Centering Myself at the Center of the Earth

I made it to the Equator!

There are at least three Equator monuments along the 0 degree latitude line just north of Quito, and this is one of the small, not-so-touristy spots.  Before I left Portland, a wise woman pointed out to me that I was heading to the center of the earth to center myself.  I like that idea.  I'm still doing a lot of inner work on accepting my reality, and what I want to do with my new-found freedom, but I'm reveling in the opportunity to learn, grow and focus my life on me.

Over the course of this last week, there were three very "Oh My Gosh, I'm in Ecuador" moments that I'd like to share.  The first, was getting the chance to put a foot in both the north and south hemispheres at the same time.

This monument is inlaid into the ground at the equator.  I really liked its sentiment. 

Experiencing the Equator and Greeting Man with my friend Ava

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The second experience that brought a deep smile to my soul was our visit to the northern reaches of Ecuador and the Chota Valley.  Our group of volunteers took an overnight trip to visit this beautiful valley, made green by the fields of sugar cane, to visit an AfroEcuatorian community named Chota.  Historically, spaniards brought Africans to Ecuador as slaves for the wealthy owners of the ranches, or haciendas. These slaves won their freedom earlier than North American slaves but often had to continue to work for the haciendas to be able to survive.  So, small African-Ecuadorian communities formed in this agricultural valley and the richness of their culture survives today.

This is the small village of Chota where we were warmly greeted by a women's group who share their history, hospitality and hugs with whomever wants to come and enjoy their community.  Our host mom, Pilar, cooked and cared for Rachel (from California), Maddie (from Chicago) and I in her home.  Obviously payments for our room and board is a source of income for this very poor community.

Our home for the night

Always a first course of soup, then chicken, rice and some vegetables.
We were also lucky enough to get some maduras (or boiled / sautéed bananas) and papaya juice!

Interestingly enough, this tiny valley has quite a soccer culture, and many of the country's top stars emerged from these meager beginnings.  Too bad we didn't get to play soccer, but we did get to see their beautiful, fully lit, soccer field. It's a source of pride for this community. Sorry - no close up pictures of the field, or their soccer stars!

Throughout the day, two different womens' groups shared some music and dancing from their culture.  This dance is the famous Bomba del Chota, or Bottle Dance in which the women balance full bottles of water on their heads while they step to a choreographed routine. 

We were invited to attempt the Bottle Dance with them, but then in started to rain.  So, we turned up the music and danced, and danced in the warm, cleansing rains of Ecuador.  It was a beautiful Peace Corps moment to share with all of my new friends. 

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The last moment I want to share was when we visited the Peguche, an Indigenous village of the Otavalo people.  First, they shared with us their beautiful school, music and traditional dances.

Then, they took us to the beautiful Peguche Waterfall

for a traditional ceremony and blessing.

Walking to the waterfall among a forest of
eucalyptus trees...  It smelled so good!

At the base of the waterfall, the Shaman's blessing started with music
to honor Pachamama, or Mother Earth.

He then incorporated the four elements of earth, air, fire and water into the blessing. As you can see from the pictures below, my soul was honored and uplifted by this truly moving experience.   

I especially loved when he put wet flowers all over my head. 
Since the ceremony was in Kichwa, the traditional indigenous language of Ecuador, 
I really didn't understand what he said.  It didn't matter.  

At the end of the ceremony, he threw the remaining flowers, an important symbol of
Ecuador, into the wind and water.  It was a stunningly beautiful moment.  
I'm so lucky to have been apart of it all.  I truly am blessed to be here. 

Questioning Indigenous Medicine and my own Bias

Earlier this week, I posted on Facebook a picture of me eating a cuy (pronounced coo-ey), better known as a guinea pig.  Yes, those fuzzy animals that we in the United States use as a classroom pet, are actually an historic and culturally important food source for the people of the Andes region.  They grow them on farms to eat at restaurants and at family celebrations.  I was a bit dubious to eat the little guy that arrived on my plate with head and paws attached, but the meat was tender and juicy and it actually tasted great!  (Please note, my response might have been biased because it was the first piece of meat that I've had in over a month that wasn't cooked to hard rubber stage!)

