GROW Initiative, on the move with projects underway

So almost three months after entering our first county in South America (Ecuador) we are still here. We have always said that moving slowly and working with the local people to improve their lives are the best parts of our traveling and our experiences here have proven that once again. Working through our non profit GROW we have been busy doing small projects from the mountains of Riobamba to the coast in Tabuga. This has taken many different shapes and forms throughout Central America and it is no different in Ecuador. In Riobamba we were helping with environmental education seminars at a university and an Earth Day of sorts with the participation of some 22 different primary schools in which we did out part by giving out trees for a reforestation initiative. In Tabuga we put on many different hats- from helping a new organic farm start up, contributing ideas, our machete skills, etc. to working on an Environmental Education Corner for a library being built, to chopping away to clear an area for a garden as a part of a “Happy Heart” nutrition program, to working with Bosque Seco Lalo Loor on their environmental education initiatives. Although we were able to contribute and had a great time in Tabuga, there were already a lot of other really great and motivated volunteers, mostly PCVs and RPCVs, doing good for the community and so we decided to move on. It was time to do another big GROW project somewhere that was not receiving much help, and that is what brought us to the community of Los Naranjos. It’s a Tsa’chila community, one of the indigenous groups of Ecuador. Of the eight Tsa’chila communities around Santo Domingo, Los Naranjos is the smallest and often most forgotten when it comes to outside aid. But with the help of a Peace Corps Volunteer named Clay who was working in the community until about a month ago, the community has the start of a burgeoning cultural tourism project. Unfortunately there are still some major hurdles to overcome before the program really gets going which is where GROW comes in.

The main part of the project is constructing a dry composting pit latrine. We’ve had lots of experience in using this type of baño, read a lot about them, seen plans, talked them up, but this is our first time building a complete one ourselves. And by ourselves, I mean the community is putting in the lion’s share of the work and we’re just there to prod it all along, teach where we can, bite our tongues where we can’t and buy the materials so they are the true owners of the project. It’s been great, and by this time next week we hope to be depositing our runny bellies (yep, still got that) where it will break down into sweet beautiful earth in about a year. (anyone who thinks that’s gross, travel with us for a couple of weeks and you will be throwing that flush toilet of yours out the window and installing one of these bad boys in you back yard for sure) To break out our more artistic, hippy back to nature side we are attempting to make a cool open-air shower, and bamboo hand washing station that will benefit their tourism project while educating the community on better more environmentally friendly bathroom alternative. We are also working with the community on turning the completely non-functional bathrooms of the school into something they can use as well as fixing the bathrooms and sinks in the medical center while teaching them how to do it themselves in the future if things break or go bad again (who ever thought all those years at Ga. Tech and William and Mary would lead us to becoming plumbers). Hopefully the sustainability aspects of this project will really pan out, and in any case the compost of the toilet will be the gift that keeps on giving, as long as people continue to use the shittero (I think that is Spanish).

Besides all that, living with the community has been great, especially for our football skills (no, we’re not throwing a pig skin around down here, football is with your foot, aka soccer which we play almost every night), and expanded our culinary habits into eating really gross bugs. You know, the kind who's maggots are about 2.5 inches long, the larvae look like they’re from Mars and you think the adult beetles might be able to snap your finger off if given the chance. When you squeeze the insides out they’re kinda buttery (Yum!), would not recommend it. And if muddling through conversations in Spanish were not enough for us, here their first language is Tsa’fiki, though our brains are rather full and I think all I’ve learned is how to say hello, thank you and delicious (had to complement the bugs after all).

Ecuadorian Family and Food Extravaganza!!

We have been eating our way through Ecuador with the help of our new adopted family Veronica and her mother Sara. Another great Couch Surfing experience led us to these wonderful people in Guayaquil, the biggest city in Ecuador; and if it weren’t for their amazing hospitality and through them the meeting so many wonderful people, our first taste of Ecuador would have been completely different. And by taste, I mean we’ve tasted way more stuff here than I think I have in my whole life. The food culture in Ecuador is great, with certain regional specialties, and Veronica and her mother insisted we try every single one. That includes salchicha, which is any and every part of all different animals you would never want to eat- stomach, intestines, stomach, organs… the overall taste of the soup, good; the “meat”… not my cup of tea I have decided. Peanut butter lovers that we are, we were excited to find peanut butter everywhere, but they are not so boring as to only put it on bread, here they cook with it and make some amazing dishes. Here are some of the things we scoured cities for or had put in front of us by our wonderful host, in no particular order, certainly not by preference if you can tell by the first one.

