I am here...
So I am in a small town at the base of Tungurahua volcano right now, and the volcano gods are not smiling. The ash is raining down in our eyes and making us cough, but it's so microscopic, you can't actually see it! We thought the volcanic activity was settling down, but it appears not... so we are now stuck in our hostel, waiting for the wind to blow the ash on to another unfortunate town.
Will write more soon...
p.s. mark, remember how you thought there were no active volcanoes! well, i have lungs full of ash who would like to tell you that you were pretty much dead wrong!!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
Palora, Tena
So you may have noticed I´ve been pretty unreachable over the past week...
On Thursday, I took a 5 am bus to Palora, hours from Puyo. We truly left civilazation then. They drove the bus on a raft, NOT A FERRY, an honest-to-God raft! and floated it across the river. I felt like I was living the Oregon Trail (the computer game), but I hope that I don´t find out "Betsy dies of cholera," like in the game. In Palora, I stayed in the Catholic mission which is a clinic run by one rural medical student and a nun. It was insane! We saw a botched suicide and a botched abortion in the same afternoon. Don´t overdose in the Amazon... we pumped her stomach the old fashioned way, tube down the throat and 100 ml syringe, pumping by hands, and emptying the syringe in the sink!!
It makes me so angry to see backstreet abortions here! (Abortions are illegal.) The girls are teenagers sometimes, and they are so sick! And you´re not going to stop them from doing what they will with their own bodies. The thing that really got me was there were signs all over clinics with babies with little conversation bubbles saying, "Mommy, I love you so much, why do you want to stop my little heart from beating? Why do you want to kill your loving child?" It´s horrible! This is what young women have to look at! Argh! So upset!!!
The last interesting patient we had was a tiny Shuar baby who came in late at night with his head sliced up, and the rural doc had me help suture him up!
The highlight of Palora was the rural doc putting me on the back of his moto for a "paseo" through the countryside. We sped along dirt paths among tea plantations, which, sadly are planted amongst the rainforest, but it was still beautiful, the mountains and volcanoes in the background. In the mission church they even had their Jesus crucified with the background you could see outside the church, complete with the peaks of Sangay, and the jungle laid out before it. I never imagined I would be trying not to fall off and die from a speeding old motorcycle along a jungle path in rural Ecuador with a young doctor who referred to himself as el negrito hermoso, "the handsome little black guy." I felt like I was in the Motorcycle Diaries!
On Friday, in order to cross the river, the bus drove down the "highway," the five of us passengers got off, jumped in a box, and were hauled by pulley in a swinging metal platform, dozens of feet above the wide raging river basin. Then we boarded a bus on the other side. Craziness!!
I was in Puyo about twenty minutes before I jumped (literally, as it didn´t stop moving...) on a bus to Tena, where I was meeting some Quito friends for a jungle tour.
We went to cabañas over the River Anzu. Oh my God! You wouldn´t believe the view! And we were the only people there. It was like out of a movie. We went trekking through jungle canyons. We went tubing down the river, to a Quichua village, where the guide´s family sold us necklaces, so they could earn money without panning the river for gold (it looks like 1800s California in some places, with all the gold panners).
Then, on Sunday, we went whitewater rafting down the Upper Napo River, with some crazy guides. They really like to horse around, throwing us in the water, hitting people with paddles, purposely slamming into rocks. (Things that certainly would be a lawsuit waiting to happen in the States!) They showed us secret lagoons and passages. It was amazing.
I went the whole day injury-less. At our final stop, we took off our shoes that were sinking in very very deep sand, and I stepped on the only rock within miles! My foot is sliced to ribbons. Right now, I can barely walk, and I have to take taxis everywhere! Mamaw would freak out because a huge part of the bottom of my foot is literally ribbons of flesh and blood! Ick! The doctor told me not to walk for a week and a half! That´s not going to happen, but I am trying to hop along as best I can! Oh well, I´d rather be injured than sick to my stomach!
Congratulations if you read this whole entry! You are a true friend... I am back in Puyo for this work week, so maybe I can try calling, and you can expect faster email responses.
Love from the jungle...
On Thursday, I took a 5 am bus to Palora, hours from Puyo. We truly left civilazation then. They drove the bus on a raft, NOT A FERRY, an honest-to-God raft! and floated it across the river. I felt like I was living the Oregon Trail (the computer game), but I hope that I don´t find out "Betsy dies of cholera," like in the game. In Palora, I stayed in the Catholic mission which is a clinic run by one rural medical student and a nun. It was insane! We saw a botched suicide and a botched abortion in the same afternoon. Don´t overdose in the Amazon... we pumped her stomach the old fashioned way, tube down the throat and 100 ml syringe, pumping by hands, and emptying the syringe in the sink!!
It makes me so angry to see backstreet abortions here! (Abortions are illegal.) The girls are teenagers sometimes, and they are so sick! And you´re not going to stop them from doing what they will with their own bodies. The thing that really got me was there were signs all over clinics with babies with little conversation bubbles saying, "Mommy, I love you so much, why do you want to stop my little heart from beating? Why do you want to kill your loving child?" It´s horrible! This is what young women have to look at! Argh! So upset!!!
The last interesting patient we had was a tiny Shuar baby who came in late at night with his head sliced up, and the rural doc had me help suture him up!
