dr. W headed back to quito for some ambiguous "business" and
left us to our own devices these next couple of days (which
is actually nice because 1. we are in very competent hands
with Robert around, and 2. though he does a lot to make this
trip work, overall everything is more difficult and less
efficient with dr. W around)... our brigade was a close was
walk today after a particularly short boat ride, just
downstream and across the river. it went really smoothly,
everyone has figured out their place and we powered through
60 something patients by noon (only about a dozen less than
our day prior, and in a couple hours' less time). it really
does feel like we make a difference here too, which is great.
everyone is so appreciative. arguably my favorite part is
handing out all of the goodies to the kiddos. I wish airlines
were less strict about baggage prices for checking donated
supplies... with our brigade successfully complete we headed
back to home base for an afternoon of eye exams for the high
schoolers living with us at the lodge, followed by tubing in
the river!! of all things :)
we took the canoe upstream a while, and thankfully with the
weather cooperating, 9 of our group members hopped in 9 tire
tubes all tied together, and began the float downriver, with
robert (naturally) as their ever-competent river guide. lo,
jenny and I chillaxed in the canoe, the designated
photographers.
ok this is wayyy too much for one evening, i need to stop and get some sleep, but there is more to come from amazonian adventures so keep a look out! and i havent proofed anything so i really apologize - feel free to make corrections if you´d like ;)
miss you all, cant believe i´m home in 3 days!!
Thursday, February 28, 2013
grubs: they taste like bacon
lunch was at 4 pm and we were starving. after, I dropped into
a post-prandial coma, barely making it from the hammock to my
bed, lulled to sleep by my full belly and the rain on the tin
roof... anne thankfully woke me up in time for our evening
activity - some traditional cooking! I volunteered to help
with the first part and was brought up with julie and liz to
prepare the chicken. just a slab of meat that I can guarantee
was running around earlier that day, a little salt, and a
leaf they call 'stone leaf' which is fire resistant and
sounds like plastic when you bend it then snap it straight.
we wrapped the chicken up in the traditional way and tied the
end tight. Robert put these in the small fire burning under
the shelter where we eat all of our meals - it was still
pouring rain.
next a surprise - rachel offered to open the leaf that
contained something "kind of like chocolate" according to
Robert, when I told him that would be my favorite surprise.
everyone gave Rachel space as she unfolded the leaf because
given what we've seen here we were assuming it was going to
be a tarantula or worse (tho at the moment I couldn't tell
you what would be worse than a tarantula)... but rather than
something leaping out at us, when she splayed open the
massive leaf, all we saw was wiggly, slimy, fat... grubs!!
weevel larvae. I am talking exactly like the grubs that
tamone and pumba munch on in the lion king. they are like two
inches long and half as fat and paristalsing just like bowel,
their bodies rippling them forward as they make their slow
escape off of the leaf - no luck. Robert picks one up to
demonstrate... "you have to grab it behind the head at the
'neck' so it can't turn around and bite you". bite me?!! sure
enough these guys have big pincher jaws!! Robert says "to eat
them, you have to bite them first". eat them how?! alive?!!
what do you mean bite them first...? robert takes the porky
little guy, sticks the dark head far back between his molars
and bites down - we all hear the crunch of the hard
exoskeleton of the head between robert's teeth and the
squirming pale body goes sort of limp... sort of... it is
like the chicken with the head cut off scenario, the grub
still has a little squirm left in him. Robert sticks the
whole thing in his mouth as shocked and dismayed sounds of
disgust erupt from those of us watching. this is a delicacy
here, a special treat, and Robert is not training for fear
factor, he likes it!! he'd eat the whole pile if he didn't
have to share with us.
"it is like oysters" I hear him say. no it is not, I think to
myself, wishing oysters really were tonight's treat and
missing the east coast oysters pete and I had in mystic...
who wants to try one alive? three of the girls in the group
were intrigued and daring enough to give it a go... I was not
among them, my stomach is still turning just writing this.
they selected their victims, picked them up as instructed and
in a moment of courage, clamped down on the head like they
had been shown. they all stood there for a moment with the
'what have I gotten myself into' look on their faces, and
then, with even more bravery, put the whole slimy gooey thing
in their mouths and attempted to chew. now this part was more
funny than gross because there was a lot of hopping and arm
flapping and squealing to assist the chewing process, and if
you saw the pus-oid (resembling pus) white cream that came
out of these guys, you would jump and arm flap too... one of
the girls had spontaneous chocking fits 4 times between chews
and we were certain she was gonna spew - but with the help of
their chaser (a salt covered lemon, of all things), she got
it down. even with pressure from the group, no one else, not
even the boys, would dare eat one alive. so we moved onto the
cooked option. I helped skewer the grubs, because clearly I
was not brave enough to eat them. one skewer through the
neck, the other through the tail, you just need to crush
their heads first so they stop squirming and the skewering is
easier. a little salt and lemon, and we set them over the
fire, assured that once cooked they would taste just like
bacon :)
in the meantime our chicken was done and I was endlessly
impressed by my meat cooking abilities given that I've been a
vegetarian for the 12 years antes de recently. that was the
best chicken I have ever had; get me some stone leaf back in
the states and I will cook you some chicken!! our final food
was heart of palm, which robert had gotten for us and cut
down to the leaf, which doesn't look like a leaf at, but
tastes delicious - very tender and a flavor I cannot compare
to anything I have eaten before.
at this point the grubs were ready and most of us were
mentally prepared to give them a try... I thought about
passing. in the skewering process we had left a puddle of
black goo on the table that was anything but appetizing.
ultimately I gave in and munched a grub in true lion king
fashion... and.... and... oh wow that really does taste like
bacon!!! who wouldve thought!!?
now the thing about the grubs is that getting them isn't
easy. not only is there a grub season, but there is a
designated grub guy. you want grubs, you call grub guy, who
supposedly keeps track of the fallen or downed palm trees,
which is where the weevil lays her eggs. the grubs gotta grow
for about 3 months to get to the size they were this eve.
sounds like a lot of work to eat larvae. what is less work,
is this thing everyone does here that is apparently an
ecuadorian deal. I think I've mentioned we have soup with
almost every meal, even in the hot and humid rainforest. well
sometimes with the sopa they have popcorn to put in it, and
it is so delish!! how did I not think of this before?! def
bringing that back to the u.s. :)
a post-prandial coma, barely making it from the hammock to my
bed, lulled to sleep by my full belly and the rain on the tin
roof... anne thankfully woke me up in time for our evening
activity - some traditional cooking! I volunteered to help
with the first part and was brought up with julie and liz to
prepare the chicken. just a slab of meat that I can guarantee
was running around earlier that day, a little salt, and a
leaf they call 'stone leaf' which is fire resistant and
sounds like plastic when you bend it then snap it straight.
we wrapped the chicken up in the traditional way and tied the
end tight. Robert put these in the small fire burning under
the shelter where we eat all of our meals - it was still
pouring rain.
next a surprise - rachel offered to open the leaf that
contained something "kind of like chocolate" according to
Robert, when I told him that would be my favorite surprise.
everyone gave Rachel space as she unfolded the leaf because
given what we've seen here we were assuming it was going to
be a tarantula or worse (tho at the moment I couldn't tell
you what would be worse than a tarantula)... but rather than
something leaping out at us, when she splayed open the
massive leaf, all we saw was wiggly, slimy, fat... grubs!!
weevel larvae. I am talking exactly like the grubs that
tamone and pumba munch on in the lion king. they are like two
inches long and half as fat and paristalsing just like bowel,
their bodies rippling them forward as they make their slow
escape off of the leaf - no luck. Robert picks one up to
demonstrate... "you have to grab it behind the head at the
'neck' so it can't turn around and bite you". bite me?!! sure
enough these guys have big pincher jaws!! Robert says "to eat
them, you have to bite them first". eat them how?! alive?!!
what do you mean bite them first...? robert takes the porky
little guy, sticks the dark head far back between his molars
and bites down - we all hear the crunch of the hard
exoskeleton of the head between robert's teeth and the
squirming pale body goes sort of limp... sort of... it is
like the chicken with the head cut off scenario, the grub
still has a little squirm left in him. Robert sticks the
whole thing in his mouth as shocked and dismayed sounds of
disgust erupt from those of us watching. this is a delicacy
here, a special treat, and Robert is not training for fear
factor, he likes it!! he'd eat the whole pile if he didn't
have to share with us.
"it is like oysters" I hear him say. no it is not, I think to
myself, wishing oysters really were tonight's treat and
missing the east coast oysters pete and I had in mystic...
who wants to try one alive? three of the girls in the group
were intrigued and daring enough to give it a go... I was not
among them, my stomach is still turning just writing this.
they selected their victims, picked them up as instructed and
in a moment of courage, clamped down on the head like they
had been shown. they all stood there for a moment with the
'what have I gotten myself into' look on their faces, and
then, with even more bravery, put the whole slimy gooey thing
in their mouths and attempted to chew. now this part was more
funny than gross because there was a lot of hopping and arm
flapping and squealing to assist the chewing process, and if
you saw the pus-oid (resembling pus) white cream that came
out of these guys, you would jump and arm flap too... one of
the girls had spontaneous chocking fits 4 times between chews
and we were certain she was gonna spew - but with the help of
their chaser (a salt covered lemon, of all things), she got
it down. even with pressure from the group, no one else, not
even the boys, would dare eat one alive. so we moved onto the
cooked option. I helped skewer the grubs, because clearly I
was not brave enough to eat them. one skewer through the
neck, the other through the tail, you just need to crush
their heads first so they stop squirming and the skewering is
easier. a little salt and lemon, and we set them over the
fire, assured that once cooked they would taste just like
bacon :)
in the meantime our chicken was done and I was endlessly
impressed by my meat cooking abilities given that I've been a
vegetarian for the 12 years antes de recently. that was the
best chicken I have ever had; get me some stone leaf back in
the states and I will cook you some chicken!! our final food
was heart of palm, which robert had gotten for us and cut
down to the leaf, which doesn't look like a leaf at, but
tastes delicious - very tender and a flavor I cannot compare
to anything I have eaten before.
at this point the grubs were ready and most of us were
mentally prepared to give them a try... I thought about
passing. in the skewering process we had left a puddle of
black goo on the table that was anything but appetizing.
ultimately I gave in and munched a grub in true lion king
fashion... and.... and... oh wow that really does taste like
bacon!!! who wouldve thought!!?
now the thing about the grubs is that getting them isn't
easy. not only is there a grub season, but there is a
designated grub guy. you want grubs, you call grub guy, who
supposedly keeps track of the fallen or downed palm trees,
which is where the weevil lays her eggs. the grubs gotta grow
for about 3 months to get to the size they were this eve.
sounds like a lot of work to eat larvae. what is less work,
is this thing everyone does here that is apparently an
ecuadorian deal. I think I've mentioned we have soup with
almost every meal, even in the hot and humid rainforest. well
sometimes with the sopa they have popcorn to put in it, and
it is so delish!! how did I not think of this before?! def
bringing that back to the u.s. :)
why it's called a rainforest
day 3 in the amazon:
woke up extra early this morn for an hour long bird walk in
the jungle. at 6am the sun is just rising here, so we set out
with headlamps and waited for the silhouettes of trees to
turn to color. with daylight we could, with some difficulty,
spot the birds so easy to hear in the dim dawn. thankfully we
had robert along, and birding is definitely one of his super
powers. he can identify the birds from so far away and when I
would be skeptical of his accuracy he would set up his fancy
binocular tripod and open his bird book and sure enough, what
we would see through his lense would match the exotic bird he
pointed to in his book. super power.
we did not have a ton of luck with finding tucans and parrots
like we were hoping, but we did some very colorful and
beautiful birds. and either way I love any excuse to run
around the jungle, so I was content with the morning walk
despite the illusive birds.
quick tooth brushing story. I've been walking to the end of
the deck to brush my teeth because we are one of the farthest
rooms from the "bathroom" (except I don't know if you can
call open air toilets, showers and sinks a bathROOM...?)
...this morning, juggling toothbrush and waterbottle and lid,
I made an unfortunate fumble and dropped my waterbottle lid -
rookie move. it fell the two stories below and upon hitting
the ground, rolled out of sight. this wouldn't be so tragic
had I brought other bottles, but no, I am holding onto this
one for dear life because it takes a lot of effort to stay
hydrated here and my solo waterbottle is the only thing
standing between me and hypovolemia every day. so, toothbrush
in mouth, I head down to retrieve the lid. I soon discover
that it has rolled into what appears to be a large animal
hole in the ground. I could easily be convinced a large
snake, spider, or biting mammal made this hold - in any case
I did not want to stick my hand down there. after much
contemplation and personal turmoil, I opted for the
faster-than-lightening grab, which, when fueled by
adrenaline, is surprisingly close to that speed ;) I took
inventory: lid rescued, hand/arm intact - victory!!
the health brigade today was notable for the weather. you
know how I have discussed rain here before? after today I
realize that nothing before qualified as rain - it was
arguably fog in comparison to the downpour we experienced
today. we took the canoe up the river and started our hour
long walk in a light rain. decked out in ponchos and
rainboots we were unphased... we arrived damp and ready to
work, but in true ecuadorian fashion, hardly a patient was in
sight and the school rooms weren't prepared for us. so the
next 30 minutes we spent setting up the little desks and
spreading the word that the doctors were here... by that I
mean this old man walked into the field with a large (snail?)
shell and used it to call everyone in the area. you could
hear other shells call back in response, echoing across
jungle from nearby villages. how cool?! ahh life before cell
phones :)
...which is exactly what we've been experiencing this week,
by the way. no cell service, no wifi, no media of any sort -
we are out of touch with the world... a meteor could hit
russia and we would be none the wiser (did this really
happen? pete and one of the guys in our group - who is
russian - tell me it did, but anne and lo tried to look it up
online when we were back in quito and couldn't find
anything)...
back to the health bridge: Rachel and I were responsible for
the eye station. for those of you who donated eye glasses,
they're a huge help here!! we've done hundreds of eye exams
and given away nearly all of the glasses we brought - thanks
everyone!! we had this one woman who was juggling this
adorable little baby and her medications from her clinic
appt, and do her eye exam, so I offered to take her baby - as
soon as I did... well, see earlier excerpt on diapers, or
rather the lack thereof, here. this cute little niña didn't
pee on me, but she was not wearing a diaper and she really
smelled like pee, which transferred to my damp scrubs for the
rest of the day... Jon wasn't as lucky, he actually got peed
on the next day - and get this, because it is so humid and
warm here he didn't even notice until the mom took the baby
back... ha!
