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Part One: Bongos The weeks since our arrival to Bahía de Caraquez have been rife with exploration, saltwater and boisterous children. Getting accustomed to all of my classes at Genesis has made the weeks alternately challenging and rewarding, and exploring the surrounding area has made the weekends an exciting reprieve.
During our first real weekend, Keiron and I headed to the nearby beach town of Canoa, where dread-locked expats and Ecuadorian surfer dudes abound, and the waves call tourists like Keiron and me in for some solid boogey-boarding time.
We arrived in Canoa the safe way – by taxi – and were greeted by the sound of bongos from one of the many open-air stalls lining the beach. The tattoo-faced, pony-tailed man behind the tables of natural rock jewelry called Keiron “brother” and sculpted my name from wire. It appeared to me we’d found the city of flower power.
A few minutes later, the police approached and several paperless Argentinians calmly fled the scene.
In the tropical paradise of the beach strip, Keiron and I relaxed for the entire day – lounging in
our cabana, boogey-boarding in bathtub temperature water and sipping juice straight from the coconut.
In a sunburned stupor, we chose the not-so-safe route home. The bus. In search of the correct corner, Keiron and I began to work our way from the beach-front illusion to the dirt-road reality behind it. This is when I realized that Bahía de Caraquez is not a typical Ecuadorian town – it’s a bubble.
Anyway, after a few minutes we saw the bus almost slowing to a stop, and ran to catch it. To mount an Ecuadorian bus, a keen sense of balance is key…
Step 1: Abandon all fear.
Step 2: Leap quickly onto the bus to avoid leaving behind your bag, or a foot. Do not hesitate.
Step 3: Immediately find something to hold on to, as the bus will already be moving when your feet hit the floor.
Step 4: Try not to get in anyone’s way on the winding, bumpy journey home.
Part Two: Bamboo The following three-day weekend, involving a national holiday
in honor of the battle of Pichincha in the war for independence from Spain, called for a more drastic journey away from Bahía. We opted for an overnight stay in the countryside at Rio Muchacho Organic Farm, which just happens to be owned by a good friend of Keiron’s uncle.
The bus ride home from Canoa was a good warm up for the hair-raising open-air truck ride to the farm’s remote location. On wooden benches, we flew along the highway, cutting through mountainous scenes from Jurassic Park and flat stretches of farmland before turning onto the jagged dirt road that leads to Rio Muchacho.
If I was having fun speeding over 5-foot craters and swerving around cows, dogs and chickens, I shifted into panic mode when we careened downhill and straight into a river, before the driver floored the gas to get us out and up the next hill. Please keep in mind, this is all while clinging to the side of the truck to keep from flying out and into a tree.
When we finally, and thankfully, pulled up to the farm’s entrance, a young volunteer from Germany greeted us
and showed us to our bamboo cabin. Half enclosed and half open to the surrounding forest, our little tree house overlooked the river (Rio Muchacho).
The aim of the farm is complete sustainability, and I’ll illustrate that point with a couple of examples. All of the bathrooms on the farm are waterless. When you use them, you go into a bucket below the seat, and then you put a scoop of sawdust overtop. The toilet paper is biodegradable. The bucket’s “contents” are actually composted, along with all of the other animals’ donations, and used as fertilizer. Throughout the farm, there are also solar panels and several bicycle-operated contraptions, like a grinder.
Like the girl from Germany, volunteers come to the farm from all over the world to experience Ecuadorian culture, eat delicious vegetarian food, contribute to the improvement of the surrounding ecosystem and shovel excrement – perhaps in equal measures. During our stay we met a couple from Quito, Ecuador, two gentlemen from England and Japan and the Kiwi co-owner of the farm.
We made chocolate from cocoa beans, sugarcane and milk, hiked through rivers and herds of cows, and then
harvested banana leaves in which we wrapped our lunch for a day’s adventure on horseback to the land of howler monkeys and a waterfall. Between all of our outdoorsy-ness, we also had the chance to go with one of our tour guides, a genuine product of the countryside who knows absolutely everything about plants, insects and natural medicine, to watch a local soccer game.
The best part about the place was the sense of community. Even with several languages being tossed around (including some Japanese, I’m proud to report) we all sat around the table together for every meal, including the owner of the farm and occasionally his twin grandchildren. With spoons, cups and bowls made from a local plant which I now forget the name of, we ate the best food I’ve had in Ecuador so far. 100%!n(MISSING)atural and vegetarian – couldn’t ask for more.
Part Three: Booty-shaking I now turn away from our weekend adventures and back towards my school for the third chapter of this entry. The kids at Genesis are completely rowdy and insane, but also completely adorable. I get lots of
hugs every day, along with some funny stories to bring home with me. I’ll share one now from my little group of four year olds:
The other day they traced their hands (we are learning body parts) and wrote “hand” on the page as well. One little boy was enthusiastic about writing letters, and continued to write more letters until he filled up a second sheet of paper. After class, he showed me his hard work and asked me to read what it said, which I diligently did. When I finished pronouncing each letter of gibberish, his expression was first confused and then exasperated, and he said: “no, Tía Susan, what does it say in Spanish?” I did not translate it for him.
Adorable, I know. But the real event of this past week was “Día de los Niños,” or Children’s Day. The whole school assembled on the courtyard to celebrate last Friday morning, and the program included a great deal of booty-shaking. I bring this up to demonstrate a key difference between Latin American children and “gringo” children. From the time these kids are three and younger, they learn to shake their hips
to salsa, reggae-ton and beyond. I can attest to this because I saw a group of 20 little kids breaking it down as if they were VIPs at the hottest nightclub in town. They were competing to become the King and Queen of Dance.
For the rest of the morning, the high school students performed for the grade school kids. Sorry to offend any gringo boys reading this, but these Latin boys have
moves.
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Wow! What fun you are having, even if it is perilous travel. I wish I could have a little of that chocolate. Keep blogging!