The highlight of Palora was the rural doc putting me on the back of his moto for a "paseo" through the countryside. We sped along dirt paths among tea plantations, which, sadly are planted amongst the rainforest, but it was still beautiful, the mountains and volcanoes in the background. In the mission church they even had their Jesus crucified with the background you could see outside the church, complete with the peaks of Sangay, and the jungle laid out before it. I never imagined I would be trying not to fall off and die from a speeding old motorcycle along a jungle path in rural Ecuador with a young doctor who referred to himself as el negrito hermoso, "the handsome little black guy." I felt like I was in the Motorcycle Diaries!
On Friday, in order to cross the river, the bus drove down the "highway," the five of us passengers got off, jumped in a box, and were hauled by pulley in a swinging metal platform, dozens of feet above the wide raging river basin. Then we boarded a bus on the other side. Craziness!!
I was in Puyo about twenty minutes before I jumped (literally, as it didn´t stop moving...) on a bus to Tena, where I was meeting some Quito friends for a jungle tour.
We went to cabañas over the River Anzu. Oh my God! You wouldn´t believe the view! And we were the only people there. It was like out of a movie. We went trekking through jungle canyons. We went tubing down the river, to a Quichua village, where the guide´s family sold us necklaces, so they could earn money without panning the river for gold (it looks like 1800s California in some places, with all the gold panners).
Then, on Sunday, we went whitewater rafting down the Upper Napo River, with some crazy guides. They really like to horse around, throwing us in the water, hitting people with paddles, purposely slamming into rocks. (Things that certainly would be a lawsuit waiting to happen in the States!) They showed us secret lagoons and passages. It was amazing.
I went the whole day injury-less. At our final stop, we took off our shoes that were sinking in very very deep sand, and I stepped on the only rock within miles! My foot is sliced to ribbons. Right now, I can barely walk, and I have to take taxis everywhere! Mamaw would freak out because a huge part of the bottom of my foot is literally ribbons of flesh and blood! Ick! The doctor told me not to walk for a week and a half! That´s not going to happen, but I am trying to hop along as best I can! Oh well, I´d rather be injured than sick to my stomach!
Congratulations if you read this whole entry! You are a true friend... I am back in Puyo for this work week, so maybe I can try calling, and you can expect faster email responses.
Love from the jungle...
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Missionary doctors, culture clashes
The good news is that I am better... so I went back to Vozandes Hospital in Shell today.
Vozandes is a missionary hospital started by Nate Saint. (Mom and Dad, he´s that guy that ended up dead on the end of the spear in the movie of that name.) The four American doctors that work there now are also missionaries. The missionaries in Shell also run Alas de Socorro, which are planes that fly into the rainforest to remote villages from the Shell airstrip.
I had some very interesting conversations with the doctors today about the role of missionaries in developing countries. One doctor told me how much anthropologists really don´t like missionaries, because they come in and change the local culture, etc. But then he brought up some good points. For example, the anthropologists want the missionaries to leave the indigenous people alone. But then, according to the missionaries, some of these same indigenous people are begging for the gringo doctors to come to their village when there are malaria epidemics and other rampant illnesses. As the doctor said, "Are we supposed to let children die of malaria for fear of altering an indigenous culture?" They seem to think that anthropologists can be unrealistic, as change is definitely coming for these cultures, and the missionaries see themselves (and, actually, Jesus) as a force to assuage the pains of cultural transitions. If we can´t stop the oil companies, then why not at least help cure people made ill from diseases introduced by oil company workers? That is what they think.
He also explained that the missionaries wanted to bring the Huaorani to Christ out of fear that malaria and inter-ethnic group war would kill them off...
Obviously, I don´t think expecting people to convert to Christianity is a good goal, but I did learn a lot from his perspective, and I don´t have answers to his questions about letting children die of malaria in order to not harm their culture. It´s very complicated. And fascinating. He told me I should come back and would be welcome to do some research about these topics with them...
As usual, there were a couple cultural discrepancies between us North Americans and the patients today. The doctor told me that people always ask two questions "Can I eat everything, even pork? and Can I bathe?" This is because of an indigenous belief that certain foods hurt certain organs, and that bathing makes you wet and cold and therefore will worsen your illness. I had been confused when a teenage Quichua kid was diagnosed with epilepsy based on his EEG, and his father kept asking "but can he eat pork?"!!
Fathers do all the talking. In indigenous families, the women often don´t even speak Spanish. We had a Quichua woman come in. She told her husband her symptoms in Quichua, then he translated them into Spanish for us. It is rude for a male doctor to talk to another man´s wife, so he asks the husband all about the woman´s health, as if she´s not there! Needless to say, this would be very offensive in the United States, but the doctor told me if he talks too much directly to the women, the families sometimes get offended and refuse to say much more.
When women are talking about female problems, like menstruation, they won´t look at the male doctor. They would suddenly look directly at me. The doctor told me they were more comfortable telling me about these things. He would listen to her and answer all her questions, but she would only make eye contact with me, as I was a woman. I just nodded my head and looked interested, but obviously I couldn´t diagnose her or tell her anything.
I saw problems with people saying they understand when they really didn´t. For example, the doctor asked a Quichua man if his wife had any secretions. He nodded and looked nervous, saying "yes." A minute later, he said "um, doctor, excuse me, actually, um, what does 'secretions' mean?" Another time, a young woman insisted that she didn´t understand what "menstruation" or "periods" were. You wonder how many times people don´t understand and just remain silent. Sometimes it is a language barrier if the family doesn´t speak a lot of Spanish, but more often it is a simple lack of basic healthcare knowledge.
