A few pictures from Perú

Enjoy!

Manna Project International-Ecuador: 2008-2009

As you may have already heard, I am currently traveling around Peru (and find myself at the moment in the magnificent mountain city of Huaraz). Though I am thoroughly enjoying my travels here in Peru, I am a little to sad to have left Ecuador, my projects, and the people with whom I am working. I am comforted by the fact, however, that we have an incredibly talented and gifted group of new Program Directors to take over responsibility for the MPI-Ecuador site and look forward to the great things they will do in the coming year.

One of the most important activities that the MPI-E ´07-´08 team has accomplished in recent months has been a clearer definition of our approach to community development. We have come to realize that there are two principles approaches to community development. The first of which is based on the needs of the community. In this model a group of people, generally outsiders, be they government institutions, academics, or a non-profit like ourselves, enters a community and tries to help people. Upon arrival in said community these groups will look for needs (i.e. what is missing or where there are problems) and try to figure out what is the best way to fill these needs or fix these problems. Then, upon a clear understanding of where all the problems all, they will launch programs to fix the needs and thus help the people.

This has been the predominant model for community development around the world and sounds very clean and efficient, except for one minor problem. You enter a community with the basic assumption that it is a problem and needs to be fixed.

This model has forgotten about the most important aspect to community development: the community comprised of skillful and competent individuals, organizations, and institutions.

This brings us to our second model. One that first assumes that every community already has the strengths, assets, and ability to build and develop itself. Upon entering said community, the work begins by identifying these strengths and assets (and this is not merely limited to already established institutions, but rather also includes informal groups and individuals). Once an exhaustive map of the community has been created then our three axes of community development come into play:

· Empower individuals through programs that develop their capacities to advance economically and educationally, and to become leaders in their communities.

· Strengthen institutions by working alongside them to introduce best practices, connect them to national and international resources, and expand their services.

· Build networks by creating stronger links among community members, connecting people to local institutions, and promoting inter-institutional collaboration.

You will notice that you do not see activities here based on problems (i.e. no access to potable water or illiteracy); however, what you do see is a grass-roots based approach to community development in which our priniciple role as Manna Project International is one of a connector and a catalyst of sustainable and community-driven development. We know (trust me, you see all the data we have entered over the last months) that within the community there already exists countless strengths and assets. The goal now is to mobilize these strengths.

In many ways, we have already begun. One of the biggest industries for women in the neighborhoods where we work is that of sewing, tailoring, and embroidering. New Program Director Jocelyn Lancaster is currently working with three local women to organize an 8 week long workshop on these topics for other local women. What is great about this activity is that it does require MPI volunteers to have this skill, but rather the experts come straight from the community (and earn a little extra money in the process). At the same time other women in the community are able to gain a skill which not only is of interest to them, but also makes them more marketable when searching for employment.

A second activity that current PD Luke Lockwood has been working on is organizing a series of mingas in the various neighborhoods we work. A minga is an Andean tradition in which the whole community (men, women, and children) come out together for the purpose of completing some sort of neighborhood improvement or restoration project. We have found in our research that nearly every family has not only participated in mingas in the past, but would also be willing to do so in the future. By organizing these events, we see this as a great opportunity to work together with the individuals in the community as they build and strengthen their own neighborhood.

Finally, another finding that has come out of our research has been that a large number of the people have an entrepreneurial interest, but lack the start-up capital to bring their dreams to fruition. Exiting Program Director Zak Schwarzman with the help of new PD´s Eliah McCalla and Dunc Fulton have set about trying to connect these people not only with micro-loans from our local savings and loan partner Cooperativa de Ahorra y Crédito - Esperanza y Progreso del Valle, but also with money management and small business management training taught by Ecuadorian businesspeople and Ecuadorian scholars. Again this benefits both the individuals as they receive the necessary start-up capital as well as technical training to improve their chances of running a successful business, but it is also beneficial to the savings and loan cooperative because in addition to increasing their clientele they also are able to provide loans with a greater chance for repayment. In a related note, Zak has also connected the cooperative with the Red Financiera Rural (RFR), an Ecuadorian network of micro-lending institutions that provides both access to low-interest loans as well technical training for the handling and administration of micro-loans.

