"It has not been raining"

"It has not been raining much," said Jose Manuel in the Sierra of Ecuador. "We have had very unpredictable weather here. Rain and then no rain," commented Jorge of the Coast of Ecuador. Throughout my travels here, I have been hearing comments about climate change. The crops are not getting the water they need or they are getting too much. The rain is falling at strange times. The weather is not longer predictable. It is happening, and I just want to be a witness to it from south of the Equator. Take notice. Find a way to change things, from the small to the bigger levels.

love,
Ariel

Bienvenidos a Los Ejemplos Reales

I arrived in Ecuador almost exactly a week ago and was picked up from the airport by a nice man who is the brother of a coworker. During our drive to the Mariscal (the area in which I now live), our conversation turned to politics in Colombia. He explained to me how Colombia is not as violent as tourists seem to think it is, and we discussed the painfully obvious outside influence of the US government and corporations that keep destructive systems going in the country….Welcome to Ecuador!

As one Ecuadorian friend of mine described it, across the variety of people, you will often find un tinte (‘tinge’ is sort of a good translation…but it’s more than a tinge…it seeps) of active political knowledge. Many people, especially in the capital, know and continue learning about local and global news and changes. This difference, from my experience, in comparison to a U.S. American’s tendency to update herself daily on, say, movie trailers or celebrity gossip, is quite the welcomed change.

My work began last Monday at a sustainable development non-profit and Spanish school. So far, most of my work has revolved around updating paperwork and brushing up on my Excel and Word skills. However, I have also traveled to potential volunteering sites which has been a nice change from the few city blocks I generally inhabit daily. I was able to scope out possible volunteering sites that would encompass school garden maintenance, community garden involvement, and environmental education, all very exciting to me. I also was able to see some of my favorite animals: chickens and turkeys! And I saw guinea pigs in cages like chickens. It made me want to cuddle them and also try a taste of them...a weird feeling.

Since I have not worked in ‘sustainable development’ per se before, much of my knowledge of the work comes from the critical education I received at SIT through classes and conversations with other students. As I start out on this first week of work, I find myself encountering precisely the dynamic described to me by critical classmates: when foreigners enter a country hoping to ‘do good’ to help the local people to ‘get out of poverty,’ their approach and rhetoric often disregards cultural differences and implicitly favors the Western approach in contrast to the local approach to social change. For example, a person in development might imagine that a local group who needs a new building can gather supplies and help build the structure in a week’s time. Examples like rapid builds for Habitat for Humanity ‘obviously’ show this is true. Unfortunately, with this mindset, cultural hierarchies, traditional understandings of time, and gender relationships get thrown by the wayside as cultural baggage that needs to be shed.

In being self-critical we must, as my good teacher Janaki once said, ask the questions that are not being asked because the answers are assumed. How are volunteers getting to Ecuador, and where does this disposable income come from? How are systems in place responsible for the need and ability of foreigners to come volunteer? How do we continue to participate in those systems? Is the work we do helping to creatively alter and change the systems that cause economic and social inequalities? These are the questions I will ask myself this week as a foreign, white woman in Quito.

On a lighter note, I went to an international book fair last Friday and found two books with collections of poetry from Ecuadorian authors. I’m excited to read it and learn new words.

Tomorrow I’m going to the Yanacocha Animal Rescue Center. Maybe I’ll meet a jaguar or a tucan! I'll tell them hi from you if you're a fan of their species. I'm sure they could use some encouragement as they are healing.

~~~with love...

The Framework of My Stirrings

My high school health teacher once tried to calm and soothe our angsty teenage souls by saying, “You know how people always try to tell you that the teenage years are the best years of your life? Well, it’s not true. And you should be glad. You should know that life will get better. It will get harder, but it will get better.” In many ways, he was right. I don’t have people judging me for what I wear in everyday life quite as much. I have less acne, more knowledge and skills and more confidence.

But something has begun to fade from my brain that existed there before, a feeling I enjoyed very much in high school: the distinct desire to rebel. I loved that feeling and still do. As I entered and continued on into college, that movement in my soul was set aflame by truths about white men burning down entire towns of black people, by learning the fact that women still earn less than men for doing the same work, by participating in street marches for living wages and immigration reform. I kept the flame burning by living with others who desired to keep up with these truths in their current manifestations.

Now, as I grow older each day, reading daily and talking to strangers helps continue manifestations of a distinct desire to question, to bring critical thought and reflection into my everyday life, as a long lost relative whose only home is now mine. I distinctly sense, from influences in this last year of school, from spending more time in conversation with my brother, from what international students have taught me, a revival of the rebellion within me.

I begin this blog as a travel journal, speaking of my time here in Ecuador, and I hope to continue it as a trail of thoughts, urgings, insights, and support for others in the struggle. To learn more about what this means, return to this blog.

Much love to my family and friends from my home and around the world and to the new people I have yet to meet here in Ecuador.