Ecuador I

I realize that in the 11 days I've been in Ecuador I haven't gotten a chance to post anything about this beautiful and amazing country. It's really a shame because I've gotten a chance to see a lot of great things here. Unfortunately, I've also spent the last 4 days in a hotel room quite ill and 4 hours last Thursday in a hospital in Quito. However, I'll try to back-track a little bit and fill you guys in on what has been going on:

Quito 1/7-1/9

It's amazing after how being in developing countries for so long coming to Quito could feel like living in the lap of luxury, but it did! It is also just a really beautiful city—flying in over the mist covered mountain peaks was our first experience here, and it only got better. The city itself is enormous, and it feels almost like a city in the U.S. There are many small shops, parks, and inter-city buses everywhere, much different from the rural areas of developing countries. It also has a thriving tourist industry so for the first time in a month we actually saw other gringos. Our first night there we were craving a little bit of culture and so went to see the Quito Chamber Orchestra. They were fantastic, and it was quite an experience.
I hung out in the park for a little bit the second day, and saw a man speaking out about the politics of Ecuador who was drawing a bit of a crowd. It wasn’t an angry mob or anything, in fact they were laughing and joking around quite a lot, just sounding off about some opinions. I was sitting about 50 feet away enjoying the sun and relaxing when a big National Police motorcycle with two men decked out in camo and boots and bazooka-looking rifles drove straight across the grass toward the crowd. At first I was really worried that a violent breakup of the crowd or arrests were going to happen because these national policemen were not fooling around—they had black masks to cover their faces, the guns, and walkie-talkies with which they were obviously communicating with someone at headquarters. Thankfully, they just surrounding the crowd to kind of evaluate what was going on, hung around for about 20 minutes, and then took off again. They definitely took note that we (tourists) were within eyeshot, and I wonder if that didn’t have something to do with their mellow reaction.



Banos 1/9-1/12

Saturday we headed out for Banos, a little town well known for its hot springs that attract Ecuadorian and extranjero tourists alike. Banos is located in the middle of a valley right next to an active volcano that threatens to erupt at anytime (which we didn’t know til we were already there), and has erupted I think twice in the past ten years. You can hear the volcano at night roaring and erupting bits of lava. It was so loud that at first I thought it was the sound of an approaching thunder storm.
We took a bus from Quito to Banos, an easy 3 hour trip—made even easier by the fact that in Ecuador, because it is really a “developing” versus “non-developed” country (aka richer), they actually have real greyhound-esque buses instead of the charming Chicken Buses of Guatemala and Nicaragua.

The main draw of this town was the hot springs and the cheap massages, and we fully enjoyed both of these attractions. In the hot springs actually we were practically the only gringos who went swimming in the hot mineral water, everyone else were Ecuadorian tourists or people from the town. Probably the stench of the mineral water and the fact that its swum in by probably over 300 people a day with no chlorine in the water to speak of scared all the other, more sensible, gringos away. But we chalked it up to a cultural experience.



We hiked, rented a go-kart to tour the town and surrounding roads, and generally relaxed and enjoyed for a few days, before heading down towards the Amazon. More to come soon.

Hell on Earth in Haiti

On Tuesday January 12th at 4:53 pm life was changed forever for many Haitians. When I had visited the country last summer, the only real way to describe it was "hell". The streets stank, the houses were crumbling, everyone looked miserable and poor. The country was desperate, you could feel it in the air, and see it in people's eyes. It was a scary place to be. Out of all of my travels to developing countries, I'd never seen anything so shocking or heartbreaking as Haiti.

And now, more than 100,000 Haitians were just killed in a blink of an eye, and many more, maybe twice that number, will die in the coming weeks and months of disease and lack of food, water, and medical care. Haiti is a country where 55% of people earn less than $1 a day, and 80% less than $2 a day. The misery is only compounded by this latest tragedy.



We fear that all or most of the orphans who we laughed and played with only a few months ago are dead. They lived on the side of a hill in a house that was barely standing before the earthquake. At best, they are now parentless, homeless, and without food. We're trying our best to get in contact, but with communication lines down and chaos everywhere it might be weeks or months before we know. Its really unspeakable and heartbreaking. I don't even know what else to say. These kids were happy, playful, and caring, just like all kids. The only difference is that they had the bad fortune to be born into a country like Haiti.