As always, I thank you so much for your support as we continue to work alongside Ecuadorians in San Francisco and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Ecuadorian Politics in Action

In addition to running programs in the community with Ecuadorians, all Manna Project Program Directors are expected to take on other organizational tasks. Several of these tasks include (I should know, I just wrote the job descriptions for all of them) the Donations and Resource Manager, Short-Term Volunteer Coordinator, House Manager, Social Chair, and Chief Financial Officer, among others. My organizational job this year didn´t have as fancy of a name but was equally difficult and time consuming: Visa Guy. (To clarify, if I had been female my position would have been Visa Gal. We don´t discrimate...). In many other countries this would have a very basic position with 2 probable tasks: 1) Merely send someone to the ministry with a few bucks and to ask for a visa extension, or 2) Send someone out of the country for a couple days to return with a new visa. Though these may not seem to be the most convenient options, at least with those options you know what to expect....

What is especially difficult about obtaining a visa in Ecuador is the fact that laws change every few months (we won´t even go into the fact that currently Ecuador does not have a legislative body and therefore no new laws should be enactable). This in itself would make things complicated for anybody; furthermore, it makes things complicated for all the different ministries that work in the visa business. What this means is that every single government official that you ask always seems to give you a different answer. Despite all this, however, I managed to jump through all the hoops and actually keep everybody in the country legal until the end of July (I´ve even got Zak and Annie legal until December, Luke until May ´09, and Mark and Seth legal until July ´09).

By this point I was feeling pretty proud of myself, until my whole visa world (and as the MPIE Visa Guy it´s a big world) came crashing down on top of me. After having told all the new PD´s to enter the country as tourists and then apply for the visas within Ecuador (which we had found to be an easier process than applying from the US) the laws changed yet again requiring anyone entering the country as a tourist after the 7th of July (our PD´s entered the 11th) to only be allowed 90 days at which point they must return to their home country (aka the US in our case) and apply for a visa from there. (Oh, and by the way the 3-month visa that I was going to apply for to finish out my last 6 weeks in Ecuador no longer exists).

Since I had just written all those operational job descriptions I talked about earlier, the new Program Directors were here, and my visa world was crushing me, Mark decided to dole out next year´s operational jobs, and took the Visa Guy job off of my hands. Mark, brilliantly, went straight to the Minister of Foreign Relations to plead our case. Thankfully, she heard him out and, on the condition that we would never again apply for a visa within Ecuador (or until the laws change again in a few months....), agreed to grant visas for our 5 new PD´s when they apply in September. Now we don´t have their visas yet and things could most definitely go awry, but at least we have the Minister´s word that they will review our applications.

He was not, however, been successful in obtaining a visa for me. This left me two options: 1) Stay in the country as an illegal immigrant and pay a hefty fine, or 2) flee the country. I chose option 2 and it is for that reason that I write to you from Máncora, Perú (and without photos). I will be roaming around Perú for the next month or so until I go back to Quito on the last days of my tourist pass only to immediately turn around and fly back to the US completing my 13-month commitment to Manna Project International - Ecuador.

Furthest point on the planet from the Earth's center

Volcán Chimborazoyep!

Visitors, Volunteers, and….Waterfalls

The last several months have seen a great influx on North American visitors and volunteers to the Manna Project International – Ecuador site here in Valle de Los Chillos. In addition to the four spring break groups discussed in earlier entries we also hosted two summer groups of about ten college students and recent graduates that were both here for a full four weeks. In between spring break and summer, however, I was lucky enough to receive a visit from a former colleague of mine at Garinger High School: social worker Carol Rodd. Along with Carol also came gang prevention expert Fran Cook. When Carol first contacted me about a potential visit I merely assumed that they would be coming to tour Ecuador and our programming, but I could not have been more wrong. While did catch many of the tourist sites, including Otavalo and Cotopaxi among others, they proved to be an invaluable help in our programs as well as a continuing catalyst for our own organizational growth. Not only has Carol since continued to regularly support by sitting as a member of our MPI-Ecuador Advisory Board, but Carol and Fran both continuously asked us difficult questions about our mission and our strategy – in other words, what are we doing here and why are we doing it?