• Salchicha – still not quite sure. A soup with a lot of unidentifiable animal parts
• Bolon – a delicious ball of mashed green plantains and cheese
• Humita – a sweet ground maiz (corn) mixed with cheese and boiled in a corn husk
• Carne de seco – All about the sauce, throw in the meat and your golden
• Encebollado – A scrumptious fish soup
• New fruits like tomate de arbol, taxo, uvilla, pepino dulce
• Congrejo – Crabs (Yum!)
• Bollo – peanut butter (not sweet), fish, green plantains, deliciousness
• Cazuela - like bollo but a soup (possibly our favorite)
• Pan de yucca – tasty bread made from yucca
• Hornado – whole roast pig with mote (corn thingies)
• Twenty different homemade ice creams from fresh fruit
• Llapingacho – Fried mashed cheese potato stuff (yes!)
• Locro – Awesome potato, corn, and avocado soup
• Guatita – sheep’s stomach and potatoes with a peanutty sauce (enough said)
• Quimbolito – cake like substance in a banana leaf
• Trucha – typical trout plate
• Dulce de higo – dates in a sugary sauce with cheese (that's right, cheese)
• Polo Seco – Same incredible sauce, different meat
• Yaguarlocro – take locro and add dried blood and sausage (umm….yeah)
• Menestra – a really good legume (usually lentils) stew
• Alfenique – a mix between taffy and a rock
• Fajitas- well, not an Ecuadorian classic (we actually made this one) but with their fresh vegetables- ricissimo!

Now if you can match the food with the pictures in the collage, you win a culinary tour through Ecuador, good luck!

130 little adorable hellions Vs 7 Foreign Volunteers

So in this corner! Seven ideological, helpful, hopeful, enthusiastic, bright-eyed volunteers, covering the world from the US to the UK to Australia, with varying degrees of Spanish speaking abilities (“what does nada mean?” to understanding their swear words), varying degrees of teaching experience (“not so much teaching, but I’ve been in a classroom before?” to “the trick is to never let the kids see the fear in your eyes”),

In the other corner… 130+ adorable, innocent, 3 1/2 – 15 year old Galapagarians with varying English speaking abilities (from the complete blank stare to correcting our English)

The venue – Three open classrooms and a community playground in San Cristobal, Galapagos

LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!!!

It was the kids that came out swinging making use of their home court advantage and the kindness of the volunteers to multiply their numbers from what was supposed to be four groups of 15 students each (5-6 years old, 7-8 years old, 9-10 years old and 11 and up) to an overwhelming 30+ students in each class. The sly youths also snuck in 3 ½ to 4 year olds with their parents claiming they were older. Not being old enough to know how to lie like their parents they were later caught, however it was too late, they had already joined the fight, and damn it they were too adorable to throw out.

It was also the 3-5 year olds that used their supposed innocence and their youth to deal some rather devastating early blows. In the classrooms they were uncontrollable and in the sports class even worse. It was here that during a perceivably well thought out game of duck, duck, goose that one of the cuter children snuck out a carelessly left open door. When Donny went chasing after the 4 year old the rest of the class used the “rope a dope” technique to split in to two groups and head out the other open doors. The other usually very competent volunteer (the wonder from down under (Australia)) was powerless to stop them. They made their way out to the playground (looked like more of a training area for American Gladiators) and started climbing on anything and everything over 10 feet high. One of the children Donny had to chase two blocks away and physically drag the child back to the school. The first two rounds (day 1 and 2) definitely went to the children.

However, by round three the experience and determination of the volunteers started to pay off. They used oldschool techniques that the children had never seen before; like making learning fun, lots of total participation activities, and tons of attention grabbing visuals. By Thursday the volunteers even got some extra backup, two new volunteers from England, and a projector which Brooke skillfully used to trick the kids into learning how important it is (especially in the Galapagos) to protect our environment. The fight was definitely taking a turn in the volunteers favor. On Friday the venue moved to a local beach were the volunteers organized a very successful trash pickup on the way to the beach (10 garbage bags in total), but the later part of the round switched sides again as the volunteers desperately tried to control the kids as children escaped the ever fragile Duck, Duck, Goose circle and stampeded for the ocean. All the volunteers could do was frantically continue their headcounts making sure no one was going under or being taken away by the circling sea lions. In the end I think everyone was accounted for and I know everyone had fun.

