Vacation!

Dearest Readers,

Tonight I´m getting on a bus bound for Canoa where I´ll spend 3 days, then we´ll work our way down the coastline by bus and then inland to Cuenca. I´ll be back in Quito on Monday, 5 November.

Look forward to photos, and tales of adventure.

Midterm

In four hours I´ll be taking my midterm exam-which sounds like will only consist of me reflecting/writing on my experiences in Ecuador thus far, as well as a commentary on Chief Seattle´s letter to Washington (beautiful.) This is like, reason 10045678 why I love the HECUA program.

With midterm exams, comes midterm vacations. This means a few more days on the beack in Canoa, a few days in Cuenca (Ecuador´s third largest city,) and Baños (named after it´s hot springs.)

Along with exams and vacation, midterm also brings a sense of introspection and general reflection. Without going into all the (sappy) details, I will simply say, I am different, and new, and changed-I like to think for the better.

Canoa -or- How I Learned to Calm Down and Start Liking Reggae

A long weekend on the coast of Ecuador. It was pretty much everything one would imagine it would be.

A truly horrific, long, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, 7 hour bus ride from Quito to Bahía de Caráquez, followed by a ferry ride across the bay, followed by a 20 minute bus ride (or a ride on the back of a fruit truck in the case of our retrun trip.) to the tiny beach town of Canoa in Ecuador´s Manabí province.

Canoa is four blocks of dirt roads stretching inland from the coast and more or less exclusively consists of little hotels, restaurants, and bars.

The trip was made with four other students, and pretty much all we did was eat the most delicious whole wheat pancakes you could ever imagine, lay on the beach, lay in hammocks, and drink cheap cold Brahma (Ecuador brewed beer, apparently pretty popular on the coast,) and Cuba Libres.

A note about these Cuba Libres: I´ve never even really liked rum and coke, but when you add some fresh lime and call it a Cuba Libre, I will drink it right up.

A note about those hammocks: Divine. There is no way I will be leaving Ecuador without one.

Our home for the weekend was a cozy, 2 story, thatched roof suite we all shared- Complete with mosquito nets and a balconies.

The weather was good. No rain. Everyday was slightly overcast, but still quite warm.

Now I´m just kind of sunburned and already planning the next possible chance to return.

Now, two more weeks of class, my internship, and investigations regarding my independent study, then our mid-term break which will be spent in the cities of Cuenca (Ecuador´s third largest city) and Baños (named for it´s natural hot springs.)

Celebrating.

First, remember that blog I posted last week ragarding St. Thomas brass more or less un-inviting Desmond Tutu to speak this spring on campus? UST president Dennis Dease has posted a letter to all UST staff and students expressing his regret for his un-informed decision, and in turn, has formally invited Tutu back to campus to speak at the PeaceJam event this April.

Still no word on re-instating my dear Cris Toffolo as chair of the Justice and Peace Studies Department...

I am personally celebrating this, and to augment the whole situation, I´M GOING TO THE BEACH TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!

I´ll be leaving at 11:30 tonight with 5 other students, we´ll drive through the night and get to the beach town of Canoa just in time for breakfast on Friday. We´ll spend three days there and come back on Sunday.

I´m so excited.

More details and pictures upon my return!

Life with the Pacheco Maflas and a trip to the beach.

The Pacheco - Maflas: A character sketch

Germania Mafla - Mother. Yoga instructor and natural therapist. A very good cook. Speaks very Ecuadorian, everything is cafecito and pancito. Loves evening soap operas and singing.

Nelson Pacheco - Fatber. Former electircal engineer, now a full time yoga instructor and natural therapist. Resembles my real dad in the sense that he pretty much knows everything about everything. We talk a lot about world economics and all things Ecuador-weather, people, language, social norms, etc.

Leonel - Brother. 15. Makes funny faces. Goes to school about an hour away. I think he picks up on my awkwardness more than the other members of the family. Really likes sports.

Yan - Brother. 25. Lives in an apartment with friends. Likes a lot of the same music as I do. Always very busy teaching pilates, yoga, and writing his thesis. Sometimes comes home for lunch. Don´t see him very often.

Rahel - Sister. 20. Currently studying in Costa Rica (where Nelson´s mother is from.) She may come home for a while on 15 Dec, so I will get to meet her. Germania thinks we will get along really well.

