What I've learned and what I'll miss

I learned a lot during my stay in Ecuador, but not at all what I expected to learn. I came here expecting to learn the subjects I would be taught in class... about development and related inequalities, etc. What I found out, is that if I gleaned what I understood from all the lectures, the important take-aways were things I had already known from my time at Lawrence, as an anthropology major and as a member of GlobeMed. While it is a bit disappointing that I can't really think of anything new and important I have learned from my classes here, it does make me thankful for the education I have had and get to have more of at Lawrence.

But let's see, what HAVE I learned from the large amount of time I spent in class those first 8 weeks. I learned how to be a little more confident in asking for clarification, even when I'm not sure I even know enough Spanish words to make my question clear. I learned how to be honest about who I am and what kind of experience I want with myself and with others. I learned that I'm more of a day person; I'd much rather wake up at 6 than stay up until then! I learned how to find what I want in an unfamiliar city by just going and asking questions along the way if I get lost, even if that meant walking around for an hour (and getting lost) to find a church I saw online just because I thought it would be a better way to learn than to take a taxi. I think the biggest thing I can take from this experience is that as long as I make safe choices, I'll be fine on my own. I can figure it out, and strangers are more willing to help me than they might seem at first.

When I moved to Otavalo, I learned that I definitely am an introvert because my time alone there, either reading in my room or walking around the city, was the best re-charge I could have had. Though, I did eventually get a little lonely and realized that friends are a huge blessing as long as I know how to ask for some time alone when I need it. I learned a couple of other things about myself and what I want to pursue in the future from my time in Otavalo as well. I learned that public health might not be my thing. After two 6-week internships in foreign health organizations, which I definitely did enjoy, I realized that this is not how I want to serve God and his people like I thought it was. I tend to forget the purpose of what I'm doing if I'm just seeing many people go by each day, or not even meeting the people I'm working to help, and I think I need to find something where I can build real relationships with individuals rather than do something for the masses. I want to look into some other volunteer/intern opportunities in Appleton when I get back to explore some other options, but something I really hope to get into is the Fox Valley Warming Shelter, because I'm pretty sure they help the homeless people who come through with job searches, and that really strikes me as a good idea and something I could get into. The other thing I realized while in Otavalo is how important music and the arts are to me, which I always took for granted until they were not at all easily available to me. I miss being able to really get into my flute practice. I miss hearing other people play, and I for sure want to go to more artist and world music series performances when I get back. One of my favorite things about Otavalo is Kinti Wasi, which is that big bird-shaped arts/culture building I found, and I wish I would have had time to go to more of their events. That's something I realize I'm going to have to work harder at keeping in my life once I leave Lawrence.

These are just a few of the things I learned, and I'm sure if we're talking sometime in the near future I'll come up with/remember others. Now onto some of the random, daily things I'll definitely miss about this place:

• All the dogs! Strays included... they're really nice here and probably happier than the house dogs

• The mountains, of course. I could stare at them for hours.

• CHEAP food and markets. Just the fact that I bought 50 bananas or $3... and my favorite pizza place sells a huge slice plus a glass of soda for $1.50 (though, I will not miss the soda. I hate soda and people drink it like it's water here...)

• Speaking Spanish. I'll still be able to do that in my Spanish classes, but nothing beats having to explain something in the strangest way possible because you seem to have forgotten any word that actually has to do with your subject!
• Adding "ita" to everything. I'm not sure how it translates into English, but I think of it as prefacing your subject with "cute little." Like tecito (tea - té), aguita (water - agua), and of course adding it to most names (Sarita, Martita). It doesn't work with mine, unfortunately :/ 
• Cows EVERYWHERE. There don't seem to be farms anywhere... people just give their cows a tour of the city and drop them off in a random green patch by the road to graze for the day. As I strangely said on the bus one day, I like the cows so much because "their color scheme goes well with the grass." But really, I think cows on a grassy mountain side is the perfect scenery.

• And of course, I'll miss my host families and MSID friends!

Well, I'll be home Sunday so I guess this is sort-of my good-bye post! I can't wait to be home and see everyone! I may post once more after we go to Mitad del Mundo (the equator) but it's more likely I'll just be putting pictures of that on facebook. Ciao, Ecuador!

Amazon!

