Reports from Ecuador

Stephen and Yvette arrive

It´s been over 2 weeks since my last post, and since Andrea went into such great detail about most everything I´m going to keep the summary pretty basic. Going back to 4^th of July: honestly that day was kind of depressing because this was the first time in my life that I was unable to do a single thing to celebrate the 4^th. I know that we couldn´t really expect a big show, considering our location, but it still made us a little homesick. I decided to wake Andrea up with pancakes (not a common breakfast food here) as a small way to remember the US. The following week though was packed with excitement, as Yvette and Stephen arrived on Tuesday to work with us for a week. Yvette is one of the directors of Beyond Traditional Borders and Stephen is what I like to call ´the godfather of the backpacks,´ so we were excited to see some familiar faces from Rice as well as have time to talk (in English!!) about our progress and our experience. Because this was the first year that Rice sent students to Ecuador, it was especially important for them to get the low-down on the entire experience.

We first got to meet up with Yvette and Stephen on Wednesday morning as we were heading out to Tungurahua. We conducted a medical brigade in the community of San Isidro, which served also as an opportunity for Yvette and Stephen to see how the brigades of Fundación Futuro work. Also, this was the very first time that Stephen got to see the backpacks in action, which was cool for him because he spent all year toiling over making dozens of the lab-in-a-backpacks. The brigade/mobile clinic went pretty successfully, as there were plenty of patients who needed all sorts of tests. We also made good use out of the gynecological backpack, as there was one doctor who wanted to spend the whole day doing well-woman exams and Pap smears when possible.

The rest of the week we spent in the office preparing reports and waiting to hear if our planned trip to the Amazon was going to go through. Yvette and Stephen were pretty busy working with Fundación Futuro trying to coordinate the shipment of backpacks that was going to the Ministry of Health, so sadly we didn´t have a lot of time to talk with them. However, by the end of the week we finally confirmed that we were going to the Amazon (or Oriente, as they say here)! Our plan was to spend Sunday traveling, and then Monday tagging along with the ministry during a trip to one of the communities in which they were planning to do a bunch of vaccinations. Andrea and I excitedly packed up our malaria pills, rain boots and ponchos and were ready to go!

Entering the Amazon: view from the airplane

Adventures in the Amazon rainforest…at last!

On Sunday morning we flew out to the Amazon in a small plane accompanied by Enrique Estrella from Fundación Futuro, Yvette, Stephen, and all of our medical backpacks. It was only a half hour flight but it was awesome looking out the window and seeing the immediate change from the mountain highlands to the tropical rainforest. After a 2 hour bus ride we arrived in Coca, a small Amazonian petroleum town. Apparently a lot of oil companies have drilling projects in the Amazon, and therefore many small towns have sprung up around this business. We also saw a lot of ´gringos petroleros,´ who are white American laborers who live and work in these towns that are located close to the drilling sites. It was interesting to say the least to see oil trucks and pipelines snaking through the untouched wilderness of the rainforest – an ironic juxtaposition.

We arrived at our riverside hotel and were greeted by a zoo, literally! Many of the inhabitants of this hotel were uncaged tropical animals that had made the site their home, interacting with hotel guests (and begging for/stealing food, of course). Andrea, Stephen and I spent a while playing with and taking pictures of the Toucans, peacocks, squirrel monkeys, parrots, and tortoises before we all had to head over to the Ministry of Health branch – Orellana to talk about our trip the next day to the community of Cotóna. On our way back to the hotel we bought some bread from a bakery to take with us the next day because we would usually go without food on the days in the communities unless they decided to cook for us. When we got back to the hotel we saw one of the adorable little squirrel monkeys and were ´talking´ with it until suddenly we were surrounded by four more of its buddies, who then decided to jump on us! We were not sure what was going on until we realized what they were really after: the bag full of bread! We were playing tug of war with them as they tried to snatch the bag out of our hands, and finally after passing the bag between us we were able to break free and run into our hotel rooms! Only in the Amazon…however the next day we couldn´t stay upset with the monkeys because they were just too cute, so we made up and decided to be friends – we even gave them a peace offering of some animal crackers. That usually does the trick!