In addition, I am learning basic medical stuff. I know the difference between rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, that it´s pretty pointless to treat gestational diabetes, and that ulcers caused by varicose veins can easily be healed with ACE bandages.
Vozandes is a missionary hospital started by Nate Saint. (Mom and Dad, he´s that guy that ended up dead on the end of the spear in the movie of that name.) The four American doctors that work there now are also missionaries. The missionaries in Shell also run Alas de Socorro, which are planes that fly into the rainforest to remote villages from the Shell airstrip.
I had some very interesting conversations with the doctors today about the role of missionaries in developing countries. One doctor told me how much anthropologists really don´t like missionaries, because they come in and change the local culture, etc. But then he brought up some good points. For example, the anthropologists want the missionaries to leave the indigenous people alone. But then, according to the missionaries, some of these same indigenous people are begging for the gringo doctors to come to their village when there are malaria epidemics and other rampant illnesses. As the doctor said, "Are we supposed to let children die of malaria for fear of altering an indigenous culture?" They seem to think that anthropologists can be unrealistic, as change is definitely coming for these cultures, and the missionaries see themselves (and, actually, Jesus) as a force to assuage the pains of cultural transitions. If we can´t stop the oil companies, then why not at least help cure people made ill from diseases introduced by oil company workers? That is what they think.
He also explained that the missionaries wanted to bring the Huaorani to Christ out of fear that malaria and inter-ethnic group war would kill them off...
Obviously, I don´t think expecting people to convert to Christianity is a good goal, but I did learn a lot from his perspective, and I don´t have answers to his questions about letting children die of malaria in order to not harm their culture. It´s very complicated. And fascinating. He told me I should come back and would be welcome to do some research about these topics with them...
As usual, there were a couple cultural discrepancies between us North Americans and the patients today. The doctor told me that people always ask two questions "Can I eat everything, even pork? and Can I bathe?" This is because of an indigenous belief that certain foods hurt certain organs, and that bathing makes you wet and cold and therefore will worsen your illness. I had been confused when a teenage Quichua kid was diagnosed with epilepsy based on his EEG, and his father kept asking "but can he eat pork?"!!
Fathers do all the talking. In indigenous families, the women often don´t even speak Spanish. We had a Quichua woman come in. She told her husband her symptoms in Quichua, then he translated them into Spanish for us. It is rude for a male doctor to talk to another man´s wife, so he asks the husband all about the woman´s health, as if she´s not there! Needless to say, this would be very offensive in the United States, but the doctor told me if he talks too much directly to the women, the families sometimes get offended and refuse to say much more.
When women are talking about female problems, like menstruation, they won´t look at the male doctor. They would suddenly look directly at me. The doctor told me they were more comfortable telling me about these things. He would listen to her and answer all her questions, but she would only make eye contact with me, as I was a woman. I just nodded my head and looked interested, but obviously I couldn´t diagnose her or tell her anything.
I saw problems with people saying they understand when they really didn´t. For example, the doctor asked a Quichua man if his wife had any secretions. He nodded and looked nervous, saying "yes." A minute later, he said "um, doctor, excuse me, actually, um, what does 'secretions' mean?" Another time, a young woman insisted that she didn´t understand what "menstruation" or "periods" were. You wonder how many times people don´t understand and just remain silent. Sometimes it is a language barrier if the family doesn´t speak a lot of Spanish, but more often it is a simple lack of basic healthcare knowledge.
In addition, I am learning basic medical stuff. I know the difference between rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, that it´s pretty pointless to treat gestational diabetes, and that ulcers caused by varicose veins can easily be healed with ACE bandages.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Well... no longer healthy
The update is I am not healthy. Last night, I became horribly ill. Let´s just say stuff is coming out both ends, and I am miserable. My stomach hurt so much, I couldn´t sleep last night, and I spent most of today crying. I only just gathered up enough strength to drag myself to an Internet cafe to hear Mark´s voice... which cost a ridiculous 10 dollars! I am sweating, and my whole body hurts.
Luckily, if things get bad, there are always the missionary doctors in Shell. They are Americans, and I worked with them yesterday. I was supposed to be with them today, but my intimate relationship with the toilet wouldn´t allow for it.
Hopefully, it was just something in the food or water... And I do live with a doctor, who has been worried about me and checking on me every few hours. I will let you know how I am doing, so don´t get too worried. I just can´t call everyone because it would cost a hundred dollars here.
I love you all... Pray for my return to health...
Luckily, if things get bad, there are always the missionary doctors in Shell. They are Americans, and I worked with them yesterday. I was supposed to be with them today, but my intimate relationship with the toilet wouldn´t allow for it.
Hopefully, it was just something in the food or water... And I do live with a doctor, who has been worried about me and checking on me every few hours. I will let you know how I am doing, so don´t get too worried. I just can´t call everyone because it would cost a hundred dollars here.
I love you all... Pray for my return to health...
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Puyo
Mark has posted my Quito pictures on yahoo photos. The link is:
Quito photos
Commenting on them with this bad Internet connection would be a week-long endeavor, so for now you will have to guess what I was doing and who is in the pictures.
I have arrived in Puyo. When I got here, I called the doctor on a public phone. He said "wait for me" and hung up. Luckily, he showed up ten minutes later, drove straight up to the only American girl around, and asked me to get on in. After confirming that he was Dr. Torres, I got in and we went to his house.
