Reports from Ecuador

FYI: Given the unreliable internet situation, we have decided to split up blogging responsibilities so that our entries do not overlap.  To read about our experience in its entirety, visit ecuador.blogs.rice.edu.  Thanks for reading!

Thursday featured a day trip to Guayaquil, the same coast city where our incoming flight from Houston landed to refuel before eventually arriving in Quito. After a half-hour flight from Quito, we spent the morning touring the city with Marisol, who is originally from Guayaquil, as our guide. We took a taxi to the base of a huge hill, and then climbed the 500 steps to the top in order to get an aerial view of the city.

After climbing back down the hill, we spent the rest of the morning walking along the boardwalk area, which is home to monuments, statues, beautiful flowers and trees, street vendors and lots and lots of people. The boardwalk let us to the bahía, a huge tent marketplace where vendors are eager to sell everything from artisan craft and jeans to watches and toys. We then took a taxi (which sounded like it was going to fall apart any minute) to the main plaza, where we were greeted by hundreds of freely roaming iguanas! We could not believe how many there were, and how calm they were!

We then continued to a nice hotel for typical Ecuadorian lunch: pork, a llapingacho (kind of like a mashed potato and cheese pancake), fried plantains and salad. After lunch we finally made our way to the neighborhood 30 minutes outside of the city where Fundación Futuro has a clinic. The community was obviously an extremely poor area, but the clinic itself was very nice. María Alicia and Marisol were there to administer an exam to the health promoters, and Amanda and I were the pretend patients. This was a great way for us to help them out and also see first-hand how their clinic system operates. When patients arrive, health promoters introduce them to the clinic. They emphasize that while the foundation supports them, it truly is the community’s clinic. Patients pay up to 50 cents for the visit, which does not cover the actual costs of their medical care, but does give value to the services that they receive. Health promoters than take their weight, height, blood pressure and temperature, and direct them to see the doctor in general medicine, dentistry, psychiatry or gynecology depending on their needs. It was such a privilege to see the foundation’s work up close and meet the people on the front lines of health care in this developing country. As we learn more about the foundation’s clinics, it becomes easier to envision the role of the technologies we brought from Rice. When we go to Planchaloma next week we hope to begin demonstrating the suite of backpacks along with Sally and the AccuDose. Until then, it’s been a great experience getting to know the people involved with Fundación Futuro and learn about the heroic work they do throughout the country.

FYI: Given the unreliable internet situation, we have decided to split up blogging responsibilities so that our entries do not overlap.  To read about our experience in its entirety, visit ecuador.blogs.rice.edu.  Thanks for reading!

After the weekend’s introduction to Quito, Amanda and I spent Tuesday and Wednesday working at Fundación Futuro’s central office. When we arrived on Tuesday morning, the amazing María Alicia explained to us the foundation’s mission and history, which would be essential for us to understand in order to best contribute to their work.

The foundation was started by Grupo Futuro—a collection of five companies in Ecuador including Tecniseguros, which shares its office with the foundation. The foundation originated out of the conviction that business has an obligation to not only producing quality goods and services, but also to give back to the community in order to protect the environment and improve the conditions of marginalized populations.

Today, the foundation supports medical clinics in six different rural, indigenous communities and two neighborhoods in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s biggest city. Each clinic is run by a network of doctors, nurses and health promoters who work together to provide general medicine, dental, gynecology, psychiatry and pharmaceutical services to patients at a minimal cost.  The foundation also supports educational and microfinance projects.  María Alicia emphasized to us that the foundation exists to support the needs and wishes of the community rather than impose a paternalistic agenda, and as such collaborates with community leaders in order to develop requested services and does charge a nominal fee for medical care.

Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday we worked on a promotional campaign for hand-washing to be used by the health promoters. Many people in the communities the foundation works with don’t have public health programs in place that teach such important hygiene habits. Luckily, I had worked on a hygiene education project for my BIOE 260 class, and had these resources available. So far, we´ve developed a series of activities for children that convey the importance of washing your hands as well as promotional posters for the clinics and other public places.

As we were designing these materials, it came to our attention that the lack of hand-washing is only part of the problem—none of the indigenous communities have access to potable water. I mentioned to María Alicia the SODIS (the protocol that disinfects water after 6 hours of sun exposure), and she suggested that we do a trial in Planchaloma, where they’re currently conduction a water quality study.

Once we make the final revisions to the hygiene materials, we’ll begin a similar project for recycling. Because many indigenous communities on recently began to use plastic goods, they have not yet implemented a recycling program, something the foundation would like to work with them to change.

So far the work has been really interesting and we’ve felt useful.  Hopefully this continues as we begin to visit the communities and work directly with doctors and patients!

After departing later than scheduled, taking a detour into Guayaquil Airport due to “mal tiempo en Quito”, and spending almost 10 hours sitting on Continental Flight 653, we finally arrived in the gorgeous capital city of Ecuador that is Quito.

Besides that crazy flight, everything went smoothly: the CHO and OB/GYN backpacks have arrived safely in our company, and we are ready to explore all that Ecuador has to offer while also helping in any way we can and making as much of a difference as two college students can possibly make in a developing country.

Maria Alicia has treated us so well and has opened up her beautiful and cozy home to us which we will be forever grateful. She has unofficially taken on the role of our own personal tour guide and encyclopedia of knowlege of everything Ecuadorian, especially her home city of Quito. Before the real work begins, she has made sure that we feel right at home and are seeing as much of this beautiful city as possible. Tomorrow happens to be a holiday in the city of Quito when El Festival del 24 de Mayo will take place. It commemorates La Batalla de Pichincha that took place on a mountain in Quito in the early 1800s and which showed that Ecuadorian indepedence from Spain was imminent.

We will be spending the remainder of the week in Quito with Maria Alicia. She is hesitant to talk about any kind of work yet; I guess she is fully enjoying the holiday and days of rest! The real work may begin on Tuesday; but until then, I will make sure to take in all that Quito has to offer the eager and mesmerized tourist.