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...
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