For the past ten days I´ve been in Achupallas, an Indigenous rural community 45 minutes outside of Otovalo, Ecuador. I don´t even know how to describe how incredible of an experience it was, but I´ll try here.
So starting from the begining...
My leaders, Grant and Megan, pull me aside before we arrive and tell me that I have a special situation and that they´re not really sure how it´ll work out. My host family doesn´t have A- a bathroom and B- a bed for me to sleep in. Like, really? Am I suppossed to sleep on the floor? Pee in the woods? FOR TEN DAYS?!
I sucked it up and put on a smile when I followed my adorable family home. Turns out that my host mom´s mom (my abuelita) has a house about ten feet away with an outdoor toilet and I´d be sleeping with Katie, another girl on the trip, in her house. They didn´t have a shower, but with the super exciting news about the toilet (or should I say bowl that was about six inches off the ground) I wasn´t too worried about that.
Our schedule as a family and as a group was as follows- I was suppossed to wake up at 6:45 and eat breakfast at 7 with my family, go to work by 8:30, at 12:30 we would eat lunch, and in the afternoon we´d do an activity in the community that was normal for the family hosting us for the activity.
In reality... I woke up every morning at around 4 because the cat crawled through the rafters into our room and decided to get stuck on the bookshelf... EVERY NIGHT. Then the roosters would keep me up till around 6 when I finally managed to pass back out again. (I.hate.roosters.) Breakfast usually was the soup from the night before- which means potatoes in water with another vegatable thrown in and a ¨cafecita¨ which is whatever type of tea they made. Who knew oregano tea was so delicious? We always showed up at work at 8:30, but Ecuadorian time is a bit different and either the guy running the project, building a community greenhouse, was there or not. When he showed up, he´d direct us on what dirt pile to move where and we did it. I was sore EVERY DAY, but the work was fun.
The afternoon activities were always really cool too. We met an 86 year old healer who would NOT let go of my hand because she took a liking to me, we took cooking classes from the best cook around, we learned how to harvast potatoes, we baked bread, and we took Kichua, the indigenous language, classes.
I´d return home exhausted between4 and 6, and then have dinner at 7 with my family. Lenin, the 3.5 year old who loved to catch me looking at him and scream with laughter, would fall asleep during dinner every night against the wall. His older sister, Emily, 6 years old, became my shadow when I was back around the houses. And the oldest kid, Kevin, 8 years old, tried to play it cool but when I started tickling him his defenses totally broke down. My host mom and dad were always concerned with whether I liked the food that night or not, whether I was happy in their home, etc. Their first language is Kichua and their second Spanish, so there were a lot of charades that went down and laughter ensued. I couldn´t believe how simply they lived. At first it was just shocking, but now being back in a city everything seems so excessive. Except the shower. After 10 days of not cleaning myself, this morning when I took my hair tie out my hair stayed in a bun... so gross. And you don´t even want to know how gross my fingernails looked. No shower also means no running water at the house. Thank god for Purell. Anyway, my host family´s house consisted of two rooms- a kitchen with a stove and stumps on the ground that were seats for us while we ate off our laps, and a bedroom with two beds. Having a stove was a HUGE deal, most of the families in the community only had a fire to cook over. They had nothing extra, nothing fancy. All of the members of the family had about as much clothing as I have in my backpack. Each of the kids has a stuffed animal and a plastic toy. When I made them animal masks at the school they were THRILLED. After the shock wore off and I saw how comfortable they were even though they didn´t have any excess stuff, I was almost angry at myself for how much clothing and ¨stuff¨ I have at home. I swear, here and to myself, that I´m going to get home and clean out at least have of the things I have in my room to donate.
This morning, my family dressed me up in the traditional indigenous dress the women wear and took tons of photos on my camera of me with my host mom. My whole family and I cried saying goodbye and I´m going to miss them terribly. I was the first white person (and American obviously) that they´d ever met or spent time with, and I´m so excited to know that I left them with a good impression. The Tundana Foundation, which is funding the building of the community greenhouse (as well as other community projects in other rural areas) and helps send a ton of indigenous kids through highschool and college with their scholarships, is an amazing foundation. I hope that someday in the future I can return to stay with my Ecuadorian family again and continue to improve the lives of people who have changed mine so completely in just 10 days.
Now, I´m off to appreciate a full plate of vegatables. After 10 days of potatoes, I´m in need of some green.
Ciao!
Emily
(Ps- They don´t say adios here, they mostly say Ciao, so now I get to become one of those annoying people who says it all the time.)
No comments:
Post a Comment