Weeks 12-13: The Essence of True Happiness…

Tuesday, November 20 – Monday, December 3

… is NOT money. NOR is it material possessions. These common sayings are often proclaimed by those who have never worried about meeting a basic necessity. I had also believed these things for much of my life, but wondered if I’d be as chipper without the money to buy new clothes, a variety of food, or to spend on entertainment and travel. However, my last few weeks in Ecuador clearly illustrate that happiness is not provided by money, but rather by the relationships we hold with those close to us.

As I mentioned last time, the time of Thanksgiving is always something I look forward to, and this year was no exception. In fact, it clearly outdid any of my previous Thanksgiving’s in size and scope as I gathered with my family of 150 consisting of fellow students and their families alike. And with every family bringing a dish, the quantity of food per person was unlike any Thanksgiving ever witnessed in the United States. No, this was Thanksgiving Ecuadorian-style, and you don’t want to mess with the Ecuadorians when it comes to food.

However, as I sat at the table with all the turkey, potato side-dishes, and chocolate cake that I could ever want, it was clear that these things had nothing to do with the grin on my face. As all 150 people took their turn with the mic to say a few words about what the day meant to them, I couldn’t have felt more at home. After being away from each other for nearly a month, we were all back together again, just like those families who drive hours in the light flurries to grandmom’s house to see each other for the first time in months. Yes, the food was excellent and the venue top-notch, but I would have been just as grateful if I had been served a plate of pure rice sitting in an abandoned building- as long as my new family was there to share it with me. It set the perfect stage for what was to come later in the weekend.

My Quito Family

On ‘Black Friday,’ instead of finding myself up at the crack of dawn to hit all the deals of Christmas shopping, I was on a bus with my friend Emma on my way into the jungle- the city of Tena to be exact. But this wasn’t to be your typical jungle adventure of river rafting and bird watching. Instead, we were on our way to visit another member of the family who wasn’t able to make it to the Thanksgiving celebration because of the distance (Tena is 6 hours from Quito, or 8 when you have to wait for the road to be cleared of a landslide like we did on Friday). Emily is working in a 100-person community of native Quichwas called San Jancinto. They still maintain many of their traditional cultural practices, including dances, music, and most importantly crafts.

Unfortunately, sources of work are very hard to come by in the area. There is the production of wood which is a strong source of employment, but admirably the people of this community refuse to dedicate themselves to this work at it is destroying their rainforest and environment. In the past, the community worked successfully in the cultivation of coffee beans and the price was relatively high. But in 2000, the country “dollarized,” changing over from the sucre to the US dollar. This was quite a difficult change for everyone in Ecuador working in agriculture, especially those in San Jancinto. The production of coffee was no longer worth their time.

Their houses were donated to them by the government, but are simple and without furniture besides their beds. All the food comes from the land they cultivate, but lacks in variety and therefore nutrition. Still, there is no more money to go around. For example, the community leader has started a community bank, but he told me that the families of the community are doing well to save $1 every month. Another example- we invited the host-sister of Emily to stay the night with us in our Tena hostel. That night, we also went out for pizza and the next morning for pancakes. At 16 years old, it was her first night staying away from her house and her first time trying these foods. There just isn’t any extra money to enjoy these luxuries of life.

However, this does not mean this people full of hope, energy, and kindness do not enjoy their life. Far from it. They welcomed us in to their community with a hospitality and generosity that small-town America could only dream of matching. Every person we met greeted us with a sincere smile and was eager to share their pride in their community. They planned a traditional session of music and dance- just for us- and later invited us to join them. And of course, as this is Ecuador, they fed us well. So why all this outreach just for a couple of Americans who come from a world miles away from theirs? Maybe it was because we were only the 3^rd and 4^th foreigners to ever visit the community. But more probable is that we shared something more genuine than physical surroundings or economic condition. We shared a happiness and an ability to enjoy life that didn’t depend on these things that money buys, but more importantly on the things that human interaction and relationships buys.

Please enjoy these pictures from the weekend. Only 4 weeks and 2 more posts remain for me in Ecuador. What a ride it is going to be!

