CARNIVAL in Tena

What we know in the US as Mardi Gras translates to Carnival in Latin America, a holiday in which families stop what they are doing to throw buckets and balloons filled with water or paint at passersby (from which I have a yellow splattered shirt as evidence), and attend the numerous parties, parades, and festivals throughout the content. While I had been in Bolivia and Peru for Carnival in 2007, I was backpacking around and at the time didn’t understand all of the traditions, or even that the holiday was celebrated so widely throughout the continent why children were throwing water balloons. Now as a resident of Ecuador, I was prepared-although still not thrilled with the idea of being attacked at every street corner. Quito basically empties out for the long weekend, while people take advantage of their days off of work to visit family, go to the beach, or just travel around with friends.
To celebrate the four day long weekend, I joined my roommate and some of her Ecuadorian friends on an expedition to Tena, located in the western part of the country-near, but not in, the jungle. We stayed with one of the girl's family in their finca, loosely translated into farm house, situated on acres of open country filled with fruit trees and animals. We spent our time outside, hitchhiking around the town, tubing, and learning what it means to live on a farm. I particularly enjoyed my early morning wake up call to milk cows (that is not meant to be facetious, I honestly did have fun).
I demonstrated how to make s'mores, and spent hours talking with the father about his opinion of America based on 2 trips he has made there, one for work and one for pleasure with his wife, and how it compares to Ecuador.
We left Quito from the packed bus terminal, located about an hour south of my apt, at 8am to make the 5 hour journey to Tena, where we met up with the father of the family we were staying with. After grabbing a $2 lunch of fried fish, rice and salad in the town, we hopped in the back of the dad's pickup truck and drove to the finca. The entrance of the farmhouse is situated on a two lane highway, and has been marked by two garbage cans, or you would miss it along the stretch of open land along the road. Once you have turned into the finca, a long driveway leads you to a wooden structure that housed at least 15 people that weekend. While the house gave meager protection from the insects from the outside, it was a welcome refuge from the hot sun of Tena, and filled with good conversation and food.

Our first day we spent the day at a beach situated along a river, listening to a concert the town holds annually to celebrate carnival. After an afternoon filled with dancing, swimming, and squirting foam at each other (also a tradition associated with carnival) we made our way back to the finca, showered, ate, and prepared to go to one of the 2 discotecas in the town of Tena. The small, one-room club was packed, and played a mixture of electronic, salsa, and tradition American music. It was fun for a night, but I’m not sure I could imagine living there with that as my only source of entertainment at night; it reminded me of a mini version of an American club. In order to move such a large group around, we would split up, some sat in the back of the pickup truck while the rest squeezed inside. I loved sitting in the back, soaking in the fresh air and lush scenery. If we weren’t traveling with her parents, we would either hop in a pickup truck taxi or hitchhike (a common and safe practice in this part of the country) to the general vicinity of where we wanted to go and then walk the rest of the way. Our second day there, we went to a huge festival the town holds, the epicenter of carnival, or as I liked to call it, the war zone, as kids and adults alike took your presence there as a sign that you wanted to be drenched with water and foam and whatever else they could find to splatter you with. We did get some serenity when we took a canoe ride along one of the Amazon tributaries, which I had done the previous time I was in the jungle, but was still a welcome break-even though it only lasted about 30 min, because that’s all we could afford at the time with the cash we had brought.
While I think 3 days of cold showers, mosquito bites, and sunburn was about all I could take in one visit, I would love to go back.

farmacia

When an Ecuadorian needs medicine, whether it be the cure to the common cold, pills to prevent malaria, or to get rid of a parasite they picked up from eating something from one of the numerous street vendors sprinkled throughout the country, before they go to the doctor, they go to the farmacia in search of a remedy. While there are numerous options, the one most prevalent in Quito is Fybeca. Once inside the CVS style store, you pass the isles of chifles and soda and office supplies to the back where a man or woman in a white coat greets you and asks what your symptoms are. In certain aspects this service is nice, such as last year when I went to the jungle, instead of paying for a doctors visit and the high price of malaria prevention pills, I just went to the local farmacia to pick up pills for about 25 cents a piece, not bad. However, when you know what you want, and the option is not available it can become incredibly frustrating trying to navigate the foreign system (from the perspective of a person born in the US)

The other day I was feeling a cold coming on, and wanted the equivalent of dayquil, I described all of the normal symptoms: congested, a little achy, but most noticeably dizzy (that feeling you get usually after taking cold medicine). I was told that they were not allowed to prescribe cold medicine, for fear of discouraging people with swine flu from going to the hospital, but they could give me a pill to relieve some of the symptoms. With no further explanation, they wrote me a prescription for 4 red pills and i went to the checkout to pay and pick up my medicine at the front of the store. As I had no idea what I had just purchased, I immediately googled the drug upon returning to my office before consuming the mystery pill. I learned that it is similar to aspirin and used to cure fevers and pain, neither of which I was experiencing, so instead I relied on the vitamin C pills I had purchased at the register to cure my ailments. It remains a mystery to me what education the pharmacists have here, and what criteria they use for assessing which medicine to prescribe when. I still have the 4 red pills sitting in my room and am now prepared for if I do experience more severe cold symptoms, but O how I miss dayquil.

Pistishi, a day in the life of Ecuadorian countrymen

Last weekend I joined my future roommate on a visit to the community where her NGO, AVANTI, works called Pistishi. This involved a short three hour bus to rio bamba-a rather deserted town-an overnight stay at a hotel and another three hour bus ride after a traditional Ecuadorian breakfast of bread, eggs, juice, and coffee, finally hopping off the bus in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. Once safely on the ground, one of the 3 Ecuadorians I was with told me to look out over the overloook behind us, where below the picturesque mountainous backdrop, I could see what appeared to be a small town, and where we would be spending the day. We picked up our bags filled with clothes, some food and sleeping bags for camping that night and made our way down the windy dirt road leading down the hill towards the town.