we test vision in less-than-ideal situations. it is noisy and
impossible to keep the family members away - the moms whisper
the answers into the ears of their kids! cheaters!! and the
room we are in, which appears to be a kindergarten classroom,
is overly decoded and distracting, not to mention poorly lit
and without the luxury of electricity.
we were assured all of the kids knew their alphabet, so we
used the letter eye chart - our first little one was 8ish
years old and getting everything wrong!! poor kid, having to
deal with such terrible vision his whole life. his mom told
us he doesn't see as well as the other kids :( it was bad
enough we questioned if we were all on the same page, and
brought over a few blocks with letters on them to assure
ourselves the barrier wasn't confusion with the alphabet. he
seemed to identity the letters we showed him ok, so we moved
on to trying to find him glasses. since they are all donated
and our eye exams are a little rough around the edges, we
usually have patients try on pairs until something makes
their vision mejor (better). this little guy insisted
everything made it worse, which confused us, since our exam
showed him with 20/70 vision in both eyes. frustrated and
confused we brought him up to the chart and repeated the eye
exam from a foot away - same result!! it allmade
sense... when he called everything that looked like a
"d" just that, and everything that looked like an "f" that,
it was actually because he didn't know his letters, and had
nothing to do with vision. now we get it... swapping charts
to the E directions chart we repeated his exam at 20 feet -
perfect 20/20 vision. how exhausting!! we sent him away,
lesson learned, and were careful to use the directions chart
for the rest of the day if there was any question about
alphabet competency.
our exams ran smoothly after this, until the rainforest storm
hit. we went from melting in our tin roof box heated by the
sun, abruptly to 20 degrees cooler with gusting wind and
bucket of rain. the tin roof now made for the noisiest
rainstorm I have ever been in - far too loud it continue the
eye exams, and so dark that we had to get out a flashlight
once the rain eventually died down, so that our patients
could see the chart. the sky was black and angry looking, and
if I hadn't been assured that our location on the equator
deters hurricanes, I would have worried that was exactly what
was building outside. inside the open air school rooms we
found little protection from the rain. it blew in from all
sides and leaked through holes in the roof, which, in the
sun, decorate the floor of the school house with speckles of
light.
rachel and I agreed our favorite part of the day was when we
would do eye exams on the really little ones - the 6ish year
old niños would need a good 5 minutes of instruction before
they understood that they were to turn their hand in the
direction of the E I was pointing at on the wall. rachel
would hold a paper over their eye (because if you ask them to
cover their eye they press it so hard that when we switch
eyes, their exam is much worse from smashing the first
covered eye - the adults do this too, so we resorted to
holding paper over the eyes for all of them)... these little
guys would be pulling away from the paper covering half their
face, which looked awkward and comical as they contorted
their necks and turned their heads while still trying to see
the chart. and they would point up and down and one direction
with ease, but turning their hand in the opposite direction
was complicated and extremely awkward, and only one little
guy figured out that switching hands for that direction
remedied this. I tried not to laugh as the display 20 feet
from me got more and more absurd as the exam went on. what
cuties!! and all with great vision considering their exam
were in the dark and with plenty of distractions.
our 1 hour walk home was at the end of the rainstorm - and it
didn't matter that I had a poncho covering me from head to
toe, I was soaked under it. when it rains that hard I think
their is nothing you can do to stay dry. especially when you
have to trudge through rivers and there's wind. our
rainboots, which clearly are not made for walking, were
filled, as the ponchos just funneled the water down to our
scrub pants and directly into the boots. there was not an
inch of dry anything on any of us by the time we made it back
to the lodge. I felt right at home being native to a rainy
habitat myself, it was awesome :)
woke up extra early this morn for an hour long bird walk in
the jungle. at 6am the sun is just rising here, so we set out
with headlamps and waited for the silhouettes of trees to
turn to color. with daylight we could, with some difficulty,
spot the birds so easy to hear in the dim dawn. thankfully we
had robert along, and birding is definitely one of his super
powers. he can identify the birds from so far away and when I
would be skeptical of his accuracy he would set up his fancy
binocular tripod and open his bird book and sure enough, what
we would see through his lense would match the exotic bird he
pointed to in his book. super power.
we did not have a ton of luck with finding tucans and parrots
like we were hoping, but we did some very colorful and
beautiful birds. and either way I love any excuse to run
around the jungle, so I was content with the morning walk
despite the illusive birds.
quick tooth brushing story. I've been walking to the end of
the deck to brush my teeth because we are one of the farthest
rooms from the "bathroom" (except I don't know if you can
call open air toilets, showers and sinks a bathROOM...?)
...this morning, juggling toothbrush and waterbottle and lid,
I made an unfortunate fumble and dropped my waterbottle lid -
rookie move. it fell the two stories below and upon hitting
the ground, rolled out of sight. this wouldn't be so tragic
had I brought other bottles, but no, I am holding onto this
one for dear life because it takes a lot of effort to stay
hydrated here and my solo waterbottle is the only thing
standing between me and hypovolemia every day. so, toothbrush
in mouth, I head down to retrieve the lid. I soon discover
that it has rolled into what appears to be a large animal
hole in the ground. I could easily be convinced a large
snake, spider, or biting mammal made this hold - in any case
I did not want to stick my hand down there. after much
contemplation and personal turmoil, I opted for the
faster-than-lightening grab, which, when fueled by
adrenaline, is surprisingly close to that speed ;) I took
inventory: lid rescued, hand/arm intact - victory!!
the health brigade today was notable for the weather. you
know how I have discussed rain here before? after today I
realize that nothing before qualified as rain - it was
arguably fog in comparison to the downpour we experienced
today. we took the canoe up the river and started our hour
long walk in a light rain. decked out in ponchos and
rainboots we were unphased... we arrived damp and ready to
work, but in true ecuadorian fashion, hardly a patient was in
sight and the school rooms weren't prepared for us. so the
next 30 minutes we spent setting up the little desks and
spreading the word that the doctors were here... by that I
mean this old man walked into the field with a large (snail?)
shell and used it to call everyone in the area. you could
hear other shells call back in response, echoing across
jungle from nearby villages. how cool?! ahh life before cell
phones :)
...which is exactly what we've been experiencing this week,
by the way. no cell service, no wifi, no media of any sort -
we are out of touch with the world... a meteor could hit
russia and we would be none the wiser (did this really
happen? pete and one of the guys in our group - who is
russian - tell me it did, but anne and lo tried to look it up
online when we were back in quito and couldn't find
anything)...
back to the health bridge: Rachel and I were responsible for
the eye station. for those of you who donated eye glasses,
they're a huge help here!! we've done hundreds of eye exams
and given away nearly all of the glasses we brought - thanks
everyone!! we had this one woman who was juggling this
adorable little baby and her medications from her clinic
appt, and do her eye exam, so I offered to take her baby - as
soon as I did... well, see earlier excerpt on diapers, or
rather the lack thereof, here. this cute little niña didn't
pee on me, but she was not wearing a diaper and she really
smelled like pee, which transferred to my damp scrubs for the
rest of the day... Jon wasn't as lucky, he actually got peed
on the next day - and get this, because it is so humid and
warm here he didn't even notice until the mom took the baby
back... ha!
we test vision in less-than-ideal situations. it is noisy and
impossible to keep the family members away - the moms whisper
the answers into the ears of their kids! cheaters!! and the
room we are in, which appears to be a kindergarten classroom,
is overly decoded and distracting, not to mention poorly lit
and without the luxury of electricity.
we were assured all of the kids knew their alphabet, so we
used the letter eye chart - our first little one was 8ish
years old and getting everything wrong!! poor kid, having to
deal with such terrible vision his whole life. his mom told
us he doesn't see as well as the other kids :( it was bad
enough we questioned if we were all on the same page, and
brought over a few blocks with letters on them to assure
ourselves the barrier wasn't confusion with the alphabet. he
seemed to identity the letters we showed him ok, so we moved
on to trying to find him glasses. since they are all donated
and our eye exams are a little rough around the edges, we
usually have patients try on pairs until something makes
their vision mejor (better). this little guy insisted
everything made it worse, which confused us, since our exam
showed him with 20/70 vision in both eyes. frustrated and
confused we brought him up to the chart and repeated the eye
exam from a foot away - same result!! it allmade
sense... when he called everything that looked like a
"d" just that, and everything that looked like an "f" that,
it was actually because he didn't know his letters, and had
nothing to do with vision. now we get it... swapping charts
to the E directions chart we repeated his exam at 20 feet -
perfect 20/20 vision. how exhausting!! we sent him away,
lesson learned, and were careful to use the directions chart
for the rest of the day if there was any question about
alphabet competency.
our exams ran smoothly after this, until the rainforest storm
hit. we went from melting in our tin roof box heated by the
sun, abruptly to 20 degrees cooler with gusting wind and
bucket of rain. the tin roof now made for the noisiest
rainstorm I have ever been in - far too loud it continue the
eye exams, and so dark that we had to get out a flashlight
once the rain eventually died down, so that our patients
could see the chart. the sky was black and angry looking, and
if I hadn't been assured that our location on the equator
deters hurricanes, I would have worried that was exactly what
was building outside. inside the open air school rooms we
found little protection from the rain. it blew in from all
sides and leaked through holes in the roof, which, in the
sun, decorate the floor of the school house with speckles of
light.
rachel and I agreed our favorite part of the day was when we
would do eye exams on the really little ones - the 6ish year
old niños would need a good 5 minutes of instruction before
they understood that they were to turn their hand in the
direction of the E I was pointing at on the wall. rachel
would hold a paper over their eye (because if you ask them to
cover their eye they press it so hard that when we switch
eyes, their exam is much worse from smashing the first
covered eye - the adults do this too, so we resorted to
holding paper over the eyes for all of them)... these little
guys would be pulling away from the paper covering half their
face, which looked awkward and comical as they contorted
their necks and turned their heads while still trying to see
the chart. and they would point up and down and one direction
with ease, but turning their hand in the opposite direction
was complicated and extremely awkward, and only one little
guy figured out that switching hands for that direction
remedied this. I tried not to laugh as the display 20 feet
from me got more and more absurd as the exam went on. what
cuties!! and all with great vision considering their exam
were in the dark and with plenty of distractions.
our 1 hour walk home was at the end of the rainstorm - and it
didn't matter that I had a poncho covering me from head to
toe, I was soaked under it. when it rains that hard I think
their is nothing you can do to stay dry. especially when you
have to trudge through rivers and there's wind. our
rainboots, which clearly are not made for walking, were
filled, as the ponchos just funneled the water down to our
scrub pants and directly into the boots. there was not an
inch of dry anything on any of us by the time we made it back
to the lodge. I felt right at home being native to a rainy
habitat myself, it was awesome :)
blow dart skillzzz
we were scheduled to visit the local healer here, and a group
of us were up for an afternoon adventure, so we set off in
the canoe again (which I do not think I have mentioned
doubles as the school boat around here. yes, you heard me,
school buses are impractical in the rainforest - thank you
captain obvious - a school boat makes far more sense... and
yes, there are designated school boat stops. duh). a short
hike and we were at the healer's home on stilts (because
flooding is so common here, and to keep snakes out of the
house).
we learned about the traditional healing medicine, similar to
what we have seen before in ecuador. a few of our members sat
through healing sessions, which involved the shaking leaves
and blowing tobacco smoke on them and then whistling to bring
the good energies to fill where the bad had left. we were
offered the tobacco to smoke but Robert warned even one good
inhale can put you on your ass, so I passed.
once we were through with cute little medicine man, we moved
onto bigger things - namingly, blow dart hunting. robert
joked we were starting out with chickens but instead took a
naranja (orange) and put it on a stick he stuck into the
ground, our target. he first showed us the ropes -
demonstrating how to hold and fire the 8 foot hollow stick
that we would blow the dart through. he said we would each
get 3 tries. he drew a line in the dirt and went first. miss,
miss... and miss. embarrassed he handed off the weapon to
misha, who on her third try, nailed the fruit target. I was
blown away! (no pun intended :) and robert was clearly
impressed. lo went next and despite good form, didn't have
the accuracy (or luck) to hit the target.
I was third in line
and stepped up feeling totally incompetent and doubtful I
would even get the dart out the other end of this 8 foot
tube, which was so long it was difficult to hold straight at
the target. so while questioning form and logistics, I step
up to the line and I guess my inner warrior took over because
I blow darted (can that be a verb?) 2 of my 3 blow darts
directly into the unsuspecting naranja!!.... annnddd I could
not stop laughing after each hit. I was so surprised at my
obscure hidden talent with the blow dart - and here I thought
chicken catching was my strange skill. give me a blow dart
and watch out!! Robert was laughing too, more because a
second gringa had just shown him up than anything. we
continued down the bench, and at the end me and the two
gringos in the group had both gotten 2 in the naranja, so
naturally we had a blow dart shoot out, which I did not win
:( (but Robert thankfully decided there would just be 3 blow
dart winners regardless)...
after this the only thing that made sense was to paint war
paint all over our faces. there is this special plant with
these spiky pods that look like lychee but when you break
them open they're filled with these red seeds and the red is
just like paint and you can widle green stems into paint
brushes and create warrior designs in red, which is what I
asked for - boy did I look fierce!! as Robert was painting on
my face someone asked how long it lasts, and straight-faced
in perfect english he says "only 2 months" - even someone a
fraction as gullible as me would have raised an eyebrow.
thankfully (though I will admit there was a moment I was
mildly disappointed), he was joking...
we headed home after that, just in time for a workout then
dinner. quick aside about the walk back to the boat. on the
way there we had walked across this old, frail bamboo bridge.
it looked unsturdy enough that Robert had us wait to begin
crossing until the person in front of us had crossed.
wonderful. well apparently his perception wasn't too far
off... on our way back we came up to the bridge and... it
was... gone? yup, a couple hours later and the bridge had
vanished! fortunately we were prepared in our boots and
crossed the stream below with ease.
by 8 I was so exhausted I could hardly stay awake for my
shower, despite how chilly it was. also, the tarantula on the
stairs made it somewhat difficult to coordinate bathroom
trips, but he hasn't attacked me yet and now I'm starting to
think he's kind of cute.
what is not cute is that every bathroom stall had some
surprise creature bigger than my hand ready to pounce when
I'm most vulnerable!! and what is also not cute (but more
awesome than being ambushed by a frog when you flush the
toilet), is the army ants that run around this forest in a
swarm, 10m x 3m, destroying everything in their path. robert
picked one up on our way home from medicine dude... he wanted
to show us that they can be used as sutures (or more
accurately a staple gun), if you have a big cut that needs
closing. you simply lower the massive jaws over the wound,
spanning to either side, and let the little guy chomp down.
these ants won't let go, even when you cut off their bodies,
which you can do, leaving a neat row of ant heads clamping
your wound shut. robert accidentally got himself chomped on
when he picked up one of the ants and I had to pry to jaw
open to get it off of him - they are strong little
dudes!!
of us were up for an afternoon adventure, so we set off in
the canoe again (which I do not think I have mentioned
doubles as the school boat around here. yes, you heard me,
school buses are impractical in the rainforest - thank you
captain obvious - a school boat makes far more sense... and
yes, there are designated school boat stops. duh). a short
hike and we were at the healer's home on stilts (because
flooding is so common here, and to keep snakes out of the
house).
we learned about the traditional healing medicine, similar to
what we have seen before in ecuador. a few of our members sat
through healing sessions, which involved the shaking leaves
and blowing tobacco smoke on them and then whistling to bring
the good energies to fill where the bad had left. we were
offered the tobacco to smoke but Robert warned even one good
inhale can put you on your ass, so I passed.
once we were through with cute little medicine man, we moved
onto bigger things - namingly, blow dart hunting. robert
joked we were starting out with chickens but instead took a
naranja (orange) and put it on a stick he stuck into the
ground, our target. he first showed us the ropes -
demonstrating how to hold and fire the 8 foot hollow stick
that we would blow the dart through. he said we would each
get 3 tries. he drew a line in the dirt and went first. miss,
miss... and miss. embarrassed he handed off the weapon to
misha, who on her third try, nailed the fruit target. I was
blown away! (no pun intended :) and robert was clearly
impressed. lo went next and despite good form, didn't have
the accuracy (or luck) to hit the target.
