It seems there is no rule that says a travel day can't be longer than 24 hours. It's already March 18 but I haven't slept more than an hour or two since yesterday morning so it sure feels like just one long day.
Our big presentation yesterday at the University went well. We had a good turnout & a good PowerPoint, thanks mostly to the efforts of Jeff & Sonja. People seemed interested, there were plenty of questions, & the Rector assigned some solid tasks & timelines. The translating seemed to work out OK. It was definitely a good move to have our primary handout & the presentation in both English & Spanish. A new program -- & especially a new program concept -- is confusing enough without adding the complexity of language.
After the presentation, a few of us stayed behind to talk about how the field work component could work best. This was a very interesting discussion. Because the program is so short, each student will be in the field for only a short while; probably somewhere between 2 & 4 weeks. How can we cultivate a trusting, productive relationship with communities when students are coming & going like popcorn? We talked about criteria for community selection, identification by the community of significant issues in which each student could build on the work of others, & the intense need for coordination to make sure this happens. There are so many issues to consider & we are lucky to have people on the ground in Ecuador who can help us to understand what's needed.
I started heading for home almost right after lunch. It was so hot in Guayaquil that it did not occur to me to remove my jacket, sweater, slacks & socks from my suitcase before checking it through. Now I am sitting in Calgary airport, awaiting my last flight, but considerably underdressed considering that it's barely +3 outside. My journey so far has been relatively uneventful except for being processed through the extreme drug & security checkpoints at Bogota airport. My oh my, I would not want to have so much as an aspirin out of place there!
It's been a great trip. We did a lot of work & I believe we have left the project somewhat more moved-ahead than when we arrived. Learning more about sustainability in general, getting familiar with the project specifically, doing the community visit to Dos Mangas, working with great people... the icing on the cake.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Ecuador, Day 7
Another day done; my last full day in Ecuador. Sonja & I spent the morning at the university, roughly planning 3 potential workshops about curriculum quality. We could not deliver them this time: faculty were out on inter-semester break & besides, it is still not at all clear that they are the ones responsible for curriculum development here. But at least we have come up with a plan & theoretically Sonja (who is living in Guayaquil) would be able to deliver the workshops later if necessary. We came back into town, had a late lunch, & spent the afternoon & evening preparing for our presentation tomorrow. I worked on reconstructing a pivotal diagram while Sonja worked on all of the translation into Spanish. It was after 7 before we became seriously aware that we hadn't eaten yet. And it was almost 8 before Pat & Jeff returned from their tasks & joined us with a bottle of wine & a bag of chips. We nibbled & drank & planned our strategy for tomorrow & finally began a very late supper after 9 pm.
So now I am tired but mellow, thinking about what a treat it is to be able to mix work with travel. There is something very pleasant about balancing the humdrum & responsibility of work with the excitment of being in a foreign place. I love the structure of having defined tasks to complete, a timetable to keep, meetings to make. And I appreciate the opportunity to meet plain ordinary working people, to connect as colleagues rather than solely in a service provider-tourist relationship. I am lucky & I know it.
But tomorrow will be a busy day with an early start so I must cut this short & head for bed.
So now I am tired but mellow, thinking about what a treat it is to be able to mix work with travel. There is something very pleasant about balancing the humdrum & responsibility of work with the excitment of being in a foreign place. I love the structure of having defined tasks to complete, a timetable to keep, meetings to make. And I appreciate the opportunity to meet plain ordinary working people, to connect as colleagues rather than solely in a service provider-tourist relationship. I am lucky & I know it.
But tomorrow will be a busy day with an early start so I must cut this short & head for bed.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Ecuador, Day 6
This was a transition day of no special merit. We left Manglaralto & took the 3-hour bus trip back to Guayaquil. We connected with Pat, brought her up to date on the project, & worked for a while in the afternoon on our presentation for Tuesday.
Late in the afternoon I went to the cathedral. The cathedral, which is right across from the famous iguana park, has been completely renovated in the past couple of years as some sort of urban renewal project. They have done a marvellous job. The space inside is magical; marble floors, beautiful paintings, stained glass windows, intensely high ceilings. Every little sound echoed & the music sent chills up my spine (although it was difficult to hear -- never mind understand! -- a word that was said).
