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Published: February 27th 2007
Ok, there has been some response to me that many of you are interested in knowing more about the living conditions here in Ecuador. Well here goes it: The average wage is probably between $10-$15 a day. A teacher here makes around $400/mes (month). The cost of items is dramatically less here than in the states. For instance gas is about $1.25/gallon, a candy bar is $.25, a 22 ounce beer is anywhere from $.70-$1 depending on where you buy it. You can get bottled water for $.30-$.50. I feel like things are about 1/2 price here compared to the US, at least when it comes to food products. Clothing that you would find in the states is really expensive, however, the local clothing is dirt cheap. A PC friend bought a long sleeve button down shirt for $.50 the other day. Haggling the price here is acceptable and is common place. You can get local produce for pennies on the dollar. A bunch of 40 bananas is like $.50. Peace Corps gives us about $8/day for our living expenses. We are not going to live high on the hog, but we will live comfortably.
The roads here are fairly decent. Many dirt roads, but most are passable. Taking buses is the way to go. An hour bus ride is about $.60 depending on where you go. The bus can take a long time. To take a bus from one end of the country to the other it takes about 16 hours. I guess during really bad rains, some roads become muddy and travel is dramatically slowed. We have not experienced that yet. You can get around by car, pretty well, but busing it gives you the real experience.
Like any developing country, there is a lot of poverty here. People survive on yuca and potatoes here. They certainly find a way to make ends meet and the people are genuinely happy with life, it is amazing.
Those of you who are waiting for pictures, our camera and computer are experiences some technical difficulties so we are unable to upload pictures yet, we will get some to you soon though - the photos are great.
We just returned from a trip to the rain forest. It was very hot and humid, but worth every minute we spent there. We stayed at an eco tourism hostel and it was really nice. The bugs were horrendous, but that is to be expected. It rained every afternoon and I sweat a great deal while working and walking around. Nothing beats swinging in a hammock under a thatch roof during an afternoon rain though. The place had a pool and a wicked river right next to it, so many in the group swam and enjoyed life. We did work hard though, we trained from 8:00 to 5:00 each day and usually had another session in the evening. We slept in bunk beds and being with 24 smelly guys in a bunk house with two showers was an experience. Luckily the facility had an open air bar with table tennis, foosball, and darts. Cold beers were $1 and we drank the place out of beer each night. Not that we over did it, they just did not have the capacity to stock a lot of beer. 50 people can go through 150 beers in no time at all.
I learned a lot about fish farms, organic pesticides, fertilizers, and nurseries. All of this new knowledge really makes me want to start up a small nursery when I return to the states in two years. Things grow so fast down here. Trees 30 feet tall grew from seed in just 2 years. Literally, some plants grow inches a day. It is incredible.
I heard that the Bucks beat Wisconsin. I am not so disconnected from the world. I found out minutes after the game, a friend in PC texted a friend in Quito who was watching the game at a sports bar in Quito. Yes, Ecuador gets ESPN - at least in the big cities. Well, ciao for now.
Jeremy
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Japanese kid
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My first comment!
Hey Mr. King! how have ya been? Im great! but u know, kinda...I miss u.. BTW,Can u guess who i am?lol They speak Spanish there? If so, i and u are having pretty much similar experience in the countries which languages we dont speak usually are spoken! Ill come again! C ya!