I was third in line
and stepped up feeling totally incompetent and doubtful I
would even get the dart out the other end of this 8 foot
tube, which was so long it was difficult to hold straight at
the target. so while questioning form and logistics, I step
up to the line and I guess my inner warrior took over because
I blow darted (can that be a verb?) 2 of my 3 blow darts
directly into the unsuspecting naranja!!.... annnddd I could
not stop laughing after each hit. I was so surprised at my
obscure hidden talent with the blow dart - and here I thought
chicken catching was my strange skill. give me a blow dart
and watch out!! Robert was laughing too, more because a
second gringa had just shown him up than anything. we
continued down the bench, and at the end me and the two
gringos in the group had both gotten 2 in the naranja, so
naturally we had a blow dart shoot out, which I did not win
:( (but Robert thankfully decided there would just be 3 blow
dart winners regardless)...
after this the only thing that made sense was to paint war
paint all over our faces. there is this special plant with
these spiky pods that look like lychee but when you break
them open they're filled with these red seeds and the red is
just like paint and you can widle green stems into paint
brushes and create warrior designs in red, which is what I
asked for - boy did I look fierce!! as Robert was painting on
my face someone asked how long it lasts, and straight-faced
in perfect english he says "only 2 months" - even someone a
fraction as gullible as me would have raised an eyebrow.
thankfully (though I will admit there was a moment I was
mildly disappointed), he was joking...
we headed home after that, just in time for a workout then
dinner. quick aside about the walk back to the boat. on the
way there we had walked across this old, frail bamboo bridge.
it looked unsturdy enough that Robert had us wait to begin
crossing until the person in front of us had crossed.
wonderful. well apparently his perception wasn't too far
off... on our way back we came up to the bridge and... it
was... gone? yup, a couple hours later and the bridge had
vanished! fortunately we were prepared in our boots and
crossed the stream below with ease.
by 8 I was so exhausted I could hardly stay awake for my
shower, despite how chilly it was. also, the tarantula on the
stairs made it somewhat difficult to coordinate bathroom
trips, but he hasn't attacked me yet and now I'm starting to
think he's kind of cute.
what is not cute is that every bathroom stall had some
surprise creature bigger than my hand ready to pounce when
I'm most vulnerable!! and what is also not cute (but more
awesome than being ambushed by a frog when you flush the
toilet), is the army ants that run around this forest in a
swarm, 10m x 3m, destroying everything in their path. robert
picked one up on our way home from medicine dude... he wanted
to show us that they can be used as sutures (or more
accurately a staple gun), if you have a big cut that needs
closing. you simply lower the massive jaws over the wound,
spanning to either side, and let the little guy chomp down.
these ants won't let go, even when you cut off their bodies,
which you can do, leaving a neat row of ant heads clamping
your wound shut. robert accidentally got himself chomped on
when he picked up one of the ants and I had to pry to jaw
open to get it off of him - they are strong little
dudes!!
blue-footed boobies!!
day 2 in the amazon:
do your remember in camp when you were younger how the group
would do the rain activity, where you all sit together, but
are divided into smaller subgroups, and one group starts
rubbing their hands, then snapping, then patting their legs,
and finally stomping their feet, and the next groups follow
so that the sound builds and then dies like a big
rain/thunderstorm... I always loved that. well this is what I
woke up to this morning, only it was massive rainforest
raindrops on the tin roof overhead and the sound built up
then died away within minutes and the animals and insects,
normally so loud, quieted at the peak of it, then picked back
up to fill the silence once the rain had passed. I guess
there's a reason they call it a rainforest. the air is so
thick with moisture it reminds me of the tamascal hut, or the
rainforest exhibit at the zoo, so true to the extreme
humidity - (and I love it because I never feel the need to
put on chapstick here, which is my daily addiction in the
u.s.)...
I realize I titled this blue-footed boobies (if you don't
know this bird, you need to watch more animal planet,
discovery channel, and/or planet earth - you can find them
here in ecuador, but only along the coastline, where we have
not traveled), more accurately it should have been titled
blue booted... footies? (blue footed boobies... blue booted
medical students!). we are a pack of blue-clad gringos all in
matching knee high galloshes and we look ridiculous!! but the
muck boots are practical for mucking through the extremely
mucky rainforest - especially given this morning's rain
(creating endless muck), and I have been so happy to have
them, especially when tromping through swarms of ants (the
boots offer some level of protection from the ants in your
pants scenario you heard so much about in elementary
school)...
after breakfast our group trekked down to the river, caught a
boat upstream a ways, and then walked down a gravel road for
20 or so minutes, until we came upon a grassy opening in the
jungle that appeared to be a school yard. we would hold our
brigade here, in an open air, half constructed building with
a raised tin roof and a dirt floor. the familiarly tiny desks
and chairs were brought over from another part of the school
and our health brigade began. in sets of two we worked our
way through dozens and dozens of patients. these people are
particularly remote and we had some gnarly medical problems
we weren't quite sure how to handle given our limited
resources.
patient 1) an almost 3 year old niño who had been in a car
accident a couple months ago and for 2 weeks after had gross
blood in his urine. apparently this has now resolved but he
has, since the accident, had issues with bladder control and
it sounds like there is some question of nerve damage... he
needs a pediatric urologist, but good luck finding that in
the middle of the jungle. to complicate matters, he does not
speak and his mother believes he can't hear as well as her
other children - no kidding... and to top it off, he has a
pretty bad cold, like every single other patient we saw that
day.
it was wild - like the ecuadorian flu/cold had hit this
little jungle village and spread like wildfire. all of our
patients complained of their gripe symptoms: cough, fever,
green mucous, congestion, some with diarrhea... everyone had
it. hope we're not infected now and bringing this bug back to
the u.s...
we had a young niña, maybe 4 years old, who had hit her head
on something in the home about a week ago and not had what
appeared to be an abscess on her scalp under the scab. we
didn't have the sterile tools to lance and drain it so we
sent her away on antibiotics and with instruction to return
to a clinic if she didn't improve in a couple of days.
we treated almost all of the kiddos with parasite meds, which
was ironic only in that we had them swallow these pills with
untreated agua from the faucet - which is what they drink
since it is their only option, but seriously, how futile is
it to treat parasites with a pill that requires swallowing
with the aid of unclean water...?!
here's an aside. diapers are super expensive, difficult to
access, & create waste you can't get rid of -
alternatives for those babies who don't have diapers? well
you could do the cloth deal like my parents did for me... but
what if even the cloth is too expensive & not accessible?
well let me ask you this, who really needs a diaper?... the
mothers here carry around diaperless babies, and at the hint
of a wetting they just adjust their hold so that the urine
gets on them as little as possible and on the ground as much
as possible... when the mom that slav and jon were seeing as
a patient spread her legs apart and the baby she held in her
lap peed, urine splattering on the dirt floor at her feet,
the only awkward thing about the situation was amy and I
attempting to act like that was normal... so a word to the
wise here, when you hold a baby here, if you feel like you're
being peed on, you probably are :)
we made it back for a late (and totally worth the wait)
lunch. it is so funny to get everywhere here by boat and
trekking through the mud... I love it!! and it really makes
you feel like you earn your meals. post lunch I was hoping
for a bite of the taffy candy treat I had kept from baños,
but when I found it in the top of my backpack, I was highly
disappointed to realize it was covered in stupid sugar ants!!
few things, however, come between me and sweets (especially
when good desserts are so few and far between this trip), so
I did what any kid would do - I washed/picked off as many
ants as I could, and ate my taffy, residual protein topping
and all :)
do your remember in camp when you were younger how the group
would do the rain activity, where you all sit together, but
are divided into smaller subgroups, and one group starts
rubbing their hands, then snapping, then patting their legs,
and finally stomping their feet, and the next groups follow
so that the sound builds and then dies like a big
rain/thunderstorm... I always loved that. well this is what I
woke up to this morning, only it was massive rainforest
raindrops on the tin roof overhead and the sound built up
then died away within minutes and the animals and insects,
normally so loud, quieted at the peak of it, then picked back
up to fill the silence once the rain had passed. I guess
there's a reason they call it a rainforest. the air is so
thick with moisture it reminds me of the tamascal hut, or the
rainforest exhibit at the zoo, so true to the extreme
humidity - (and I love it because I never feel the need to
put on chapstick here, which is my daily addiction in the
u.s.)...
I realize I titled this blue-footed boobies (if you don't
know this bird, you need to watch more animal planet,
discovery channel, and/or planet earth - you can find them
here in ecuador, but only along the coastline, where we have
not traveled), more accurately it should have been titled
blue booted... footies? (blue footed boobies... blue booted
medical students!). we are a pack of blue-clad gringos all in
matching knee high galloshes and we look ridiculous!! but the
muck boots are practical for mucking through the extremely
mucky rainforest - especially given this morning's rain
(creating endless muck), and I have been so happy to have
them, especially when tromping through swarms of ants (the
boots offer some level of protection from the ants in your
pants scenario you heard so much about in elementary
school)...
after breakfast our group trekked down to the river, caught a
boat upstream a ways, and then walked down a gravel road for
20 or so minutes, until we came upon a grassy opening in the
jungle that appeared to be a school yard. we would hold our
brigade here, in an open air, half constructed building with
a raised tin roof and a dirt floor. the familiarly tiny desks
and chairs were brought over from another part of the school
and our health brigade began. in sets of two we worked our
way through dozens and dozens of patients. these people are
particularly remote and we had some gnarly medical problems
we weren't quite sure how to handle given our limited
resources.
patient 1) an almost 3 year old niño who had been in a car
accident a couple months ago and for 2 weeks after had gross
blood in his urine. apparently this has now resolved but he
has, since the accident, had issues with bladder control and
it sounds like there is some question of nerve damage... he
needs a pediatric urologist, but good luck finding that in
the middle of the jungle. to complicate matters, he does not
speak and his mother believes he can't hear as well as her
other children - no kidding... and to top it off, he has a
pretty bad cold, like every single other patient we saw that
day.
it was wild - like the ecuadorian flu/cold had hit this
little jungle village and spread like wildfire. all of our
patients complained of their gripe symptoms: cough, fever,
green mucous, congestion, some with diarrhea... everyone had
it. hope we're not infected now and bringing this bug back to
the u.s...
we had a young niña, maybe 4 years old, who had hit her head
on something in the home about a week ago and not had what
appeared to be an abscess on her scalp under the scab. we
didn't have the sterile tools to lance and drain it so we
sent her away on antibiotics and with instruction to return
to a clinic if she didn't improve in a couple of days.
we treated almost all of the kiddos with parasite meds, which
was ironic only in that we had them swallow these pills with
untreated agua from the faucet - which is what they drink
since it is their only option, but seriously, how futile is
it to treat parasites with a pill that requires swallowing
with the aid of unclean water...?!
here's an aside. diapers are super expensive, difficult to
access, & create waste you can't get rid of -
alternatives for those babies who don't have diapers? well
you could do the cloth deal like my parents did for me... but
what if even the cloth is too expensive & not accessible?
well let me ask you this, who really needs a diaper?... the
mothers here carry around diaperless babies, and at the hint
of a wetting they just adjust their hold so that the urine
gets on them as little as possible and on the ground as much
as possible... when the mom that slav and jon were seeing as
a patient spread her legs apart and the baby she held in her
lap peed, urine splattering on the dirt floor at her feet,
the only awkward thing about the situation was amy and I
attempting to act like that was normal... so a word to the
wise here, when you hold a baby here, if you feel like you're
being peed on, you probably are :)
we made it back for a late (and totally worth the wait)
lunch. it is so funny to get everywhere here by boat and
trekking through the mud... I love it!! and it really makes
you feel like you earn your meals. post lunch I was hoping
for a bite of the taffy candy treat I had kept from baños,
but when I found it in the top of my backpack, I was highly
disappointed to realize it was covered in stupid sugar ants!!
few things, however, come between me and sweets (especially
when good desserts are so few and far between this trip), so
I did what any kid would do - I washed/picked off as many
ants as I could, and ate my taffy, residual protein topping
and all :)
the amazon
day 1 in the amazon:
paradise
I'm in heaven.
despite a stressful morning (our taxi driver, a friend of
mami gloria's, was late picking us up to drive us to the
meeting place for our bus ride to the amazon... gloria
insisted he is never late and rightly assumed he was still
sleeping, but rather than drive us herself she just called
him til he answered, and he picked us up 4 minutes before we
were meant to meet the group across town. fortunately he
drove like a maniac - and more fortunately didn't crash us;
blowing through red lights and stop signs in the early morn!!