I am staying in Dr. Torres´s nice home in Puyo. The streets and the infrastructure here make Quito look like San Francisco, but we have Internet and phones, etc. The Internet is as slow as ours in New Richmond, and international calls are rather expensive, 20 cents a minute. Considering a huge pizza and soda for lunch at a nice restaurant put me back 4 bucks, taxis to anywhere are one dollar, and the bus is a couple cents, international calls are ridiculously unaffordable.
The climate, as could have been expected, is humid and hot. It rains every afternoon. Bugs are everywhere. These huge flying ants crawl up my curtains, but in Puyo itself, the mosquitoes aren´t really a problem.
This week I will be heading over to Shell, fifteen minutes away. Shell is pretty much a little airplane landing for planes going in and out of the rainforest. They have a hospital there where I will be working for three days. Then, later this week, Dr. Torres and I will head out on a bus for a clinic two and a half hours farther out from Puyo, to help the nurse who runs it. Next week, I have a plethora of hospitals to visit and doctors to talk to. The third week, I will be heading off to a Shuar community.
So busy times ahead. Dr. Torres was very interested in my studies and work, and he made me happy when he told me that he really liked the way that I saw the world. He even is hinting already at staying in touch in the future, and he gives me the idea that I might be able to become an ally to efforts here somehow. I am not sure because he refuses to say much now, promising "you will understand, we will talk more later, you will see..." I press him for more answers and ask him if my preconceptions are incorrect. He says no, but refuses to explain, adamantly restating that "i will understand" and the conversation was over.
So, obviously, I am very intrigued.
I will try to make phone calls this week before heading out to Esperanza on Wednesday or Thursday, but I am going to wait for a day or two because calls are so expensive.
Know that I am relatively healthy and safe (as long as this dang traffic doesn´t kill me.) Love you all!
Quito photos
Commenting on them with this bad Internet connection would be a week-long endeavor, so for now you will have to guess what I was doing and who is in the pictures.
I have arrived in Puyo. When I got here, I called the doctor on a public phone. He said "wait for me" and hung up. Luckily, he showed up ten minutes later, drove straight up to the only American girl around, and asked me to get on in. After confirming that he was Dr. Torres, I got in and we went to his house.
I am staying in Dr. Torres´s nice home in Puyo. The streets and the infrastructure here make Quito look like San Francisco, but we have Internet and phones, etc. The Internet is as slow as ours in New Richmond, and international calls are rather expensive, 20 cents a minute. Considering a huge pizza and soda for lunch at a nice restaurant put me back 4 bucks, taxis to anywhere are one dollar, and the bus is a couple cents, international calls are ridiculously unaffordable.
The climate, as could have been expected, is humid and hot. It rains every afternoon. Bugs are everywhere. These huge flying ants crawl up my curtains, but in Puyo itself, the mosquitoes aren´t really a problem.
This week I will be heading over to Shell, fifteen minutes away. Shell is pretty much a little airplane landing for planes going in and out of the rainforest. They have a hospital there where I will be working for three days. Then, later this week, Dr. Torres and I will head out on a bus for a clinic two and a half hours farther out from Puyo, to help the nurse who runs it. Next week, I have a plethora of hospitals to visit and doctors to talk to. The third week, I will be heading off to a Shuar community.
So busy times ahead. Dr. Torres was very interested in my studies and work, and he made me happy when he told me that he really liked the way that I saw the world. He even is hinting already at staying in touch in the future, and he gives me the idea that I might be able to become an ally to efforts here somehow. I am not sure because he refuses to say much now, promising "you will understand, we will talk more later, you will see..." I press him for more answers and ask him if my preconceptions are incorrect. He says no, but refuses to explain, adamantly restating that "i will understand" and the conversation was over.
So, obviously, I am very intrigued.
I will try to make phone calls this week before heading out to Esperanza on Wednesday or Thursday, but I am going to wait for a day or two because calls are so expensive.
Know that I am relatively healthy and safe (as long as this dang traffic doesn´t kill me.) Love you all!
Friday, October 13, 2006
Counterfeit money, men with guns
So sometimes you get a jolt in Quito that reminds you you're not in Kansas anymore...
Sometimes it's the indigenous Quichua children pulling at your sleeve, pleading "señora, señora, buy some gum," sometimes it's the bright shawl wraps of the tradionally dressed women, sometimes it's the reckless traffic...
Then sometimes it's fake bills and armed men.
About half of the students in the program have already run into trouble with counterfeit money. Ecuador completely got rid of its sucre currency earlier this year. Counterfeit money is rampant here. Every person looks at EVERY bill, even fives. Last night, we had a counterfeit twenty when we paid the bill at a restaurant and the restaurant refused to accept it, so you have to eat the loss when this happens. I went to the bank and changed all my money into five dollar bills, so that I wouldn't need to get change. Sometimes, when people know they've been passed counterfeit bills, they try to pass it off onto foreigners to recover their losses. You are supposed to check all your own bills, but I can't even spot the counterfeits because they're pretty good.
Then there's the armed guards. It's a little unnerving to get money from the ATM when a uniformed tough guy is standing next to the machine with some kind of rifle in his hands. Wealthier people walk around with bodyguards. Today was the scariest. An army vehicle pulled up in front of our apartment as I was leaving, and a bunch of armed soldiers ran into the neighboring house, guns at the ready... I have no idea what they were doing... Of course, to me, it looked sketchy.