Later still, we all went for supper along the Malecon where we ate seafood on an outdoor balcony. There was just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes from biting & to make the heat bearable. We watched lightning flash noiselessly to the south & scared each other with stories about tsunamis, earthquakes, tremors, & flash-flooding during El Niño.
Back to the university tomorrow.
Late in the afternoon I went to the cathedral. The cathedral, which is right across from the famous iguana park, has been completely renovated in the past couple of years as some sort of urban renewal project. They have done a marvellous job. The space inside is magical; marble floors, beautiful paintings, stained glass windows, intensely high ceilings. Every little sound echoed & the music sent chills up my spine (although it was difficult to hear -- never mind understand! -- a word that was said).
Later still, we all went for supper along the Malecon where we ate seafood on an outdoor balcony. There was just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes from biting & to make the heat bearable. We watched lightning flash noiselessly to the south & scared each other with stories about tsunamis, earthquakes, tremors, & flash-flooding during El Niño.
Back to the university tomorrow.
Ecuador, Day 5
This was officially our R&R day in Manglaralto. We woke up late, drank a lot of coffee, slowly, & ate banana pancakes. Then we headed for Dos Mangas to do a little work.
Dos Mangas is a small community about 20 km inland from Manglaralto. To get there, you have to wait by the side of the road until enough people congregate to fill the truck-taxi. We rode in the back of the truck with half a dozen other people. One was a young boy who was transporting his new puppy -- very cute.
After a half hour or so of bumping along a badly-potholed road (worse even than the streets of Cranbrook), we arrived at Dos Mangas. The name 'Dos Mangas' means 'two sleeves', because this community is where 2 tributaries join together to make a larger river. This is a small community of perhaps 1000 people but it is very difficult to determine the population & in fact everybody had a different estimate.
We had a bit of a mission in Dos Mangas: to begin sketching out a 'community asset map' for this place. Community asset mapping is a key learning outcome for the new program we're working on, & Dos Mangas will probably be a pilot site for this activity. I had read about community asset mapping & did a rudimentary exercise on it for my Master's research but I was very keen to practice it in a more structured way. I highly recommend this as a fun activity to do in a community you want to get to know better. To do community asset mapping, you wander around a community & you sort of survey everything that's working for this community: the geographical features, the natural environment, the governmental services, associations, & human resources. We noted beautiful scenery, a good adult education system, strong community government involvement, & considerable artisan involvement in tagua ('vegetable ivory') carving & paje (a special kind of straw) weaving. We also made notes about all the NGOs operating in this community -- probably close to a dozen. The only serious thing missing as far as we could tell was a source of microcredit for new enterprises.
We made copious notes & took lots of pictures. So our next step, I suppose, is to prepare a framework for the students who will end up doing the bulk of the asset mapping in many other communities besides Dos Mangas.
We arrived very hot & tired back at Manglaralto. We bought cold beer & sat on the beach & watched the sun set. Manglaralto is so close to the equator so the sunsets are almost the fastest in the world, I suppose. It's daylight all along until that sun slips into the ocean & then CLUNK; in barely 10 or 15 minutes, it's night.
Dos Mangas is a small community about 20 km inland from Manglaralto. To get there, you have to wait by the side of the road until enough people congregate to fill the truck-taxi. We rode in the back of the truck with half a dozen other people. One was a young boy who was transporting his new puppy -- very cute.
After a half hour or so of bumping along a badly-potholed road (worse even than the streets of Cranbrook), we arrived at Dos Mangas. The name 'Dos Mangas' means 'two sleeves', because this community is where 2 tributaries join together to make a larger river. This is a small community of perhaps 1000 people but it is very difficult to determine the population & in fact everybody had a different estimate.
We had a bit of a mission in Dos Mangas: to begin sketching out a 'community asset map' for this place. Community asset mapping is a key learning outcome for the new program we're working on, & Dos Mangas will probably be a pilot site for this activity. I had read about community asset mapping & did a rudimentary exercise on it for my Master's research but I was very keen to practice it in a more structured way. I highly recommend this as a fun activity to do in a community you want to get to know better. To do community asset mapping, you wander around a community & you sort of survey everything that's working for this community: the geographical features, the natural environment, the governmental services, associations, & human resources. We noted beautiful scenery, a good adult education system, strong community government involvement, & considerable artisan involvement in tagua ('vegetable ivory') carving & paje (a special kind of straw) weaving. We also made notes about all the NGOs operating in this community -- probably close to a dozen. The only serious thing missing as far as we could tell was a source of microcredit for new enterprises.
