La Minga

The workers started building the new community center. The library is going to be moved to the new center, and there will be a lot more space. Kari did not want to workers going home for lunch, because if they did, they would probably take a 4 hour lunch break, so we got together a ton of food and cooked food for them. The three of us chopped, and a few Ecuadorian ladies cooked everything. The sad part was, Kari asked a lot of women to help, and they just look at her or say they are too tired to help. It was us “gringas” serving the food to the men, and not the community like we wanted. We did have some help from the few women who did cook.

chopping

Chicken before (Live in a bag)

Chicken After

All of us at Punta Prieta

Dancing at Punta Prieta

After serving the men who could each eat buckets of rice, we ate and got ready to go to Punta Prieta for a triple birthday celebration. At about 3pm, we got on a bus and headed towards this beautiful beach. It was Jennifer, my friend Megan, and my professor Cath’s birthday this week, so we were celebrating them all. We grilled on the beach and swam and hung out. I made my host sister Fabiola come because she is so awesome. We tried to speak Spanish to her a lot. Later in the night, they opened the bar just for us. We all danced for a while, and then Joe drove us Tabugans home.

Pedernales

Jennifer and I decided to work more on our research. We went to Pedernales all day to use the internet and buy food to make for our families. Jennifer is going to make Broccoli Alfredo, but Parmesean was so hard to find, and really really expensive. For lunch, we decided to eat Italian again, and we got to the restaurant, but it was closed. The Italian owner was inside and opened the door to say it was closed. I said that I really wanted food and that I was sad I couldn’t eat there, and he said we would make it for us, but was closed for everyone else. So, we got our own private restaurant, and he made us exactly what we wanted. It was so nice! I will definitely go back there soon!

At night, I watched Finding Nemo with my host family. After the Galapagos, I understand a lot more of it, and I can name many of the species in it. My host family really enjoyed it as well.

Mototaxi

Cute piglet I wanted to take home

Kids Here

Today I went to Pedernales in the morning to make some educational games. After watching the math games that Kari made up, and their success, I decided to make the same game, but with words. James tried doing a rough draft of the flashcards, and the kids really liked it. I looked up the most commonly used Spanish words for the lowest reading level so they can get familiar with small words you see in every sentence like our English “the” or “and”. Then I looked up harder words for the next level, and long, hard words for the last level. They will each be a different color. Yellow is the easiest followed by green, and then blue for the challenging ones.

I also did some research on the plants that I learned about the day before, but it was very hard to research without scientific names of the plants. I will have to work with a Botanist to identify some of them.

Kids in line to play

Karina watching a game

Kari Giving out stickers

Today, in the library, the photojournalism interns came to visit. Thursdays are game days, so we all played educational games. My game wasn’t ready yet because I did not have time to print. After library was over, I had promised a few girls I would do their nails. I ended up having every girl and some boys crowd around asking. So, while the boys were playing futbol (soccer) in the main street area outside the school, I did about 20 girls’ nails. Some of them were a bit bratty about it, and one girl even pushed another over leading her to cry and everyone to crowd around. When I found out what happened I forced the first girl to apologize, which I can tell she had never done before. Some of the kids are troublemakers, but only a few. It is very hard to have a serious talk when I can’t speak the language well enough, so I tried my best to explain that she disappointed me, but I’m not sure if I got through to her. My work here is very similar to working with kids in the US; kids will be kids, not matter where in the world you are!

At night, Kari made authentic Italian pizza for Jennifer’s birthday. We had BBQ chicken pizza, and Hawaiian as well. The photographer, Eric, and Jas, one of the interns came to Kari’s house. Jason, Jennifer, my host sister Fabiola, and I all went together. My host brother decided to invite himself as well. We all sat there and drank wine and talked all night. The pizza was DELICIOUS, and I felt so good eating non-Ecuadorian food for once.  It was a really fun night.

Medicinal Plant Start

Today, I woke up early to go on my medicinal plant walk with Don Chinto, Kari’s original host dad from the Peace Corps. We arrived at his house at 8am, and he welcomed us in. I got to see Kari’s original room in Tabuga. He started out our walk with plants from his garden. There was Aloe Vera and Oregano as well as a few others. The most challenging part is that he can’t read or write, so he just gave me the Spanish name of the plant, and I had to do my best with the spelling. There were many interesting plants as we continued our walk. At one point, I smelled so much garlic. I commented, and he swung his machete at a tree and picked off the bark to hand to me. The smell of garlic was so strong, and apparently, that tree is called “ajo” which means garlic. It is not edible, and has nothing to do with the actual garlic plant, but it has the strong odor of it.

