Las Despedidas.

The closest word for ¨despedida¨ in english would probably be ¨to say farewell¨. In french, ¨dire ses adieux¨. It´s something I really do not like doing, especially when it invovles people I´ve grown to love. The first despedida I had to make was at the hospital on Thursday morning. I said my goodbyes to the nurse there who took care of me and Janice. She was always so good to us and concerned for us. She was a real sweetheart. Then I said goodbye to the social worker. It´s so hard to leave these people, knowing that I´ll probably never see them again. Thursday afternoon I said goodbye to my adult English class. They were such great people. Then I said goodbye to the younger kids from my other English class. It was a tough day all in all. All these despedidas really made me realize how quickly this experience is coming to an end. This morning I has to do my hardest despedida so far, the day care. I gave all of them a little surprise bag with stickers and candies, which they were all very grateful for. Then all of a sudden it was noon and they were giving me hugs, saying ¨adios señorita Doucet¨. I didn´t expect it to be as hard as it was. On my walk back home, I cried. The thing is, they´re probably too young to realize that I won´t be coming back on Monday. They´ll probably ask the day care worker when I´ll be back, and she´ll have to answer ¨never¨, because that´s the truth. We come and go, us Intercordians. We have to go back for university, we have to return to the real world. But what about these people, these kids whom we get to know and then never see again. One of the hardest things for me is not knowing where these kids will end up. Will they get through school? Or will they end up marrying and having kids at 14? Will they become good people? Or will they get caught in some gang and get in trouble? It´s tough, I hadn´t expected how hard this would be.
Now all I have left is one full day with my host family. I leave Sunday morning. It will be very hard to leave, but at least I´m coming back after traveling to give them my cell phone and for a proper despedida. Initially, I really didn´t want to come back here after traveling, I felt terrible to go on vacation, spend a bunch of money, and come back to them. I still feel that way, but I also really want them to have my cell phone and I´ll need it to travel so it leaves me no choice but to come back.
Here goes, two more sleeps and I´m off. It´s so surreal to me that I´m leaving this place I´ve been living in for 3 months, a quarter of a year. I still haven´t processed everything that I´ve seen, witnessed or experienced here. It´ll take a while I´m sure. For the moment I´m just very pround and happy to have gone through this. The past three months have been hard, heartbreaking, eye-opening, but most of all, rewarding. I´m a changed person, and I owe it to all the people I´ve encountered here, who have enriched my life by simply being themselves.

Things I´ve Strangely Gotten Used To

When I first got here, many things seemed very unusual to me, very out of the ordinary. Here are a few things I did not expect to eventually find normal.

• Cows wandering the streets with their owner. I used to be pretty shocked when I saw cows walking down the street by my house. Now I don´t even thing twice about them being there. I´m still pretty scared of them though. I always keep my distances when I walk pass them because I´m afraid they´ll suddenly decide to charge on me.
• Taking bucket showers. I´ve now gotten used to boiling water whenever I want to shower, then mixing it with cold water. A full bucket is just enough to bathe myself.
• Only taking showers once a week. Although I have no problem with bucket showers, I really don´t like showering when it´s cold outside which was the case for the past few weeks. So I started showering only once a week instead of two. I would have thought this to be gross before getting here but now I find it normal. 
• The sounds of sheep, chickens and of our new baby bull. I´m really living in the ´´campo´´ so I´m bound to hear all sorts of sounds here. My family bought a baby bull a few weeks ago and I´ve now gotten used to its noise. What I haven´t gotten used to is when it escapes and comes right in the kitchen looking for food. It´s happened twice already and let me just say that I don´t appreciate sharing the kitchen with a bull.
• Riding in the back of trucks/no cars. I was so shocked the first time I hoped in the back of a truck along with a bunch of other people to go to town. It was a very bumpy ride and I thought I´d fall out at times. Now it´s just another mode of transportation to me. Also, the fact that we don´t have a car and that there aren´t any cars on the streets in my community is perfectly normal to me. I´m actually surprised when a car goes by once in a while.

Well, I hope this has given you a better idea of where and how I live. It may sound like a strange place but I´ve grown to really like it.

Our trip to Atacames (on the northern coast of Ecuador)!

Things have been pretty hectic lately. I arrived from our trip to the coast on Monday night. We had an absolutely amazing time. The two best things about the coast were the weather and the beach. It was so nice to actually be warm at night for a change, and it only rained on the last day we were there. The Pacific ocean was such a treat! It was very warm and had pratically nothing in it. The water wasn´t as clear as in Cuba for example but it definitely didn´t matter to us!

 On our last day, it was pouring rain but 6 out of the 8 still went out to the beach and we had a blast in the water and building sand castles. We all went back to our childhood that afternoon. We also ate great meals. A lot of seafood!

Now it´s back to reality. But now we only have 11 days left in our communities. It´s weird because I feel very sad about leaving my family, especialy my host parents, but at the same time I´m really due to go back home. I´ve been away from home for way longer than 3 months before but the difficulties that come along with this kind of experience just make me miss home a lot more than usual.