Upon arriving, we were greeted by several leaders of the community of the mid midsize community which lays spread out over an expansive hilly countryside, filled with a small town center, where I currently stood, farmland, and open hilly landscape untouched by industrialism. As I was the only one with the group who did not have a specific job with the NGO, I started talking with some of kids while AVANTI led trainings on best practices for farming and a meeting to discuss future initiatives and get town feedback. I was immediately taken aback by the smiles on community members faces, and the freedom children had to run around without boundaries. The children seemed to be raised more by the community than by a single family, creating an openness you would never see in a city. One of the girls, who had some sort of retardation which was also noticeably prominent among the children in the community due to a vitamin deficiency in pregnant women, befriended me and my future roommate, the director of AVANTI, going as far as calling us Mom. During the meetings I would listen to her babble on and show me around the town center.

I did have a chance to listen to parts of the meeting, which gave an interesting insight into how communities perceive outside aid. The leaders in the community began arguing, complaining that AVANTI had not fulfilled promises, or that they had expected something different. Once one person began complaining, others would chime in until either a community member, or the director of AVANTI would try to bridge the miscommunications, and the meeting would continue. I noticed many similarities between the dissatisfaction of Pistishi and colombian refugees. When an aid organizations comes in to work with a community, they can only offer assistance and work with the group, not resolve the communities problems as a detached organism. That is what needy communities perceive they deserve, someone to come in and make problems disappear without having to do much work themselves. After speaking with a few members of AVANTI and another friend who tagged along to take pictures and works with the UN, I realized the universality of this misconception, which I believe is a cause for many of the failures of aid work. I hope that I am able to fulfill some of the desires of the refugee community I am working with during my time here, but was reminded by this meeting that I will be confronted with frustration on both my part and the refugees, and will not be able to accomplish the immediate improvement they might expect.
That night we hitched a ride with the president of the community to the base of the mountain where the community sits, near a popular tourist attraction, a mountain named La Nariz del diablo (the nose of the Devil) for the contours of the rocks on one side of the massive natural wonder. With the help of the president, the 4 kids who had tagged along in the back of the truck, and two guards watching over a nearby train station through which one train comes a day, we put up a tent and gathered wood for a fire. By the time the fire was lit and the community members returned home, it was getting dark and we took out the salchichas (similar to hot dogs) and other food we had bought throughout the day. We spent the rest of the night talking with the guards, drinking a three dollar bottle of rum we had bought at one of the 3 stores in Pisitshi and enjoying our campfire. It was interesting to talk with the guards, since one of them had lived illegally in the US for several years before returning to Ecuador. He crossed through Mexico on a train, commonly used by migrants who risk their lives sitting on the roof of this train, hiding from immigration officers and gangs who try to rob them while making their way through the perilous and beautiful country. If you are interested in learning more about this experience, I highly recommend the movie "Sin Nombre" which came out in the beginning of 2009.

Colombian refugees in Quito

Im back in the metropolis of Quito, this time with a grant from the interexchange foundation that will significantly help defray the cost of my travels. I have edited an entry I had started back in June but never published to hopefully give a bit of insight into what I am doing back in Ecuador for 6 months.

During my three month stint in Quito last year, I attended a meeting with Colombian refugee leaders from all over Ecuador. This was probably the most rewarding experience I had while in Ecuador. The meeting was sponsored by asylum access, an international organization that gives legal aid and policy advocacy for refugees, in conjunction with a group of students from la FLACSO, the most respected graduate school in Latin America for social sciences. The organizers invited the refugee leaders-who had all immigrated from Colombia and started organizations in Ecuador to help refugees learn about their legal rights- to come and discuss the formation of a united front of the organizations so that their voice would be stronger and more focused when talking with organizations such as the Ecuadorian government or UN. The two day meeting consisted of a several break out sessions to discuss how they wanted to unite and what the mission or goals of the new organization should be. At the end of the two days, organizations that work with the refugees were invited for an hour long presentation of the outcome of the conference and the future steps for the new organization.
I was invited through CEMPROC to attend the final hour long presentation, but asked the organizers to attend the entire 2 days, which they agreed to.

The first day officials from the government, the UN, and professors came to answer questions about refugee's rights and how to file for refugee status or citizenship and what the requirements are for both. While many of the questions were very specific and only relevant for the person asking, recurring themes included being denied services at banks or doctors, even with identification indicating their refugee status, or being denied refugee status unfairly. This was an especially timely event, as the president of Ecuador (Rafael Correa) rewrote the constitution in 2008 and changed several of the laws dealing with refugees which include basic recognition of asylum rights as well as group recognition of refugee status. The ministry of Education also made a change in October, 2008 which allows for all refugees and migrants to enroll in public schools, even if they do not have identification.

The second day, the refugee leaders discussed and laid out the plans for their new organizations. Some of the topics discussed were why the federation should be formed, what its goals should be, and how they planned to accomplish those goals. This was a group of people who liked to hear themselves talk, which made for long discussions at times, but in the end they finished their proposition, and 6 months after the meeting, the federation they formed is in it's beginning stages.

I have returned to Ecuador to work with this group, with two principle goals. First, I am working with the President of the Federation to create a cooperative of artisans, whose artwork I will help export to the US, where there is a larger market. My second goal is to work with this group to implement trainings for newly arrived refugees, teaching them tools to confront conflicts they may face as migrants. Im sure I will hit some brick walls, but Im excited to be back and after my first meeting with the President of the Colombian Refugee Federation this morning, am optimistic about the outcome of my work here.