Carlos and Carlos

We walked all the way to the Lalo Loor Reserve and up the mountain. I ran into the other students doing work there. As we walked, there were times when we wouldn’t see a medicinal plant for 20 minutes at a time. The whole walk was tiring up the mountain, but when we passed the lodge, the cook inside told me to sit and relax as I ate fresh pineapple and oranges. After a  20 min break, we continued down the mountain and back into town. We checked out a woman’s garden for any of the plants I needed. Then a man named Carlos and his son Carlos’s garden. Carlos and Carlos were so helpful! The little boy was 11 and knew so much about the garden. He also loved my camera and was so excited to help me. They gave me a fruit from their tree called “fruta china” and told me to take a bite. It was DELICIOUS. We know it as Starfruit. After their garden, I told the little boy to come to the library that day, and he did end up coming with his little sister.

That garden was the last of the day, so I headed off to lunch and to the library later. I took a ton of photos of the kids. After the library, I wandered around my neighborhood taking more photos.

It is Jennifer’s birthday, so when I was done at the Library, I made her a chocolate cake. I made a bit extra because I had extra batter. My family really loved the cake and asked me to make it again soon. It was a fun family night.

Ariana trying to grab my camera

Jackson with his wheel

This is how they play on my street

My host cousin, Ariel- SO CUTE

Some of the kids on my street

Tabuga - Starting It All

Tabuga Library: where I am working now

Today, I will be working in the library. I have designed another game for the kids to play by reading the more advanced books and making flashcards of the words. They will then be able to recognize the words and hopefully pick up the harder books.

This is the entrance to the library

The 500 books they have, we need to fill it up!

Exhibits

World Education

Yesterday, Kari and I went to an Italian restaurant here in Perdenales because I needed to come here to drop off the stuff I got dirty when I was sick. (I felt bad having my host family clean it.) The Italian food was the best food I've had in a while. When I got back to Tabuga, I was greeted by Valentina because I had promised to do her nails. I painted her nails, and then the nails another little girl named Katarina.
After I did their nails, I returned home to show my family Chocolate Chip Cookies. They have never eaten them before, and unfortunately, they did not turn out too well.  Their oven burned them, and they did not taste right. I realized when making them that they do not have measuring supplies at all! They just pour stuff in and eye everything. With oil, they just pour half the bottle in to fry everything they make. It was another interesting observation I made.
I have library later today, and I really hope that a lot of the kids come! I told the kids from my neighborhood to come, hopefully they will. It is tough to get some kids to want to come to the Library, so I bribe them with promises of nail painting or taking their photos or simply just playing with them. I was going to bring cookies, but I don't have any to bring that turned out well. :-(
Tomorrow, I am going on a hike with the man in town who knows everything about the medicinal herbs! I will be taking photos, and recording all the information he tells me on paper. He can't read or write, so it will be tricky writing the name of plants I have never heard of. After the hike, I will come to Perdenale to research all of the herbs I learned about and what other information there is or what other names or uses. At the end, I will publish a book of all the information gathered in Spanish, English, and with photos for the people in town who cannot read. I will do this in hopes that the knowledge of herbal medicines will not die in this town and be replaced by advil and tylenol.
There is a whole pharmacy in the forest, and I want to get to know it!

Tabuga- Beginning My Stay Here

Day 1:

After taking a 5 hour bus ride to Perdenales, the closest “city” to Tabuga, then another half hour to Tabuga, my friend Jennifer, the other volunteer here, and Kari, our adviser, got off the bus to a beautiful coastal view surrounded by just beach, mountains, and very run down wooden houses. We were told where we lived was called Las Cañas, and met our host families. As we walked through, I was a little nervous seeing all of the houses because some were simply huts made of bamboo or wood of some sort. Jennifer was dropped off first, and I lived down the street about 3 doors down, and across from one of the towns two “tiendas”, or shops in English. I had a really heavy bag, and a man on a horse pulled up and said something really hard to understand. Kari told me he wanted to help carry my bag. I gave him my huge body bag, and the poor horse carried both of them to my house. All the boys came out and helped carry it up. Apparently, my house is the place to be in Las Cañas neighborhood, because all of the teens and kids were just hanging out in the little house on the hammocks. They showed me my room. Apparently, their aunt, who is 19, just had a child who was 3 weeks old and was living there, but now in a different house. I had a really nice room, and it made me feel really bad that I was taking an entire room. They did not care, and did everything they could to make me comfortable. 