The Festival in Cayambe

Last week marked the end of the Cayambe Festival.
It lasted about a month. Now the festival of Juan Montalvo is starting, which is the area where I live, in the outskirts of the city. It was very interesting to see how they celebrate here. A popular event during the festivities is the bull fights. All of the Intercordians went to see one of the¨professional¨ bull fights, except me. This is when the bullfighters are actual professionals. I don´t like the thought of sitting (and paying!) to watch a bull get killed by humans for a show, as much as it can be a ¨cultural¨ experience. Then there are the ¨popular¨ bull fights, which is when the crowd is allowed to go in and get a shot at the bull themselves. ¨Isn´t this dangerous? Don´t people die?¨, I asked my host dad. ¨It´s very dangerous and yes, people do sometimes die, especially if they´re drunk¨, he answered. This upset me. How could anyone take that risk? Why is this still such an important cultural tradition to these people? This week I heard on the news that someone died from a bull fight. He had been drunk. It still puzzles me that people accept this and keep doing it. Anyhow, this is what I feel is the negative part of the festivities, but the rest is quite nice. On Tuesday, the 29th of June, was the day of San Pedro. This is the biggest parade of the year when groups from every community around Cayambe parade through the city´s streets. Even though my host dad doesn´t belong to any community, he still found a way to join one because he adores dancing. Four out of the seven Intercordians here in Cayambe dressed up and paraded with their communities. I didn´t because I would have needed to walk a long way and this is impossible with my stupid flat feet. I took pictures though, and laughed at my friends as they danced along.  The first picture is of my friends Alanna and Marian, dancing with the community of Convalesencia, dressed in typical Cayambe outfits. The second is of my friend Nick, who danced with my host dad´s community of Ouachu Ouachu.

That night I went to the fiesta of  the community my dad danced with. Thankfully, Nick had danced with them too so he was also at the party. This fiesta consisited of more food, lots and lots of alcohol, and of course, more dancing. I´m stubborn enough to say no when offered a drink, even though I often need to say it numerous times. My friend, however, dislikes refusing a drink so was obviously drunk by the end of the night. Both of us dancing in that circle for hours was quite a site. We often tried to escape and rest for a while but they would just come back and get us. I walked home with my family when the fiesta was over. My dad was quite drunk, he sang and played guitar the whole walk back home in the pitch dark. It was too funny, I had to take a picture! It´s awesome to see how passionate he is about celebrating his culture and music. It was very touching to witness. I kept thinking to myself ¨only in Ecuador would this happen!¨.

Last Sunday was the Desfile de Alegria or ¨Parade of Hapiness¨. It´s my host mom´s favorite so both of us went to see it. The difference with this parade was that the dances were choreographed, which was nice.

The Challenges.

I´ve been thinking about how to write this post for a while now, I wasn´t sure how to do so without being misunderstood. I knew before coming here that I would be faced with challenges and pushed outside of my comfort zone. I actually wanted this, because I know it´s necessary for me to grow as a person. What I guess I didn´t realize is that facing the challenges and living outside of my comfort zone is quite hard and sometimes exhausting. I know for a fact that it´´ll all be worth it in the end, but for the moment I´m struggling. One of the biggest personal challenges I think I´m facing is to not be as close to my host family as I would have liked to. I really expected to build very strong realtionships with the members of my host family but this hasn´t happened. Talking to the other Intercordians I realized I´m not the only one to feel this way. It´s kind of hard to explain because I absolutely adore my host family, they´re truly amazing people, especially my host mom and dad. I just feel like a guest of lot of the time and that´s not how I´d like it to be. Like how they always give me the best of whatever food they have or how they won´t let me help them work in the fields. It makes me uncomfortable at times. But by now, I´ve learned how to deal with it.

Another personal challenge I´ve faced has been working at the day care. I feel like I´m not doing much there to help out. The kids are also at an age where it´s hard to build actual relationships with them because they´re more interested in running around all the time. I´m glad I get to watch the work of a social worker and teach english night classes. It kind of makes up for how useless I feel at the day care.

Then there´s the simple fact of constantly being outside of my comfort zone. There are times when there´s nothing I´d like more than to be cuddled up on the couch at home in the presence of my mom and just feel comfortable. But then some simple special moment happens, like a kid giving me a hug or my host dad calling me his daughter or spending time with my fellow Intercordians, and everything becomes alright. I hold on to those moments real tight because they´re what keeps me going. 

A challenge which I think is faced by most Intercordians here is to be seen as the ¨white foreigner¨. It makes me sad to see some of the people here associate my skin colour with a higher status of some sorts. It´s subtle and not shown by everyone but when I do get that feeling, it really don´t like it. They know they are a hard working bunch though, because I´ve heard them joking around about how doctors, lawyers and engineers wake up late in the morning and get to the office at 9am, while they (the people from the ¨campo¨ or countryside) wake up before the sun to start working. I can´t help but agree with them. Seeing how hard working these people are has been really eye-opening. Every day I see older women hauling some huge bag of corn on their backs, people taking their cows from one place to the other, children carrying their younger sibling on their backs. Last Saturday my whole family went up the hill to tend to the fields. They left at 5am and came back at 6pm. That´s a huge day´s work out in the sun. It´s inspiring to see all of this, and it makes me want to become a better person. I have a lot of time to think while I´m here because my only real distraction is books. I think about what kind of person I want to be and what I can do to achieve this. I´ve become so much more sensitive to the different socio-economic situations of people. It´s one thing to read or hear about people who lead different lives than us in the North, it´s another thing to actually live with them. There´s no way to actually understand it than to live it. It´s hard but very rewarding.

I guess what this whole post is to try to make people realize that this whole 3 months isn´t about having fun all the time, but instead it´s a complete learning experience. I´m learning more being in this small community in the Ecuadorian Andes than any university class I can take. And every day I remind myself of the truly amazing popportunity I have to be here, because it´s easy to forget in the midst of all things.