Week 6
July 9, 2007
Margaret Novak
We got back into Quito early on Monday morning. We spent most of Monday organizing and catching up on things. I translated the statutes of Ecodivers and Econavigators into English and we discussed the creation of a new webpage for the organization. I spent the rest of the week working on the new webpage. We decided to use a blog for now, as it is free and works just as well. This included writing about my experiences, uploading pictures from our trip, loading the videos from our trip onto Youtube so that they could be used on the webpage, and organizing the layout. I also created my own personal blog this week, with links to various pieces of work that I have translated, blogs with my experiences on them, and other sites that I currently deem important.
The other day, two people came in to talk about a new project in a town near Chimborazo. They want to bring in volunteers to help with reforestation, environmental protection, English courses, and cultural preservation. It was really interesting to see how such a project is planned. We talked about how the community, the environment, and Ecotrackers would all play a part in the project. We are will probably visit this site next Saturday in order to check out the location and set up the next step.
This past week, we also made a calendar for what we will be doing for the next two months. It looks like I will be going on a cloud forest expedition from the Andes to the coast, and also an Amazon River trip over to Peru in August.
On Saturday, I went to the Cotopaxi National Park with my Uncle and my cousin. It was a lot of fun! We drove up as far as we could, and then started to hike, but we didn´t make it all the way as there was barely any oxygen up there and I found it hard to breathe. We then had a picnic by the lake, which was really nice. I am so glad that the clouds blew off, so that I could get some great pictures of the volcano! I would definitely recommend this excursion to anyone, it was just beautiful!!
Week 5- (in Salango)
Week 4
July 6, 2007 With all of the excitement going on in week 5, I seemed to have forgotten to write about week 4. Let´s see, week 4 was slightly uneventful because I still had a bit of the gripe (flu). I stayed home one day from work, and the other days I just tried to hang in there. However, by the time the weekend rolled around, luckily I was feeling much better. Friday night, I went to a salsa concert with Claire (Australia), Marco (Germany), Barbara (Holland), and Antonella (Ecuador). The concert was a lot of fun! There were bands from Ecuador, Colombia, and Cuba. The music was great, and everyone in the crowd was dancing all night long. It´s too bad that we gringos don´t really know how to dance, especially to the salsa. I ended up spending the night at the Ecotrackers apartments with everyone else as we got home around 1:00 am, and the buses don´t go that late back to Pifo.
The next morning, Claire and I decided to go on an adventure. We set out for the Incan sun festival, Inti Raymi. We took the bus over to Pifo (they were working on the bridge in Tumbaco, so this took about 2 hours) and then hung out with my family for a while. After a few drinks, we got on the bus to Otavalo, as we planned to spend the night there. However, for some reason we both feel asleep and didn´t wake up until we reached Ibarra, a town about an hour north of where we wanted to be. Of course there were no more buses back to Otavalo that night, as it was almost 10:00pm. So, we managed to share a cab with a local lady and we made it a hostal. From there, we used the trusty Lonely Planet and made our way to Café Arte, where we watched Andean bands play music while we had something to eat. The music was wonderful (I love the flutes!), and we had a great time.
The next morning, we took the bus to Cotacachi, the town that was having the festival that day. When we got there, people were beginning to gather in the park in front of the church. It was really fun to watch as the day went on. There were groups of native people dressed up with chaps made of llama fur and very large hats, and each group chased the one in front of it around the square. There were tons of police to make sure that the groups didn´t run into each other. It was very loud with whistling and chanting, and everyone was having a great time. Then, all of a sudden, the crowd started running like crazy. W e assumed a fight broke out, so everyone was stampeding, but then we realized that it was more than that- the police had set off tear gas. It hit us; our eyes were blinded and we coulnd´t breathe very well. We ran into a side street to try to escape the gas, and we found a bench to recover on. That stuff can really burn your throat!! The natives thought it was funny to see us gringas get tear gassed, because we had no idea it was coming, and obviously they had known it was inevitable, so we had to pose for a few pictures. After that, we decided it was time to head home. So, we hopped on a bus to Otavalo, where we hoped to catch another bus back to Pifo. Unfortunately, the last bus to Pifo had left just before we got there. So, we had to detour all the way back to Quito, adding another 2 hour bus ride to the trip. And then, the bus decided to drive around the entire city of Quito and enter through the south side (we were coming form the north)….. I ended up getting home around 7:30 that night, and as I was walking down the hill to my Uncles house, a crazed poodle attacked me and I got bit on the leg. What a way to end a crazy weekend. We had a great time though, and it was quite an experience!!!!