My room

Neighborhood

My host family is amazing. I have a really awesome sister named Fabiela who is 19. She apparently is the pride and joy of the town, and has been Miss Tabuga, their Reina 2 years in a row. She is one of the most promising teens here, and super cute! I also have another sister named Jimena who is 17, and then a host brother who is 18 named Ricardo, and another brother, John Carlos who is 15. Their mother’s name is Monica, and their father is Vincente. I didn’t realize until later, but they are related to everyone in the neighborhood. It is really a HUGE family. I LOVE hanging out with them, but their Spanish is a bit hard to understand.

Later, Jennifer and I got the tour of the town and met some of the people. I got to see the Library, and the school along with the high school. 

The next day, our full day:

Jennifer and I met Kari at 8:30 to see the closest town, called Perdenales. We waited for the president, missing the 9:00 bus. It took another hour and a half to catch the next bus, so we were just sitting there talking. When the bus came, we went to Perdenales and used internet for a bit. When we returned, my family made me a HUGE lunch and then I ran off to the Library. When I got there, there were a few kids, and a few more ended up coming later. I played connect four with an 8-yr-old named Valentina. She was pretty good, but after a bit got bored of the game. A few more kids came in and we played Monopoly Junior. It was really fun, and it got them thinking and counting. During the game, many more kids flooded in. 

Kari made a rule that in order to play, the kids need to bring in 5 plastic bottles. Apparently, the town is littered with plastic bottles, and they do have recycling here. To encourage the kids to clean up litter, they must bring 5 plastic bottles to the library to recycle. Kari also made up a game where you roll a die and the first person to say the product of the two numbers got a popcorn kernel, and the other went to the back of the line. The first to get 15 kernels wins a prize. The prizes are simply a shiny pencil or a little toy or notebook. The kids LOVED this game, and were really fast. 

Kari told me that their school system is horrible, and they are always on vacation. There are 5^th graders who can’t read, and many kids can’t add or multiply. These kids actually love coming in and playing, and have greatly improved their math skills. This game is used for addition as well for the younger kids. It is funny how much you can teach these kids that they are not learning in school. Their school textbook is the only book they own, so the books in the library really open their eyes to many new things. I can’t wait to work some more and develop new games for them!

View from my window

Under the house, there are tons of dogs and chickens running free

Day 2:

I got to meet the sister of my host dad, Leo, and her two adorable kids. Together, they helped me learn some new words for things around the house. I decided to start a spiral of new Spanish words. When I showed my host family photos of me in the US, they bluntly stated how much skinnier I used to be, and how I should lose the weight again, all while feeding me the most fattening fried plantains, fried meat, fried fish, and rice.  Ecuadorian honesty is something you have to get used to here for sure.

Day 3 & 4:

Yesterday, we went to the beach with Fabiela, her cousin Jamie who is 10, and some of the Ex-Peace Corps Americans that work in the reserve and in town with Kari. Jason, one of the Americans, went surfing, and I played in the water with the kids. The kids here are so cute and happy, I love playing with them. My professors Joe and Cath came with their wildlife photographer friend named Eric. Cath went surfing, and Kari was learning. It was a very good day with strong sun.

At night now, we watch a movie in Spanish with English subtitles for me from the Hammocks. So far, they have liked “How to Train Your Dragon” and “The Town”, but not the movie “The Kids Are All Right”. That one was a bit progressive for them with all of the Lesbian scenes.

some of my neighbors

Neighborhood kids and their chickens

One of the roosters that wakes me up

A pig under our neighbor's house

They do not have much to do, so we watch a lot of Spanish TV. My family is one of the richest because they have a toilet and a TV/DVD player. I found out that everyone make 7$ a day for their work here, so having me pays them about twice a day’s work for an extra bed and food. When I found this out, I felt a bit better. Our American minimum wage PER HOUR is higher than that! My family does not have forks, or a fan, and definitely not air conditioning. They use DVD cases for picture frames, and have never eaten at a restaurant. When they asked what my favorite food was, I said pasta. They had to ask me how to make it because they had never made it before!  I have decided to make them pizza, pico de gallo, and chocolate chip cookies. I want to show them some new food.

