Week threeeeee:
The most adventurous of them all- 3 hospital trips, but I'm OK! Just read on to find out what happened.
Got back from Canoa Sunday night and almost missed our bus stop at Camarones. It's because the bus doesn't actually stop unless you run to he front of the bus and yell at the bus driver to stop. So we got off at the entrance to Camarones and started the long walk back to the hut. Fortunately, after 20 minutes of walking, we hitched a ride in a random car that was headed towards our hut. We got back and had dinner with the fam and then made a batch of soap with the new molds Keenan made.
Monday:
Today was the day I planned to record the video for the indiegogo campaign. I spent the morning planning out the video. At 2PM we planned to shoot the video. Betsy, Galita, Berna and I waited for the other women until 2:20 and then we went to get the other women. You can't call them to see where they are, you have to go knock on their doors. Betsy and Galita went to find Rosa and I went to find Santa. Santa is the one who lives on the hill with the gorgeous view, so I hiked all the way up there and was super out of breath by the time I got to the top. I called for Santa and asked her if she was able to come do the video today. She said her kid wasn't feeling well and I asked if someone else would be able to watch the kid for a few hours. I explained to both of them that it is super important for Santa to be in the video. He really didn't want her to leave the house. I asked again and explained the importance and he said she could leave for an hour. I felt very accomplished getting Santa to come for the video.
Anyways, Betsy got Rosa and we headed back to film.
It was a challenge getting them to smile and talk about their project for the video but after many many takes, I think I got enough good footage to put a video together! It was fun to film when the women were laughing.
I had to get them to smile by explaining fake candids, and yelling "laugh!! Smile!!"
The piñon seed after its first she'll is taken off.
And after we finished filming, Betsy brought some of the macadamia fruit wine out that we made last week and let me tell you, I needed it after that LONG day.
Then we played a little basketball and I'm getting tired of how much these people foul-- that is why I never liked contact sports!!!
Then Keenan and I met our new hut mate: Felix. We are still trying to figure out who he is.. But apparently he is an educator sent to Camarones by the government to teach the community of Camarones about leadership and other things.. He's here for 2 weeks.
He is specifically working with the high school students and the soap women and giving lectures every evening.
He said he is going to teach them how to market their products but the truth is that there is not point marketing their products if their supply currently can't reach their demand.
I asked the students if they wanted to work on deciding what the name of their shampoo would be, and one of the older guys in the community said they already have a name and logo. The name Is Jama (which is a town down the road from Camarones). The logo is a hand with 6 fingers. I asked what the logo meant and he said that it was similar to the soap women's hand logo, because they want to combine the projects. I'm all for combining the projects, but the problem is that the women make organic soap and the student use chemicals in their shampoo and the students also make soap that is produced with chemicals. And if they want to combine, the logo needs to be exactly the same, and not just similar. After a long day, I went to sleep, but didn't sleep very well because Felix had his music playing out loud the entire night (yes, still was playing when I work up in the AM)
Also did another load of laundry today.. Not sure why, but I just love the pics of my clothes hang drying
Tuesday:
Took a ride into Camarones to start working on the video for the soap project. Betsy was supposed to meet us at the Internet store in town by 10:30 because we were going to go to the bank to open a checking account for Bellina Jabón separate from her personal account. However, 12 rolled around and we figured we should get a ride back with angel in case Betsy never showed up.
So we came back and then colon said that Betsy just left for Camarones. It's all good though because I had a few hours of calmness without Anthony around and I was able to finish a lot of the video.
Then the guys said they were going to play volleyball, which I got really excited about, one because it's a sport I actually played and two because it's not contact so I wouldn't get hurt.
Well, I was wrong about both of those statements.
It's not volleyball.. It's bolley. The net is 5 times higher than a guys net in the US and the ball is super hard, it's pretty much a soccer ball. I threw out my shoulder trying to serve it, hurt my fingers trying to set, it was overall a failure. This game is played with three people on both sides and lifts are completely legal. I wasn't a fan of this Ecuadorian version of volleyball. Missing all my summer sand volleyball leagues!!!
