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Published: January 24th 2020
Hello again, today's topics to cover: chocolate, rock climbing, hiking, and a little bit more about dogs ?
I am writing this on Thursday (1/23), sadly our last full day with our host families. Yesterday some people gave their image presentations, and after we visited a chocolate company called Pacari. It was founded in Quito in 2002, and is the first chocolate company in the world to receive a biodynamic certification from Demeter International. They are all about utilizing the Cacao plants from farmers to create quality products and they have a line of products that allows the farmers to know where their crops are going. They are all about environmentally friendly everything too which is awesome. We got to sit down and do a super fancy chocolate tasting with several flavors, all of which were great in my opinion. They gave us a neat presentation about the history of the company and how the products were made. Later that night I went to a bouldering gym with my roommate Sam and it was an amazing experience. I had so much fun and I am excited to go back to Messiah and start going to their bouldering gym at the
loft. I felt much better Wednesday, and I think the worst has passed in regards to my illness, which is a huge blessing.
Today (Thursday, 1/23) was such a long day but we got to fit a lot of great stuff into one day. In the morning we took Ubers to “Teleferico” which is pretty much a gondola that took us up Pichincha Volcano to lookout Cruz Loma. It was so surreal as we went up to altitudes as high as 13,000 feet. We were literally inside of the clouds as we hiked a small trail at the top. I lost my breath so quickly because of the altitude and my heart was pounding, but eventually, we reached an overlook of the city and mountains with a cool swing that swung out towards the view. There was a cozy coffee shop at the top as well, and everything about the attraction was simply breathtaking.
I would like to share some of my insights from my image project with all of you at home in relation to the
social level (sorry to whichever professor is grading this, this will be a repeat from my project for you,
but I really want those at home to be able to read about this). As I mentioned in my last post, I did my image project on the overpopulation of dogs in Quito, the conditions many are in, and the reasons for this. A lot of it is related to the economic status of the owners, as some lower-class owners will not want to pay for dog food and use the dogs mostly for protection, leaving them out in the streets to find most of their food themselves. Conversely, some dogs do have great homes, such as our host home, they take great care of their dogs. Another huge reason there are so many dogs is that many owners do not neuter their dogs. Part of this is because of the cost, but another reason is because of the machismo (essentially an exaggerated display of power from the men in the culture) in Ecuador. This projects onto not just family and work dynamics, but is also projected onto their pets as the men believe neutering their dogs will make them “weaker.” I talked with Profesora Robalino about the situation and she told us that while there are some clinics and
shelters in Quito, they are fairly new, and there is so much room for improvement. It will also require a shift in cultural values, as people need to become aware that neutering their dogs will have many benefits, even beyond cutting back the overpopulation. I am so glad I was able to do this presentation because as I did my research I was able to expand my
CQ Knowledge by examining some of the cultural values behind the cultural differences I saw with the quantity and conditions of the dogs here in Quito. I am really starting to grasp the different levels of cultural intelligence as we undergo different experiences, and have the opportunity to do projects like this one.
That’s all for today, tomorrow we leave for Banos, and our 5 days there will yield the last 3 blog entries of the trip. Thanks for reading everyone,
-Daniel
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