Trip to Ecuador- Campococha

Hello everyone!

It´s been a while since I updated, mostly because we have been in the middle of the Amazon for the last week. We are staying in a Quichua (native group) community near the Arajunto river. It´s really nice for a small community. There are 6 of us in one cabin and 4 in the other. We are working with another volunteer organization called New Horizons, who make our food and help translate and stuff like that. Being able to speak spanish relatively well is a huge advantage out here. The spanish lessons and review have definitely helped a lot. Our living accomodations are nice. We have bunk beds with mosquito netting and a short walk to flushing toilets and running water. The cabin also has electricity which is a mixed blessing because of all the bugs it attracts. We have been bathing in the river, when it isn´t raining too hard, and we are picking up our desperately needed laundry today. We all smell horrible from the mixture of sweat and bugspray.

The work we are doing is community building. Firstly we cleared land and built a large garden area for medicinal plants. We had to go in the selva, or jungle, and gather large bamboo and carry them back to the community and then split them with machetes and make stakes and cross parts to build a fence. We also shoveled and toted sand to areas that were muddy, like the dishwashing station for the elementary school. We have also gone on a few excursions and one all day hike deep into the jungle to gather plants for the garden, as well as experience the rainforest. It´s been really interesting. One of our guides, Roberto, is training to be a shaman and his knowledge of plants, animals and weather patterns is really impressive. Many of the people are endlessly accomodating and more than willing to help. Many of the community members are very shy, especially the women, so sometimes it is hard to talk to other people. Their holdiday on June 5th, Family Day, really helped us get to know more people and experience the culture. I had to do a native dance to help the kindergarden class that I have been teaching. (There is a video of it). I have been teaching english to kindergardener´s, like trying to nail jell-o to a tree, and high school students, which is much more satistfying. It is also strange to be surrounded by women who are my age or younger who are already married and have children.

Our group is meshing well, which is good for all the heavy work we have been doing, and I have learned a lot about the culture and history of Ecuador. The bananas have gone down in quantity for the moment, but yucca, a root has definitely risen. They eat it like the Irish eat potatoes. I have also eaten ants that taste like lemon, and had some really strong alcohol that that native people take before they enter the jungle for strength, but that stuff was nasty and strong, no wonder. 

On our days off we went to the Cavernas, an underground river and cave system where natives hid from the conquistadors and where shamans have rituals and there is some mud that people use to cleanse themselves. It was fun and muddy and wet and dirty and I have never been so glad to have a headlamp in my entire life. (Really good gift Dad-Analisa) We swam in the outdoor part of the river which they had outfitted with a waterslide. We also went to a zoolike park called Amazonicas where they have rescued animals or pets that the police have confiscated and they try to rehabilitate them and return them to the jungle. They also patrol to stop poachers. We got to get really really close to several types of monkeys (one jumped on Andrea), ocelots, capybaras, macaws, an anaconda, and various other jungle creatures. That was fun. 

We have played soccer with the kids in the mud and on hard ground, made chocolate (the whole process from plant to product), made Chicha (a native yucca alcohol), been to a dance party, met some other volunteers from France, collected supplies for artisans, planted a garden, and had barely enough food because the portions are so different. The mosquitos got bad when it didn´t rain for two days after a few days of heavy rain. Apparently my blood is like mosquito crack because they have been biting me through my clothing a little. It´s been fun and a great learning experience so far. I will be really excited when I get to get back to Quito and get a real shower, clean clothes, and cold drinks.