 My host mom is so kind, she goes out of her way for me all the time. I had an eye infection, so I went to Perdenales to buy drops. When I got back, they had a little boy run drops over that they had bought me as well. I felt so bad because I already had drops. Also, last night, I was really, really sick and was throwing up all night, probably from something I ate. Let’s just say I was a “double spouted fountain of fury”, and Fabiela and Monica stayed up all night giving me tea and aromatherapy. It was rough because there was no running water, so they were using buckets to wash down everything. I felt terrible, and miserable, but they were so happy to help. 

The people here are so happy. There are many sad situations like girls getting pregnant and dropping out of school, or having a parent leave or ignore them, but overall people are just happy. A lot of the teen moms are going back to school now, so it is turning out to be a very good thing. I have learned and witnessed all this and more in only the first four days! I can’t wait to see what else I experience!

Life on San Cristobal, Galapagoan Culture

Wow, what a wonderful and rapido 2 weeks it has been. All I can say is that I DO NOT want to leave this place. Nowhere else can you find such clean air, so many animals, no poor people on the streets selling things or begging for money, or such safety as I have found here.

Sea turtle

La Loberia

Sea Lion relaxing

I first got to the islands and we started classes everyday 4-6, and in the morning, we would go snorkeling at one of the many beaches. At "La Loberia" beach, there were many sea turtles, and I managed to capture footage of a few of them!

We decided on our projects, and my friend Tenzin and I decided to study sea lion pups and their behavior throughout the day and interactions with each other. We would get up at 6am every morning and observe for a few hours, then again in the afternoon, and once more at night for three days in a row. We observed activity and found that they are more active at dawn and dusk and also that they only do certain behaviors with other pups, and other behaviors when around adults. It was such a cute animal to study, the only downside was the smell of sea lion poop all over the beach.

The beach was literally next to my house so I did not have to walk far. We would change restaurants every few days, and the first 2 were right by my house. At night, I would take my little host sister out for ice cream, and then I would go out with my other host sister to the main popular bar called Iguana rock.  I got to meet a lot of her friends, and I am so happy that I had such a great host family!

My sister Stephanie and I

One night my host sister Stephanie invited me to go out with some of her friends to go to a Karaoke bar. There, we played pool, then I decided to sing. There were only about 10 songs in the hundreds of song options that were in English, and unfortunately, they did not have any of the Spanish “reggaetone” I had learned. A few of the friends sang, and I decided to sing Whitney Houston’s “Take My Breath Away”. After singing, the whole bar clapped and cheered me on. There were people there from all over the world, and the ones that spoke English begged me to sing another song for them.  I ended up singing Celine Dion and Shakira, when you got 100% on the score board, your name was added there. My name made it up 3 times in a row, and throughout the week, I’d have random Galopagoan people saying “aren’t you the singer”. 

Andrea- My 10 yr old host sister

My friend Andres was there, and my host sister told me that I took his heart when I sang because he was staring at me in awe. After that, I was invited to an after party because the bars close at midnight. We went to Andres’s house and everyone there was telling me how much they liked my singing. It was such a simple way to win everyone over. After that night, I had a bunch of new friend including my new friends Hannah and Mareika from Switzerland and Holland. They were in their late 20s and early 30s and were teachers on the island. It was so cool to hang out in a group where I was the only American!

Another night, we went to Iguana Rock, and there is a girl from U of I on the semester program there named Carolina. She was really sweet and we decided when we get back, we will be hanging out at school and missing the islands and Ecuador.

The night before my birthday, we all went out to Iguana Rock. At midnight, we counted down, and everyone in the bar was wishing my happy birthday. One man came up and told me he heard it was my birthday. When I said yes, he said “Happy Birthday from the Governor of the Galapagos”. Apparently he was the governor! I had a lot of friends there that night, and afterwards, they walked me home.

Other CEIBA students and my host sister

Andres and I

Carolina, the other Illini on the Island

Francesca! The other birthday girl earlier in the week

I woke up the next morning and Tenzin did all of the data collection for the early morning so that I did not have to wake up at 6 am on my birthday. When I woke up, I did some work, then went to lunch. I brought Andrea, and decided that I wanted pizza for my birthday, and she had been asking for pizza all week, so I took her. It was expensive, but so worth it! After pizza, I got a chance to skype my family, which was so nice, and then took Andrea and Tenzin to the beach. We ran into our friend Chino there who loves Tenzin and invited us over for a glass of wine for my birthday. He owns a hotel on the beach that is closed so he just has people over all the time. 

