sunday morning we woke up early and caught a bus at 7:30am (which is apparently the only bus in Ecuador that actually leaves early). The long bus ride back (8 hours) gave me plenty of time to read the entire 7th Harry Potter book.

El teleférico and family time

I decided to spend another weekend in Quito since we actually had homework to do and no one else wanted to travel (it was kinda sad to finally have work to do...although considering the semester is almost halfway over, doing a presentation about about food in Ecuador and the indigenous communities isn't really THAT bad). Friday was the Ecuador vs. Venezuela soccer game and the majority of my friends went to the game, which was apparently epic-ly fun.

On Saturday morning I woke up and went to the teleférico, which is like a ski lift that lifts you up to the Pinchincha mountain. You start at 2,950m and rise all the way up to 4000m! There are two different mountains that you can climb once the teleférico drops you off, Rucu Pinchincha and Guagua Pinchincha, which is an active volcano that erupted in 2001. The girls I went with didn't really feel like hiking, so we spent a lot of time talking, although we did walk around for about 45 minutes. All of the views were absolutely beautiful and you could see ALL of Quito!

Chelsea, Bethany, Phoebe, Me, and Melody about to go up the teleférico

View from inside the car

View from the top

When I got home, Pablo and his entire family came over for lunch. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and talking. My favorite part of spending the weekend in Quito is spending time with Pablo and his children!

On Sunday morning, we woke up early and my host family, Martin (Pablo's son), and I all crammed in the car and drove to Cumbaya, where Pablo and his family live. After a tour of Pablo's house (which was really sweet), we went to Paulino's sister's house in Puembo. Their house was also huge and resides on an old hacienda, so it is a huge property. Other than the pool, pond, and orchard, the house is also on the edge of the mountain and has a beautiful view. We hung out out at their house and then met Pablo and his family at their country club in Puembo. Although I was supposed to go swim in the club pool, we ended up just eating lunch and hanging out all day at the beautiful club. The highlight of the trip was when Emiliano (the middle grandchild) took me to visit and pet the horses. There were about 40 horses and all of them were so pretty and sweet!

San Clemente: Indigenous Prom and Cooking in the Dirt

Saturday morning we woke up before 6am (oh, how late!) and helped make fried plantain empanadas. Next we all donned indigenous outfits and had our version of a prom photo montage.

Me, Kaitlyn, Katie, Katy, and Jacqueline

Jacqueline, 2 of our host siblings, and me

We helped prepare all of the food (choclo, peas, more peas, sweet potatoes, potatoes, pineapple, chicken and pork wrapped and tied in leaves, cabbage and plantains) and dig the hole for the food.

After layering ALL of the food with hot rocks from the fire, we covered it in dirt and a small band began to play a song and stomp in a circle around the dirt. Everyone joined in the stomping dance and we did this for 30 minutes. An hour and a half later, we did the same thing again.

Adding hot rocks to the oven in the ground

Dancing and stomping on the soil over the "oven"

You have to wait until all of the dirt is flat because this signifies that the food is cooked. The total ceremony, called Pachamanca which is also to welcome the fall season, and cooking process took a little over two hours.

ALL of this food fit in the hole in the ground!

  After another short ceremony, we feasted and then siesta'ed. Later that night, we had a talk about indigenous medicine. First the midwife of San Clemente gave a presentation about child birthing in the community. It was really interesting because in indigenous communities, the mothers give birth standing on their knees while the father holds their arms for support. Additionally, after they give birth, the midwife massages the mother's abdominal area for up to a month to ensure that her body stays healthy. Next, we watched (and two members of our group participated) la limpia, which is where a medicine man uses a guinea pig to absorb the problem or illness and then observes its body to diagnose the person. It was kinda sad because it died when it was violently rubbed over the person's body.

The guinea pig being rubbed all over my friend Luis

Observing the body (the skin is floating in the water)

 Later in the night, we attended a "concert" with the same band that had played at the Pachamanca. It was pretty hilarious because they played the same song from the ceremony...9 different times (to be fair, there were different lyrics, but they're in Kitchwa, which we don't know).