I worked on the video some more and then WE made dinner. Yes, I helped! I had been talking about the tortilla espanola that my host mom in Spain always made me and they wanted to try it, so they bought all the ingredients and we made it together! We had a little trouble keeping it together, but it tastes great! Virginia (my Spanish host mom) made the absolute best tortilla espanola in the world, nothing will ever compete.
Ecuadorian tortilla espanola
After dinner we had our first lecture from Professor Felix. I felt a bit frustrated sitting through his lectures because what he was teaching everyone about business was different from what I have learned at UW-Madison. Also, these are high school kids, some are 14, the soap women are here, and kids are running around, the environment was not ideal for learning.
He said the group as a whol was going to develop a FODA (SWOT) and business plan for Bellina Jabon, which has already been done. Then someone is talking about combing the women's group and high school group to sell their products together.. But the women produce organic soap and the students produce chemical based shampoo, with two completely different stories, and schedules, this didn't make sense to me.
Anyways, the only way I can see the groups combining is if the women become the lead supervisors of the students, the students stop making shampoo and focus on the organic soap. This way, the group has one solid product that allows them to meet their demand. I'll propose the idea tomorrow and let Ya know!
Wednesday:
We needed to go to Pedernales to check the requirements for Bellina to become a legal micro enterprise. We hopped in a random car to get to the front of the road and then took a bus. When we got to the gov. Buildinging and started talking to someone and they said we had to go to Jama... Since we were in Pedernales we went to the bank to find out about opening a bank account of Bellina, but you can't have a bank account until you're legally a business, but you can have a joint bank account so we inquired about that and got a list of what she needs in order to open the account. Then we went to the Internet store to try to set up a pay pal account so people could donate on indiegogo, we planned on using her personal account because the business one might take a while to get running. However, her personal card was not verifying on pay pal.. So looks like we will be taking another trip to the bank. Also, while in Pedernales, Betsy volunteered me to tutor her friend's daughter in English, which I said I agreed to do the next day.
We went back to Camarones (after buying some bread) and I finished working on the video, that was somehow deleted from my computer, so I had to re do it.
Then I played with two of the little girls in the community, Lorena and Cindy. They wanted to show me their dancing so we went to Lorena's house and they danced. Lorena is a ridiculously good dancer.. She's also 5. Again, wish I could show the video here..
Then we had dinner and had another lecture from Felix, which again was frustrating for me. When a student asked a question about something in the course packet, he just read word for word what it said in the course packet, this is one of my biggest pet peeve of teachers.
Thursday:
Today, on my morning run, I was attacked by a dog. Normally, I'm just chased by them, but today, one of them got me. Took a bit out of my left shin and I just about freaked out, well I did freak out because I was bleeding and the dog kept trying to attack me as I sprinted as fast as I could away. Luckily, T-Swift's "Shake it Off" was playing on my iPod at the time, so as I was slightly crying, I kept running/ limping. Then when I turned around to head back to my hut, I was just terrified to run past the house where the attacking dog resided. I tip toed past and then sprinted out of sight. I also slipped in one of the creeks on the run back and completely soaked my shoe. When I got back I cleaned up my wound with the neo-Sporin, band-aids, and toilet paper that I packed (I came to ecuador prepared).
However, upon thinking about what just happened, I started to get nervous about the possibility of that dog having rabies. At breakfast, I told Betsy and Berna that a dog bit me and they said we should go to the hospital. So naturally I start panicking inside, and I ask Felix to give us a ride to the hospital because angel already left. Even though Felix was doing absolutely nothing today and he's not sick anymore, he still didn't want to get his ass off the couch to take me to the hospital and I asked if I could drive his car and he said no.
Also, it's pouring rain outside. We get one of the guys to give us a motorcycle ride to the entrance, we stop at the house where the dog lives that bit me and Betsy asked the owner if the dog is vaccinated, to which the owner replies, no I don't want to pay for that. So of course I freak out more.