It is such an amazing place, and we met some other Americans volunteering there, and then an American surfer who was so interesting. She is in her 30s and has done so much with her life. Now, she is just surfing around the coast of Ecuador and cooking in hostels for money. There were some really cool Ecuadorians as well. One, named Emiliano, had an interest in entomology. We talked about science and music all night, and he heard me sing and immediately started asking me to sing everything he knew. Lucky for me, it was my favorite music to sing. He then told me I looked like Amy Winehouse which lost points with me, but oh well. The surfers all told me to come back later. I went back a few more nights after that as well. I really loved hanging out with them there. They had so much to say and were so interesting!

On the second to last day, I had my exam. Our final was in the water, and we had to identify fish, algae, and other organisms as well as their ecological role and their sex or stage in life. It was difficult, but its done so I’m happy. We also had a written exam, and when I was done with both, I felt a wave of relief!

The last day, we went on a snorkeling trip to kicker rock, an amazing rock formation in the water with the best snorkeling and a place to see hammerheads. We stopped in a sea lion hangout first, and we swam very close to the sea lions. As we were snorkeling some people called out that there was an octopus. I have been waiting to see one for the whole trip. They are amazing to watch, and change colors with their moods. I decided to go over and film it. At first, it was just sitting between rocks and blinking, not doing much. Then, when everyone left, it decided to come out and chase a damsel fish. I managed to get footage! 

It was the coolest thing I have seen here! Now I want a pet octopus.

Kicker Rock

More Kicker Rock

Part of Group

Sea Lions Playing

Mexican Hogfish

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When we got to Kicker Rock, we got in the water. It was BEAUTIFUL, but there were Jellyfish and stinging Cnidaria all over, so everyone was getting stung, and we had to get back into the water. It was sad because that area was a great area to see sharks.  

That night, we had a happy hour thrown for us at Casa Blanca, a really sweet restaurant on the beach. I made friends with some of the workers, and we decided that one day, I will come back. I joked that I want to marry one so I can legally live on the islands, and they gave me a few options. I took Andrea there for cake, 

I did Andrea's Makeup!

Luis, my friend that works at Casa Blanca that was always so friendly!

then Stephanie came because her friends were there. I went to say bye to the surfers, and then I took my friend from my program, Francesca with Gustabo, Stephanie’s friend, to go Karaoke. We sang for the last time on the islands, and then Gustabo had his friend Xavier walk me back home. Xavier is in the navy, and is a very nice guy that speaks no English. He took me to the beach on the way home, and we sat with the sea lions. He actually pet one, which is against all rules, but I guess the people on the island do not always follow them. We took a lot of photos, and he told me that he wanted me to stay and one day I should come back and he’ll be here. I have noticed overall, men on the island are very affectionate, and really want to marry “gringas”, or white girls. It’s strange, but because it is a tourist town, they see so many women come in and out, there are so many mixed marriages. I thought that was very interesting!

When I needed to fly back to Quito the next morning, only Stephanie was home to say goodbye. She gave me a dress as a goodbye gift and her email to keep in touch. I thanked her, and told her to give my thanks to everyone, and then set off for the plane. At the airport, Rafael Corea, the president of Ecuador was flying into the island. When we got to the airport, there were crowds of people waiting to greet him. I didn’t see him, but I saw the crowds and his car. It was pretty cool.

On the flight home, we were all split up sitting on the isle with different foreign pairs. I happened to sit next to this older blonde lady and her husband. I asked where they were from and they said Australia. They were very ritzy, and complained about the plane a lot. When I asked about their trip, they said that they were disappointed with the snorkeling because they have the Great Barrier Reef. When the women came by for drinks and snacks, the women that sat next to me was very high maintenance. We talked a bit, and she told me that she was an author. I didn’t think to ask more, and I was going to ask what her husband did, but I decided to nap. Everyone knew the couple next to me, and I just thought they were in a big group. When I got off the plane, everyone told me that the people sitting next to them said I was sitting next to the former Prime Minister of Australia and his wife. Since they don’t have first class to the Galapagos, and you can’t fly a private plane, they were stuck with us common folk! (I later googled them and found out it was Bob Hawke and his wife, Blanche d’Alpuget). That was three big politicians I had some contact with in one week! CRAZY! 

Now its time to head off to Tabuga!