But did anybody really honestly think I would keep up the blog? I just chuckled reading my last post with abundant promises to update after the jungle... This time around, I will not make any promises, but I promise to make a more sincere effort than the last time around.
So, how to sum up the lost 2 1/2 months of last semester's experience? Let's give it a shot....
- I went to the Amazon, turned 21. I have a picture album posted on my facebook from that trip. It was a fantastic experience, sort of your quintescential jungle experience minus seeing a lot of animals in the wild. I stayed in a cabin, saw a lot of tarantulas, went on a deafeningly loud night hike, traveled by motorized canoe down a river with the Discovery Channel style tree canopy hanging down over the river, saw a lot of crazy jungle animals in a zoo-esque animal protection place, and spent an hour alone in the forest sitting on a log hanging out with insects and beautiful blue butterflies. That was probably the highlight of my trip--I had been in a strange place spiritually, having a hard time relating to my group, and shutting up for an hour (phones, watches, cameras, ipods, etc were all confiscated) and being present in nature was a really cool and therapeutic experience for me. Then we went to a jungle bar, I had my first beer as a 21 year old (anticlimactic!) and I spent a day at this cool reserve owned by a tennessean(? I forget where exactly he was from) but he had this crazy swing that went out over the river and a pet monkey who climbed all over the boys. Generally absurd. Summary: Jungle was awesome. I will be going back in February with my new group but to a different place. Maybe I'll tell you about it earlier than 3 months later....
- I moved to Quito when I got back from the jungle. I had a rougher experience there in a very different setting. I had a married sister who didnt live at home, and a sister that was super busy with schoolwork and never had time to go out. I was living on the terrace completely apart from the main body of the house, which provided me with plenty of privacy but it turns out that it was too much. I had to get my umbrella to go down to the house for breakfast, and the family was very nice but very busy. I got really homesick during that time, I was disappointed in myself and how poorly I handled not having internet, and I started questioning whether I was going to regret the 5 1/2 months that lay ahead of me in Ecuador, crying a lot and dreaming about my family, etc.
- I made it through my time in Quito, though admittedly not taking full advantage of my time there (while others hurried to get to all the museums and parks in the three weeks we were there, I huddled in my room pathetically, knowing I'd have another 4 months in Quito to explore everything. Wasteful.), all the while completing the Academic Seminar class which included 2 lectures each day by various speakers and experts in their professions. The seminar was cool but overwhelming, with heavy amounts of reading in Spanish that I was unable to complete. I came out of the experience feeling overwhelmed, as though I had learned a tiny bit about a bunch of topics (politics, economics, women's movements, indigenous movements, human rights, afro-ecuadorian movement, environmental issues, biodiversity, pre-incan culture, etc etc etc), but without having much concrete knowledge on any given topic. It was only later when I was at home talking with some friends about Ecuador that I realized how much I had learned. It was subtle, but I am certainly much more well-informed than I had been when I left.
- Finally, me tocó hacer mi proyecto independiente. I went to Guayaquil for my independent study project, basially against the advice of my directors and host family members. I had a project waiting for me in the province of Intag with a really excellent community leader and organzer who was looking for help with a few projects having to do with water, but that were really not calling to me....a campaign to stop pollution of a river, not for drinking purpose but because years down the road it will affect tourism if thy have a dirty river. Absolutely important work, but I rather had my heart set on privatization in Guayaquil, even though I didnt have a project plan or organization to work with. Long story short, I followed my intuition against logic and ended up in Guayaquil, wasted a week (out of 3) of my project at a beurocratic organization that deals with canals, sediment in the riverbed of the Rio Guayas, etc. It could have worked out if they'd had a project for me, but they really had nothing for me to do, and no way for me to do my project that needed to include personal interviews. The fateful Friday of that first week, I was left unattended as I had no supervisor or project, so I did a google search and found the Citizen's Observatory for Public Services, doing exactly what I had hoped an organization was doing, advocating for changes in the law and protecting the citizens from the absurd engaños (lies and tricks!) of Interagua (previously a branch of Bechtel, the same Bechtel of the water wars in Bolivia....http://books.google.com/books?id=Ej5c5C2aonQC&dq=water+wars+bolivia&source=gbs_navlinks_s), apparently has recently been transfered to Veolia, one of the three major water companies in the world that owns an outrageous percentage of the world's water....they are privatizing up a storm with universal problems for the impoverished people in those countries....Long story short, everything fell into place, they had been looking for someone to do a project that included personal interviews with the "victims" of privatization, and I had been looking for a project that included personal interviews with the victims of privatization..... it all worked out incredibly, i did interviews and posted a blog for them which i is all in spanish, I apologize for you non-spanish speakers. If you're really interested I hear Google Translator gives a reasonable picture: www.victimasdelagua.blogspot.com. I will give some more details about what I actually experienced and wrote about for my project at a different time--I get very heated up about it, and I need to head for bed relatively soon.
