Joy's Adventures Abroad: May 2011

So this is a delayed update, but still important :). A couple of weekends ago, our program had a trip to the Esmeraldas, which is in the northern part of Ecuador on the coast. The climate is very different, as is the culture, and it was a great trip overall. The night before, we had a celebration for two of the girls in the program, Casey & Odetty, whose birthdays were on May 5 and 6, respectively. My beloved sister, Kendra, turned 27 on May 5, and one of my best friends, Joe Riddle, turned 23 on the same day as well!

Anyways, from Thursday-Sat. morning, we visited an Afro-Ecuadorian community named "Playa de Oro" (translation: Beach of Gold). It's not actually a beach, it's a small community of all African-descendants. They live right off the Santiago River, which has a crazy strong current and is so beautiful. Jen & I went swimming one afternoon in the river, and were having a blast being taken away by the current & then trying to swim against it -- it was a work out! Just like in the Amazon, we had to travel by canoe, so wherever we went, we went in canoe. I find the canoe rides so peaceful and relaxing. We also bathed in the river b/c there wasn't any running water in our cabins. That's what the whole community does, and it felt amazing!

This community wasn't very developed, as they only had gotten electricity maybe a year before we came, but the odd thing was that almost everyone had Direct TV. I know that sounds very developed, but some people didn't even have running water, food, or jobs, but they had Direct TV. Thus, you can see the effects of globalization and the influence of the West. It was very difficult for me to understand a lot of the people's Spanish -- they spoke very fast and definitely had a different accent and way of speaking than what I've experienced in the past. Sometimes it sounded like they were speaking a completely different language -- we had to ask them to repeat themselves and to slow down a few times.

The community has a lot of history. They had rich resources in gold (hence its name) but people from England came to excavate all of the gold, while basically enslaving the natives to work for them. The history of this community is definitely very sad, but their spirits about the future are inspiring. They have many rich natural resources that are still left in the community, like caña de azucar, plátanos, cacao, etc. It's still frustrating, though, to see the effects of the materialism and selfishness of the colonizers, as if they have the right to take advantage of natural resources, especially in a foreign community. They couldn't steal their culture, though -- their culture, including their African roots, is very much alive & well. Their styles of dancing & singing definitely resemble African influence -- it was so fun to join in the singing & dancing. Even though I was a little lost in both, I felt honored to directly participate in a part of their culture.

On Saturday morning, we left the community to go to a beach on the coast of Ecuador. The beach's name is Same (pronounced "Sah-may") and it was beautiful! The beach was almost completely isolated b/c it was the voting weekend in Ecuador (which means that everyone has to be home in their own communities to vote). We were only able to stay for one night and less than 24 hours, but we had a great time! The water was absolutely gorgeous (so warm!) and the waves were fun -- we stayed in for hours & hours! It was my first time being in the Pacific Ocean, so that was very exciting for me.

The only downside of the beach trip that was I got burnt, very badly. And by very badly, I mean second-degree burns. It was completely my fault -- I didn't reapply sunscreen after I got out of the water, and my whole front side got very, very burned. I was in a lot of pain for almost 2 weeks, and my skin went through a lot. At first it was burning so badly and my body temperature was super high, and then it started looking like I had skin cancer (scary), and then it finally started to peal. I went to the doctor here so that I could get some after-burn cream so that my skin can recuperate. I used a crapload of Aloe Vera while my skin was burnt, but this other cream really helped with the after-effects. I am finally pain-free, and my skin is almost completely repaired. I definitely learned my lesson there -- don't mess with the Ecuadorian sun (aka: apply & re-apply sun screen at all times).

Now here are some pics:

The birthday girls with their presents :)

The delicious dinner that Odetty and Casey's mothers made!

Karlita (Odetty's sister), Mélida (Casey's mom), Jimena (Duke staff), Odetty's real mom (from NY!), and Wilma (Duke staff)

The birthday girls & their fams! (Odetty's host mom on the left and Casey's host sister on the right)

Playa de Oro (Afro-Ecuadorian community on the coast of Ecuador)

This is the cabin that the ladies stayed in.

Time to make sugar cane juice!

Wilma chugged that juice so fast!

This is a cacao bean. Ecuador has tons and exports them so other countries can make chocolate.

Araña!

On a hike!

That yellow stuff is from a tree. It is supposed to be good for scars, so I put it on a nasty scar that I have on my leg. It worked! The brown stuff is just dirt :)

Crazy tree!

The leaves in Ecuador never fail to amaze me.

Looking for gold!

This is how much gold we found after about 45 minutes of looking for it. This is worth probably about $2 - stupid British people who stole all of the gold from this community!!!!