On Monday morning we headed out super early, as usual, to the community of Cotóna, which was nearly a 2 hour drive in total from Coca. We brought all of the backpacks with us, and when we arrived we were prompted to give the people of the community a short presentation about the backpacks. Because this was not a normal Fundación Futuro brigade, we were just using the opportunity to tag along with the Ministry and test out our packs in this environment the best we could. That also meant that the people were going to choose if they wanted to have any tests done (instead of a doctor dictating what they needed), and also they would not have to pay for anything. I was not sure if anyone would want to have a blood test or a Pap smear when given the choice, but after the promotores explained to the people in Quichua what was going on, people lined up to get glucose tests, urine tests, and Pap smears! The Ministry seems to have done a good job with this community with their medical education programs. Also, we did not have a lab technician with us, so this was the first time that we had to man the lab-in-a-backpack completely by ourselves. Luckily Yvette had some prior experience as a lab tech and she took over most of the testing.

Later in the afternoon we were asked if we wanted to go see the ´piedras de Shaman,´ or magical Shaman rocks. We thought that sounded pretty cool so went on a short trek through the jungle to the edge of a creek, where there were 3 rocks that had been carved with mystical symbols. The people had no idea when the rocks had been carved, so they knew that they were very old. Two of the rocks had abstract symbols on them that our guides told us were meant to represent man and woman. We also got to meet the local Shaman, who helped out Andrea by expelling all of her evil spirits!

The rest of the trip was pretty straightforward – hanging out in the pool, playing with our monkey friends, and then making the return trip to Quito on Tuesday. We sadly said goodbye to Stephen, Yvette, and two of the backpacks, all of which were returning to Houston and to Rice. We found out that Ecuador had recently put an embargo on the number of suitcases you could check, and we would be unable to return with the packs ourselves. It was sad to see them go because it also meant the end of our work with the medical brigades! We couldn´t believe that it had come to an end, but we felt like we had gotten some really good feedback on our projects that would help out Rice. It was also nice to know that Fundación Futuro was eager to get more Rice student volunteers next summer because they had enjoyed working with us! We definitely enjoyed working with them too and we feel like a continued relationship between Rice University and Fundación Futuro will be beneficial to both parties. María Alicia and QiQín again threatened not to let us leave, and are still constantly asking us when we´re coming back to visit! We always tell them whenever we have enough money for the trip, because we´re just poor students right now! It´s great knowing too that we have an Ecuadorian family now who will always welcome us if we come back.

Me with my adorable monkey friends! What cute little devils...

Yvette and Stephen hard at work in the community of Cotona

Trekking through the jungle on the way to see the Shaman stones

The last week – a little bit of work, a little bit of fun on the beach

Okay so that´s a lie, the last week was actually full of a lot of bit of work. Andrea and I were frantically writing detailed reports for both Fundación Futuro and for Rice University, essentially translating every document from English to Spanish or Spanish to English so that both sides could have full reports of every part of the experience. It was exhausting to say the least, but we knew since we´re the guinea pigs for the internship in Ecuador, every detail was important. ¡Chuta! I never want to write a 20-page writeup in Spanish ever again! Andrea and I were also determined to spend our last weekend in Ecuador at the beach, because that was the only region of Ecuador that we hadn´t yet visited (except for the Galapagos Islands, which was WAY too expensive for us to even consider). Therefore as soon as we finished our reports for Fundación, we set to organizing our trip to the beach ourselves, doing everything from going to the bus station to buy tickets and calling hotels to make reservations. Because I don´t want to write too much I´ll just summarize our trip to the beach of Atacames in bullet points:

• Playing loud horror films on an overnight bus trip is not conducive to sleep!
• It´s much easier to deal with cold showers when you´re in a hot, humid location.
• Our trip to the beach felt pretty authentic because we were practically the only gringos there! This also brought a lot of (sometimes unwanted) attention, and we´re pretty sure that we got ripped off by the locals. Oh well, what can you do?
• I ate and drank everything that I could that was made of coconut – from squid in coconut sauce to fresh coconut milk to coconut milkshakes to the Coco Loco. My personal heaven!
• Highlight of the trip: whale watching. We took a small boat ride out into the sea and were able to see 6 or 7 humpback whales feeding at the surface – close up, too! One of the most breathtaking experiences imaginable.
  

The beach of Atacames

I'm in coconut heaven!