We made copious notes & took lots of pictures. So our next step, I suppose, is to prepare a framework for the students who will end up doing the bulk of the asset mapping in many other communities besides Dos Mangas.
We arrived very hot & tired back at Manglaralto. We bought cold beer & sat on the beach & watched the sun set. Manglaralto is so close to the equator so the sunsets are almost the fastest in the world, I suppose. It's daylight all along until that sun slips into the ocean & then CLUNK; in barely 10 or 15 minutes, it's night.
Ecuador, Day 4
There's not much I can write tonight because we're in Manglaralto & I don't really have my computer easily available. So I'm typing this on my little 'palm pilot' & I'll upload it when I can.
We spent the morning working, putting together a rudimentary PowerPoint presentation for our meeting on Tuesday. The Tuesday meeting will be an important one for the project, attended by all the relevant coordinators, deans & even the head of the university. So we took our time with the presentation; we wanted to do a good job.
But by 4 o'clock we'd had enough; we packed our things & headed out to the Terminal Terrestre (bus depot) to get the bus to Manglaralto. Manglaralto is a small town about 3 hours north of Guayaquil, towards the equator. One of our colleagues who works at the university here & has been involved in past projects lives in Manglaralto & runs a small hostel there. He had invited us to come out for the weekend.
I was surprised at how much the Terminal Terrestre had changed since I was here back in 2002. Back then, it was a scary place. I remember it as being noisy, dirty, smelly & sinister, with a stained concrete floor & endless little stalls selling the kind of minor goods you buy for bus trips. It was poorly lit & perhaps that was just as well except that made it all the easier for the pickpockets to do their work. Most disturbing of all were the beggars, especially the mothers anxiously displaying babies who were plastered with bandaids in a haphazard way, to make them look injured or at least more pathetic. Someone told us the babies were drugged so that they would be more placid about being dragged about all day, or to make them look more sickly (and hence more worthy of donations).
But all of that has changed. The reborn Terminal Terrestre now incorporates a shopping centre which could (almost) be any mall in Canada. The place is clean & I didn't see even one beggar or limp baby. The floors are finished, the lighting is fine, & even the washrooms are clean (so I'm told). The only thing that hasn't changed are the ubiquitous stalls selling bus food & magazines. So we picked up some plantain chips for the trip & jumped aboard the bus for Manglaralto. More on that mañana.
We spent the morning working, putting together a rudimentary PowerPoint presentation for our meeting on Tuesday. The Tuesday meeting will be an important one for the project, attended by all the relevant coordinators, deans & even the head of the university. So we took our time with the presentation; we wanted to do a good job.
But by 4 o'clock we'd had enough; we packed our things & headed out to the Terminal Terrestre (bus depot) to get the bus to Manglaralto. Manglaralto is a small town about 3 hours north of Guayaquil, towards the equator. One of our colleagues who works at the university here & has been involved in past projects lives in Manglaralto & runs a small hostel there. He had invited us to come out for the weekend.
I was surprised at how much the Terminal Terrestre had changed since I was here back in 2002. Back then, it was a scary place. I remember it as being noisy, dirty, smelly & sinister, with a stained concrete floor & endless little stalls selling the kind of minor goods you buy for bus trips. It was poorly lit & perhaps that was just as well except that made it all the easier for the pickpockets to do their work. Most disturbing of all were the beggars, especially the mothers anxiously displaying babies who were plastered with bandaids in a haphazard way, to make them look injured or at least more pathetic. Someone told us the babies were drugged so that they would be more placid about being dragged about all day, or to make them look more sickly (and hence more worthy of donations).