Friday was technically the end of the fight for Donny and Brooke. This was a good thing as we now have heard the children have organized a last ditch effort, bringing water balloons, paint, and shaving cream to class on Monday in celebration of Carnival / Galapagos week. When we visited the school the volunteers were covered in paint and soaked head to toe. The battle that is supposed to last for six weeks is still anyone’s fight.

Good luck, volunteers, you’ll need it.

An Outside Commentary: While this blog was written mostly in jest, the importance of this education should not be missed. Here in the Galapagos, possibly more than any other place in the world, it is critical that the youth understand the impact of their environmental footprint and learn to care for and preserve their islands as models for the rest of the world. We, with the GROW Initiative, have been fortunate enough to play a small part in making this a reality. Please see our GROW Initiative website for more information on this project.

We’re engaged!!!

So I was psyched, we were going on a snorkeling trip I had been looking forward to for a long time- a gift for our anniversary from Donny. When we got to the dive shop they started getting us our snorkel equipment- you know, mask, snorkel, fins and a wet suit, BCD and weights… Donny kept looking at me kind of funny, asking if there was anything strange about all this. I rationalized that it’s cold so you need a wetsuit, the BCD was like a life vest, need weights to be able to free dive a little… As he kept prompting me for the happy, excited response he had been looking forward to, he finally had to come out and say, rather slowly and very enunciated to make sure I still couldn’t be confused, “Brooke, we are going diving.” Donny really outdid himself. Generally (and sadly) diving is usually out of our budget and I would have never signed us up for a trip, but that’s what presents are for I guess, things you would never get for yourself and I was thrilled! We were going diving, and in the Galapagos of all places! He got his happy, surprised look on my face and I couldn’t wipe the smile away for so long my cheeks hurt by the time it came to put the regulator in my mouth.

But the real climax came when we were underwater, about 60 feet down, sharks swimming to both sides of us. The whole group had just stopped to look up at the school of spotted eagle rays and sharks passing overhead, then as they continued on we hung back and Donny called me over to check out something. Turns out that something was a beautiful little clam shell with some gold ribbon coming out of it. Now apparently something along the lines of my gently opening the shell that was so carefully selected was supposed to be what happened. But when I saw the shell and ribbon I got an inkling as to what was going on and in my excitement ripped the shell in half looking to see what was inside (I’ve been waiting 3 years, I was a little anxious!) I saw the ring- a dolphin with a stone, which is just perfect though Donny calls it more of a symbolic ring- not like there’s a whole heap of jewelry store selections when you’re shopping on a small island. According to his story it came free with a purchase of a fish from a guy on the street. But it is beautiful and in true over exaggerated divemaster style he signed what I’ve been waiting to hear, but it’s hard to talk underwater so though I didn’t hear the words the point was certainly gotten across and I’m pretty sure he understood my enthusiastic YESSSSS!!! The rest of the dive I tried to pay attention to the cool sharks and turtles and such we were diving with so as to not miss out on the amazing experience of diving in the Galapagos, but mostly we just were looking at each other and smiling despite having our regulators in, hence letting in some waters and choking a bit…

When we finally rose to the surface he put it all into words and asked again. This was good because I really wanted to make sure there wasn’t any confusion and maybe we just found a dropped ring that happened to fall in a clams mouth with a ribbon and Donny wasn’t asking me to marry him, but just pointing a cool turtle or telling me he was running out of air or something. Once again my answer was an overwhelming YES! Back aboard the boat everyone helped us celebrate with the champagne Donny had bought for the occasion (guess he felt pretty sure of a yes answer).

Definitely the best scuba diving experience of my life. The sharks, turtles, swarms of fish of all shapes colors and sizes, and everything else there was to see were all fantastic, but all I was really looking at was the love of my life.

Galapagos Islands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well we’ve been here nearly a month now, guess it’s about time to sit down and write a blog about the most beautiful and amazing place on earth!!! Well, there’s steep competition for sure, but the Galapagos are so wonderful, it’s no wonder their other name is the Enchanted Islands. Everything I’ve ever dreamed about the Galapagos is true. Wildlife abounds and it becomes commonplace to be hanging out with sea lions and sea turtles, with countless sea birds like frigates and pelicans soaring above your head. It’s a nature lover’s dream.