Jordy - Brother. 18. Currently studying in England. He left the day I arrived. I don´t know anything about him.

We spend the most time together during lunch. In the evening, everyone is usually off teaching yoga, grocery shopping, or enjoying telenovelas (soap operas.) On Sunday I go to Parque Metropolitano with Nelson to do yoga and capoira. Also on Sunday afternoons we watch movies together. This is more or less the extent of our hanging out as of now.

All in all, everything is super chévere with the Pacheco Maflas.

This weekend, as I had alluded to in my previous blog, there was a slight chance of me going to Colombia with Germania and Nelson, however, the HECUA program director had some worries, especially since we were traveling by bus.

Instead, I´m going to the beach with some other students! The whole country has Friday off for Fiestas de Guayaquil, so it sounds like we´ll be leaving on Thursday and coming back on Monday. I´m hoping hoping hoping it won´t rain...

Lindo Mindo, bruised hands, and ¨favorite day.¨

Mariposerio



View from the lodge´s deck.


My home for a night.





It is not a coincendence that Mindo rhymes with ¨Lindo¨


Oh you know, just hiking through a cloud forest...


Tulipe--ceremonial grounds of the Yubo tribe.




Palulauja--a little town inside a crater.


It´s been four days of Ecuadorian bliss, I suppose I´ll just start at the beinnging.

Maybe in the grand scheme of things, Thursday night was pretty unimportant, but for the first time, I saw Quito´s historic district at night. Beautiful. Then Pilsener and pizza. Equally beautiful.

This is where things really start happening...

I woke up so early on Friday morning, we left the HECUA office around 8 in a little bus/really big van. This was the first of a series of 3 program sponsered side trips. First stop: One of the only inhabited craters in the world. We only hung out at the top for a bit, and took some photos, but in the future, I hope to climb down--which is entirely possible.

Next stop: Tulipe--a ceremonial center used by the Yubo tribe of the Incas. Petroglyphs, and rocks stacked in the shape of the moon, the sun, and a jaguar.

Then: We drive and we drive and we drive and we drive and then we find ourselves in a cloud forest. It is defenitely beautiful. We keep driving and end at a nature reserve/lodge. Think of a rustic structure of wood, surrounded by tree covered hills, and this is where we stayed. After an amazing lunch, featuring Tiramisu made by a real live Italian which was also a birthday cake for Anna, a fellow student who was lucky enough to turn 20 in one of the most bio diverse places on earth.

THEN, we meet our guide, pull on some rain boots and beging braving the muddy trails of Mindo. It rained a bit in the beginning, and usually rain makes me sad, but this time I didn´t even care because I was walking in a subtropical rainforest, where the trees and the clouds literally meet. We walked and we walked and we walked and everything was so beautiful. Every 20 paces our guide would stop and point out a medicinal plant. We saw little waterfalls and a gallo de peña, which is, based on what we were told, pretty rare.

After about 2 1/2 hours, we were back at the lodge, we wanted more Mindo, so most of us did a small hike to the top of a mountain. It was muddy, and beautiful.

It is also important to note, that in no way, shape or form could ANY description or photo properly do justice to the views and sounds of a subtropical cloud forest.

After 5 hours of walking, we enjoyed a much needed, and, again, delicious meal at the lodge. The rest of the night consisted of celebrating Anna´s birthday with Pilseners, and card games--including one which involved slapping other players hands, and resulting in my waking up the next day with a few bruises.

Saturday began with breakfast and a little drive to the actual town of Mindo. We visited a Mariposerio, or, um, well, more or less a butterfly farm/sanctuary of sorts. So you´re in a screened off area, which is kind of landscaped like a garden, and there´s butterflies EVERYWHERE. It was great. There were little bits of melon out, and you were encouraged to put a bit of juice on your finger and attempt to hold a butterfly. Some of us were successful, others, not so much. I fell into the later catagory.

Post-mariposerio, we put on swimming suits, life jackets, and helmets. Imagine 7 standard black tubes tied together, with 6 people and a quide sitting in them, and being hurled down Rio San Carlos over rocks and rapids. That´s what we did. It was amazing and scary and fun.