I'll start off this post with Thanksgiving, which we still got to celebrate despite not being in the US! CIMAS held a nice Thanksgiving (acción de gracias) dinner for us students and our Quito host families. It was really great to see my Quito family again and I'm glad I get to spend another week with them before I head back home! The dinner was nice and we got (mostly) American Thanksgiving food, followed by some dancing.

A lot of the CIMAS staff and some random Americans speaking and praying over the meal.

Alexa! Our families are close so we sat together :)

It was a traditional Thanksgiving in the sense of me eating as much as I possibly could.

Not part of Thanksgiving, but before we left the next morning we went to the post office (those aren't my packages... I only went to show them where the post office is). One of the employees asked to take a picture of us since we were "so beautiful" and then admitted he thought we were pretty because of Sara's sunglasses and Kat's earrings. A bit of a strange experience!

At the dinner, six of us decided that we were going to go to Tena for the weekend. Tena is an adventure-sport and forest-exploring city in the Amazon. Kat, Janay and I didn't have anything packed for this trip, so Friday morning we started our full day of bus rides by heading 2 hours back up to Otavalo to re-pack! Following that was 2 more hours back to Quito, 1 hour to the southern bus terminal in Quito, and about 6 hours to Tena. We finally got to our hostel at 3 AM, and luckily Marais, Sara and Shomari had gotten there hours ago to reserve us a room at the hostel.

All of Saturday we spend on what I think is a river that feeds the Amazon, white-water rafting! We got on a trip last-minute with River People, only because Kat had gone with them once and the owner remembered her. It wasn't quite as crazy as I was hoping, but we hit a few giant rapids and our guide made the trip really fun even in the calmer sections.

Riding in the back of the truck to the river!

Our group - Kat, Marais, me, Shomari, Sara, Janay

There were 3 rafts going down together. Ours, a group of people from Canada/Europe, and a family from Argentina. Our raft and the Canada/Europe raft got in quite a few splash fights, and even some pirating of the others' raft and throwing people off (unfortunately we were always the victims of that since they were generally bigger/stronger than us). This is one of the splash fights!

But then on one of the first crazy sets of rapids, their raft basically flew up into the air, turned over, and dumped all of them out. We only lost 2 people on those rapids :) 

Our team cheer! Which was actually a super bad Ecuadorian swear... so good thing the guides were the only Ecuadorians to understand it, and it was their idea anyways!

Us (except Shomari) swimming in a calm part.

Some rainforest.

Walking around in the Amazon bare-foot :) It was nice, except when we were walking through parts with tons of ants.

A part of the river we walked to to swim a bit.

There were a LOT of butterflies just sitting on the beach!

I got to ride through a set of rapids just sitting on the front of the raft instead of paddling!

A game during a calm part - we all stood up around the edge and leaned back!

Our team with our guide!

Carrying the rafts up to the truck on our heads... it was super heavy and I thought my neck was gonna break when we were going up the stairs!

Bringing the last raft in while it was pouring rain.

And we drove all the way back with THREE giant rafts on top of this tiny car, and 11 people and gear inside of it!

Sunday we had about half the day to have fun before we had to catch the bus back to Quito. It was raining a lot in the morning, and the owner of the hostel said the only thing really worth doing in this weather was going to the Jumandy caves, so we did that! (it was always my vote to do the caves, so I was happy about the outcome!) The cave goes really deep and has a rushing river going through it, so it was super cool! The only down-side of the trip is that the people where we checked our bags in to keep them safe stole $10 from each of our wallets, and there was nothing we could really do about it :/

Just waiting for the water level to lower a bit from all the rain that morning!

This cave on the left is where we exited at the end... it leads into a big swimming pool with water slides!

Going down into the cave's entrance.

Crossing the river in the cave... the current was pretty strong so our guide had to make sure none of us fell.

Waterfall in a cave... could be one of my favorite things ever!

At the end of our path, before we turned around for a bit and went a different way out.

There was a part of the river deep enough that we had to either swim or pull ourselves across this rope.

Light at the end of the tunnel!

We survived!

This guy was SO BIG! :)

On the bus home, before we left the terminal, they had the news playing. It seriously spent like 20 minutes talking about the fog in Quito and how it "made Quito a scene of fright or romanticism." It was a really strange, sentimental news story...

 I know I told some people I was going to the coast this weekend, but I couldn't pass up going to the Amazon! Hopefully Sara and I will be heading to the coast during our last week since she doesn't have to write a final paper (she's staying for the year) and I finished mine. I come home in two weeks though, and as much as I love Ecuador, I am ready to see everyone again!