We get to the entrance and are soaking wet at this point and then we take a bus to Jama.
We took a moto-taxi to the hospital and went to the emergency room where a doctor examined the bite. She cleaned it with a few different solutions which she poured out of Gatorade bottles and then covered it with gauze and tape. I asked many many many times if I should get a an injection of some sort for the possible rabies and she said the bite didn't look that deep and that we should keep an eye on that dog (I refuse to go near that dog, Betsy is going to keep an eye on it) to see if it has any of the signs of rabies and also that I should watch my own symtoms. They prescribed me with three different pills which I'll be taking for the next 5 days.
Some things that were poured on my leg out of Gatorade and water bottles.
Patched up
Trying to be optimistic...
The only good thing about this whole situation is that it got us to Jama so we could talk to the people here about forming an association. We went to the building and they told us we had to go talk to this guy named Galo and he was currently at a party, so naturally, we went to the party. It was a private party at a bar which we just casually walked into and asked for Galo. He was so nice and sat down and talked to us about the process of forming an association.
The party we crashed
I got back ate a little and took a siesta. I was woken up by a little girl saying "hola Rebecca" and I'm like who is it? It was the girl I was supposed to be teaching English... Which I totally forgot about considering the day's events. I got out of bed and went downstairs with her and she had a little bit of English knowledge but very very limited. She is 9 and her name is Lydia, she's actually Nicole's younger sister, so she's somehow related to the family. I worked with her for an hour and told her I was going to give her a quiz tomorrow. We mainly worked on the letters and a few basic words and phrases.
After dinner we had another lecture from Felix. I tried to give my opinion, of course in a polite manner, but was instantly shut down by both the men in the room.
Anyways, the problem is that they want to merge the student group with the women's group and Paco is continuting to take the lead, even the professor recommended to the group that he should be the president of the micro enterprise. This is bad. The women have to be in charge and men cannot be a part of it or the government won't give them money/ support. The other problem is that the women make organic soap and the students make shampoo using chemical, the mission of the women's enterprise is to not contaminate the environment so it doesn't make sense for them to also sell chemically produced soap... I tried explaining this but they wouldn't listen. Machismo is frustrating.
Friday:
Keenan and I went to the reserve at Lalo loor in the morning because we just found out (3 weeks in) that they have a computer with Adobe illustrator on it so we could work on the logo. I also wanted to talk to someone with ceiba about my dog bite.
They told me I should go get the vaccine at the hospital. So, this time I went to the same hospital with Geo, who works for ceiba, but she also only speaks Spanish. She was really nice and helped keep me calm. We got to the hospital and they told us which vaccine I needed but that they didn't have it at the hospital but we should go to the pharmacy and buy it there and then bring it back and they would administer the shot. So, we take a moto-taxi to the pharmacy, literally purchase the needle and fluids at a pharmacy for $3.50 and bring it back to the hospital where they gave me a shot in my butt and then we left. The shot they gave me was called tetanol, which soon after realized it was tetanus, which is not the rabies vaccine that I needed. This is probably the point where I started freaking out because I was talking to one of the ceiba coordinators who told me I would have to pack up all my things, take a bus to Quito alone and go get the very painful vaccine of 14 shots in my stomach, and would start treatment on Monday. This freaked me out a bit, I did not want to go to Quito alone without an Ecuadorian cell phone, without someone to go with me, without knowing the city, as a white girl with a bunch of luggage by myself I felt I would be a huge target.
When I got back to the reserve I talked to the person in charge and explained that I was nervous and really wanted someone to come with me. After a bit of time, we figured out a plan. An angel was sent to me, her name, Pauli, well she wasn't sent, she was already at the reserve. She had been working at the reserve for the past month and was going back to Chile on Monday, so she was planning on staying in Quito this weekend. She is also a vet, so she went to the house of the dog that bit me to do some tests to see if it possibly had rabies. She said it reacted well to water and light, but seemed depressed because it was on a leash, so she said someone needs to monitor the dog everyday to see how it is behaving.