- and we made it just in time, which I am guessing
disappointed dr. W, who I think would smile an opportunity to
leave the portland trio behind... we're such an
inconvenience, us three ;) ...), the rest of the day just got
better and better.
the 8 hour bus ride ticked by slowly. I was kept sane by
exhaustion, (which helped me sleep despite the wild ride that
was the back of the bus), and the view - the longer we drove
the better it got, as we took a road that lead us deep into
the rainforest, the last 14 or so km unpaved and very slow
going for our city bus. the steep cliffs out windows on
either side juted upward until they disappeared into the
clouds - the reason areas like the one we drove through are
referred to as cloud forests. massive waterfalls that would
dwarf multnomah emerged from the cliffs every so often and,
as before, the plants grew larger the farther from the city
we drove, until we looked comparably smaller, as though we
had been shrunk down like alice when she was in wonderland :)
our stop was at a waterfall you could walk to, for a small
fee charged by the family who owns the land. we wandered down
a long set of stairs and the falls came into view. it was
beautiful. now off the bus and able to appreciate the change
in climate, I wiped the beads of sweat from my temple once
before acknowledging that this muggy heat would be my entire
week, and there was no use in resisting it.
we passed trails of leaf cutter ants, marching their green
goods back to their nest, where it would be chewed and made
into media on which the ants grow their actual food... at the
waterfall there were more butterflies than I have ever seen
in one place. yellow and blue and zebra stripped, they
flitted about our group, following each other in trails that
would dip and rise and twirl one after another as though a
string connected them all... it seemed like a fairytale
world, made more convincing by the larger than life plants
that surrounded us.
upon our long-anticipated arrival to a branch of the amazon
river, we piled out of our bus, which had attempted to drive
onto the sandy riverside shore and was now stuck (remedied by
a little extra horsepower and thankfully without us having to
push). the group piled into a long motorized canoe with all
of our belongings, and we were motored upstream to another
branch of the river, where we unloaded and began the trek to
the school-turned-rainforest-eco-
a 15 minute walk through the jungle brought us to the wooden
structure that resembles a two story horse stable. the rooms
are wooden boxes, windows on either side, unenclosed by
screens... that's right, so all the bugs who want to come
hang out are more than welcome to, including the cluster of
massive spiders nesting just outside our room. gulp!! I would
consider this a less-than-ideal arrangement with the local
insects, which grow to sizes unnatural for even your average
bird. but here they supersize everything, unfortunately
including the spiders. the room is so bare there are no
tables or shelves, only 3 miniature bed, two stacked as bunk
beds, and all thankfully covered with mosquito nets. we
'unpacked' or at least set out a few things, already damp
from the humidity, to dry.
after lunch we set out on a sunset nature walk through the
jungle, with Robert, a highly educated 22 year old local, who
we will soon decide, after spending some time with him, has
several superpowers. among this include spider spotting and
poisonous frog wrestling. he found us one of the frogs with
venom it secrets from pores on its back strong enough to kill
200 people - and the thing is hardly a half an inch long!
Robert held it, but only briefly, because you can even get
sick from absorbing the toxin through your skin!! fierce
little unsuspecting dude, all blue and red and cute looking.
Robert found us a couple other more benign but equally cute
frogs as well as a terrifying yellow and black spider that
ranks among my least favorite rainforest finds. our sunset
overlooking this branch of the amazon river was gorgeous, and
we made our way quickly back before it got too dark. they say
it can get so dark here without light pollution from the
cities that in the forest you won't be able to see your hand
in front of your face. the full moon rescued us tonight,
lighting our way back to dinner - which was delicious as all
meals look like they're setting up to be, prepared by the
chef, who we were (jokingly?) told is 15.
pre-bed showers are in outdoor, open-air stalls lit dimly by
a generator-powered bulb. we have electricity from 6-10pm
here only; a luxury they offer us so that we can charge our
cameras and our headlamps don't run out of battery (and
because we're american and obviously need electricity when it
is dark ;) ). hot water is, however, a luxury we must do
without, which is less of a concern given the muggy heat
here. and I'll happily endure an outdoor shower in cold water
for the view when you look up - so many stars! from the 3rd
stall down orion's belt is framed perfectly between the
gigantic leaves of the trees towering above; this is where I
shower. they say from here on ecuador, on the equator, we get
the big dipper (a northern constellation) and the southern
cross (bet you can figure out which hemisphere this one's
seen from), simultaneously!! how cool is that?!
I fell asleep to the music of insects and frogs,
appropriately louder than back home given their
proportionally larger size. the forest is almost deafening,
which is nice for drowning out the noise of your neighbors;
there is no privacy here (many of the windows, include out
back ones, lack curtains and screens).
paradise
I'm in heaven.
despite a stressful morning (our taxi driver, a friend of
mami gloria's, was late picking us up to drive us to the
meeting place for our bus ride to the amazon... gloria
insisted he is never late and rightly assumed he was still
sleeping, but rather than drive us herself she just called
him til he answered, and he picked us up 4 minutes before we
were meant to meet the group across town. fortunately he
drove like a maniac - and more fortunately didn't crash us;
blowing through red lights and stop signs in the early morn!!
- and we made it just in time, which I am guessing
disappointed dr. W, who I think would smile an opportunity to
leave the portland trio behind... we're such an
inconvenience, us three ;) ...), the rest of the day just got
better and better.
the 8 hour bus ride ticked by slowly. I was kept sane by
exhaustion, (which helped me sleep despite the wild ride that
was the back of the bus), and the view - the longer we drove
the better it got, as we took a road that lead us deep into
the rainforest, the last 14 or so km unpaved and very slow
going for our city bus. the steep cliffs out windows on
either side juted upward until they disappeared into the
clouds - the reason areas like the one we drove through are
referred to as cloud forests. massive waterfalls that would
dwarf multnomah emerged from the cliffs every so often and,
as before, the plants grew larger the farther from the city
we drove, until we looked comparably smaller, as though we
had been shrunk down like alice when she was in wonderland :)
our stop was at a waterfall you could walk to, for a small
fee charged by the family who owns the land. we wandered down
a long set of stairs and the falls came into view. it was
beautiful. now off the bus and able to appreciate the change
in climate, I wiped the beads of sweat from my temple once
before acknowledging that this muggy heat would be my entire
week, and there was no use in resisting it.
we passed trails of leaf cutter ants, marching their green
goods back to their nest, where it would be chewed and made
into media on which the ants grow their actual food... at the
waterfall there were more butterflies than I have ever seen
in one place. yellow and blue and zebra stripped, they
flitted about our group, following each other in trails that
would dip and rise and twirl one after another as though a
string connected them all... it seemed like a fairytale
world, made more convincing by the larger than life plants
that surrounded us.
upon our long-anticipated arrival to a branch of the amazon
river, we piled out of our bus, which had attempted to drive
onto the sandy riverside shore and was now stuck (remedied by
a little extra horsepower and thankfully without us having to
push). the group piled into a long motorized canoe with all
of our belongings, and we were motored upstream to another
branch of the river, where we unloaded and began the trek to
the school-turned-rainforest-eco-
a 15 minute walk through the jungle brought us to the wooden
structure that resembles a two story horse stable. the rooms
are wooden boxes, windows on either side, unenclosed by
screens... that's right, so all the bugs who want to come
hang out are more than welcome to, including the cluster of
massive spiders nesting just outside our room. gulp!! I would
consider this a less-than-ideal arrangement with the local
insects, which grow to sizes unnatural for even your average
bird. but here they supersize everything, unfortunately
including the spiders. the room is so bare there are no
tables or shelves, only 3 miniature bed, two stacked as bunk
beds, and all thankfully covered with mosquito nets. we
'unpacked' or at least set out a few things, already damp
from the humidity, to dry.
after lunch we set out on a sunset nature walk through the
jungle, with Robert, a highly educated 22 year old local, who
we will soon decide, after spending some time with him, has
several superpowers. among this include spider spotting and
poisonous frog wrestling. he found us one of the frogs with
venom it secrets from pores on its back strong enough to kill
200 people - and the thing is hardly a half an inch long!
Robert held it, but only briefly, because you can even get
sick from absorbing the toxin through your skin!! fierce
little unsuspecting dude, all blue and red and cute looking.
Robert found us a couple other more benign but equally cute
frogs as well as a terrifying yellow and black spider that
ranks among my least favorite rainforest finds. our sunset
overlooking this branch of the amazon river was gorgeous, and
we made our way quickly back before it got too dark. they say
it can get so dark here without light pollution from the
cities that in the forest you won't be able to see your hand
in front of your face. the full moon rescued us tonight,
lighting our way back to dinner - which was delicious as all
meals look like they're setting up to be, prepared by the
chef, who we were (jokingly?) told is 15.
pre-bed showers are in outdoor, open-air stalls lit dimly by
a generator-powered bulb. we have electricity from 6-10pm
here only; a luxury they offer us so that we can charge our
cameras and our headlamps don't run out of battery (and
because we're american and obviously need electricity when it
is dark ;) ). hot water is, however, a luxury we must do
without, which is less of a concern given the muggy heat
here. and I'll happily endure an outdoor shower in cold water
for the view when you look up - so many stars! from the 3rd
stall down orion's belt is framed perfectly between the
gigantic leaves of the trees towering above; this is where I
shower. they say from here on ecuador, on the equator, we get
the big dipper (a northern constellation) and the southern
cross (bet you can figure out which hemisphere this one's
seen from), simultaneously!! how cool is that?!
I fell asleep to the music of insects and frogs,
appropriately louder than back home given their
proportionally larger size. the forest is almost deafening,
which is nice for drowning out the noise of your neighbors;
there is no privacy here (many of the windows, include out
back ones, lack curtains and screens).
Saturday, February 23, 2013
mitad del mundo
today we journeyed to the center of the earth... how cool is
that?! turns out we are only a little over an hour's bus
ride(s) away from the mitad del mundo. I guess way back when,
some smart dudes figured out where the equator is - pretty
impressive before they had the tools available to us today
(which determined the actual location to be 250m from where
the original smart dudes had built their monument)... so
today, we first went to the original monument and walked
around - nothing too impressive - and then strolled down the
street til we found the museum with the actual center of the
earth coordinates - really cool! latitude 00*00'00" (note:
asterisk = degree symbol, my phone isn't that
competent)...
I guess in terms of longitude, the reason the "official"
center of the earth is in ecuador has to do with other even
longitudinal coordinates (like 0 degree, 90 degrees, etc)
being in the middle of the ocean. and the fact that ecuador's
elevation at this point makes it the farthest away from the
center of the earth, even farther away than the top of
everest - crazy, right? and as a result we all weigh 1kg
(2.2lbs) less here due to less magnetic forces from the earth
since we're farther from the center. does this make sense or
were we eating out of the palm of their hands, believing
everything they were saying...?
it got better. we were taken to this line that marked the
equator. our tour guide took a small sink full of water, set
perfectly on the line, pulled the plug, and we watched the
water drain without swirling clockwise or counter-clockwise.
how?!! wha...?! is this real?! so then she picks up this
little sink and moves it 5 feet south - drain is pulled,
water assumes a whirlpool spinning clockwise (I think, but
that's the opposite of what the toilet just did when I
flushed it to confirm, and now I'm questioning my memory).
either way, then she moves her sink 5 feet north, pulls
the plug, and the water clearly spins in the opposite
direction. magic!! it was really cool...
they had other demonstrations too, like balancing a raw egg
on the head of a nail - which I did myself after a lot of
focus. other parts of the tour taught us about the species
and indigenous populations of the amazon. we learned how to
shrink heads for goodness sake!! seriously, we saw a shrunken
head, a real one, over 150 years old. and we learned the step
by step process by which you too could shrink a head, if you
had one in need or shrinking. what a wild cultural ritual...
we saw anacondas and spiders, thankfully preserved and no
longer alive, given that were all about 300 times larger than
any snake or arachnid should be, as far as I'm
concerned.
after hours of living 2.2lb lighter than I am everywhere else
on this planet, we finally set off for home. 2 packed bus
rides later and we were back home, eating our final dinner
with mami Gloria. tomo morn at 6am we take an 8 hour bus ride
followed by a boat ride, deep into the rainforest. we're
supposedly extremely isolated, so I am guessing I wont be
posting blogs until friday, when we're back and I can bombard
you with stories... wish us luck!!
xo
linds
that?! turns out we are only a little over an hour's bus
ride(s) away from the mitad del mundo. I guess way back when,
some smart dudes figured out where the equator is - pretty
impressive before they had the tools available to us today
(which determined the actual location to be 250m from where
the original smart dudes had built their monument)... so
today, we first went to the original monument and walked
around - nothing too impressive - and then strolled down the
street til we found the museum with the actual center of the
earth coordinates - really cool! latitude 00*00'00" (note:
asterisk = degree symbol, my phone isn't that
competent)...
I guess in terms of longitude, the reason the "official"
center of the earth is in ecuador has to do with other even
longitudinal coordinates (like 0 degree, 90 degrees, etc)
being in the middle of the ocean. and the fact that ecuador's
elevation at this point makes it the farthest away from the
center of the earth, even farther away than the top of
everest - crazy, right? and as a result we all weigh 1kg
(2.2lbs) less here due to less magnetic forces from the earth
since we're farther from the center. does this make sense or
were we eating out of the palm of their hands, believing
everything they were saying...?
it got better. we were taken to this line that marked the
equator. our tour guide took a small sink full of water, set
perfectly on the line, pulled the plug, and we watched the
water drain without swirling clockwise or counter-clockwise.
how?!! wha...?! is this real?! so then she picks up this
little sink and moves it 5 feet south - drain is pulled,
water assumes a whirlpool spinning clockwise (I think, but
that's the opposite of what the toilet just did when I
flushed it to confirm, and now I'm questioning my memory).
either way, then she moves her sink 5 feet north, pulls
the plug, and the water clearly spins in the opposite
direction. magic!! it was really cool...
they had other demonstrations too, like balancing a raw egg
on the head of a nail - which I did myself after a lot of
focus. other parts of the tour taught us about the species
and indigenous populations of the amazon. we learned how to
shrink heads for goodness sake!! seriously, we saw a shrunken
head, a real one, over 150 years old. and we learned the step
by step process by which you too could shrink a head, if you
had one in need or shrinking. what a wild cultural ritual...
we saw anacondas and spiders, thankfully preserved and no
longer alive, given that were all about 300 times larger than
any snake or arachnid should be, as far as I'm
concerned.
after hours of living 2.2lb lighter than I am everywhere else
on this planet, we finally set off for home. 2 packed bus
rides later and we were back home, eating our final dinner
with mami Gloria. tomo morn at 6am we take an 8 hour bus ride
followed by a boat ride, deep into the rainforest. we're
supposedly extremely isolated, so I am guessing I wont be
posting blogs until friday, when we're back and I can bombard
you with stories... wish us luck!!
xo
linds
Friday, February 22, 2013
surgery!! :)
need surgery? on a budget? look no further than ecuador!