But all of that has changed. The reborn Terminal Terrestre now incorporates a shopping centre which could (almost) be any mall in Canada. The place is clean & I didn't see even one beggar or limp baby. The floors are finished, the lighting is fine, & even the washrooms are clean (so I'm told). The only thing that hasn't changed are the ubiquitous stalls selling bus food & magazines. So we picked up some plantain chips for the trip & jumped aboard the bus for Manglaralto. More on that mañana.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Ecuador, Day 3
It has been a very long day of doing almost nothing but curriculum development, but I think we're moving forward. When I first arrived here, I felt like a social worker for an abandoned child. I was struggling to get to know this new program myself, while at the same time trying to introduce it to others & encourage one of them to take an interest in it. Of course I was hoping that somebody would find the program idea attractive & fall in love with it or at least feel sorry for it & adopt it into their portfolio. And I believe we accomplished that today: the program developer for environmental studies has asserted her ownership & has been increasingly coming up with ideas & plans for its future.
This project has been especially challenging because the program idea was the brainchild of the former University president. Unfortunately, he died a few months ago before anyone else was really brought into the project & the vision for its unfolding died with him. So we have been doing a fair amount of detective work, reading over the project proposal with a fine-toothed comb, looking for details about how it was intended to work. Gradually we have been reconstructing it from the forensic details.
It's too bad: if you mention the phrase "curriculum development" at a party it can be a real conversation-stopper but it's not fair: this work can be creative, challenging, & (dare I say it?) even exciting at times. This does not include the great perks, like occasional travel!
Otherwise, not much to report today. Like I said, we worked almost the entire time. As we were leaving the university, just as it was getting dark, the skies broke & it began to rain. Actually, rain is hardly the word for it: a solid blanket of water came down & continued to come down steadily for almost an hour. In no time at all the university plaza was overfilled & the water started to move like a tidal force into the marble hallways (which are completely open to the outside & almost flush with the lawn). We were soaked in no time. We jammed into a colleague's waiting car where we pushed damp hair off our faces & drove slowly through streets like rivers.
This project has been especially challenging because the program idea was the brainchild of the former University president. Unfortunately, he died a few months ago before anyone else was really brought into the project & the vision for its unfolding died with him. So we have been doing a fair amount of detective work, reading over the project proposal with a fine-toothed comb, looking for details about how it was intended to work. Gradually we have been reconstructing it from the forensic details.
It's too bad: if you mention the phrase "curriculum development" at a party it can be a real conversation-stopper but it's not fair: this work can be creative, challenging, & (dare I say it?) even exciting at times. This does not include the great perks, like occasional travel!
Otherwise, not much to report today. Like I said, we worked almost the entire time. As we were leaving the university, just as it was getting dark, the skies broke & it began to rain. Actually, rain is hardly the word for it: a solid blanket of water came down & continued to come down steadily for almost an hour. In no time at all the university plaza was overfilled & the water started to move like a tidal force into the marble hallways (which are completely open to the outside & almost flush with the lawn). We were soaked in no time. We jammed into a colleague's waiting car where we pushed damp hair off our faces & drove slowly through streets like rivers.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Ecuador, Day 2
This was our first full day in Ecuador. Neither Jeff (my colleague) nor I slept very well so we lingered over breakfast & tried to come to terms with the fact that this was to be a working day. And not just any working day, but a full working day in a place in which we had no firm arrangements. So we decided to walk around a little, wake up a bit further, & plan a strategy.
We headed down to the Malecon, that beautiful riverside walk that is the crown of Guayaquil. We walked to the end & looked for the huge semi-illegitimate marketplace known as the Bahia. The Bahia (rumour has it) is the place where 150 years ago pirates used to unload their booty & trade it at bargain prices. But we couldn't quite locate the entrance so we headed back inland & looked for the Iguana park instead.
The Iguana park deserves a mention. If you have ever been to 'Pigeon park' in Vancouver you will understand the concept. Like Pigeon park, the Iguana park is right smack in the middle of the city, surrounded by the usual buildings & busy-ness of urban life. The park has trees but they are the sort of generic unremarkable trees you could see in any unremarkable tropical city. At first, you might wonder why it is even called 'the iguana park'; after all, where are the iguanas? Then, suddenly, a 1-meter long lizard runs across the sidewalk right in front of you. It continues onto the lawn & starts climbing a tree & as your attention follows it up the trunk you realize that there's another iguana already up there. And as your eyes adjust to the clever camoflage, you realize that there's yet another. And another. And another & another & another & another... Then you start to feel just a bit creepy as you come to the realization that there are maybe hundreds of iguanas -- one or two on every single tree-branch -- in this tiny urban bit of real estate. And it's not that they are little iguanas: each one is 1 to 2 meters long. People bring their bread crusts & rotten fruit here to feed them. If you don't have any rotten food, you can buy a bag of corn or whatever just outside the gates.