Elections, including the presidential election, are Sunday. It is the law here that everyone between 18 and 65 MUST vote. It's illegal not to vote. Candidates are not allowed to campaign after Thursday for Sunday elections, and no alcohol can be sold in the country this weekend, so that everyone will supposedly be sober for the voting process. Sunday promises to be a day of upheaval as people frequently protest and contest elections here. They told us to stay put at home and avoid people and public in general Sunday, which will be my first full day in Puyo.
Being here has reminded me how fortunate I am to live in a country with a stable government, where armed guards are not necessary, where fake money is rare, where they don't arrest gays, and where they don't throw women in prison for two years for having an abortion! Not to mention all the illnesses they still combat here like the rampant malaria and dengue. Then there's the grotesque poverty.
I bought my bus ticket to Puyo, and now I must go home to pack. I have no idea who will be picking me up in Puyo or where I will go, so I hope the doctor emails me. Otherwise, looks like I'll be hunting down a last minute hostel.
Sometimes it's the indigenous Quichua children pulling at your sleeve, pleading "señora, señora, buy some gum," sometimes it's the bright shawl wraps of the tradionally dressed women, sometimes it's the reckless traffic...
Then sometimes it's fake bills and armed men.
About half of the students in the program have already run into trouble with counterfeit money. Ecuador completely got rid of its sucre currency earlier this year. Counterfeit money is rampant here. Every person looks at EVERY bill, even fives. Last night, we had a counterfeit twenty when we paid the bill at a restaurant and the restaurant refused to accept it, so you have to eat the loss when this happens. I went to the bank and changed all my money into five dollar bills, so that I wouldn't need to get change. Sometimes, when people know they've been passed counterfeit bills, they try to pass it off onto foreigners to recover their losses. You are supposed to check all your own bills, but I can't even spot the counterfeits because they're pretty good.
Then there's the armed guards. It's a little unnerving to get money from the ATM when a uniformed tough guy is standing next to the machine with some kind of rifle in his hands. Wealthier people walk around with bodyguards. Today was the scariest. An army vehicle pulled up in front of our apartment as I was leaving, and a bunch of armed soldiers ran into the neighboring house, guns at the ready... I have no idea what they were doing... Of course, to me, it looked sketchy.
Elections, including the presidential election, are Sunday. It is the law here that everyone between 18 and 65 MUST vote. It's illegal not to vote. Candidates are not allowed to campaign after Thursday for Sunday elections, and no alcohol can be sold in the country this weekend, so that everyone will supposedly be sober for the voting process. Sunday promises to be a day of upheaval as people frequently protest and contest elections here. They told us to stay put at home and avoid people and public in general Sunday, which will be my first full day in Puyo.
Being here has reminded me how fortunate I am to live in a country with a stable government, where armed guards are not necessary, where fake money is rare, where they don't arrest gays, and where they don't throw women in prison for two years for having an abortion! Not to mention all the illnesses they still combat here like the rampant malaria and dengue. Then there's the grotesque poverty.
I bought my bus ticket to Puyo, and now I must go home to pack. I have no idea who will be picking me up in Puyo or where I will go, so I hope the doctor emails me. Otherwise, looks like I'll be hunting down a last minute hostel.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Enjoying the city... while I can
I am just getting very comfortable in Quito... just in time to leave Saturday morning for Puyo.
The doctor in Puyo hadn´t emailed me. I asked the program coordinators here in Quito to call the doctor for me but they were like "nope, you do it." So I called the doctor on his cell phone. I don´t like speaking Spanish on the phone, because I can´t see the person and it´s a lot more difficult. Well, he claimed to have sent me an email on Monday. I said I didn´t receive it. He said, "okay, I´ll send it again," and about hung up. I was like "wait, wait! I probably didn´t receive it because you probably have the wrong email address." So I told him my email address, which was difficult because letters and vowels sound very different in Spanish than English so I had to say "a" when it was "e" and "oo" for "u" ... I thought certainly he didn´t get it all... but then I got his email this afternoon. Sure enough, he had had the wrong email address before.
It appears that I will have some interesting opportunities. One of the sites is Voz Andes Shell, fifteen minutes from Puyo. My parents probably best know this town from the movie The End of the Spear, a controversial film to say the least, but Shell is the town where the missionaries lived.
I also might stay a few days with an indigenous Shuar community a 4 hour hike from Puyo, learning about their culture and tradional medical practices with a Shuar healer.
The rest of the sights are hospitals and a diabetes clinic in Puyo.
So that´s the plan for now.
I have to go to a bank to change my twenties into fives before I leave Quito, because people can´t except more than a five dollar bill around here... it´s simply too much money.
I started my anti-malaria medicine last night, and when they say that dizziness is a "side effect" they mean it´s an ACID TRIP... I was so dizzy, I could hardly walk. The room looked all wobbly and the numbers in my Su Doku book swam around the page. I am still dizzy today. Hopefully, I get used to the medication because this side effect is pretty intense.
Needless to say, debilitating dizziness is not what I need right now. Well, hopefully I´ll post a little something tomorrow before heading off to Puyo, where the calls and Internet posts are going to be a little less frecuent.
Hasta entonces...
The doctor in Puyo hadn´t emailed me. I asked the program coordinators here in Quito to call the doctor for me but they were like "nope, you do it." So I called the doctor on his cell phone. I don´t like speaking Spanish on the phone, because I can´t see the person and it´s a lot more difficult. Well, he claimed to have sent me an email on Monday. I said I didn´t receive it. He said, "okay, I´ll send it again," and about hung up. I was like "wait, wait! I probably didn´t receive it because you probably have the wrong email address." So I told him my email address, which was difficult because letters and vowels sound very different in Spanish than English so I had to say "a" when it was "e" and "oo" for "u" ... I thought certainly he didn´t get it all... but then I got his email this afternoon. Sure enough, he had had the wrong email address before.