$250-$275 for a tubal ligation (compared to thousands in the u.s., especially expensive if you want it done laparoscopically, which many would argue - and I agree - is a waste of money as the surgery can be done "open" with a single tiny incision and minimal post-op pain, but that is an entirely different story)...
too expensive and still in need of contraception?
IUD - $35 (compared to $500 something in the U.S.)
Implanon - $145 (compared to $400-800 for insertion in the U.S.)
this morning I escaped 4 hour spanish class for a much better alternative. I went with Leah and Emma to observe minor surgeries at a local medical center - lucky me!! we are the only 3 who have gotten to see surgery this rotation, and though we were merely observing, and the morning consisted of just 4 tubal ligations (all 4 completed in less than an hour!), it was very interesting.
we changed into our loaner scrubs. Leah was in a massive pair of green scrubs and had a marked resemblance to a lettuce leaf. Emma and I both wore pale pink scrubs reminiscent of the mother baby unit, or maybe an easter bunny costume? what I'm getting at is that we looked good ;) especially when you added the scrub caps we wore as shoe covers because they were out of the shoe covers... make due with what you have; and boy do they ever take that to heart here, it is impressive!!
we entered the tiny OR and tried to stay out of the way while they prepped. the patient walked in and climbed onto the table - in contrast to the u.s. where patients are wheeled in on their designated beds and shifted to the OR bed... she lay wide awake and completely exposed (apparently respectful drapping of your patient is not a priority here), while the physician scrubbed in a far less than sterile manner. I had to hide my cringe and bite my tongue - this is his OR, his sterile technique, and his patient outcomes (which I would be very interested to learn about - rates of infection, tubal ligation failure, etc)...
the surgery began with the patient wide awake and the anaesthesia tech struggling to get prepped. the surgeon had already pulled the fallopian tubes into view when the first bit of sedative was given. the poor patient had been wincing and crying and sweating from the pain of the surgery thus far only with a little bit of local analgesic. we watched her heart rate and bp pick up on the monitor as he dug deeper into her pelvis. we were all relieved with the white sleepy milk was finally injected into her veins and she drifted off. 7 minutes later she was sterile, closed, and with the dressing in place, she was wheeled out of the room...
the three of us gringas made to leave the room to allow for the turnover (cleaning). not necessary. we watched in dismay as one tray of surgical tools was dragged off the "sterile field" and another was set down in its place... the surgeon, wearing the same gown, simply replaced his own sterile gloves and his assistant did the same. no. way. the bed was not wiped down, the face mask for oxygen unchanged. is this allowed?!
the second patient was in the room moments after the first was wheeled away. 7 minutes later and they were asking for the 3rd patient... I was troubled by more than what I've already mentioned. importantly, when the medications were injected and the patients drifted off, their breathing was always compromised for a few minutes before anesthesia got the oxygen mask on and the O2 sats back up to normal... it stressed me out watching the saturation dropping from the high 90s to to the 70s...even 60s! it made me equally anxious the way they would recap needles, just asking for an accidental stick! I didn't like when the patients were clearly still awake and suffering, struggling against the arm restraints in reaction to the pain. I didn't agree when he explained to us, with the patient still awake, that because she was so fat he had to make a bigger incision.
it smelled familiar, like the ORs I love back home - oh how I welcome the smell of the cautery :) associated with the happiness of what I am excited to do for the rest of my life!! It sounded familiar enough, the bleep of the vitals monitor, the quiet conversation, the focus. but it looked so wrong. the sterile field hardly existing and the drapes tattered and faded. I glanced at the clock on the OR wall, it was stuck at 1 minute before 4 pm, the second hand twitching in time but moving nowhere...
this is the 4th country where I have observed surgery and I thought it wonderful despite the many apparent shortcomings to eyes from a place so different. the thing is that my education has taught me to value evidence-based medicine, and as a result I couldnt help but correct each step of the surgery in my mind, making improvements in skill and efficiency as I have been taught at OHSU.
interestingly, the surgeon did the cutting and the identifying of vital structures, but nothing more. his female assistant, not a doctor or trainee, did all of the sewing. compared to my experiences in africa, this was impressive surgery. compared to the artists I observe and have the honor of assisting in the u.s., this was barbaric. oh the contrast, it is all relative I suppose.
what an interesting experience... and wow do I miss the inside of the OR.
$250-$275 for a tubal ligation (compared to thousands in the u.s., especially expensive if you want it done laparoscopically, which many would argue - and I agree - is a waste of money as the surgery can be done "open" with a single tiny incision and minimal post-op pain, but that is an entirely different story)...
too expensive and still in need of contraception?
IUD - $35 (compared to $500 something in the U.S.)
Implanon - $145 (compared to $400-800 for insertion in the U.S.)
this morning I escaped 4 hour spanish class for a much better alternative. I went with Leah and Emma to observe minor surgeries at a local medical center - lucky me!! we are the only 3 who have gotten to see surgery this rotation, and though we were merely observing, and the morning consisted of just 4 tubal ligations (all 4 completed in less than an hour!), it was very interesting.
we changed into our loaner scrubs. Leah was in a massive pair of green scrubs and had a marked resemblance to a lettuce leaf. Emma and I both wore pale pink scrubs reminiscent of the mother baby unit, or maybe an easter bunny costume? what I'm getting at is that we looked good ;) especially when you added the scrub caps we wore as shoe covers because they were out of the shoe covers... make due with what you have; and boy do they ever take that to heart here, it is impressive!!
we entered the tiny OR and tried to stay out of the way while they prepped. the patient walked in and climbed onto the table - in contrast to the u.s. where patients are wheeled in on their designated beds and shifted to the OR bed... she lay wide awake and completely exposed (apparently respectful drapping of your patient is not a priority here), while the physician scrubbed in a far less than sterile manner. I had to hide my cringe and bite my tongue - this is his OR, his sterile technique, and his patient outcomes (which I would be very interested to learn about - rates of infection, tubal ligation failure, etc)...
the surgery began with the patient wide awake and the anaesthesia tech struggling to get prepped. the surgeon had already pulled the fallopian tubes into view when the first bit of sedative was given. the poor patient had been wincing and crying and sweating from the pain of the surgery thus far only with a little bit of local analgesic. we watched her heart rate and bp pick up on the monitor as he dug deeper into her pelvis. we were all relieved with the white sleepy milk was finally injected into her veins and she drifted off. 7 minutes later she was sterile, closed, and with the dressing in place, she was wheeled out of the room...
the three of us gringas made to leave the room to allow for the turnover (cleaning). not necessary. we watched in dismay as one tray of surgical tools was dragged off the "sterile field" and another was set down in its place... the surgeon, wearing the same gown, simply replaced his own sterile gloves and his assistant did the same. no. way. the bed was not wiped down, the face mask for oxygen unchanged. is this allowed?!
the second patient was in the room moments after the first was wheeled away. 7 minutes later and they were asking for the 3rd patient... I was troubled by more than what I've already mentioned. importantly, when the medications were injected and the patients drifted off, their breathing was always compromised for a few minutes before anesthesia got the oxygen mask on and the O2 sats back up to normal... it stressed me out watching the saturation dropping from the high 90s to to the 70s...even 60s! it made me equally anxious the way they would recap needles, just asking for an accidental stick! I didn't like when the patients were clearly still awake and suffering, struggling against the arm restraints in reaction to the pain. I didn't agree when he explained to us, with the patient still awake, that because she was so fat he had to make a bigger incision.
it smelled familiar, like the ORs I love back home - oh how I welcome the smell of the cautery :) associated with the happiness of what I am excited to do for the rest of my life!! It sounded familiar enough, the bleep of the vitals monitor, the quiet conversation, the focus. but it looked so wrong. the sterile field hardly existing and the drapes tattered and faded. I glanced at the clock on the OR wall, it was stuck at 1 minute before 4 pm, the second hand twitching in time but moving nowhere...
this is the 4th country where I have observed surgery and I thought it wonderful despite the many apparent shortcomings to eyes from a place so different. the thing is that my education has taught me to value evidence-based medicine, and as a result I couldnt help but correct each step of the surgery in my mind, making improvements in skill and efficiency as I have been taught at OHSU.
interestingly, the surgeon did the cutting and the identifying of vital structures, but nothing more. his female assistant, not a doctor or trainee, did all of the sewing. compared to my experiences in africa, this was impressive surgery. compared to the artists I observe and have the honor of assisting in the u.s., this was barbaric. oh the contrast, it is all relative I suppose.
what an interesting experience... and wow do I miss the inside of the OR.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
just another day in paradise...
after my suerte (lucky...?) manana and once my sapataos (shoes) and the rest of my body was clean of pajaro poo, we continued on to the medical museum. there we were split into two groups for a tour. unfortunately it seems our group drew the short straw and ended up with a tour guide who spent the first 20 minutes talking about a religious painting outside the museum. once we got past that, he spoke in great detail about a few minute objects at the entrance of the museum. at the rate we were going our tour could easily have lasted for 9 hours, but dr. w has us on a strict schedule and as a result we learned a lot about a little and very little about the interesting lot in the back 40 of the museum. i do know that we saw ecuador´s first ekg machine, which was pretty awesome. there was a lot of old medical equipment - amazing how far we´ve come!! the other group said they learned a bunch about the history of the objects there. for example, a ton of medications in antique bottles of all colors that apparently havent been opened for 150 years. these were on display, for our group, solo a photo op. despite the shortcomings of our tour it was still very interesting... to us, at least :) i wont bore you with the details (you´re welcome)...
we spent our afternoon at the market picking up some last minute gifts to bring home. i could decorate my entire house with the beautiful blankets, table cloths, artwork, and other decorative things here. and the alpaca everything is amazing!! incredibly soft and accordingly expensive. we leave for the rainforest this coming sunday and are there through thursday. when we return to quito, on friday we basically have a farewell dinner and then people begin to disperse home. this trip is flying by!! it feels like just yesterday we were noting our halfway point and now we´re almost down to one week!
our plan yesterday evening was to attend a cocktail making class held at the school where our spanish classes are. unfortunately there was some miscommunication about the timing and our spanish class overlapped with drink making class (bummer) and as a result we missed it :( despite my attempts to suggest we just combine the two ;) so instead we spent our evening hunting down a grocery store. note to self: 6pm is the wrong time to go to the grocery store in quito - the place was packed!! and though there were endless lanes that could be opened, only a handful were actually open, and as a result the checkout area was a series of meandering lanes of carts extending into the isles of the store and all piled to the brim with rice, oil, strange plants, and other ecuadorian diet essentials. if i didnt know better i would say either one of the volcanoes was about to blow and people were stocking up accordingly! that, or the zombie apocalypse was about to hit and we were out of the know... which is a definite possibility here in ecuador where lo, anne and i are still struggling to communicate - though we have made vast improvements in the past 3 weeks.
we made it home for dinner, delish as always, and spent the rest of our evening watching part 2 of the 4th twilight (yes, our second attempt at bootleg video purchasing was a total success!). crazy night for us :) oh, and cant forget spanish homework, which definitely reminds me (as if dr. w doesnt already say this enough) that this is a rotation, and not vacation.
we spent our afternoon at the market picking up some last minute gifts to bring home. i could decorate my entire house with the beautiful blankets, table cloths, artwork, and other decorative things here. and the alpaca everything is amazing!! incredibly soft and accordingly expensive. we leave for the rainforest this coming sunday and are there through thursday. when we return to quito, on friday we basically have a farewell dinner and then people begin to disperse home. this trip is flying by!! it feels like just yesterday we were noting our halfway point and now we´re almost down to one week!
our plan yesterday evening was to attend a cocktail making class held at the school where our spanish classes are. unfortunately there was some miscommunication about the timing and our spanish class overlapped with drink making class (bummer) and as a result we missed it :( despite my attempts to suggest we just combine the two ;) so instead we spent our evening hunting down a grocery store. note to self: 6pm is the wrong time to go to the grocery store in quito - the place was packed!! and though there were endless lanes that could be opened, only a handful were actually open, and as a result the checkout area was a series of meandering lanes of carts extending into the isles of the store and all piled to the brim with rice, oil, strange plants, and other ecuadorian diet essentials. if i didnt know better i would say either one of the volcanoes was about to blow and people were stocking up accordingly! that, or the zombie apocalypse was about to hit and we were out of the know... which is a definite possibility here in ecuador where lo, anne and i are still struggling to communicate - though we have made vast improvements in the past 3 weeks.
we made it home for dinner, delish as always, and spent the rest of our evening watching part 2 of the 4th twilight (yes, our second attempt at bootleg video purchasing was a total success!). crazy night for us :) oh, and cant forget spanish homework, which definitely reminds me (as if dr. w doesnt already say this enough) that this is a rotation, and not vacation.
no sh*t?!
this morning, no 4 hour spanish class - thank goodness, my brain hurts!
instead we walked from home to the hospital/medical museum/medical school in quito. on the way we stopped at a park near our house to take some photos of these beautiful tile horse statues. we were wrapping up and as I swung my backpack around to put away my camera I felt a massive impact on my right shoulder/arm and right shoe... I was confused... something... warm? wet...? I looked down and realized what I already knew, I had been pooed on by a... wow that is a lot of poo!! it must have been a... condor? ;) likely, judging by the quantity of the feces.
lo and anne saw the expression on my face and went from puzzled to cracking up as they realized what had prompted my reaction. 'let me take a photo, then you can have some tissue' I heard lo say. I was trying to evaluate the mess. somehow, in addition to the poo all down my right arm, there was also poo on my left arm - splatter? and my right shoe was clearly covered, a direct shot! this bird was definitely aiming. but somehow, given the volume of the poo, when the rest hit the ground around my feet it splattered up onto both of my legs. yes, you are reading this correctly. one bird (or it could have been a flock for all we know), managed to poo on all 4 of my limbs... simultaneously.
now if that isn't lucky I don't know what is! :) fortunately we were so near our casa it was easy to run home, change my poo covered outfit - yes, it also got on my shirt and jacket too, and wash all of my limbs... thank goodness the backpack and my head were miraculously spared!!
maybe I shouldn't have mentioned so often how much I like poo... what a way to start the morning!
instead we walked from home to the hospital/medical museum/medical school in quito. on the way we stopped at a park near our house to take some photos of these beautiful tile horse statues. we were wrapping up and as I swung my backpack around to put away my camera I felt a massive impact on my right shoulder/arm and right shoe... I was confused... something... warm? wet...? I looked down and realized what I already knew, I had been pooed on by a... wow that is a lot of poo!! it must have been a... condor? ;) likely, judging by the quantity of the feces.
lo and anne saw the expression on my face and went from puzzled to cracking up as they realized what had prompted my reaction. 'let me take a photo, then you can have some tissue' I heard lo say. I was trying to evaluate the mess. somehow, in addition to the poo all down my right arm, there was also poo on my left arm - splatter? and my right shoe was clearly covered, a direct shot! this bird was definitely aiming. but somehow, given the volume of the poo, when the rest hit the ground around my feet it splattered up onto both of my legs. yes, you are reading this correctly. one bird (or it could have been a flock for all we know), managed to poo on all 4 of my limbs... simultaneously.
now if that isn't lucky I don't know what is! :) fortunately we were so near our casa it was easy to run home, change my poo covered outfit - yes, it also got on my shirt and jacket too, and wash all of my limbs... thank goodness the backpack and my head were miraculously spared!!
maybe I shouldn't have mentioned so often how much I like poo... what a way to start the morning!