Anyway, after eating the cuy, I figured I had passed some Ecuadorian integration test and I could be done with that.  Not so fast!  The following day, my adventure with cuy continued. 

Please note, the rest of this story is graphic, and NOT for the lovers of furry animals or animal rights.  

Read on at your own discretion!

In order to help us learn more about the Indigenous communities of Ecuador, our Peace Corps training group headed north to Otavalo.  This entirely Indigenous community is known for its talented artists, and tourists flock to their artisanal market each day to buy blankets, 
sweaters and more.

The Indigenous Communities of Ecuador have had a similar plight as other Native Americans.  In recent years, they have united together and are now recognized as a formal voice in the government of Ecuador.  This has earned them some rights to live their life as they have for hundreds of years. For some, this includes having the ability to practice their own religious customs, their own language or dialects, or practice their own medicine.  Last Sunday, we visited the Centro Medico Jambi Huasi in Otavalo to understand more about how they practice medicine.  

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This is a traditional medicine woman.  She, with other practictioners, treat all kinds of diseases and conditions at this clinic.  But in order to diagnose what is wrong with you, she has to "clean" the energy from you. Here she is rubbing a random volunteer's body with an egg.  The energy (positive or negative) from this person's body is being transferred to the egg.

Then she cracked the egg and diagnosed the volunteer's energy by analyzing how the egg peels, and by the look, texture and color of the egg white and yolk.  After her diagnosis, which included both physical and emotional ailments, the volunteer confirmed that the doctor was spot on.  

She then explained that if a person had serious symptoms, a more thorough investigation of the body's energy was needed. For this, she used a live guinea pig, or a cuy. 

She rubbed the cuy very vigorously over the head and body of this volunteer. 

After about 5 minutes, when she was finished, the cuy was dead. 

She then took a knife and cut open the tail and started to skin the animal. 

When she had it skinned, she analyzed its outer physical body.

Then she made a slit in the abdomen and let the blood and organs drain out.  During this entire process, she was using the condition of the cuy to diagnose the health of this volunteer, as his energy (both healthy or unhealthy) had transferred into the cuy.  Here for example, she was commenting on the health of his blood.

Finally, she took apart each organ and commented on the state of his intestines, liver, kidneys, gallbladder, heart and lungs. 

By the time she was finished with her analysis, there was nothing recognizable that was left of this cuy. We asked what she did with it, and she said that they feed it to the pigs. In the end, nothing notable was wrong with the volunteer, but she did ask about some specific medical issues he had in the past which he agreed had existed.

I'm not going to pretend that this demonstration didn't give me pause or concern.  I'm lucky that another volunteer next to me was a medical student in a previous life and she was whispering to me the names of each organ as the doctor extracted them from the cuy.  This made it feel more like a dissection in a science lab - and well, that's exactly what it was.  

As I sat and watched this demonstration, I had to question my own reaction and my own biases.  For example, I'm a carnivore, and I like to think I know where my food comes from.  I do my best to eat sustainably and close to the source.  My dinner of cuy was exactly that.  On my plate, however, it's easy to forget that an animal gave itself for me.  Watching it die in her hands, brought that a little closer to home.

So, is Indigenous medicine heartless?  Western medicine is not blameless.  We make it easier on ourselves when our specimens arrive in class pre-killed or soaking in formaldahyde.  And, I don't like to think about the fact that Advil has probably killed a lot of mice over the years to help stop my headaches.  The sacrifice of a  mouse isn't any different from a guinea pig.  They both are being used to further our education and help make a person feel better.  The reality is that sacrificing animals for the sake of food, education, medicine, and our fashion is not an easy subject for many of us to swallow.  We all learn to justify our actions or change our behaviors based on our religious and political beliefs, and how we were raised.  I use animals and their products every day.  I shouldn't have been so shocked that the Indigenous doctors use animals too. 

In the end, this experience is what I'm coming to call a Peace Corps moment: A slice of life that sets you on your heels, pushes you out of your comfort zone, and makes you reconsider with new insight.  Although I'm not banging my drum for western medicine, I probably won't be heading to the indigenous clinics either.  But maybe, just maybe, if we can put aside our biases of what we think should be right, we can listen, learn from, and share our knowledge and cultural competencies with each other.  And maybe, if we find this balance, the world can be a little better for it.  