This is certainly a place where the pictures say it way better than we ever could- being just feet away from the wildlife or sometimes even closer (too close). Like the time we were snorkeling in one of the crystal clear little bays here and a baby sea lion came up to us, turned on its back and started blowing bubbles as it circled around us. This was the cutest thing we had ever seen until 500lb daddy sea lion decided to join in the fun. Unfortunately he was not as cute as his little baby and his idea of fun was swimming at lighting bolt speed directly toward Donny’s face only to pull up inches away and then start circling around for another run. Luckily we were underwater so no need to run home for a change of boxers but we still made it out of the water pretty quickly. I guess even in the ocean there are lines in sand you don’t want to cross. The list of the wildlife we have seen goes on and on and each encounter seems even more amazing than the last. We’ve taken about a thousand (no exaggeration) photos to remember it all by with every turtle, iguana, penguin, ect, having the slightest different stance or expression (“but it's the cutest thing ever!”) making it impossible to delete the photo.

The Galapagos are certainly a place you never forget and we feel so fortunate to have been able to see the islands in all their glory. Of the 13 main islands, we have seen 3- San Cristobal, Santa Cruz and Isabela. They are all beautiful and completely unique and I only wish we could have seen more. Sadly cruises around to the other islands are quite out of the backpacker budget making us settle for an absolutely amazing, fantastic, incredible, stupendous time on the islands we were able to see! Most of this time has been on San Cristobal, the capital of the Galapagos. Here we have been able to really get to know many of great people (and sea lions, as they outnumber the people) that call the Galapagos their home. Through the GROW Initiative we have also been able to volunteer, teaching at a school for over a week which is truly the way to realize how special a place a place can be. So as we said before check out the pictures and see for yourself. The Galapagos is truly an amazing place!

View more Galapagos Pictures

Fishing, a steep (and expensive) learning curve

I think the grand total was a loss of one fishing rod, one fishing rod holder, 5 big squidy lures, a few hooks, some weights, a bucket (that was actually lost in trying to clean up post-catch)… Hence the expensive part of the learning curve, but luckily we finally came out on the top of that curve and now are fishing masters using nothing but a snub line (thank you to Gilles who helped us make one that was functional, and The Cruisers’ Guide to Fishing). One of the things in that learning curve is that apparently 20lb line is not so good for ocean fishing, that’ll snap in a heartbeat. Once we jumped up to 200lb line, then we were talking! Think we could have drug a blue whale behind us with that stuff and still been alright.

The loss of the rod and holder (lures, weights and hooks attached of course) was one of the more comically tragic of the losses- setting off from Panama City, less than an hour under our belts with the sun in our hair we hopefully put the line into the water. Our hopes were actually not so high considering our amazing lack of luck the entire time aboard Cinnabar, but still we had fingers crossed. Amazingly enough, within 5 minutes we had a huge mahi mahi! Sounds exciting, right? Well, the mahi mahi actually being attached to our boat lasted about .5 seconds as the strain tore the whole rigging right off. Mahi mahi jumping in the sunlight in all its glory, trailing a fishing rod behind. Not off to a good start, it was the fishing rod’s inaugural try.

By the end with our handline we hauled in a 60lb mahi mahi, the grand triumph and the event that probably marked the end of my fishing career, figure I can’t do much better than that. A week later and many people having been fed by that fish, we’re actually finishing off that fish tonight for another scrumptious dinner Onno is preparing, so I better get off the computer before they go and eat it all.

Land ho!

We are in the wonderful Galapagos Islands, and kissing the ground (some, aka Donny, kissing it more reverently than others!). The crossing did go well though, the basic stats being: 1015 nautical miles, 8 full days, 1 crossing of the equator, 2 fish caught, 5 fishing lures, one new rod, and mounted rod holder lost, 2 battons lost, one dinner lost, top speed 11 knots, min speed I think we were moving backwards...

And now, a tale of 2 voyages, or really one voyage with 2 very different perspectives.