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
mascota
foreword: mascotas = pet in spanish, not so much a school
mascot (like a person from the u.s. might image)... so in
spanish class today when I was asked about my mascota when I
was younger, I insisted to the teacher that my mascot was a
lion... she was quite alarmed, and I didn't understand until
she asked if I also had I had a pet cat or dog in addition to
my pet lion, at which point I caught on that maybe mascot did
not mean what I thought it meant... oh the joys of learning a
foreign language.
so to be honest, I don't have a whole lot more to say about
today. we are in our routine and learning a lot!! 4 hours of
spanish in the morning without a word of english; regain our
strength in the early afternoon (nothing too exciting today);
then two hours of spanish with the occasional english to
clarify such confusing things as the meaning of the word
mascot. we walk home and enjoy whatever amazing dinner is
waiting: always sopa (soup, not to be confused with soap) of
some sort followed by rice and a veggie/meat dish - tuna with
tomatoes and a delish dressing today. no dessert in this
household so we have our post-dinner tea, manzanilla with
honey, incredible!! (we're going to try to find some to bring
home)...
one thing before I end this notably dull blog (my apologies,
at least it is short)... I have to mention something I'm
fondly (or maybe not so much) going to refer to as the ecua
stroll. you see, as is the case in many of the other
countries I've visited, the people here meander slowly down
the street or sidewalk. a stark contrast to the ever-hurried
american trot; always rushing somewhere!! here it is as
though people put a great deal of effort into slowing their
pace to that speed just abutting reverse, and believe me when
we get caught behind these people on the sidewalk it takes
everything in me not to plow them over. and when I manage to
slow my pace to match theirs, while I wait for an opening to
pass, I feel as though I am moving in slow motion and I
cannot comprehend how it doesn't exhaust them to maintain
such an excruciatingly sluggish pace. I think it is worse for
me and lo, used to chasing surgeons around the hospital - if
you're unfamiliar with the group, they're a speedy bunch,
which is great for me! and all the more reason why I find the
ecua stroll physically painful. who needs to stop and smell
the roses when the air is filled with their aroma?! the
faster you walk, the more hits your olfactory bulbs, am I
right? from their point of view I always imagine them judging
us right back when we whisk past them, our pace unnecessarily
frantic from their perspective - silly americans rushing for
what? often nothing at all... it is a cultural difference
that I find amusing more than anything, unless I am in that
moment when I am forced to ecua stroll, and then lo and I
give each othe the eye roll and wait impatiently for a place
to pass. I've got places to be!! :)
mascot (like a person from the u.s. might image)... so in
spanish class today when I was asked about my mascota when I
was younger, I insisted to the teacher that my mascot was a
lion... she was quite alarmed, and I didn't understand until
she asked if I also had I had a pet cat or dog in addition to
my pet lion, at which point I caught on that maybe mascot did
not mean what I thought it meant... oh the joys of learning a
foreign language.
so to be honest, I don't have a whole lot more to say about
today. we are in our routine and learning a lot!! 4 hours of
spanish in the morning without a word of english; regain our
strength in the early afternoon (nothing too exciting today);
then two hours of spanish with the occasional english to
clarify such confusing things as the meaning of the word
mascot. we walk home and enjoy whatever amazing dinner is
waiting: always sopa (soup, not to be confused with soap) of
some sort followed by rice and a veggie/meat dish - tuna with
tomatoes and a delish dressing today. no dessert in this
household so we have our post-dinner tea, manzanilla with
honey, incredible!! (we're going to try to find some to bring
home)...
one thing before I end this notably dull blog (my apologies,
at least it is short)... I have to mention something I'm
fondly (or maybe not so much) going to refer to as the ecua
stroll. you see, as is the case in many of the other
countries I've visited, the people here meander slowly down
the street or sidewalk. a stark contrast to the ever-hurried
american trot; always rushing somewhere!! here it is as
though people put a great deal of effort into slowing their
pace to that speed just abutting reverse, and believe me when
we get caught behind these people on the sidewalk it takes
everything in me not to plow them over. and when I manage to
slow my pace to match theirs, while I wait for an opening to
pass, I feel as though I am moving in slow motion and I
cannot comprehend how it doesn't exhaust them to maintain
such an excruciatingly sluggish pace. I think it is worse for
me and lo, used to chasing surgeons around the hospital - if
you're unfamiliar with the group, they're a speedy bunch,
which is great for me! and all the more reason why I find the
ecua stroll physically painful. who needs to stop and smell
the roses when the air is filled with their aroma?! the
faster you walk, the more hits your olfactory bulbs, am I
right? from their point of view I always imagine them judging
us right back when we whisk past them, our pace unnecessarily
frantic from their perspective - silly americans rushing for
what? often nothing at all... it is a cultural difference
that I find amusing more than anything, unless I am in that
moment when I am forced to ecua stroll, and then lo and I
give each othe the eye roll and wait impatiently for a place
to pass. I've got places to be!! :)
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
¿hablas español?
I woke up to pouring rain - what's new. at least we feel at home! 4 hours of informal spanish class (with 6 of our beginners), where a bit painful for me this morning, though it is amazing how much I have already learned in 2 weeks (I guess when you're starting with nothing and in a total immersion...) ...from 12:30-4 each day this week we are given a break. dr. W reminded us today that we are not tourists and he would like us to use this time to explore alternative medicines in the area (which I feel like we have done tons already; and dont get me wrong, I am thankful for it and think it is a great experience, but there are only so many medicine men you can meet before your rational science brain is demanding more logic to the workup, diagnosis and treatment). dr. W has a lot of interesting ideas, the most recent of which is that we shouldn't eat street food becaus it might be fried in motor oil for all we know. that's a new one to me. I actually found someone who worries more than the moms back home!?! I thought it couldn't be done!... what do I win? :) ok enough poking fun at mi mama, she has been quite worry free this trip and either way I appreciate her concern for my safety.
we took advantage of our long break before 4-6 private spanish lessons and rode the bus into old town. it is like escaping into europe!! what a beautiful part of quito! I feel like we finally understand why people say they love quito so much (the area we live is pretty ugly, to be honest, and more dangerous since it is in the center of a big city). old town is a mosaic of colorful buildings with beautiful verandas and gorgeous churches everywhere you look!! we walked from iglesia to iglesia taking photos and enjoying the change of scenery. we were hoping for some more good stores to buy additional souveniers but our only purchase ended up being a dvd from a bootleg dvd store - they are as common as starbucks here... mmm starbucks vanilla latte :)
...so our lesson learned today is that when a dvd claims to include 6 movies and it only costs $1, the quality of the movies is going to be about as good as if someone sat in the back of the theater with a video camera taping the premiere... oh wait, that´s exactly what happened. and so our attempt at purchasing the 2nd part of the 4th twilight was a total fail. we couldn´t hear anything and the quality was terrible! so bad that we had to stop the movie only a few scenes in. so much for supporting video piracy; guess that´s karma in action. we ended up watching coraline after dinner instead - made in portland by phil knight´s son; i really enjoyed it (likely much better than the twilight we had been hoping to watch).
our way back to the spanish school from old town was an adventure as always. i expect nothing less when using the public transportation around here. you see, as opposed to other places where I have traveled, it seems that very few people speak english here. as a result i am usually at the mercy of my travel companions, because though i understand quite a bit, my ability to communicate effectively is less than proficient.
we hopped a bus we thought to be going in the opposite direction that we came. with each stop more and more people pile in the doors, which open for an extremely brief amount of time before slamming closed, indifferent to the human bodies that might be in the process of entering or exiting. a few stops and our bus turned off the expected route. we fought the crowds and made it off at the next stop - fortunately close enough to the bus we wanted to be on that we could walk over the desired station and for only 25 cents more (yes, that was 25 whole cents wasted on the wrong bus!!) we purchased our tickets and got in line.
the lines are chaotic. you think you´re waiting in order for the entrance to the bus doors, but as soon as the doors open everyone presses in from all sides (see brief door open to close time above) and it becomes a frantic stuggle to get on the bus in time, while battling the people trying to get off. you are swimming upstream both ways!!... so when the doors opened i fought my way onto the bus, desperate not to get caught when they slam close all too soon. i turned to make sure anne and lo were close behind and quickly realized anne (who would later admit she had not been in the ecuadorian mindset), was waiting for everyone to exit before she made her way onto the bus. her patience was not rewarded, she barely made it through the doors when they slammed closed in lo´s face (though thankfully not on her face), and in a second we were gone - flying down the road to the next stop. anne was shaking her head trying to explain that she wasn´t sure what she had been thinking. we got off at the next stop and hoped that the bus lo got on would stop here as well. luckily it did and we aggressively pressed our way on to her bus, reunited again!
the next few stops more and more people piled on and no one seemed to be getting off. the result is that the dozen people entering the bus when the doors slam closed are shoved forward and you are forcefully packed like sardines, pressed to the people around you. this isn´t terribly uncomfortable, until you are reminded that you are a sardine on an accelerating, turning and breaking (none of these things done gradual or smooth) bus. and the only reason you remain standing is because you´re packed in so tight you literally can´t move even if you want to. at this point you have to laugh. until you realize your stop is up next and though you are only 3 feet from the exit there are approximately 30 people in your way. when the bus screeched to a stop everyone was bracing themselves so firmly we couldn´t move. once the bus was fully stopped it became a frenzy of people shifting like tetras peices to allow those who want to exit to make their way to the door. but as the seconds ticked by our chances of making it out before the door slam dwindled. the three of us barely, and i mean barely, made it through in time, and only thanks to lo, who resorted to throwing elbows when the other bus riders got a little too rough with her. oh the excitement of public transportation around here.
after our crazy afternoon i welcomed 2 hours of mellow spanish study with our wonderful teache; we are learning so much!! and then us 3 gringas walked home, enjoyed a dinner as delicious as ever, and did our workout during movie night. just lovin´ the life here in quito...
we took advantage of our long break before 4-6 private spanish lessons and rode the bus into old town. it is like escaping into europe!! what a beautiful part of quito! I feel like we finally understand why people say they love quito so much (the area we live is pretty ugly, to be honest, and more dangerous since it is in the center of a big city). old town is a mosaic of colorful buildings with beautiful verandas and gorgeous churches everywhere you look!! we walked from iglesia to iglesia taking photos and enjoying the change of scenery. we were hoping for some more good stores to buy additional souveniers but our only purchase ended up being a dvd from a bootleg dvd store - they are as common as starbucks here... mmm starbucks vanilla latte :)
...so our lesson learned today is that when a dvd claims to include 6 movies and it only costs $1, the quality of the movies is going to be about as good as if someone sat in the back of the theater with a video camera taping the premiere... oh wait, that´s exactly what happened. and so our attempt at purchasing the 2nd part of the 4th twilight was a total fail. we couldn´t hear anything and the quality was terrible! so bad that we had to stop the movie only a few scenes in. so much for supporting video piracy; guess that´s karma in action. we ended up watching coraline after dinner instead - made in portland by phil knight´s son; i really enjoyed it (likely much better than the twilight we had been hoping to watch).
our way back to the spanish school from old town was an adventure as always. i expect nothing less when using the public transportation around here. you see, as opposed to other places where I have traveled, it seems that very few people speak english here. as a result i am usually at the mercy of my travel companions, because though i understand quite a bit, my ability to communicate effectively is less than proficient.
we hopped a bus we thought to be going in the opposite direction that we came. with each stop more and more people pile in the doors, which open for an extremely brief amount of time before slamming closed, indifferent to the human bodies that might be in the process of entering or exiting. a few stops and our bus turned off the expected route. we fought the crowds and made it off at the next stop - fortunately close enough to the bus we wanted to be on that we could walk over the desired station and for only 25 cents more (yes, that was 25 whole cents wasted on the wrong bus!!) we purchased our tickets and got in line.
the lines are chaotic. you think you´re waiting in order for the entrance to the bus doors, but as soon as the doors open everyone presses in from all sides (see brief door open to close time above) and it becomes a frantic stuggle to get on the bus in time, while battling the people trying to get off. you are swimming upstream both ways!!... so when the doors opened i fought my way onto the bus, desperate not to get caught when they slam close all too soon. i turned to make sure anne and lo were close behind and quickly realized anne (who would later admit she had not been in the ecuadorian mindset), was waiting for everyone to exit before she made her way onto the bus. her patience was not rewarded, she barely made it through the doors when they slammed closed in lo´s face (though thankfully not on her face), and in a second we were gone - flying down the road to the next stop. anne was shaking her head trying to explain that she wasn´t sure what she had been thinking. we got off at the next stop and hoped that the bus lo got on would stop here as well. luckily it did and we aggressively pressed our way on to her bus, reunited again!
the next few stops more and more people piled on and no one seemed to be getting off. the result is that the dozen people entering the bus when the doors slam closed are shoved forward and you are forcefully packed like sardines, pressed to the people around you. this isn´t terribly uncomfortable, until you are reminded that you are a sardine on an accelerating, turning and breaking (none of these things done gradual or smooth) bus. and the only reason you remain standing is because you´re packed in so tight you literally can´t move even if you want to. at this point you have to laugh. until you realize your stop is up next and though you are only 3 feet from the exit there are approximately 30 people in your way. when the bus screeched to a stop everyone was bracing themselves so firmly we couldn´t move. once the bus was fully stopped it became a frenzy of people shifting like tetras peices to allow those who want to exit to make their way to the door. but as the seconds ticked by our chances of making it out before the door slam dwindled. the three of us barely, and i mean barely, made it through in time, and only thanks to lo, who resorted to throwing elbows when the other bus riders got a little too rough with her. oh the excitement of public transportation around here.
after our crazy afternoon i welcomed 2 hours of mellow spanish study with our wonderful teache; we are learning so much!! and then us 3 gringas walked home, enjoyed a dinner as delicious as ever, and did our workout during movie night. just lovin´ the life here in quito...
