Touristas

This weekend we became the camera-toting, money-spending American tourists Ecuadorians love to cajole into selling things to. On Saturday we headed to El Mitad del Mundo, the spot where an indigenous group erected a memorial marking the difference between the northern and southern hemispheres. After an hour bus ride (bus meaning a van painted school-bus yellow seating 14 people, belonging to a relative of Victor and much more comfortable than cramming all of us into the backseat of a truck) heading north of Quito, we arrived just in time to settle ourselves into a restaurant to watch the final game of the Champions League (Barcelona v. Manchester United). Most Ecuadorians were rooting for M.U. we think because of an Ecuadorian player on their team. (Barça won 3-1). I nommed down on a traditional plate involving meat, a fried egg on top of a potato patty, a slice of avocado, some mote and some tostados, essentially toasted corn kernels. Delicious!

After lunch we headed to the monument, which had been turned into a theme park of sorts with a variety of tourists shops, a stage with some not-so-entertaining singing, and several little museums around. It cost two bucks to get in, which was a racket to go stand by the monument and put your feet on either side of the line, but we did it nonetheless. They also had some alpaca-type animals just wandering around at will. 

Sunday we left the hostal at 7 am for a two hour ride to Otavalo, a town north of Quito known for its traditional artisan street market. The bus ride was longish through some rather harrowing mountain roads, but the market was a site to see. Most of the vendors are indigenous people, and the majority of goods are hand-made. The best part was the bargaining- the vendor names their price and you go down from there; some are harder to buy down than others, but Lauren and I got some sweet socks for $2.50 a piece instead of $4.50. Also, I bought a pair of awesome hand-knit slippers, but the man charged me more because he said I had big feet! Oh well, they are definitely worth the $5.50 I paid. 

The fun and games will soon be over however. We are getting down to business on our survey questions, trying to make sure we are as specific as possible while using language most of the farmers will understand. It's a challenge, to say the least. Tomorrow we are taking our questions for a test-drive, I have a feeling we'll be editing quite a bit after our first experience interviewing farmers. Meanwhile, the schedule is starting to wear on me- I have what is either bad allergies and/or a head cold and could use with about twelve hours of sleep, and I hear a couple of other sniffles in the group. Also, some of us sent out our laundry to the lavandaría to be washed on Friday, but I didn't realize it wouldn't be done until Monday. The launders weigh the laundry and charge by the weight for washing and drying and ironing, and I can't wait to have fresh clean clothes tomorrow. It's the small things in life that count, right?

Estaciones Experimentales: Time to Hit the Farm

Wednesday and Thursday we headed out to two experimental stations run by INIAP. The first, Santa Catalina, was where Victor works, to the north of Quito. The trip took about 45 minutes; el trafico is terrible, and a landslide had closed part of the interstate, bringing six lanes of traffic down to three. It was wonderful to get out of the city and breathe some fresh air- it's amazing to get a full view of the mountains. This station focused on dairy production; milk is not allowed to be exported from Ecuador due (I think) to diseases in the cows, therefore all production is focused on meeting national demand. They start from the ground up, experimenting with different mixtures of rye grass, alfafa, clover, etc.

We then got a looksie at los terneros, the calves. There are about 180 cattle on the farm in total, plus two bulls. They are working hard to get the quantity produced per cow up, and their average is well above the national average, but far below the US.  (I wish I could remember specific numbers for you, but alas, that was two days ago, and I've heard far more agricultural statistics in Spanish since then...)

Thursday we went to a station towards the south of Quito, focusing primarily on fruit production, chirimoyas, duraznos, mora, narajillas, aguacates, and one more that I can't remember to save my life. The station was only 16 acres large, but stuffed full of the most tropical fruit in one place I've ever seen. We also proceeded to stuff our faces full of most of the fruit we could find; avocado straight from the tree-nom nom! They also had this strange crossed fruit halfway between an orange and a lemon that apparently no-one at the station liked; we decided it tasted just like the old lemon warhead candy.

We learned a lot about chirimoyas; the researchers at the station essentially speed up nature to produce this sweet fruit highly valued in the market for both eating and juice. 

The duraznos (peaches) were not quite as ripe as they could have been, but still pretty juicy and delicious. The experimental station had a rotation of trees, some who were flowering, some with fruit, and some who had finished producing fruit and were beginning the cycle. The trees continuously produce throughout the year with some help from the scientists. They are focusing mostly on peach production because of a niche market in Chile from January to April; peaches are not available during that period there and the Ecuadorians are looking to help fill the gap in production. 

Las naranjillas were the strangest plant I've ever seen. It is a plant native to Ecuador and used in juice, and unfortunately I can't even really describe the taste to you. It is kind of sweet but mostly tart I think. The fruit itself is round like a tomato, but with an orange color. 