Misaualli- where monkeys inhabit the town square

Week 11: The Outsider Effect

Tuesday, November 13 – Monday, November 19
Happy Thanksgiving everybody! While I’m jealous of all the feasting I’ll be missing out of, I’m happy to say that the MSIDers will be celebrating Thanksgiving on our own. On Thursday, nearly everybody will return to Quito from their internship sites to give thanks to everything we have been able to learn and experience here in Ecuador! I’ll be sure to send my leftovers back to you. It’s ironic that as one of the most family-orientated and inclusive America Holidays approaches, I have probably never felt so alone in my life. I realize that statement will probably be misinterpreted, so allow me to explain myself…

In my first posting in Yunguilla, I briefly wrote about my feelings of resistance and even rejection by a tight-knit community in a completely different culture. Now I have surpassed that stage of acclamation by building some quality relationships through sharing the work day together, living together, or camping together (see pictures below). So why the loneliness, you ask? Actually, what I speak of is not really loneliness, but more of unfulfillment. Going off the relationships I have built in the past, in this stage of the process I am accustomed to giving and gaining a fair amount of trust and confidence.

Instead, what I’ve encountered is a subtle sense of superiority by my work partners, an unwelcoming of my ideas, a difference of treatment from one-on-one situations to large group situations, and to top everything off, a new family that couldn’t be more unfit for my situation.

Starting with the work situation, things have not gone the way I anticipated them going before I arrived in Yunguilla. Granted, I really had no idea of what I would be doing, but at least I was told that I would be able to design my own work plan. Not really so. Every day, on the other hand, is planned out from start to finish, although the plan usually changes at the beginning of the day. And while weeding and planting gardens, building trails, and clearing out grass with the machete is warmly reminiscent of my childhood on a farm, it is not exactly the academically rich and developing work I was hoping for.

Moreover, at times I have felt slightly humiliated in my work. I really have no experience working with machete or building paths with a hoe. Instead of immediately teaching me the technique by our 20-year old supervisor, I will be allowed to struggle for a while, then quickly taught the style and expected to pick it up perfectly right away. More in a joking sense than in a serious one, but still a bit uncomfortable.

In Yunguilla, like most of the Ecuadorian countryside, they have a certain way of doing things and seem scared or resistant to change. My working partner Emily and I have run into this on different occasions. We really are never asked for our opinion on work related manners, and trying to interject a suggestion is usually met with “but this is the way we’ve always done it.” For example, Emily was helping to make envelopes out of recycled paper one day when she realized the technique was inefficient and was causing the envelopes to be misshaped. When she mentioned a simple modification that would have fixed the problem, she was rejected with the aforementioned response. It is especially frustrating since both of us have experience and knowledge that could be of use to the community- more so in the area of management and coordination that in agriculture- yet we have not even been approached about what skills we might have to offer. However, I still can say that I have enjoyed working outside and taking a break from the grind of an office.

The social phenomenon of Yunguilla is something I have yet to understand. I feel like I have developed some good friendships with members of the community- most of them my age- though working together, playing cards, camping, etc. Yet I will encounter these same people on the weekends down on the soccer field or the volleyball courts, this time in a larger, tight-night group of Yunguillans, and my presence is only acknowledged with a quick hello and maybe a quick joke. I’ll express my interest in playing volleyball but won’t be invited into a game because they don’t think I can play, even though I’ve never been given the chance.

On top of all this, I found myself moving to a new family on Sunday the 18th. It’s not that I didn’t like my old family; in fact I miss them already. The thing is that Yunguilla typically moves their volunteers to a new family every 3 weeks so they can become more familiar with the entire community. I, too, was excited about this opportunity, yet it created a bit of an awkward situation with my old family because I really could have decided to stay with them for the rest of my time.

My new family, from the couple days I have spend with them, is quite friendly yet I find it hard to feel at home. It is an older couple in their 70’s living solo and my mom is short of hearing while my dad is hard to understand due to his absence of teeth. While they seem to try hard to accommodate me, I find it very lonely when the conversation is so hard to come by.

I’m hoping a 4-day weekend away from Yuguilla will give me some renewed energy and perspective in closing out this journey.