Week 3
June 18, 2007
Margaret Novak
Last week was my third week with Ecotrackers. I started out the week translating documents into English and uploading the finished products onto Wikipedia. In the middle of the week, the two kids from England that volunteered in the Shuar community of Kuamar came back to tell me about their experience. They uploaded all of their photos onto the computer and I started to create a new Kuamar page for the web-blog with their photos. At the end of the week, however, I got really sick. I came down with a horrible fever and went home early on Thursday and stayed home on Friday. Luckily, my mom and my sister are visiting, so my mom was able to take care of me. I just came back into work today, and everyone is rushing to get the signatures from Esmeraldas into the computer system so that all of their hard work to change the law will not go to waste. I hope we can get everything done in time!!
The End of My Second Week
June 8, 2007
Margaret Novak
It is now the end of my second week with Ecotrackers. This past week was pretty interesting. On Monday, a man named Manuel came in to talk to Max about setting up a project site in Kuamar, a Shuar village in the southern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon. It is about an 8 hour bus ride from Quito, followed by an 8 hour hike through the jungle. There is going to be a huge Shuar cultural festival next April, and so Manuel also wanted to talk about setting up for that event. Later on that day, a couple of kids from England showed up and wanted to do a volunteer project in the jungle, so we sent them off with Manuel. They will be helping to teach Shuar children English by giving them key words related to nature, like butterfly for example, and then taking them on a small jungle trek to find the butterflies in order to put an object to the word. They will also be helping to set up for the upcoming Shuar cultural event. It was really interesting to see how just like that we were able to get a project started up in a remote Shuar village. I plan on visiting Kuamar sometime in the near future, as I am sure an 8 hour trek through the Amazon jungle would be quite an adventure. I also talked with Max about going to a scuba convention in Salango at the end of June. I would be able to get scuba-certified, and apparently it is whale season! That sounds like a ton of fun! We also talked about a 9 day Amazon River trip, where we would take a raft all the way down to Peru; that would be pretty awesome too! I am not visiting any site this weekend as my mom and my sister are coming to visit, but I do plan to visit as many as possible after they return to the States. We are also trying to get the constitution changed in order to protect the disappearing coastal rainforest in Esmeraldas. There isn’t much time left and we need about a thousand more signatures (Max is there right now trying to get some more) and then we need to enter them into the computer system. Yesterday I helped Juan Carlos enter some names and numbers into the system; I didn’t realize how much work it takes to change a law or part of the constitution- it takes a lot!! Anyways, the sun is shining now, so that is good; it isn’t quite as cold as it was last week! I can´t wait to see what next week brings!
The First Week of My Internship with Ecotrackers
June 1, 2007
Margaret Novak
It is Friday, and I have just finished up my first week interning with Ecotrackers. I was a little nervous coming into this internship, as working in another country can be a little scary, but after being here for a week, I am very happy with it. It is wonderful to work with so many intelligent, passionate, and kind people. This is exactly the type of organization that I would like to work with in the future.
My first day, I spent most of the time listening to Max, the Director of Projects and my supervisor, explain how Ecotrackers works and what the organization encompasses. I learned quite a bit and everything that he had to say was extremely interesting. The next day, we talked more about what kind of work I would be doing, including translating documents into English, working on the Ecotrackers website, and attending to volunteers. I will also be able to spend the weekends visiting various sites, which I am excited to do. At one point a couple of men from Esmeraldas came in for a meeting to talk about a new project. They want to set up a program to save ancient trees in Maldonado. Apparently there is a huge problem with deforestation in this poor community because the palmafricana companies are buying trees for only $10.00 each in order to cut them down and make room for their business. This is devastating as some of the trees are 300 years old. With their proposed project, people would be able to ¨adopt¨ a tree for only $20.00, twice as much as the community is currently getting per tree, and then that particular tree would be protected. They talked about starting a website and promoting it to various universities in the United States, specifically those with large African-American populations (as Esmeraldas has a large Afro-Ecuadorian population). This was a very interesting meeting, and I am glad that I was able to be in on this new idea. I think that it would be very exciting to work on such a project. The past few days I have been working on translating a couple of documents. Their contents are extremely interesting, and I have enjoyed learning more about intelligent tourism and the issues facing Ecuador. Some of the abstract concepts have been slightly challenging to translate, but I like a challenge.
The only downfall to my current situation is that I spend about 3 to 4 hours on the bus commuting in and out of work everyday, as my Uncle lives in Pifo. Since I come in from 9:00am to 5:00pm, I have to wake up at 6:30am and then I don’t end up getting home until around 7:30pm. It is also very cold in Quito. I am glad that I am able to wear sweatshirts and jeans to work, but I think I need some mittens. However, the long days and the cold weather are a small price to pay for the experience that I am receiving while working with the Ecotrackers organization. It has only been one week and I am already learning a lot, I have met people from all over the world. Everyone here is really nice and I know that I am really going to enjoy interning with Ecotrackers this summer.
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