Ecuadorian Adventure!

This weekend we took a trip to Dos Mangas, a community near the coast famous for its agriculture and artisans. We took a four-hour hike through the forest to get to a waterfall, and thankfully this time we did not get lost! Thank goodness for professional guides! The waterfall was amazing and we had the opportunity to climb up it. Our guide showed us all the local medicinal plants and taught us about the local flora and fauna. I feel like I don’t even have to go to the Amazon to learn about the jungle! The next day, we went to two artisanal workshops: one was about weaving panama hats and the other about making jewelry from tagua. At the first, we soaked and dyed palms—the same as used at Palm Sunday mass—which we weaved together to make little pendants. These palms are also used to make hats, bags, and much more. The second workshop was about tagua, a stone-like palm seed used to make jewelry. They showed us how to refine and polish tagua and they made little keychains inscr...

This weekend, we took a trip with Ukuay Pacha, a group that works with local givernment and schools to educate young poeple about environmental issues, to a little beach town called La Entrada. This weekend functioned as an introduction to the group and to the town so that we could start really volunteering soon. La Entrada only has about 400 families living there. It is a very tight-knit and welcoming community. A student who came late just asked around for a group of gringos and everyone knew exactly where to send him. Needless to say, it's not really a tourist destination. The education program is very relaxed. They have bonfires and talk about environmental issues each week. They also have a grant from the local government to start a garden near the school. We toured the town, learned about the program, met the leaders, and got welcomed at a bonfire. Many of the people have a pesimistic outlook on the town and the environment. They sort of claim their land by throwing tras...

So today we took a trip to the Churute Cacao Plantation. We started off our vistit with a ride on a little motorized canoe. We rode for about an hour and we saw some interesting birds-- some huge ones, some pink ones, some funny shapes. In the middle of the ride our guide turned off the motor and we just sat for about 20 minutes listening to all the sounds. It sounds boring, but it was really cool and relaxing. After the boat ride, we took a little hike through the woods (the plantation is in the tropical dry forest) and we got to hear howler monkeys. We saw giant 600-year-old trees and learned more about the local flora. We took a tour of the plantation where they grow things like cacao, bananas, black pepper, star fruit, dragon fruit, guayava, avocados, mangos, etc. For lunch, we had food straight from the plantation. They don't use pesticides or chemicals on the food and it tastes so much diffenent and so much better. We then got to make our own chocolate: we picked cacao fr...

My internship is with Fundación Niños con Futuro which is a NGO school. Under the last government here in Ecuador, schools were private and very poorly regulated. The education scene was pretty bleak. That is why Niños con Futuro was started. They took the poorest children and gave them a good, safe education. Now that public schools are more regulated and have gotten much better, they are approaching the level of Niños. They have an amazing, holistic model that stresses art, music, sports, and vocational training. On my first day they sat down and showed us their long-term goals and asked how we wanted to contribute, so we essentially got to create our own jobs. It's great to be here because regulated education is still a new endeavor so there is still a lot of work to do. Special education is still not really a thing. In the whole grade 1-12 school, there is not a special education program. Only students with severe and multiple disabilities go to a special program; the rest of...