Finally, lunch with a view. By view I mean LOTS of hummingbirds, and a tour through an orchid garden. Mindo is known for their Huge variety of fuana and flora.

Before we knew it, we were back in Quito. I showered, found a slug amongst my things, and slept A LOT.

On Sunday I did the usual yoga and capoira in the park, then a delicious brunch with other students at a place in the Mariscal called the Magic Bean. Strong coffee, chocolate chip pancakes and bacon. Exactly what I needed. Later in the day, Marie Antoinette with my host parents. Sunday afternoon movie watching has certainly become a tradition, and one I could get used to.





In the next few days, look for more details about my host family, and the small posibility of going to Colombia on Friday...

More photos!

As promised, photos:


La Vista de Quito de La Basilica

El grupo (minus one)

Fútbol

Quito Lindo

Family portrait

Mitad Del Mundo

Really, UST!? I mean, really!?

Nothing to do with my adventures in Ecuador, however, this is incredibly important to me, and my fellow students at the University of St. Thomas. Please read!

From 10-3-07 article from the City Pages:
http://articles.citypages.com/2007-10-03/news/banning-desmond-tutu/

Banning Desmond Tutu
By Matt Snyders


Is this the face of anti-Semitism? The University of St. Thomas seems to think so
Image by Courtesy the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation. Photo by Benny GoolBack in April, when University of St. Thomas staffer Mike Klein informed his colleagues in the Justice and Peace Studies program that he'd succeeded in booking Archbishop Desmond Tutu for a campus appearance, the faculty buzzed in anticipation. For a program dedicated to fostering social change and nonviolence, there were few figures who embodied that vision more aptly than the world-renowned civil rights activist and Nobel Laureate.

Tutu's appearance—slated for the spring of '08—was made possible by the university's partnership with PeaceJam International, a youth-centered project that taps Nobel Laureates to teach young adults about peace and justice. For four straight years, the Catholic university's St. Paul campus had played host to PeaceJam festivities featuring Nobel Peace Prize winners such as Rigoberta Menchú Tum and Shirin Ebadi.

But in a move that still has faculty members shaking their heads in disbelief, St. Thomas administrators—concerned that Tutu's appearance might offend local Jews—told organizers that a visit from the archbishop was out of the question.

"We had heard some things he said that some people judged to be anti-Semitic and against Israeli policy," says Doug Hennes, St. Thomas's vice president for university and government relations. "We're not saying he's anti-Semitic. But he's compared the state of Israel to Hitler and our feeling was that making moral equivalencies like that are hurtful to some members of the Jewish community."

St. Thomas officials made this inference after Hennes talked to Julie Swiler, a spokeswoman for the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas.

"I told him that I'd run across some statements that were of concern to me," says Swiler. "In a 2002 speech in Boston, he made some comments that were especially hurtful."

During that speech, titled "Occupation Is Oppression," Tutu lambasted the Israeli government for its treatment of Palestinians in occupied territories. While a transcription clearly suggests his criticism was aimed at the Israeli government ("We don't criticize the Jewish people," he said during the speech. "We criticize, we will criticize when they need to be criticized, the government of Israel"), pro-Israeli organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America went on the offensive and protested campus appearances by Tutu, accusing him of anti-Semitism.

Hennes says the input officials received from "the Jewish community" in this case was confined to Swiler and a few rabbis teaching within St. Thomas's Center for Jewish-Christian Learning. "I think there's a consensus in the Jewish community that his words were offensive," Swiler reiterates.

That was news to Marv Davidov, an adjunct professor within the Justice and Peace Studies program.

"As a Jew who experienced real anti-Semitism as a child, I'm deeply disturbed that a man like Tutu could be labeled anti-Semitic and silenced like this," he says. "I deeply resent the Israeli lobby trying to silence any criticism of its policy. It does a great disservice to Israel and to all Jews."

The controversy didn't end there. Incensed at the administration's decision, Professor Cris Toffolo—chair of the Justice and Peace Studies program at the time—sent Tutu a letter on May 24 informing him of the administration's decision. She also indicated her disagreement with the move and warned Tutu that he might be in for a smear campaign.

University brass caught wind of the letter, and on August 1, Tom Rochon, executive vice president of academic affairs, sent a letter of his own to Toffolo informing her that St. Thomas administrators had decided to revoke her position as chair of the Justice and Peace Studies program.