After the Iguana park, we organized ourselves & headed to work. The university (UEES) has grown a lot since I was here last so we started out with a tour. It was challenging to find the specific individuals & the curriculum we needed to start our task but people were helpful & we were able to make a good start.
There's really not much else to tell. We worked, we returned to the hotel, we ate a bit of supper, and now I'm just tidying up some loose ends & email before heading for bed.
We headed down to the Malecon, that beautiful riverside walk that is the crown of Guayaquil. We walked to the end & looked for the huge semi-illegitimate marketplace known as the Bahia. The Bahia (rumour has it) is the place where 150 years ago pirates used to unload their booty & trade it at bargain prices. But we couldn't quite locate the entrance so we headed back inland & looked for the Iguana park instead.
The Iguana park deserves a mention. If you have ever been to 'Pigeon park' in Vancouver you will understand the concept. Like Pigeon park, the Iguana park is right smack in the middle of the city, surrounded by the usual buildings & busy-ness of urban life. The park has trees but they are the sort of generic unremarkable trees you could see in any unremarkable tropical city. At first, you might wonder why it is even called 'the iguana park'; after all, where are the iguanas? Then, suddenly, a 1-meter long lizard runs across the sidewalk right in front of you. It continues onto the lawn & starts climbing a tree & as your attention follows it up the trunk you realize that there's another iguana already up there. And as your eyes adjust to the clever camoflage, you realize that there's yet another. And another. And another & another & another & another... Then you start to feel just a bit creepy as you come to the realization that there are maybe hundreds of iguanas -- one or two on every single tree-branch -- in this tiny urban bit of real estate. And it's not that they are little iguanas: each one is 1 to 2 meters long. People bring their bread crusts & rotten fruit here to feed them. If you don't have any rotten food, you can buy a bag of corn or whatever just outside the gates.
After the Iguana park, we organized ourselves & headed to work. The university (UEES) has grown a lot since I was here last so we started out with a tour. It was challenging to find the specific individuals & the curriculum we needed to start our task but people were helpful & we were able to make a good start.
There's really not much else to tell. We worked, we returned to the hotel, we ate a bit of supper, and now I'm just tidying up some loose ends & email before heading for bed.
Ecuador, Day 1
I suppose it's not really fair to call this 'day 1' when at this point I've been in Ecuador barely an hour. And technically it's already tomorrow. After 30-something hours of travel I am once again much too tired to write anything coherent so this will be another short post. Highlights of the day? We changed planes in Bogota so now I can (lamely) add Colombia to the list of countries I've visited. The other big highlight was landing in Guayaquil & seeing how upbeat it all looks compared to when I was here in 2002. We are planning a late & gentle start to the day tomorrow, not commiting to heading for work at the university until later in the morning.
Who knows, maybe I will have something more coherent or at least authentic to write about tomorrow! Oops, I mean 'later today'.
Who knows, maybe I will have something more coherent or at least authentic to write about tomorrow! Oops, I mean 'later today'.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Ecuador, Day 0
I am trying very hard to enjoy the sensation of -25 weather. Really. I am in Calgary, overnighting before heading for Guayaquil tomorrow, and it is incredibly, bitterly cold. It's not that I am unfamiliar with inclement weather: we had quite a spell of -20 to -30 weather in Cranbrook during December. But when you get these really cold temperatures during March -- when really it should be spring -- it just feels more savage. Google tells me that it was 31 in Guayaquil today so perhaps in barely 24 hours (or so) I will be wistfully remembering this sojourn in Calgary.
We must be up at 4:45 tomorrow morning so I will cut this short!
We must be up at 4:45 tomorrow morning so I will cut this short!
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