It appears that I will have some interesting opportunities. One of the sites is Voz Andes Shell, fifteen minutes from Puyo. My parents probably best know this town from the movie The End of the Spear, a controversial film to say the least, but Shell is the town where the missionaries lived.
I also might stay a few days with an indigenous Shuar community a 4 hour hike from Puyo, learning about their culture and tradional medical practices with a Shuar healer.
The rest of the sights are hospitals and a diabetes clinic in Puyo.
So that´s the plan for now.
I have to go to a bank to change my twenties into fives before I leave Quito, because people can´t except more than a five dollar bill around here... it´s simply too much money.
I started my anti-malaria medicine last night, and when they say that dizziness is a "side effect" they mean it´s an ACID TRIP... I was so dizzy, I could hardly walk. The room looked all wobbly and the numbers in my Su Doku book swam around the page. I am still dizzy today. Hopefully, I get used to the medication because this side effect is pretty intense.
Needless to say, debilitating dizziness is not what I need right now. Well, hopefully I´ll post a little something tomorrow before heading off to Puyo, where the calls and Internet posts are going to be a little less frecuent.
Hasta entonces...
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Toilet paper, guinea pigs, homicidal traffic, indigenous painters
This is the most interesting thing in this entry, so I will put it first... in Ecuador, guess where you put the toilet paper? If you guessed the toilet, you guessed WRONG! Because the plumbing is so bad, you have to put the used toilet paper in the waste basket next to the throne so that the pipes don´t block up. Poopy paper in a basket, that´s something to get used to.
So, I have had intensive Spanish for four hours a day the past two days. Since I don´t need to practice reading or writing, we are just talking and talking, which is hard to do in any language for four hours straight. Yesterday, I learned a lot about traditional medicine. They use a lot of eggs, guinea pigs, tobacco, and rocks. They rub the rocks and (unbroken) eggs over people to restore the balance between negative and positive energies. They also rub a guinea pig all over the person, then cut the guinea pig open while it´s still alive. (Obviously, it then dies.) In this manner, supposedly, they can see what is wrong with the person by looking at the insides of the guinea pig.
My teacher and I talked about the positive and negative benefits of such "cures." I think that a lot of the rituals are more psychologically and culturally important for the patient, while the herbs and teas they use actually do have a scientfic basis. The only problem is when a traditional healer diagnoses someone with "el mal aire" or "el mal viento." This is what happens when one goes alone somewhere and the soul escapes from the body. The person becomes very ill, and the healer has to perform a series of rituals to get the soul back in the body. This is a problem if someone really has a serious illness and the healer tells them they just need to get their soul back, when they really need Western medicine.
There are also definitely cases of fraud, where people calling themselves healers claim to have supernatural powers. They charge exorbitant prices to their patients, taking advantage of local superstitions to make quite a profit. But you got to be careful messing with some indigenas. My teacher told me about one town where such fraud occurred, and the people threw the fraudulent healer into the river and hit her with spiny plants as a punishment. Apparently, they take the law into their own hands in some of these towns.
Quito looks a lot like North America, being a big city and all. Then my host mother last night informs me that gays are thrown in jail for a month if they are caught... being gay, I guess!! After some rigorous reasearch in guide books, it appears it has recently been legalized... but talk about different from San Francisco!
On to other topics, forget malaria and guerrillas, the most dangerous thing here is the motorists. When they say they don´t stop for pedestrians they mean THEY NEVER EVER EVEN COME CLOSE TO SLOWING DOWN for pedestrians. One motorcyclist that almost hit me today, proclaimed "oh, haha, I almost killed you, my love."
That´s the other thing. My new names include "my princess, my queen, my love." Unlike a lot of men in Rome, the men here don´t drool like they´ve never seen a woman before, but every comment I get from men is followed by "my most beautiful princess." They seem very cavalier. I haven´t run into too much machismo yet. But the younger generation of men are generally a lot less machista; in fact, many of them seem simply courteous and sweet.
Today, I went to La Fundación Guayasamín, which shows the works of the most famous Ecuadorian painter, Guayasamín, who was half-indigena. He was quite the progressive, and let´s just say he didn´t think too highly of Latin American dictatorships or the CIA. Some people criticize him as a Pizarro rip-off, but I thought his work was rather amazing. From the museum, which was high above Quito, I could look into the whole valley and the surrounding mountains. It´s like nothing I´ve ever seen before.
I will put up a link to the photos as soon as I figure out what Mark´s telling me to do with them online.
Hasta luego.
So, I have had intensive Spanish for four hours a day the past two days. Since I don´t need to practice reading or writing, we are just talking and talking, which is hard to do in any language for four hours straight. Yesterday, I learned a lot about traditional medicine. They use a lot of eggs, guinea pigs, tobacco, and rocks. They rub the rocks and (unbroken) eggs over people to restore the balance between negative and positive energies. They also rub a guinea pig all over the person, then cut the guinea pig open while it´s still alive. (Obviously, it then dies.) In this manner, supposedly, they can see what is wrong with the person by looking at the insides of the guinea pig.