If you would like to make a charitable contribution please consider donating to the Red Cross, a lot of people could really use your support right now, even if its only a few dollars. There are many people whose lives are hanging in the balance.

Hell on Earth in Haiti

Nicaragua Wrap-Up

My time here in Nicaragua has flown by—I can’t believe it’s been a month. All in all it was a great experience spending Christmas time here and learning about the historical and political factors that make Nicaragua what it is. I know I’m a huge dork but I’m actually writing a paper about the Sandinista Revolution and aftermath, and how a socialist state functions (or doesn’t). With Hugo Chavez getting a little bit out of control in Venezuela and the new ALBA treaty, etc., Nicaragua could actually make it onto the American radar very soon.


The last few Nica days after the coffee finca were spent up in Esteli, the northern highlands. Esteli was incredibly important during the Contra war, because the CIA-led contra forces would sneak into Nicaragua from its northern border with Honduras right near Esteli, so this town was especially hard hit and lost a lot of its citizens during the war. As a result, the population is extremely pro-Sandinista. Murals, parks, and statues all over the town remember the victims of the war. Particularly touching is a small park for the children who lost their lives during the war due to terror attacks on schools or land mines. We stayed at a great hotel with an awesome balcony that overlooked the whole town and the mountains in the distance. It was a great place to relax, drink some of the good coffee produced in the nearby hills, and soak up all of the passion for politics this country has before heading out for good.



Although I’m excited to continue my year’s journey I’m especially sad to say goodbye to Nicaragua, and it will always have a special place in my memory. I don’t think anyone can visit here and help but be touched by the plight of these people—how many times they have been taken advantage of and exploited. First by the colonizers, then the U.S. occupation forces, then the dictators, then the Sandinistas. When are the people ever going to have the power to control their own country? The few years of the Sandinista revolution might have been the only time in the country’s history that the people in power actually had the good of the population in mind. Now it is all about power and control of resources once again, and once again it will be the numerous poor of Nicaragua who suffer the most.



On to Ecuador!!

Coffee Finca

James and I decided to spend a few days after the New Years up in the northern highlands of Nicaragua, learning about how much of the yummy coffee consumed at Starbucks and elsewhere in the U.S. really gets its start.



The finca we visited near Matagalpa has been an active coffee plantation since the late 1800’s when a German immigrant founded it. Today his descendents still own and operate the plantation, selling the coffee in Germany as well as at Whole Foods in the U.S. Like so much of Nicaragua’s exports, the Nicaraguan themselves do not control the resources, they simply work the land for the people who do call the shots. During a tour of the 500 acre plantation we saw thousands upon thousands of the bright red coffee fruit (called “cherries”), whose inner seed becomes the coffee bean. This particular farm grows high quality Arabica beans. Workers pick the ripe fruits, and put them in a bag on their backs.



They carry around this heavy sack, which when full weighs 100 lbs, all day and get paid about $3 per bag—which equals about $6-9 per day, for back-breaking labor carried out during the dry season, when Nicaragua is boiling hot. All together they employ about 250 people year-round, and up to 500 during the harvesting. Their incentive to continue this labor is not the measly pay, but the free housing for them and their families (in little huts for the permanent workers, a hostel like barrack for the seasonal workers) provided by the plantation, which keeps them on the plantation generation after generation, cut off from any big towns or cities where other employment might be available. This kind of dependency on the plantation has been widely practiced in Central America and elsewhere to keep the workers tied to the land.



The coffee processing system is fairly interesting—the workers bring in big sacks of coffee “cherries”, and then a machine takes the red outside shell off of them. The beans then fall into long cement “pilas” where the next layer, a filmy slimy layer is soaked in water for around 16 hours before the beans are moved through a channel, the water is drained away, and the coffee beans are laid out in the sun to dry. The drying can take between a week and two, depending on the amount of sunlight and good weather. After the beans dry the final “hull” shell is removed, and the coffee beans then look much like you see them in a whole bean form, except that they are a very light brown color before roasting. As in almost all of Nicaragua, the beans are shipped abroad for roasting and for final sale of the product in cafes and stores. For this particular finca, 85% of the beans go to America, 10% to Europe, and only 5% remains in-country to sell at the finca itself. The rest of the country cannot even afford to buy the coffee that they grow on their own land. It is very ironic to see Nicaraguans drinking this disgusting Nestle “instant coffee mix”, a bitter mix of coffee flavor and hot water, while their wonderful Arabica beans are exported.