Brooke

Setting sail it was a beautiful sunny day, really everyday was wonderfully sunny unless there were a few clouds to give some extra respite from the heat of the noonday sun. Luckily right away we got “Wendy” our wind vane to work and the “look Ma, no hands” steering went perfectly. This meant long nights of star gazing and looking into the phosphorescent waters contemplating the meaning of life instead of having to steer the whole time, very relaxing! Or daytime activities of reading, writing, or catching fish! Got one tuna and one huge mahi mahi! This of course led to some of the most delicious meals, especially those cooked by Onno who is an amazing chef and a magnanimous host that was always out to make us feel as comfortable and happy as possible. There were beautiful sunsets and sunrises, and in between I got to work on my tan. Though there was a lot of rocking and cooking was not always the easiest, I got to work on my balance and cooking under pressure when it was my turn to prepare some of our fresh catch of the day!

And pulling into San Cristobal we had a dolphin escort for some of the time, the island basked in the late
afternoon sun, there were tons of birds on the water and we even saw a shark. Dropping anchor we immediately had friendly people coming to our boat to help with checking in and that night after a drink of celebration we fell asleep to the gentle rocking of being at anchor.

Donny
Setting off from Las Perlas Islas it was a beautiful day with “relatively” calm seas. After a scary few hours of thinking Wendy, our wind vane auto pilot was not going to work, we finally got her dialed in. Now time to fish! (See our future blog on Fishing) Deciding not to go with the traditional technique of hooking a fish on the end of a line and then reeling it in, and went with the less known ancient method of throwing all of our expensive new gear (mostly rated for small pond fish) at the small Volkswagen size fish in hopes that they would feel bad for us and jump aboard our boat to return the gear. We are still working out a few kinks in the method.

At around the same time of our fishing experiments the winds really started to pick up creating the first small bump in the road for myself. This “bump” came in the form of 20 foot swells** that towered over our small vessel on a “road” that stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction of shades of blue and white mountain tops continually crashing and crumbling upon themselves before building back up to become the next tall peak. This is also when Wendy, our autopilot, smartly decided that the waves were too big for her and she would sit this one out, leaving us to make all the minor steering adjustments for ourselves. It usually went like this: “Damn, we’re 20° too far to port, turn to starboard. Damn! we’re 40° too far to Starboard! Go back! Go back! Wait not that way! Holy *&$^%! Go right, I mean port, I mean starboard! Did we just go in a full circle?” It was while I was calmly making these small adjustments during my shift at 2:30 AM that the waves finally got to me and my tuna (that we finally did catch) made its last attempt to escape from my stomach and return to the sea. It was successful (many times). While I was sad to see the wonderfully tasting fish leave, I was even sadder to see it was accompanied by my Dramamine. Although I am not a big proponent of taking any kind of drugs, the Comer family was brought up popping motion sickness tablets like Skittles. Whether it was to help with balancing an inner ear condition or for putting two overly energized children quickly asleep for long car trips, is still under debate. However, even in those days it was clearly understood that all motion sickness medicine is useless if it is not taken at least a half an hour before the symptoms appear. As there was no break in the waves for the next seven days the three packs of Dramamine that I had bought were now worthless, the seasickness was upon me.

So for these next 161 hours 43 minutes, and 21 seconds, I spent 95% of my time lying on my back. Even the briefest of movement required 10 minutes of planning, deep breaths, the actual movement, then 10 more minutes of deep breathing. If the activity I wanted to do was down below (I came to know this area as the “Machine”), it was even worse. Here I would bounce front to back and side to side; stubbed toe – 20 points, banged knee – 40 points, head on the shelf – Jackpot…Jackpot! It was even more exciting when we were playing multiball (more than one person below), as the point system increased. Although meals Onno or Brooke prepared looked good, they could not compare to my diet of crackers which was about all I could keep down. But I guess that’s fair since setting foot in the galley of the Machine for cooking or cleaning was not something I was prepared to do anyway- don’t cook, don’t eat.

While up on deck was 100 times better, it had its own game. With the constant movement (the sun would not freakin’ stay still) and not much cover, the object was to see how small you could get your body to take advantage of the two feet of shade that was available. Sometimes I would come out a winner, while other times a bright red calf or shoulder would show the proof of my loss.

In the end the Galapagos was a beautiful site for many reasons and the feel of solid ground beneath my feet was a more than fantastic sensation. My thoughts of joining the navy or hopping aboard a pirate ship have diminished a little, although with each day distancing me from the memory of those awful feelings I begin to remember only the good parts of the journey and think to myself….I could probably do this again.

**All for there measurements therefore noted were taken with specially calibrated instruments designed for and of use only by the author and may or may not coincide with findings or not findings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association as their data is obviously too small. Also may contain yellow food coloring #9.