Asked about the reasoning behind the demotion, Rochon and Hennes decline to comment. Toffolo herself is hesitant to offer any statements about it due to the sensitivity of her situation, though she did confirm that her letter to Tutu was the catalyst for her demotion.

"This is pure bullshit," says Davidov. "As far as fighting for civil rights, I consider Tutu to be my brother. And I consider Cris Toffolo to be my sister. They're messing with my family here. If Columbia permits a Holocaust denier [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] to speak at their university, why are St. Thomas officials refusing to let Tutu, an apostle of nonviolence, speak at ours?"

Davidov and other professors maintain that the situation at St. Thomas is emblematic of a larger issue.

"What happened at the University of St. Thomas is not an isolated event," says Toffolo. "Until we have an honest debate about U.S. policy related to Israel, and about Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories, the spiral of violence will continue."

Read more on the subject and send a letter to UST president, Father Dease, here.

Bloomin´ where I´m planted.

I feel right at home at my internship here in Ecuador.

This is because in many ways, it echoes my internship I had at Legal Aid this past summer in Willmar, and by that I mean I have too much time on my hands. Although APDH has hosted A LOT of foreign interns in the past, for some reasons, they just don´t have a lot for me to do right now, so I spend a lot of time using their free and fast internet (which is hard to come by here.)Overall, a pretty sweet deal.

Regarding elections this past Sunday...OFFICIAL results won´t be known for another week or so, however, it´s pretty obvious that Correa´s party really swept the vote. More or less, this translated to Ecuador being able to look forward to a less corrupt, and more environmentally and socially friendly country. Awesome.

This week, when I´m not interning, going to class, homeworking, or trying to successfully call home, I´m following Mom´s advice and blooming where I´m planted. For me, this means acknowledging that at home, everyone is pretty much doing the some old thing in the same old place, and remembering that I´m doing some pretty amazing things in a pretty amazing place...even if it´s trying to get through a reading on immigration and xenofobia while having to look up crazy verbs every 3 sentences.

Also, look forward to: Photos from Mitad del Mundo (soon, I promise!!) as well as photos and details from my upcoming short stay in Mindo.

**A note: FYI...anytime a word is highlighted in GREEN, you can click on it and get more information about this particular topic. Sometimes I forget that not everyone was born in the age of the information super highway...**

Prohibition and a weekend of Ryan Gosling.

Elections were held on Sunday to vote for representatives to re-write Ecuador´s constitution. More info on that here. Voting is obligitory in Ecuador, and, as a result, selling or consuming alcohol was deemed illegal from Friday-Sunday. Prohibition, if you will.

The lack of access to bars and clubs resulted in a very movie-themed weekend for me, with concentration on Ryan Gosling´s work. Friday was hot, and delicious cheese empanadas in Plaza Foch, with an Ecuadorian orchestra playing movie themes, while scenes from the said movies were played on a giant screen. They even played some music from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I almost cried.

On Saturday, I had my first Ecuadorian movie experience. A very American-feeling theater in a very American-feeling shopping mall. Other students and I saw Fracture (this is where Ryan Gosling comes in, as he plays a main role.)

On Sunday I woke up early and headed to Parque Metropolitano with my host family and another HECUA student to do 2 hours of jugdo, capoeira, and yoga. Capoeira is the most amazing and fun thing anyone could ever do. It´s an old Brazilian martial art that mimics traditional martial arts as well as dancing. Brazilian slaves used this to train in defense, but it appeared that they were simply dancing the samba. I hope to find a place where I can take more classes when I return home.

Post-work out, Sunday was a pretty emotional day, for a number of reasons. As a result of it being Sunday, and also election day, all the net cafes I´m familiar with were closed, preventing me from being able to call home for the first time. A pretty bad deal for everyone involved. So, I walk home after my search for a cabina and I´m already pretty bummed, then my host mom is watching The Notebook, I sit down and watch it with her, and of course, I just lose it. (This is also where Ryan Gosling comes in.) So there you have it, a dry, but tear soaked weekend in Quito.

I also have a challenge for everyone at home. According to my sister, the leaves are somethin´else this fall. EMAIL ME SOME PHOTOS!

This week: mornings at my internship, class, and at the end of the week, a little trip to Mindo.