My teacher and I talked about the positive and negative benefits of such "cures." I think that a lot of the rituals are more psychologically and culturally important for the patient, while the herbs and teas they use actually do have a scientfic basis. The only problem is when a traditional healer diagnoses someone with "el mal aire" or "el mal viento." This is what happens when one goes alone somewhere and the soul escapes from the body. The person becomes very ill, and the healer has to perform a series of rituals to get the soul back in the body. This is a problem if someone really has a serious illness and the healer tells them they just need to get their soul back, when they really need Western medicine.
There are also definitely cases of fraud, where people calling themselves healers claim to have supernatural powers. They charge exorbitant prices to their patients, taking advantage of local superstitions to make quite a profit. But you got to be careful messing with some indigenas. My teacher told me about one town where such fraud occurred, and the people threw the fraudulent healer into the river and hit her with spiny plants as a punishment. Apparently, they take the law into their own hands in some of these towns.
Quito looks a lot like North America, being a big city and all. Then my host mother last night informs me that gays are thrown in jail for a month if they are caught... being gay, I guess!! After some rigorous reasearch in guide books, it appears it has recently been legalized... but talk about different from San Francisco!
On to other topics, forget malaria and guerrillas, the most dangerous thing here is the motorists. When they say they don´t stop for pedestrians they mean THEY NEVER EVER EVEN COME CLOSE TO SLOWING DOWN for pedestrians. One motorcyclist that almost hit me today, proclaimed "oh, haha, I almost killed you, my love."
That´s the other thing. My new names include "my princess, my queen, my love." Unlike a lot of men in Rome, the men here don´t drool like they´ve never seen a woman before, but every comment I get from men is followed by "my most beautiful princess." They seem very cavalier. I haven´t run into too much machismo yet. But the younger generation of men are generally a lot less machista; in fact, many of them seem simply courteous and sweet.
Today, I went to La Fundación Guayasamín, which shows the works of the most famous Ecuadorian painter, Guayasamín, who was half-indigena. He was quite the progressive, and let´s just say he didn´t think too highly of Latin American dictatorships or the CIA. Some people criticize him as a Pizarro rip-off, but I thought his work was rather amazing. From the museum, which was high above Quito, I could look into the whole valley and the surrounding mountains. It´s like nothing I´ve ever seen before.
I will put up a link to the photos as soon as I figure out what Mark´s telling me to do with them online.
Hasta luego.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Basilicas y locos
Today I met the other students that will be in the Quito program this month. We went through Quito. The best part was visiting the basilica. We had an INSANE tour guide. We were allowed to climb the towers of the church with him. People gradually dropped out as the ascent became more precarious. We went across a boardwalk built over the roof of the main hall, then we climbed a tower up an extremely steep ladder. As if that wasn't enough, he then invited us to climb the vertical rebar handles up the outside of the tower! It was like a Via Ferrata except without gear and on the side of a basilica tower. Then we went inside another tower... now only three of us followed this loco. And we climbed the negative sloping rebar inside the tower. He and I talked about rock climbing a lot, as he was a climber, so that was cool. He tried to convince me to try some of the ice climbing in the volcanoes around here, but I insisted that I cannot stand the cold.
We also went out on a tiny bit of concrete in the highest part of the tower. He was climbing all over the outside. It was amazing. Of course, most of the group watched from below, where they were a lot safer.
We also visited the historic district and had lunch, where I tried the local ceviche which is very different from that in Mexico. In Mexico, ceviche has the consistency of salsa, but here it is a cold soup, further evidence of the differences one encounters across Latin America.
I had my first shower. When and where "hot" water exists, it is provided by a burst of electricity, which means you get something around lukewarm for two minutes, then you get barely tolerable chilly, which means it's time to finish up. I also accidentally rinsed my toothbrush in the sink, a big no-no with the water here, but hopefully it wasn't enough to hurt me. I haven't been stupid enough to take a big swig, but it's hard not to do the automatic things like run your toothbrush under the faucet. You have to used boiled or bottled water for that.
The altitude sickness persists. Our crazy tour guide told me to try chewing coca, which is the mother plant of cocaine and totally illegal in the US. But when it's still a leaf it's nothing like cocaine. Nevertheless, I think I'll stick to aspirin.
Tomorrow I begin language lessons, which I will have only this week.
Then to Puyo.
Wait 'til I download some of these photos! You won't believe them!
We also went out on a tiny bit of concrete in the highest part of the tower. He was climbing all over the outside. It was amazing. Of course, most of the group watched from below, where they were a lot safer.
We also visited the historic district and had lunch, where I tried the local ceviche which is very different from that in Mexico. In Mexico, ceviche has the consistency of salsa, but here it is a cold soup, further evidence of the differences one encounters across Latin America.
I had my first shower. When and where "hot" water exists, it is provided by a burst of electricity, which means you get something around lukewarm for two minutes, then you get barely tolerable chilly, which means it's time to finish up. I also accidentally rinsed my toothbrush in the sink, a big no-no with the water here, but hopefully it wasn't enough to hurt me. I haven't been stupid enough to take a big swig, but it's hard not to do the automatic things like run your toothbrush under the faucet. You have to used boiled or bottled water for that.
The altitude sickness persists. Our crazy tour guide told me to try chewing coca, which is the mother plant of cocaine and totally illegal in the US. But when it's still a leaf it's nothing like cocaine. Nevertheless, I think I'll stick to aspirin.
Tomorrow I begin language lessons, which I will have only this week.
Then to Puyo.
Wait 'til I download some of these photos! You won't believe them!