My Trip to the Coast

Last week, I got my first glimpse of the Coast of Ecuador and the chance to fully experience the hot and humid rainy season!  

Our Peace Corps Training group was subdivided into 4 smaller groups and we each embarked on our own adventure to learn about the life, the foods, and the culture of the coast in a few different communities. 

Long distance travel in Ecuador is easy aboard these large double decker buses with air-conditioning and movies.

Although Ecuador is about the size of Colorado by comparison, it took us over 10 hours to travel half the length of the country due to rainy conditions and windy roads.  The elevation drop from the mountains (called the Sierra) to the
                                                                                    Coast is drastic and steep.

Along the way, we saw a lot of palm oil
plantations and banana plantations
with Del Monte and Dole
processing plants.  A huge food staple
of the Ecuadorian coast is bananas!

Our group first visited the coastal communities on the Santa Elena Peninsula.  We stayed two nights in a small fishing village called Anconcito. This family welcomed me into their home for a two-night stay. The hammocks were really nice to lounge in on a hot and humid evening. 

Inside was a sweet room of princess bed nets, which was appreciated since
the mosquitos were eating me alive!

Our first activity of the morning was to chat with the fisherman of La Libertad. These (primarily) men explained that there are two 10-12 hour shifts a day in which they're netting different kinds of fish at different times, and in different seasons.  I didn't see many boats bigger than this, and was told that they go many miles off shore.  I asked the fishermen about fishing regulations, and they agreed that laws did exist, but they didn't expand on what they were, or if they followed them.  

Next, we had to find ingredients at the market and practice bartering with the vendors.  
Notice the rain pouring in between the stalls.  We were so wet and muddy 
before this adventure was complete!

Our challenge was to make Ceviche for lunch so
we needed to buy some fish!

At the coast, fresh fish, like this Octopus, is everywhere!

We made Ceviche for 18 people using a fish called Dorado.  After cutting it up, we added boiling water to the pan and lots and lots of lime juice for it to soak and cool in the acidic marinade.  

We also made a traditional dish called Patacones. Bananas- a main food staple at the coast- can be cut up, smashed, fried and salted into little banana cakes.

Some watermelon, rice and fresh lime juice rounded out our wonderful lunch!

Other Adventures in our Day....

The Voice of Anconcito

We met this wonderful community member who decided many years ago that the community needed a system of communication to be able to make public announcements.  So, he put a loud speaker on his roof, and every day, people shout up to his apartment from the streets with news about births, weddings, deaths, or other information for him to announce over the loud speaker.  He even has a different jingle he plays to alert the community to what kind of announcement it will be.  His microphone cord is so long, we watched him drop it down to someone in the street so they could make their own announcement. I was really touched by the importance and the successes of his efforts to keep the people of this little beach community connected. 

We also got to teach and learn some games on the beach with a group of teenagers from the community. We taught them games such as Red Rover, Limbo, and the Human Knot while they taught us games like Hopscotch, Human Tug-of-War, and Cat and Mouse. It was so much fun to laugh with them, and take a swim in the warm Pacific Ocean at the end of our day.

Next stop.... Guayaquil

Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador (population 2.4 million) and I found it to be very modern and beautiful.  Ecuador prides itself with wonderful architecture and public art, and the most beautiful parks with lovely tropical plants, tiled fountains and walkways.

 This is Parque Bolivar or the "Iguana Park"! These prehistoric creatures are free to roam wherever, but they get fed in the park so they are happy to hang out with the tourists and get their picture taken. 

The Malecon is the center of fun along the Guayas River.  Its a wonderful boardwalk with shops, restaurants, museums, art and                   a ferris wheel.                                                               After walking its length, we climbed the hill of Las Penas and enjoyed the views at sunset    from the top. 

In Guayaquil, we met and visited other Peace Corps Volunteers and learned about their year's worth of experiences in the country.  For two days, they showed us their schools where they teach, they showed us around town, and they showed us a lot of fun!  Now, my group is more excited then ever to finish our training and get started on our service somewhere in Ecuador!