We had a fun time at the finca, hiking deep into the forest, seeing toucans, snakes, and other wildlife while howler monkeys howled at us from above. We rode horses out through the working areas of the plantation and enjoyed some R & R near the finca’s pond. It was a really great experience to see the humble beginnings of this wonderful thing called coffee which I have enjoyed at least every morning since the beginning of college exams and term papers drove me to the coffee pot.

Maria

I’ve gone a few times for a Spanish refresher at one of the only language schools in town. They also run a program for about 25 low-income kids to keep them off the streets and help with schoolwork, etc. It’s been a nice experience, and you definitely know you’re learning a language when you can understand the rapid and slurred speech of an 8 year old as he cavorts around.

My teacher here, Maria, has taught me many things about life and struggle (almost synonymous terms here) in Nicaragua. She has a rough and slangy way of speaking, like many Nicas. She dresses casually and always looks a little rumpled, yet has a quiet confidence and assertiveness lacking in women from less modern countries (like Guatemala). Maria is the type of person who looks you in the eye and really tries to press you to explain all of your opinions and thoughts.
Maria’s main concern is for her children, and making enough money to support them and give them a better life than the one she had. She is 28 years old and has had 3 children so far (the oldest, Melanie, 9 years old), all of whom live with her extended family (12 other people) in one house. Maria doesn’t make a lot of money, I’d say probably $10-12 a day, and her husband was laid off from his factory job and doesn’t seem too motivated to find a new one. Although her income is low and she shares a house, she takes pride in the fact that she herself makes money to feed and clothe her children, and if her husband wants drinking money he has to ask her first.

Life has made her somewhat rough and unenthusiastic, and when telling me about her daily routine she doesn’t change composure or get angry when speaking about how her brother’s wives don’t help with the cooking so the burden of cooking for everyone in the family falls on her and her mother’s shoulders, because of course the unemployed men in the family won’t step up and help out around the house when their wives are working. Or how her husband does not help with the children, and she considers him too irresponsible to even be left alone with them. She explained with detachment how the water has been shut off to her house the past few days by the municipality and she’s been getting up at 1 AM every morning just to check if she can get a little water for the day’s washings, drinking, or cooking. When I reply “Well that’s awful, why would it be turned off in your area but not in other areas of the city?” She simply shakes her head and simply says, “A saber” (“Who knows”) resignedly. Its as if years of turmoil and hardship have made her put her head down, immune to the trials and tribulations of life, simply walking forward day to day, doing whatever it takes to survive, ignoring the injustices and injuries.



When this attitude really struck me the most was one day when she came back from the bathroom after a break, and asked me if I could keep a secret. She whipped a pregnancy test out of her purse and asked if I thought it was positive. After staring at the thing for a few seconds trying to figure it out (of course they make pregnancy tests intended for the less educated of the third world the MOST complicated and hard to read things ever) I looked up, unsure from the blank look on her face if me saying “Yep, it’s definitely positive” was going to be good or bad news. She just stared ahead, again with the blank expression. “Oh… ok. Another baby I don’t want… Another kid I have to feed.” For a second she looked distressed, and I didn’t really know what to say. The impoverished mother of three in Nicaragua (where legal abortions aren’t an option) having another baby is very different and has a whole different set of challenges than unwanted pregnancies of young girls in the U.S.

For a few minutes she sat there with her head down, me trying desperately to cheer her up. Then she looked up, and much to my surprise we continued with the lesson. From that moment on, although she still hasn’t told her family, she somehow has reconciled with this latest trial. The only other thing I ever heard about the baby on the way was when she seemed somewhat excited about having gotten a really cheap maternity dress at the market. I honestly don’t know how she, and many women like her, find the strength and determination to keep moving forward and take everything in stride.