I was quite excited about visiting the mora  (blackberry) patch. In Ecuador, a family of five with a farm of 500 blackberry plants can live quite comfortably, providing all the home, food, and education they may need, and because of this the experimental farm is interested in breeding the best varieties. Unfortunately, they aren't quite what I expected- they are not nearly as sweet as the blackberries at home; rather, they just taste off. Oh well, you live you learn. This morning we did have mora juice at breakfast, which was delicious (I'm pretty sure they added way more sugar than one should have to in order to make it sweet). 

La Ciudad de Quito

Yesterday we took a walking tour of the central part of Quito, el centro historico, which inspires me to write some about the city itself. It is a very long city, running north to south in a long strip. We are staying close to the central part of the city, and within walking distance of lots of things. The mountains surrounding Quito are quite visible from almost every point and serve to orient you within the city. The tallest building I've seen was around 16 stories, though most outside of the city center are not much taller than 6 or 7 stories. I'm working on an interactive map currently to show where in Quito we have been, and later in Guaranda. Here's just a screenshot of the part of the city we frequent most, but the link will let you put the mouse on each point for the names. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=201437100475424836489.0004a423d9d6e4ea427a1&ll=-0.198955,-78.487787&spn=0.049009,0.086861&z=14

Interesting things I've picked up while in Quito:

The traffic is terrible here, so the city has implemented restrictions based on license plate numbers. For example, one of the INIAP trucks that we've been riding in cannot be in the city on Tuesdays during rush hours because its license plate ends in 3. The public transportation consists mostly of buses, some more sketchy than others. Often you'll see someone hanging out the front announcing where the bus is going. The bus we rode today cost 25 cents, and we caught it from a station in the middle of the street, where there are two lanes set aside only for buses. The city also has a small system of buses that run on electricity, but the routes (according to Victor, from INIAP, one of our hosts here) don't serve very many of the 2,000,000+ inhabitants. Apparently they are going to build a subway system of sorts, beginning in 2015, but the Quiteños seem doubtful about this. Also, the major airport for the city is actually in the city, so it is common to see giant jets hanging just above. Taxis are the other major method of transportation; rides are cheap and after 8 the taxi drivers are not required to abide by a set rate, so you have to bargain for the rate before you climb in. We spent two dollars on a ten-ish minute ride the other day.

Schools start earlier than in the US; they are open from about 7:00 to 1:30 or so, and they are not set up to feed the students. Most of the schools are private, but both private and public require uniforms (for the most part) apparently to bring equality between the rich and the poor. There is a pretty large gap between the rich and the poor, between those that are having their shoes shined and those doing the shining. There are lots of women selling fruits and vegetables and trinkets in the streets, mostly traditionally dressed. It is common for vendors to walk out in stopped traffic to peddle their goods, in addition to the street entertainers juggling and dancing for any handout.

Quiteñitos on a field trip

 The city itself has grown tremendously in the last twenty years according to the natives- they point to places all over where the population is going farther and farther up the surrounding mountains. There are not many tall buildings, and the streets are fairly wide, though the condition of many of the roads and sideswalks are deplorable, and there is construction going on everywhere. There isn't too much trash hanging out in the street, though there is graffiti. One of our group had a camera robbed during the city tour, and the tour guide mentioned that it was due to the latest mayor. Apparently the old mayor cared a lot about keeping the city clean and providing police for tourist areas, but the new mayor has focused on other things, and conditions have deteriorated. The police did manage to catch up with el ladrón, but unfortunately he had already ditched the camera. Good thing it wasn't a passport or money.

I have plenty more to add; our days are so packed it's impossible to share everything at once. Upcoming is an entry on la gente of Quito, and our visit to the experimental station of Santa Catalina, just outside of Quito.

Primeros Días

Our first few days have started off with a bang. Yesterday we had our first lesson at Spanish school; each of us has our own professor and we spend half the four hours with our professor and the other half doing group activities, which involved some gringo dancing. Today we spent all four hours with our professors, which was draining, but certainly good for practice; tomorrow we are going on a walking city tour with the professors. The school is about a fifteen minute walk from our hostel, involving lots of dodging of traffic and avoiding tripping over uneven sidewalks, or often lack of sidewalks at all.

View of Quito; our hostal is about two blocks to the right from here

Today we left the hostel at six for a 2ish mile jog around El Parque Carolina, two blocks walking. My legs felt like they were a thousand pounds at the end of the run, but I managed not to walk at all. I can see why Olympic athletes train here. The park was full of people at 6 am- lots of joggers, speed walkers, dog walkers, etc. We headed back to the hostel with worries of who was going to get the hot water- yesterday only one of our group was lucky enough to get a full hot shower; my shower involved me standing outside of it and leaning my head in to wash my hair. Luckily, we all had hot showers today- a superb reward for our efforts. Lauren, Katie, and I searched out somewhere that didn't have instant coffee- the breakfast at the hostal involves a cup of hot leche for Nescafé, two scrambled eggs, a croissant, and some sort of juice. We found a little bakery that had passable coffee today, necessary for functioning in school. The juice yesterday was rather like drinking a canteloupe; and as much as I love cantaloupe, I would much rather have it still on the rind with a spoon in my hand than in my glass. Today we had naranjilla, a type of fruit that doesn't really have a translation in English, but the taste was delicious, something tangy but sweet al mismo tiempo. 

