Ecuadorian Adventure!

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...

This morning we got dropped off at the university and got a quick tour. As everyone who knows me at all knows, I still got lost about 748 times after that. The campus is huge and gorgeous. It feels like a big country club. The gym has an amazing outdoor pool, a weight room, and fitness classes. Most of the buildings are open to outside so that you can get a nice breeze, because even now during "WINTER" it is hot as blazes. We then took the bus into downtown Guayaquil and visited La Plaza de Iguanas. There were dozens of iguanas just hanging out in the park and hundreds of pigeons too. I got my schedule fixed so that I don't have classes on Friday nights and Saturday mornings (thank goodness). I was getting geared up to have a fight about it, but they were really great and the dean gave me a guarantee that it would be offered next bimester. Oh yeah, so I should explain bimesters. Classes at UEES taught in Spanish are usually normal semester lengths like in the US, but ...

Today the group climbed partway up the volcano, Chimborazo. I had to stay at the bottom with Michael (the inbound coordinator) because I am still recovering and the high altitude and cold weather would not be good for me. Chimborazo is the highest peak in the world, even higher than Mount Everest, as was recently discovered. Since we are near the equator, we get a little boost from the elliptical shape of the earth. We continued south, heading to campus to meet our host families. The altitude and climate changes were crazy. Every twenty minutes or so when I would go to take a sip out of my water bottle, it was contracted from the altitude changes. I went from shivering in two pairs of pants, two jackets, and an alpaca blanket to sweating in jeans and a t-shirt. We met our families on campus at about 7pm, and they all seem so amazing. My family lives in a community called Entre Ríos just a 25 minute walk away from the university. I have two parents, an abuelita, a 16-year-old brothe...

Last night we traveled back south to Quito, and when we woke up we continued south to Riobambas. We passed many snow-capped volcanos and we stopped at a hacienda from the 1600s where French and German scientists stayed. There, we had a hot drink and were treated to a little traditional concert. A few hours later, we stopped at another hacienda to eat a traditional lunch and to learn about the textiles that they make there. Unfortunately, for the past few days my stomach has not been too happy about all the new food, and I had a pretty bad reaction after lunch (think blacking out and puking my guts out😷). They took very good care of me with natural medicines: they gave me herbs to smell, a special tea to drink, and I got a traditional cleansing-- a much nicer version of what Julian had got yesterday. The hospitality was amazing. After another reaction about an hour later, I was taken to an emergency clinic and had 4/5 symptoms of appendicitis. I came to Ecuador for an adventure, and...

After staying in a local hotel we continued our Otovalian adventure. We went to El Lago de las Diosas which is a high altitude volcanic crater lake. Near the shore, you can see little gas bubbles coming up which keeps the lake nice and warm. We took a little boat ride on it and even passed through El Canal de Deseos. After that, we got some time to go shopping at El Plaza de Ponchos where there are lots of artisans and many textiles made from llama and alp aca. After shopping, we went to another little home in which a 90-year-old woman did a traditional cleansing ritual on one of our group members. This involved her making a sort of flame thrower by spitting vodka by a candle, spitting vodka, cane water, and oil onto the participant, and saying prayers that mixed Catholicism and native religion. To say the least, that part of this experience was a lot... But yay culture I guess!

We traveled north from Quito to El Ciudad del Mitad del Mundo. As you can probably guess from the name, this was the equator. There was a line painted on the ground to show where it was and we learned about how the high volcanic peaks made it possible for French scientists to use rudimentary tools to find the equator fairly accurately. We continued north finally to Otovalo where we visited a musical instrument workshop inside a native's home where he made a little flute right in front of us and demonstrated with many traditional instruments. Lastly, we stopped at another home in which the family collects native artifacts and does traditional weaving. There are many native's who have really preserved their culture which is truly amazing to see.  

On Tuesday we started orientation. After a short meeting going over basic recommendations for being successful in the country, we departed to downtown Quito for the cathedral. We were impressed by the architecture and view after climbing just two flights of stairs. Little did we know that there was another flight of stairs and three steep ladders to climb to actually get to the top. The view was breathtaking and you could see La Virgin de Quito-- the only statue of Mary with wings-- from the top. After that, we visited La Plaza Mayor and saw the Jesuit church and the church of Saint Francis. About 90% of the population is Roman Catholic because of the Spanish influence and missionaries, but there is a lot of indigenous influence on the religion. This is seen through nature imagery and crosses with sides of equal length. In El Plaza Mayor we also saw the presidential palace and the marketplace. This is where the people come to protest or to celebrate national holidays. There was one w...