We went to Camarones, packed up all my things and I had to say quick good byes to the family and everyone in the community, because I would not be coming back.
Saying hasta luego!
Definitely going to miss this place and these views:
Won't miss the mosquito nets:
I will be spending the week in Quito to receive treatment and then heading to my next site in la calera.
I stayed in the reserve for that night with everyone and then we left for Quito in the morning for a 7 hour bus ride.
Saturday:
7 hour bus ride to Quito. Upon arriving, then coordinator I had talked to, her husband was supposed to pick us up from the bus terminal, but he wasn't there and when we called he said he thought we were coming later....so we took a taxi, to her parents' house which is where we were staying. Then, Carmen, a lady who works for ceiba and who gave us the tour of Quito when we first arrived, picked us up from the house and then we went straight to the hospital. I was impressed with how quickly they got me in (I'm still in Latin America) and the doctor looked at the wound and said it didn't look infected and she didn't think I had rabies because I would have already been showing symptoms. We thought I should still get the vaccine though just to play it safe. It took them about an hour to bring the vaccine.. So Pauli and I were just sitting there and talking for a while. Then they brought it and I was so happy to hear I was able to get the shot in my arm instead of my stomach like I was told. I was also happy to hear I only needed 5 shots instead of 14. So that was my first vaccine and then I go back Monday for my second, Friday for my third, then a week later for my 4th, and 2 weeks later for my 5th. I will either come back to Quito to get the last 2 vaccines or I will find a hospital near my second site that has the vaccines.
It's turning pretty colors!!
After leaving the hospital it was around 8pm and we were starving. So me, Pauli, and Carmen went to get dinner at a place called crepes and waffles- which was delicious! I maxed out. All I had eatten for the past 3 weeks was rice so I was so so so excited for a little diversity in my diet. We had these really good juices with lime, coconut and milk, I ordered a savory crepe with tomatoes, spinich and cheese, and then we all shared fondue for dessert. I was in heaven.
When we got back to the house I met the mom I was staying with, the dad was already sleeping, and then I quickly fell asleep, because for the first time I was in a room with wall and was not under mosquito nets.
Sunday:
A WARM SHOWER. I didn't want to leave. Then we had breakfast with Carolina's parents. Then Carolina's parents drove us to the market where Pauli wanted to buy some last minute gifts because she head back home to chile tomorrow.
After a bit of shopping, I disciplined myself and bought nothing, we met up with some other girls from the reserve and went to lunch. Lunch was fabulous. I'm loving eating things other than rice.
Chicken, pineapple, avocado sandwich.
Then me, Pauli, and Sarah went to climb the basilica while Lauren and Brenna went shopping, because they had already climbed it. The basilica was beautiful!! And it reminded me of being in Europe where all I did was tour and climb churches, but it's always well worth it for the view.
Started from the bottom,
Now we here:
So that's the story of my wild week! I do have to say a huge gracias to Pauli for helping me through this adventure and making sure I got the right medical care and quick!!
I'm so happy that I'm feeling good and continuing to relish all the wonderful moments in life! I knew living in rural ecuador would come with challenges but I was more expecting to get bit by a snake or bat or spider, how ironic that it was a dog. Anyways, glad I was able to get to the hospital in Quito to figure things out, definitely had the biggest freak out of the trip so far this past week, but smiling because I'm alive and now I get to enjoy exploring Quito for a week (only have to take a few more trips to the hospital!) This week has also made me so thankful of the medical attention and hospital system we have in the states! Ecuador's slogan is Ama La Vida, which translates to Love Life.
Cheezy but going to say it, everything happens for a reason, and I'm sure that this week will be a new adventure in my trip. I'm loving life right now.
Sending love love love and smiles from Quito,
Rebecca
Ps- still going to be working the soap project from Quito- it will be easier since I have internet now!
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