- After I sent them my final project (a 44 pager in spanish) which was basdically the blog on steroids with an added section about how great the Observatory is, they decided to publish my final project as a little 80 page book to be disributed all around, especially to government officials and Asambleistas, as there is a set list of goals that the observatory is currently trying to achieve (representative for the usuarios within Interagua, a set rate for water b/c rightnow its absurd and arbitrary, and a cantidad of free water for everyone which means that even people with 0 dollars can have some of that human right to water). Ultimately they would like Interagua out of Guayaquil, but are focussing on small steps first. When I was with them, we had a meeting with some of t he asambleistas from the commision of soberania alimentaria y desarrollo del sector agropecuario y pesquero to propose these changes to them.... They were supposed to have a meeting with that committee this past week, but Interagua apparently didn't show, so they couldn't do it. Supposedly they will try again next week, and by then the book will be published, so they plan on bringing it to the meeting. I'm excited and totally nervous (um, Intergua will be there when they whip out the publication...)
So that whole thing has been exciting although theres been a lot of drama around the publication, concerns about usingm y real name, my safety, and whether Interagua presents a real threat to my safety after publishing such a "librito" (little book) (although the Observatory takes full responsability and is right on the cover)... At the end of the day and after changing my mind, fighting with my parents, being lectured by the Observatory about engaños and whether we'll have to hide ourselves the rest of our lives for telling the truth, I decided that the risk isn't real enough to not do it. Realistically, I'm just adding my voice to a very long list of people who have been saying the same thing for a long time and will continue to do so. To hurt me wouldn't help their cause, as it would leave the REAL pain in their ass, the Observatory, completely intact and with more reason to bring them down. That's not to say it doesn't make me a little nervous to be so publicly denoucning a transnational corporation.... Ultimately I think it's only going to get more intense from here if this is what I want to be doing (and i think it is), so I'm just jumping in, trusting my intuition that it's right regardless of what happens.
- In other epic news, I ended up dating my Guayaquil homestay brother (against the rules, don't tell!) .... and by dating I mean falling in love with... he is 24 going on 30 (maturity-wise), very very smart, and possibly the most motivated person i've ever met. He owns his own business (he's a medical supply provider), and tells me that his calling is to be a good business man and make a lot of money so that he can help others economically because that's what he's good at. He goes out every month when he gets his paycheck and gives hot chocolate and bread to the street children in his area, has been involved in politics. He ran for asambleista (you know, like a Congressperson...) last year (yes, at 23) so you can google him haha Klever Macero. He didn't expect to be elected the first time around of course, but that's not really the point. He's a bit more conservative than I am, but it's actually a good balance because we challenge each other a lot. We have different philosophies sometimes, but he is also deeply concerned for the rest of the world. He is so into that I'm into social justice, and has entered into my world...it doesn't translate so much into english but se metió en mi mundo, and that has been so crazy for me. Rather than be put off by my intensity, he matches it in a slightly different way. He has the same stupid sense of humor as I do..... need I say more? The short story is, I fell in love in Ecuador, just as I have been warned by so many not to do.
So there you have the rest of my semester: I went to the jungle, I will shortly be a published undergrad student, I fell in love with an amazing guy (ese hombre de Guayaquil) , and I'm currently trying my VERY hardest not to be that obnoxious know-it-all girl in my new group of classmates, even though I am that girl. I'd rather be with my host brother than in a large group of gringos, but I'm trying not to alienate myself at the same time. Tranquila, tranquila, I know that I'll be making more friends soon when we start classes.
VICTIMAS DEL AGUA
www.victimasdelagua.blogspot.com
Es una ventana para hacer conocer los impactos de la privatizacion del agua en la vida cotidiana de las personas. Pondremos relatos, fotos,documentos, videos y todo lo que vayamos produciendo para poner ...
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