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Quito
I have arrived in Quito.
The flight was very long and boring. The highlight was the full moon. At one time, we were flying over the ocean and there were no clouds. The full moon reflected off the ocean which went on forever. I felt like I was in a science fiction film.
I expected a flight with half Ecuadorians, half norteamericanos. But everyone on the plane was a rich American, Canadian, or European en route to the Galapagos Islands. Needless to say, I was a bit out of place with my backpack and in a tank top and bandana, as they all had ten pieces of designer luggage and more jewels than fingers. And they were all very old.
In the airport, my host father in Quito, Marcos, picked me up in a taxi and took me back to their apartment which is very nice. There are two little boys, 3 and 5 years old. The younger one doesn´t talk; he only grunts. But they are both very cute.
Quito is surrounded by mountains, and you can just barely make out snow on a few of the peaks. The weather is warm and humid in the morning. Then, according to Lorena, my host mother, it starts raining after 4 and becomes colder. Right now it´s 20 Celsius and rather humid.
Many of the people are indistinguishable from people in the Mission district of San Francisco. The young women wear tank tops and jeans, to my relief, though I hear they dress more conservatively in small towns. The music at the internet cafe is the same reggaeton songs they play in San Francisco, which I guess is a testament to how Latinized California has become.
Unfortunately, I have developed altitude sickness. This happened almost as soon as the plane touched down. I have a huge headache and need to drink lots of water. Quito is twice as high as Denver, so this makes sense. I should be better in a few days, just in time to leave the mountains to go to Puyo.
Internet is very fast, and at this cafe it´s a whopping 70 cents per hour. I am less pleased with some of the keyboards, which in addition to being different than those in the US, appear to not always type what they should. Such is life.
The Spanish is extremely easy to understand in Quito, although my host mother told me that it is more difficult in the east because many people speak Quichua as their first language.
I will be in Quito until very early Saturday morning, exactly one week from today.
I miss everyone. And I miss water that doesn´t have to boiled. Already.
The flight was very long and boring. The highlight was the full moon. At one time, we were flying over the ocean and there were no clouds. The full moon reflected off the ocean which went on forever. I felt like I was in a science fiction film.
I expected a flight with half Ecuadorians, half norteamericanos. But everyone on the plane was a rich American, Canadian, or European en route to the Galapagos Islands. Needless to say, I was a bit out of place with my backpack and in a tank top and bandana, as they all had ten pieces of designer luggage and more jewels than fingers. And they were all very old.
In the airport, my host father in Quito, Marcos, picked me up in a taxi and took me back to their apartment which is very nice. There are two little boys, 3 and 5 years old. The younger one doesn´t talk; he only grunts. But they are both very cute.
Quito is surrounded by mountains, and you can just barely make out snow on a few of the peaks. The weather is warm and humid in the morning. Then, according to Lorena, my host mother, it starts raining after 4 and becomes colder. Right now it´s 20 Celsius and rather humid.
Many of the people are indistinguishable from people in the Mission district of San Francisco. The young women wear tank tops and jeans, to my relief, though I hear they dress more conservatively in small towns. The music at the internet cafe is the same reggaeton songs they play in San Francisco, which I guess is a testament to how Latinized California has become.
Unfortunately, I have developed altitude sickness. This happened almost as soon as the plane touched down. I have a huge headache and need to drink lots of water. Quito is twice as high as Denver, so this makes sense. I should be better in a few days, just in time to leave the mountains to go to Puyo.
Internet is very fast, and at this cafe it´s a whopping 70 cents per hour. I am less pleased with some of the keyboards, which in addition to being different than those in the US, appear to not always type what they should. Such is life.
The Spanish is extremely easy to understand in Quito, although my host mother told me that it is more difficult in the east because many people speak Quichua as their first language.
I will be in Quito until very early Saturday morning, exactly one week from today.
I miss everyone. And I miss water that doesn´t have to boiled. Already.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Chicago
Well, here I am in Chicago.
Tomorrow at 10 a.m. I wlll be taking the El to O'Hare to begin my trek into Ecuador.
It's raining right now in Quito, the capital. And it will be raining for the whole week I am there. Hopefully, I will be getting some intense language boot camp at the "Amazing Andes" Language School. Then, next Saturday, I take a bus to Puyo, in the Oriente region, where I will spend three weeks in the Amazon Community Medicine Program of CFHI (www.cfhi.org). That month, I happen to be the only student in that program, as I have described before, so it's going to be ... interesting.
I am getting excited/nervous and think that I may be somewhat in denial.
After the long bus ride from Minneapolis yesterday, where my mamaw dropped me off at a megabus to Chicago, I arrived at Kevin's place. I did a bit o' site seeing today, including The Field Museum right on Lake Michigan (just days ago we were driving up the north shore of Lake Superior ... that makes two great lakes in one week!). Then Kevin met up with me after his classes and he showed me this crazy sculpture that looks like a kidney bean. It's unbelievable actually! I can't explain it, but it reflects things in very crazy ways.
I have read that the descent into Quito is quite adventurous, so with my fear of flying, the darkness, and the forecasted storms, tomorrow will be oodles of fun. And I have to start that danged antimalarial medication.
Know that I love you all. I already miss you.
And a special thanks to Mom, Dad, Jessica, Ashley, Mamaw, Granpa, Andy, Kevin, and last of all, the always wonderful Mark ... for all your love, help, and assistance over the past few weeks and years.
Next dispatch to come from Quito, Ecuador :)
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