Sunday morning we woke up and helped make plantain empanadas. Jacqueline and I actually shaped, flattened, and formed and folded all of the 50ish empanadas (#gringawin). Preparing breakfast took more than two hours and afterward, we all had a goodbye ceremony. We sang a goodbye song for them (we may or may not have sang Wagon Wheel. Oh whatever, it's basically a goodbye song...it has a slow tempo!) and they gave each of us a rainbow scarf, which symbolizes the indigenous struggle. Next, we rode the bus to Cotacachi-Cayapas, an ecological reserve with a giant volcano. We took a boating tour on what I thought was a giant lake, but it turned out that we were INSIDE of the volcanic crater of the active volcano, volcán Cuicocha! The lagoon formed 3,000 years ago after an eruption and the water was crystal clear and comes from snow melt and rain. Since there is no true bottom (it just drops off), there are no fish, but you can see the bubbling from the gas from the volcano. Afterward, we drove to Otavalo for lunch and for a short shopping spree in the famous market. More importantly, we convinced the program director to buy us all pie from the famous pie shop. Free pie? Yep, a great end to a fantastic weekend :)

San Clemente: I like to plow it, plow it!

Thursday morning we met at Hotel Quito at 6am in order to leave for San Clemente, which is a small indigenous town of about 80 families that is located 4 hours north of Quito. We stopped for breakfast at Café de la Vaca and ate a great meal. You could also see the Cayambe Volcano from outside the restaurant







After another hour in the bus, we arrived in San Clemente. We were welcomed with a HUGE community lunch where each family brought a different dish.

After pigging out and taking a short descañso, we went on a two hour hike around the entire pueblo. We saw several haciendas (which were enormous) and learned about how the indigenous people used to work basically as slaves on the huge haciendas. The dueño lived in Quito and would require the indigenous people to walk all the way to Quito with crops and animals to sell. Since the walk was two days and the indigenous people were already overworked, it was common that one of them would die. It was mind boggling to think that this system was only abolished about 30-40 years ago. Here's a pic of a hacienda:

Next we all met our host families for the weekend. My friend Jacqueline and I stayed with Matias and his wife Magdelena, and their four kids (ages 7-14). We helped a little bit with dinner and since we were so exhausted, we went to bed.

The next morning, we woke up at the butt-crack of dawn (5:15am) to help make breakfast. We helped make tortillas on a pan over a little fire.

Next we all met in a field, removed our shoes (don't think about the cow poop...or sheep poop...or pig poop...) and absorbed the sun's energy. We all got to try our hand at tilling the field with a wooden til attached to two cows and under the guidance of an indigenous man. It was really hard!

After everyone got a chance to plow, we had a charla about working the land and dreams and their connection to cosmovision. We also talked about how technology had both positively and negatively affected the community; for example, all of the houses have indoor water and plumping whereas before all of the women and children would go to the river to gather the water. Romantic matches were created and there was better communication within the entire village, but on the other hand, now the townsfolk have more time to dedicate to more important things.

Next, we all piled in the bus and rode to a sacred mountaintop for a ceremony and another communal lunch. The view was beautiful, although the sunburn wasn't quite as cool.

The mountain one which we had the ceremony was on top of ancient Incan ancestors that was buried by the Spanish. When the Spaniards conquered parts of Latin America, they buried native temples in order to conquer and erase the former culture. The ceremony involved everyone sharing one desire or thing they were thankful for and drinking out of the same gourd and was to celebrate the beginning of the fall solstice.

After we arrived back in San Clemente (all of us were exhausted and sunburnt) we had to help prepare for the Temazcal, or the sweat lodge ceremony. We hung out by the fire for two hours while the fire (filled with rocks) heated up.

My friends Jacqueline, Katie, Kaitlyn, and Noah warming up by the fire

Here's a pic of the actual hut:

All 25 of us crowded in the tiny hut and they shoveled in glowing rocks and added water. Although they added different herbs and it was supposed to be a time for reflection and welcoming the fall season, it was actually the worst two hours of my life. It was extremely hard to breathe and anyone that knows me knows that my biggest fear is not being able to breathe. Still, the other students in the group loved the experience, and it WAS very interesting...