Monday, February 18, 2013
ya can't trust nobody
what day is it again?... better question, what month? I feel
like im in a time warp...
we're back in quito and it is rainy again - us oregon girls may be too much of a force on the ecuadorian weather.
yesterday, our last day in baños, I didn't want to leave. lo and I woke up early and walked to a beautiful white-washed cemetery on the outskirts of town that we had seen from the mountain top the day before. the three things i love photographing the most are cemeteries, churches and graffiti - I got a lot of all 3 in baños...
our plan was to meet at this very portland-esque coffee shop near the church in the center of baños (apparently a very famous ecuadorian church). our group of 4 who were hoping to hike on this beautiful sunday morning decided to skip the coffee in order to get an earlier start. our stop on the way out of town was in front of the church, where, as planned, we patiently waited for one of our members (who will remain anonymous at her request) to sneak away from the service a few minutes early... shortly thereafter she emerged from the church looking what can best be described as disgruntled. one of our group commented on the unexpected expression on her face when we were anticipating a smile after the sunday morning service, and she calmly explained that during the offering of peace (when, as I understand it, you lean over and offer peace and all that is good to your neighboring church-goers), a man near her snatched her backpack (contents including: camera, phone, nalgene, sunscreen, mase, and some $$), and dashed off into the crowd before she could react.
now if stealing in church doesn't quadruple the bad karma accumulated by the act of stealing itself, then I dont know what does - it seems right up there with stealing candy from babies and/or robbing someone who is assisting a grandma nun up some stairs (don't say it would never happen)... and so we were all distraught and mildly infuriated if infuriation is something that can come in a mild form. we spent the next hour or so combing the church while trying not to disrupt the ongoing service too much. we got the police involved, who were very helpful and seemed genuinely upset that theft, even of a gringa, had occurred in their pride-and-joy place of holiness.
but before everyone gets all worked up I do want to be clear that this was an opportune situation for said thef. our group member admitted that she let her guard down in church, took off her backpack (which we are warned never to do for it is far too easy to snatch up, and even tied or clipped to the table a determined and experience bandit can swiftly cut, grab and run with your valuables), and left it sitting next to her on the bench - big. mistake. especially when your pale skin screams foreigner aka target. but even if she had hundred dollar bills hanging out her pockets, I'd like to think church is a place you shouldn't have to worry about someone stealing from you. clearly a dream world I wish to live in...
so post-thievery we were all feeling a little violated and less inclined to hike, so we wandered around town instead - photographing more graffiti, eating as many hand-pulled taffy samples as were offered to us along the street stands, and searching hopelessly for the orange backpack or remnants thereof. sadly no luck :(
and when noon thirty hit we headed defeated to the bus station to grab a few banana chocolate empanadas (I dont know about you, but pete and I agree, nothing cheers us up like fried dough), and hopped the 3+ hour bus ride back to quito. now if it were possible to tip these big buses we'd have been sideways in a ditch on the side of the road 10 minutes into the drive, but it must be impossible because try as our driver did, even when I was certain he had the bus on two wheels, we somehow stayed upright. I praised the straight road when it finally came and slept the rest of the ride snuggling my backpack (and under the watchful eye of anne, who was reading). from the bus station we somehow got ourselves onto the correct trolley and an hour-ish later had no choice but to get off (that stop where every other person on the bus gets off is usually our indication that we should follow and act like we know what is going on)... a 15 or so minute walk took us the rest of the way home, where dinner was waiting. how lucky are we?!
while unpacking I was introduced to the 6 year old grandson of gloria. he was playing outside my room and when I asked his name he said 'Anthony' and came sprinting to me and gave me a huge hug! and if that didn't steal my heart enough (sorry pete ;) ), I later sneezed and from the hall I hear an equally forceful and entirely reflexive "salud" from this little guy. and besides him being adorable it's fun to have a kiddo around who speaks spanish at a level closer to me :)
we're back in quito and it is rainy again - us oregon girls may be too much of a force on the ecuadorian weather.
yesterday, our last day in baños, I didn't want to leave. lo and I woke up early and walked to a beautiful white-washed cemetery on the outskirts of town that we had seen from the mountain top the day before. the three things i love photographing the most are cemeteries, churches and graffiti - I got a lot of all 3 in baños...
our plan was to meet at this very portland-esque coffee shop near the church in the center of baños (apparently a very famous ecuadorian church). our group of 4 who were hoping to hike on this beautiful sunday morning decided to skip the coffee in order to get an earlier start. our stop on the way out of town was in front of the church, where, as planned, we patiently waited for one of our members (who will remain anonymous at her request) to sneak away from the service a few minutes early... shortly thereafter she emerged from the church looking what can best be described as disgruntled. one of our group commented on the unexpected expression on her face when we were anticipating a smile after the sunday morning service, and she calmly explained that during the offering of peace (when, as I understand it, you lean over and offer peace and all that is good to your neighboring church-goers), a man near her snatched her backpack (contents including: camera, phone, nalgene, sunscreen, mase, and some $$), and dashed off into the crowd before she could react.
now if stealing in church doesn't quadruple the bad karma accumulated by the act of stealing itself, then I dont know what does - it seems right up there with stealing candy from babies and/or robbing someone who is assisting a grandma nun up some stairs (don't say it would never happen)... and so we were all distraught and mildly infuriated if infuriation is something that can come in a mild form. we spent the next hour or so combing the church while trying not to disrupt the ongoing service too much. we got the police involved, who were very helpful and seemed genuinely upset that theft, even of a gringa, had occurred in their pride-and-joy place of holiness.
but before everyone gets all worked up I do want to be clear that this was an opportune situation for said thef. our group member admitted that she let her guard down in church, took off her backpack (which we are warned never to do for it is far too easy to snatch up, and even tied or clipped to the table a determined and experience bandit can swiftly cut, grab and run with your valuables), and left it sitting next to her on the bench - big. mistake. especially when your pale skin screams foreigner aka target. but even if she had hundred dollar bills hanging out her pockets, I'd like to think church is a place you shouldn't have to worry about someone stealing from you. clearly a dream world I wish to live in...
so post-thievery we were all feeling a little violated and less inclined to hike, so we wandered around town instead - photographing more graffiti, eating as many hand-pulled taffy samples as were offered to us along the street stands, and searching hopelessly for the orange backpack or remnants thereof. sadly no luck :(
and when noon thirty hit we headed defeated to the bus station to grab a few banana chocolate empanadas (I dont know about you, but pete and I agree, nothing cheers us up like fried dough), and hopped the 3+ hour bus ride back to quito. now if it were possible to tip these big buses we'd have been sideways in a ditch on the side of the road 10 minutes into the drive, but it must be impossible because try as our driver did, even when I was certain he had the bus on two wheels, we somehow stayed upright. I praised the straight road when it finally came and slept the rest of the ride snuggling my backpack (and under the watchful eye of anne, who was reading). from the bus station we somehow got ourselves onto the correct trolley and an hour-ish later had no choice but to get off (that stop where every other person on the bus gets off is usually our indication that we should follow and act like we know what is going on)... a 15 or so minute walk took us the rest of the way home, where dinner was waiting. how lucky are we?!
while unpacking I was introduced to the 6 year old grandson of gloria. he was playing outside my room and when I asked his name he said 'Anthony' and came sprinting to me and gave me a huge hug! and if that didn't steal my heart enough (sorry pete ;) ), I later sneezed and from the hall I hear an equally forceful and entirely reflexive "salud" from this little guy. and besides him being adorable it's fun to have a kiddo around who speaks spanish at a level closer to me :)
Saturday, February 16, 2013
bliss...
I have found heaven on earth... the thing about ecuador thus
far is that it has been quite a bit of work. between health
brigades and spanish lessons and learning about alternative
medicines here, our schedule is pretty booked. granted this
is a rotation, so I expect far less play than a vacation;
that said, it is nice to get to enjoy some of the touristy
aspects of ecuador, and that is exactly what is happening
here in baños - aka heaven on earth :)
today was either the best, or second best, day of the trip yet (you can decide for yourself if carnival/tamascal trump what I'm about to describe). we met up with 10 from our group (jenny, emma, liz, trisa, rachel, becca, misha, anne, lo and me) in our hostel lobby at 9am to pay for and set off on our canyoning adventure arranged by the hostel owner (this place, la princesa maria, is owned by a dad and son and we love it here!!). two guys walked us to their home base (everything in baños is within walking distance), and we geared up. one baggy wetsuit, two ragged knee pads, a decent looking harness (thank goodness), and some sweet converse-esque, size 36 shoes later we were ready to go!! oh, and a sexy helmet, can't forget that part. and also this butt bucket thing made of slippery canvas (we would later discover the purpose). let's just say, if you aren't already imagining our group in this getup, that we looked good ;) our two guides seemed pretty thrilled to have a tour group of 10 young, overly-enthusiastic females, and they were taking advantage of the photo ops. out front we took the smiling pic, the crazy pic, the jumping pic, oh, and can't forget the canvas butt pic (hope that one doesn't make the front window of their store)...
then a truck pulled up, just a little tacoma-ish 4 door, and I jokingly told the group to just all pile in the back... only as we finished laughing about this silly idea our guide was like, ok 5 of you inside, 5 of you in the back. with our driver and the two guides in the bed of the truck with half our girls we had 13 people in this single car. ohhh if dr. W only knew! (stick a stray dog in the car with us and take a pic to show dr. W, he'd have a heart attack on the spot)... what happens in baños... we made it in one piece to the waterfalls a few miles down the road. you see baños, lovely baños, is this small town surrounded on all sides by steep, jungle-laden cliffs, many of which continue up to form volcanos. waterfalls cascade down many of these mountains, creating the perfect playground for tourists seeking adventure. and boy did we find that and then some...
we started off small to learn the technique and also because a 20 foot-ish waterfall stood between us and the good stuff... one at a time and watched closely by our awesome guides, we would repel down the waterfall; right hand holding the rope at our hip, left hand feeding it from ahead, our instruction involved a lot of "wide feet" and "lean back"... having completed the first waterfall of the group, we walked to the next, this one smaller, smoother and shaped steeply like a slide. so rather than repel our guided hooked the rope to the back of our harness and we discovered the reason for the slipper butt covers, they make for easy sliding down the waterfalls. and I dare you not to laugh when you're being lowered down a waterfall by your butt, and I double dog dare you not to laugh when your friends are being lowered down in a similar fashion. at the end of these two I had had enough fun for it to be well worth the $22.50 i paid, but there was more :)
our next repel was considerably bigger than these past waterfalls. we were to repel down to a ledge overlooking what appeared to be a lot of air... 45 meters of it, to be exact (nearly 150ft)...!! they stacked us up on this tiny wet ledge (just a flatish rock with less water than the actual waterfall), inbetween the two steams of water launching down to the valley below. the repel, however, would be a little different. I was hooked to the rope, my safety secured. I began the repel but less than 10 feet down the wall, the wall itself disappeared! or rather it became apparent that we had started on an overhang and so the bottom 140 ft of the repel were free falling, so to speak. I took my sweet time, controlling my own descent with my bare hands gripping the rope on either side of my harness. it was a very ninja experience dropping from the sky in such a manner. I paused to enjoy the plant life growing in the ever-moist environment under the waterfall... I spun slightly and looked up to appreciate the water falling down on either side of me, though I remained surprisingly dry for the moment... a few feet more, I looked down. the rope wiggled feet above the ground with my movement, and I couldnt help but wonder if I would just drop off the end and fall the rest of the way to solid ground. another pause for the view and yet another to appreciate my epic location in the world at that very moment - is this real life?!
I made it to the bottom without dropping off the end of the rope, and, safely on the rocks, i unhooked my harnesses. what a wild experience. we couldn't help expressing that the many rules and regulations in the us mean that adventures like this would never fly. and speaking of fly I wish I had recorded how our guide decended the waterfall - think superman. we hiked/climbed this crazy ladder out of there and set off for the next waterfalls. through a maze of bamboo next to a river we walked. the trail transitioned to rocks and we climbed, using ropes placed there to help our ascent. finally we were in the middle of this cascade of at least 8 massive waterfalls, one after the other like dominos down the side of the mountain cliffs. we repelled down these and after many more crazy photos we were thoroughly soaked, pretty darn cold, and unquestionably exhausted of our adrenaline.
we sat in a hut in the forest and drank tea that tasted exactly like fruit loops, which helped us warm up. then I piled in the bed of the truck with half our group and all 13 of us made our way back to baños. the bonus was that the guys supposedly gave us a cd of all of the photos they took of us that day. hope we can open it!!
the rest of our day looked like this:
-banana chocolate empanadas (oh wow).
-taffy samples on every block (they manually pull it here, looping it over this wood hook thing nailed to the wall, it is delish!! I like the purple flavor best).
-plantains filled with cheese and served warm.
-a hike up the mountain where my other friend lo had been bit by a dog when she was here in baños (fortunately no dog run ins for us). incredible views and a great workout.
-a few hours at the natural hotsprings here, directly below this insane waterfall, and all natural mineral water in these pools directly from the springs. it was packed, and all the women are forced to wear shower caps, so it was an interesting experience, but definitely relaxing...
-more plantains and queso.
-dinner at an italian restaurant...?
-a few more souvenir purchases (that almost didn't happen because the girl working at the stand where I wanted to buy these earrings was sucking face, literally, with some guy, so hard I thought one or both of their lips might fall off...)