 So far we've had two meetings with agricultural officials; yesterday was with the director of agriculture for Ecuador, who talked for about thirty minutes straight about a variety of things, including advice about our digestion and heart rates while we are adjusting to the elevation. Today we went to the US embassy and met with a USAID official with projects mainly in the north part of Ecuador, who discussed his projects and goals, namely to improve the productivity of the cash crops such as cafe y cacao, and to form connections between producers and what he called "anchor" vendors in the markets in the cities. Security was tight; what was interesting was the contrast between the buildings. The INIAP building (where we met the Ecuadorian director) was grand on the outside, but the dividers between the offices inside were thin and rather cheap. The US embassy was this grand fortress type structure, completely finished inside with what I supposed was stone from nearby and modern projection, etc.

US Embassy above, Ecuadorian governmental building with INIAP below

Also in our explorations we've been to the mall twice, just a block away, and been laughed at as we all lugged giant 6 liter bottles of water back to the hostel. A few things about living in Quito: we can't drink the water; toilet paper belongs in a bin, not in the toilet; not much of anyone has change for bills greater than a ten, Sacagawea coins are legit currency (we figure they all end up here); the sun burns, fast; crosswalks are optional; pillows are less than pouffy (and my bed also has a distinct slope, which could be the mattress, but could also be the floor...); and we stick out whereever we go. ¡Pero está bien, estamos felizes y listos para un día nuevo!

Llegado

We made it here! Other than a delayed flight in Miami, all is well. The people are friendly, the rooms look comfy (that will be better determined in a few hours), and we have breakfast instructions. A piece of bread, an egg, a juice and a coffee- everyday for the next two weeks. Sarcasm is optional when reading that statement.

So I may have presented you with some slightly false information. I was dozing on the flight and groggily wondering why my flight time to Quito from Miami said 4 hours when the times only added up to three. I turned to trusty iPod and checked the time in Quito; sure enough, they are an hour behind EST. It turns out that they don't observe daylight savings time. While  we technically haven't left the eastern time zone, we are in fact an hour behind. (I was dreading that I was going to have to be all humble and admit I was wrong about the title, I was thankful that Katie was able to set me straight and avoid my having to come up with some clever thing to add to the title!)

Lessons from the day: people watching in Miami is entertaining, but not entertaining enough to last six and a half hours. One can now fly from Miami to Havana, Cuba with seemingly little trouble, surprising to me but perhaps not to others as I am not up to date on my Cuba-US relations. Thirdly, I find myself in that curious state of mind similar to when I am a voluntary notetaker for a class; my notes for class become more detailed and I pay better attention in class when I know someone else is learning from what I choose to communicate to them, and as the audience for my experiences on this trip has suddenly grown beyond myself, I find myself reflecting a little deeper and wanting to convey my experiences beyond a simple list of what I have seen and done.

I snapped this as we were descending into Miami- reversal of the traditional subdivision around the lake, I wish I knew how they make this

Just Beginning

Hola a todos-
As (many of) you know, I'm leaving for Ecuador this coming Sunday for a sustainable agriculture internship with three professors from the AgEcon department at VT. There are seven of us in the group, all upperclassmen with a common interest in sustainable agriculture and a (soon to be improved) knowledge of Spanish. We'll be traveling and working for six weeks in Ecuador, beginning with two weeks in the capital city of Quito and the rest of the time based out of a small city in the central part of the country called Guaranda. This is my first shot at a blog, but my plan is to make it a place to share stories and pictures and give you a taste of what I'm experiencing as I go along.

#1 on the map marks Quito, and #3 is the city of Guaranda

Last fall when I found out I had been selected to be on the team, I remember some of my first thoughts being warm, tropical, west coast, rain. It turns out that it won't be very warm (average temp in Quito for May: 19C, 67F), it won't be wet, as we are there during the dry season, and while parts of the country are tropical, the majority of our time will be spent in elevations 9,000 ft +. Not so tropical. The thing that surprised me most was that I'm not even leaving the Eastern time zone- go figure. It'll be just a skip and a jump from Richmond down to Miami and then to Quito.

During our first two weeks we'll be in Spanish lessons for five hours each day, with two classes of dance lessons to be included (???) We'll see how that goes. We'll also be meeting with several people that have been working on the larger conservation agriculture project in Quito (INIAP) as well as visiting experimental stations in the area before leaving Quito. Included in the plan is finalizing our survey questions and spreadsheets for questioning the farmers-we've been meeting every other week this spring semester to research and create survey questions to gather the information we need, but test-driving those questions will be necessary.   Once we arrive in Guaranda, we'll spend a trial day ensuring we are asking the right kinds of things in the right kinds of ways, and then off we'll go, heading to the upper and lower regions of Chimbo river watershed, interviewing farmers about every aspect of production, mainly for papas (potatoes) but for other crops as well. 

Excited? Supremely. Nervous? Definitely. Ready to have a new adventure in a foreign country? Yes, please.