-walking around the town at night with an ice cream cone. bliss!! and yes, we fit all of that into one day!!
like I said, I love it here... but I'm exhausted now and need sleep because I somehow have a cold in a place much warmer than oregon in february (though oddly enough my phone is convinced that there are snow flurries here and the temp is 33 - not sure which baños verizon is thinking of...)
today was either the best, or second best, day of the trip yet (you can decide for yourself if carnival/tamascal trump what I'm about to describe). we met up with 10 from our group (jenny, emma, liz, trisa, rachel, becca, misha, anne, lo and me) in our hostel lobby at 9am to pay for and set off on our canyoning adventure arranged by the hostel owner (this place, la princesa maria, is owned by a dad and son and we love it here!!). two guys walked us to their home base (everything in baños is within walking distance), and we geared up. one baggy wetsuit, two ragged knee pads, a decent looking harness (thank goodness), and some sweet converse-esque, size 36 shoes later we were ready to go!! oh, and a sexy helmet, can't forget that part. and also this butt bucket thing made of slippery canvas (we would later discover the purpose). let's just say, if you aren't already imagining our group in this getup, that we looked good ;) our two guides seemed pretty thrilled to have a tour group of 10 young, overly-enthusiastic females, and they were taking advantage of the photo ops. out front we took the smiling pic, the crazy pic, the jumping pic, oh, and can't forget the canvas butt pic (hope that one doesn't make the front window of their store)...
then a truck pulled up, just a little tacoma-ish 4 door, and I jokingly told the group to just all pile in the back... only as we finished laughing about this silly idea our guide was like, ok 5 of you inside, 5 of you in the back. with our driver and the two guides in the bed of the truck with half our girls we had 13 people in this single car. ohhh if dr. W only knew! (stick a stray dog in the car with us and take a pic to show dr. W, he'd have a heart attack on the spot)... what happens in baños... we made it in one piece to the waterfalls a few miles down the road. you see baños, lovely baños, is this small town surrounded on all sides by steep, jungle-laden cliffs, many of which continue up to form volcanos. waterfalls cascade down many of these mountains, creating the perfect playground for tourists seeking adventure. and boy did we find that and then some...
we started off small to learn the technique and also because a 20 foot-ish waterfall stood between us and the good stuff... one at a time and watched closely by our awesome guides, we would repel down the waterfall; right hand holding the rope at our hip, left hand feeding it from ahead, our instruction involved a lot of "wide feet" and "lean back"... having completed the first waterfall of the group, we walked to the next, this one smaller, smoother and shaped steeply like a slide. so rather than repel our guided hooked the rope to the back of our harness and we discovered the reason for the slipper butt covers, they make for easy sliding down the waterfalls. and I dare you not to laugh when you're being lowered down a waterfall by your butt, and I double dog dare you not to laugh when your friends are being lowered down in a similar fashion. at the end of these two I had had enough fun for it to be well worth the $22.50 i paid, but there was more :)
our next repel was considerably bigger than these past waterfalls. we were to repel down to a ledge overlooking what appeared to be a lot of air... 45 meters of it, to be exact (nearly 150ft)...!! they stacked us up on this tiny wet ledge (just a flatish rock with less water than the actual waterfall), inbetween the two steams of water launching down to the valley below. the repel, however, would be a little different. I was hooked to the rope, my safety secured. I began the repel but less than 10 feet down the wall, the wall itself disappeared! or rather it became apparent that we had started on an overhang and so the bottom 140 ft of the repel were free falling, so to speak. I took my sweet time, controlling my own descent with my bare hands gripping the rope on either side of my harness. it was a very ninja experience dropping from the sky in such a manner. I paused to enjoy the plant life growing in the ever-moist environment under the waterfall... I spun slightly and looked up to appreciate the water falling down on either side of me, though I remained surprisingly dry for the moment... a few feet more, I looked down. the rope wiggled feet above the ground with my movement, and I couldnt help but wonder if I would just drop off the end and fall the rest of the way to solid ground. another pause for the view and yet another to appreciate my epic location in the world at that very moment - is this real life?!
I made it to the bottom without dropping off the end of the rope, and, safely on the rocks, i unhooked my harnesses. what a wild experience. we couldn't help expressing that the many rules and regulations in the us mean that adventures like this would never fly. and speaking of fly I wish I had recorded how our guide decended the waterfall - think superman. we hiked/climbed this crazy ladder out of there and set off for the next waterfalls. through a maze of bamboo next to a river we walked. the trail transitioned to rocks and we climbed, using ropes placed there to help our ascent. finally we were in the middle of this cascade of at least 8 massive waterfalls, one after the other like dominos down the side of the mountain cliffs. we repelled down these and after many more crazy photos we were thoroughly soaked, pretty darn cold, and unquestionably exhausted of our adrenaline.
we sat in a hut in the forest and drank tea that tasted exactly like fruit loops, which helped us warm up. then I piled in the bed of the truck with half our group and all 13 of us made our way back to baños. the bonus was that the guys supposedly gave us a cd of all of the photos they took of us that day. hope we can open it!!
the rest of our day looked like this:
-banana chocolate empanadas (oh wow).
-taffy samples on every block (they manually pull it here, looping it over this wood hook thing nailed to the wall, it is delish!! I like the purple flavor best).
-plantains filled with cheese and served warm.
-a hike up the mountain where my other friend lo had been bit by a dog when she was here in baños (fortunately no dog run ins for us). incredible views and a great workout.
-a few hours at the natural hotsprings here, directly below this insane waterfall, and all natural mineral water in these pools directly from the springs. it was packed, and all the women are forced to wear shower caps, so it was an interesting experience, but definitely relaxing...
-more plantains and queso.
-dinner at an italian restaurant...?
-a few more souvenir purchases (that almost didn't happen because the girl working at the stand where I wanted to buy these earrings was sucking face, literally, with some guy, so hard I thought one or both of their lips might fall off...)
-walking around the town at night with an ice cream cone. bliss!! and yes, we fit all of that into one day!!
like I said, I love it here... but I'm exhausted now and need sleep because I somehow have a cold in a place much warmer than oregon in february (though oddly enough my phone is convinced that there are snow flurries here and the temp is 33 - not sure which baños verizon is thinking of...)
baños
on a bus to baños (meaning baths, named for the many
hotsprings there), the 'hippie town' of ecuador and I
couldn't be more excited!! our entire group of 15 decided to
spend our free wkend down there and I'm sure we'll have a
blast despite it being a "dry weekend" in honor of the
elections here.
we've had health brigades the past two mornings (from around 8:30-1) at a place CENIT, an acronym, I believe, for the center for the working girl. I guess a bunch of nuns noticed how many children, particularly girls, were on the streets working rather than in school and they set out to do something about it. they created an elementary curriculum, then high school, with education that meets the needs of working children. normally in ecuador school is 6 years of elementary followed by 6 years of high school; CENIT shortens this with an accelerated program.
In addition to math, lit, science subjects, there is also training in sewing, and with graduation students get their high school diploma and sewing certificate, which allows them to get better jobs and make more. the only requirement to be in the program is that you must be a working child (CENIT had also started accepting brother of their female students into the elementary program). they also provide an after school program, and will watch infants of those students with children under the age of 6 months. CENIT is run by volunteers, from the US, all over europe, and local - 35 full time volunteers in total, including social workers, psychologists, and nurses providing the full range of care and attention this impoverish children need to break to cycle of uneducated poverty. how cool that programs like this exist?! one problem is that apparently the govt is trying to shut it down :( this won't happen, because they are changing their curriculum to appease the powers above, but the issue is that the accelerated program graduates the students at age 16, fully ready work. technically it is illegal for kids to work under the age of 18 in ecuador and the govt says CENIT is facilitating underage workers. how messed up is that? their making the appropriate adjustments to stay in business, luckily, because they are doing a lot of good for so many children in quito...
our health brigades were specifically for the high school age girls from CENIT, (I think I understood that the elementary school, and most all schools in ecuador, are closed for a week or two in honor of carnival... better than spring break!!)... we treated everything from rashes to UTIs to parasites, and discussed difficult topics with every girl: sexual and reproductive health, contraception, safety in the home and at school/work, etc (however unsuccessful given how quiet and embarrassed these young teenage girls are). but all in all it was a very good two days in a large room in one of their buildings decorated for valentine's day with pink balloons and table cloths :)
we also did our 'ecuador talks' yesterday afternoon... all but one of us (Julie, our only non-4th-year; she's in her final year of her pediatric residency) are taking this for credit toward graduation, and I guess giving the talk is part of the deal. it was however, very informal (and short, 5-7 minutes each). I basically talked about everything on the coca tea blog plus a few extras from my last minute research during the lunch hours (that's right, in ecuador you have lunch hours, two of them, back to back, each day).
the topics I found most interesting were mine, obviously ;) and then also Amy's. Amy is from new mexico and came to this program as a first year med student. she liked it so much she wanted to come back as a 4th year, under the impression that the trip would be quite different. well according to her it is has been very similar. but she's having a great time despite the deja vu and we all like having someone in the know... she talked about ayahuasca (or aya waska) meaning soul/spirit (aya) vine (waska... at least I think thats what she said). this is a solution made of two plants, basically an maoi (mono amine oxidase inhibitor) and dmt (dimethyl tryptophan - I think), which is normally broken down in the stomach, but when combined with the maoi, it remains active... it has been used for many things in the past, but today it is usually used for vision quests/cleansing due to its psychotropic effects and ability to cause visual hallucinations. common side effects when the tea is consumed include nausea/vomiting/diarrhea, which is considered to be a part of the cleansing process; a way to purge yourself of impurities... the tea is usually consumed in special ceremonies - on her last trip, Amy and two of her fellow travelers did an all night ayahausca experience where they fasted all day then took the tea at this temple and spent the night on the ground there or something. I haven't gotten all of the details from her, just that the high lasts about 6 hours, with onset about 30 minutes after taking the tea, and with the psychotropic effects/hallucinations peaking around hour 2. unfortunately the timing of the availability of the ayahausca sessions does not fit well with our schedule, so I am not sure many of our group will be participating (I'm sure my parents are thrilled, but I want to reassure them that even if the dates worked out I doubt I would participate - Amy has horror stories of her two group members having bad trips and spending their entire nights wretching; sounds fun, dont it?)... either way an interesting topic and something I was oblivious to before my trip...
final thing, last night for valentine's day we had the craziest feast with mami gloria, her daughter, and her daughter's bf of 5 years... they had 5 different types of meat, 2 types of queso, and a bunch of varieties of veggies, all raw. we set up around the table with slices of french bread and this sautee machine, george forman grill-esque, with a top area for sauteeing everything and then these little individual spatulas you could pile with food and put underneath to cook/heat... it was all so delish! like I said, we hit the host family jackpot :)
we've had health brigades the past two mornings (from around 8:30-1) at a place CENIT, an acronym, I believe, for the center for the working girl. I guess a bunch of nuns noticed how many children, particularly girls, were on the streets working rather than in school and they set out to do something about it. they created an elementary curriculum, then high school, with education that meets the needs of working children. normally in ecuador school is 6 years of elementary followed by 6 years of high school; CENIT shortens this with an accelerated program.
In addition to math, lit, science subjects, there is also training in sewing, and with graduation students get their high school diploma and sewing certificate, which allows them to get better jobs and make more. the only requirement to be in the program is that you must be a working child (CENIT had also started accepting brother of their female students into the elementary program). they also provide an after school program, and will watch infants of those students with children under the age of 6 months. CENIT is run by volunteers, from the US, all over europe, and local - 35 full time volunteers in total, including social workers, psychologists, and nurses providing the full range of care and attention this impoverish children need to break to cycle of uneducated poverty. how cool that programs like this exist?! one problem is that apparently the govt is trying to shut it down :( this won't happen, because they are changing their curriculum to appease the powers above, but the issue is that the accelerated program graduates the students at age 16, fully ready work. technically it is illegal for kids to work under the age of 18 in ecuador and the govt says CENIT is facilitating underage workers. how messed up is that? their making the appropriate adjustments to stay in business, luckily, because they are doing a lot of good for so many children in quito...
our health brigades were specifically for the high school age girls from CENIT, (I think I understood that the elementary school, and most all schools in ecuador, are closed for a week or two in honor of carnival... better than spring break!!)... we treated everything from rashes to UTIs to parasites, and discussed difficult topics with every girl: sexual and reproductive health, contraception, safety in the home and at school/work, etc (however unsuccessful given how quiet and embarrassed these young teenage girls are). but all in all it was a very good two days in a large room in one of their buildings decorated for valentine's day with pink balloons and table cloths :)
we also did our 'ecuador talks' yesterday afternoon... all but one of us (Julie, our only non-4th-year; she's in her final year of her pediatric residency) are taking this for credit toward graduation, and I guess giving the talk is part of the deal. it was however, very informal (and short, 5-7 minutes each). I basically talked about everything on the coca tea blog plus a few extras from my last minute research during the lunch hours (that's right, in ecuador you have lunch hours, two of them, back to back, each day).
the topics I found most interesting were mine, obviously ;) and then also Amy's. Amy is from new mexico and came to this program as a first year med student. she liked it so much she wanted to come back as a 4th year, under the impression that the trip would be quite different. well according to her it is has been very similar. but she's having a great time despite the deja vu and we all like having someone in the know... she talked about ayahuasca (or aya waska) meaning soul/spirit (aya) vine (waska... at least I think thats what she said). this is a solution made of two plants, basically an maoi (mono amine oxidase inhibitor) and dmt (dimethyl tryptophan - I think), which is normally broken down in the stomach, but when combined with the maoi, it remains active... it has been used for many things in the past, but today it is usually used for vision quests/cleansing due to its psychotropic effects and ability to cause visual hallucinations. common side effects when the tea is consumed include nausea/vomiting/diarrhea, which is considered to be a part of the cleansing process; a way to purge yourself of impurities... the tea is usually consumed in special ceremonies - on her last trip, Amy and two of her fellow travelers did an all night ayahausca experience where they fasted all day then took the tea at this temple and spent the night on the ground there or something. I haven't gotten all of the details from her, just that the high lasts about 6 hours, with onset about 30 minutes after taking the tea, and with the psychotropic effects/hallucinations peaking around hour 2. unfortunately the timing of the availability of the ayahausca sessions does not fit well with our schedule, so I am not sure many of our group will be participating (I'm sure my parents are thrilled, but I want to reassure them that even if the dates worked out I doubt I would participate - Amy has horror stories of her two group members having bad trips and spending their entire nights wretching; sounds fun, dont it?)... either way an interesting topic and something I was oblivious to before my trip...
final thing, last night for valentine's day we had the craziest feast with mami gloria, her daughter, and her daughter's bf of 5 years... they had 5 different types of meat, 2 types of queso, and a bunch of varieties of veggies, all raw. we set up around the table with slices of french bread and this sautee machine, george forman grill-esque, with a top area for sauteeing everything and then these little individual spatulas you could pile with food and put underneath to cook/heat... it was all so delish! like I said, we hit the host family jackpot :)
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