We had been feeling pretty good about ourselves and our work at this point, and it was quite a humbling experience to not be able to give a clear and concise answer to these seemingly simple questions. After their departure we continued to have many discussions about these vital questions and several PD’s have engaged themselves fully in defining just what exactly is 1) our mission, 2) our vision, and 3) our approach to carrying these out. Though I have not been directly involved in these discussions, I have been quite impress with their and know that when they finish in the coming weeks we will have a solid plan of action as well as a clear description to provide supporters and other interested parties about just what it is that we are trying to do here in Ecuador.

On a lighter note, my parents and my sister came to visit and they took me to the most astounding place on Earth: The Galápagos Islands. What is so incredible about the Galápagos is the never ending sequence of once-in-a-lifetime sights and experiences. I apologize for not being able to describe the awe-inspiring majesty of such a place in words and will defer to photographs (set 1, set 2, set 3).

Another set of visitors were the two groups of summer volunteers that were here from mid-May to mid-July. I have to apologize because I had a large amount of great pictures of them until, on the last night of second session, I accidentally deleted every picture off of my camera and lost them all…So sad L. Despite the fact that I do not have visual proof, the summer volunteers were a wonderful help. Among other activities they 1) taught intensive English classes in two separate neighborhoods here in Conocoto, 2) provided a new light and excitement to our art program, 3) supported our research efforts by conducting surveys and entering data, 4) organized an impromptu summer camp with activities ranging from dance to sports to English to cooking, and 5) volunteered in local medical centers.

You may be getting the impression by now of how busy we have been hosting other volunteers and visitors, especially after two straight months of having ten more people hanging around the house, but the fun did not stop there as the same day the summer volunteers left a whole new batch of Program Directors arrived! The PD’s are a really great, and diverse, group and am really excited to see the work they will accomplish in the coming year. Click here to see read a little about each of them. Currently the “newbies” are living in Quito attending language school and undergoing an intense orientation program into Ecuadorian history, teaching and learning, what service and development looks like with MPI-Ecuador, and Ecuadorian current events and culture. This orientation is being facilitated not only by MPIE PD’s, but also by board member and founder Luke Putnam and several Ecuadorian professionals and academics.

One of the very first things that I wanted to do when I came to Ecuador was a ride a bike from Baños towards the Amazonía along the famous “Ruta de las Cascadas” (Route of the waterfalls). Those of you who know me fairly well know that I am kind of a big fan of waterfalls and was thrilled to hear that the “newbies” were making their way towards Baños this past weekend and were also interested in the bike ride. We spent the day on Saturday riding some 20 kilometers past four major waterfalls and countless mini waterfalls. The Río Pastaza at this point is at the bottom of a close to 1000 meter deep gorge and as the rivers and streams reach the gorge they shoot out into amazing waterfalls. One such waterfall, known as El Pailón del Diablo (The Devil’s Cauldron) results from the Río Verde (no slouch in its own right) being forced from a width of 75 meters to a mere 3 meters as it crashes into the Río Pastaza 50 meters below. As you may have already figured out, it is considered a cauldron not so much because of the shape and more because of the sheer force with which the water crashes and plunges.

Click here for pictures of Carol’s visit; Luke, Laura, and I climbing Volcán Imbabura (15,100 feet); the summer volunteers’ last night in Ecuador; the new PD’s; and waterfalls.

Finally, if interested in making a material or monetary donation, please click here. Thank you so much for your support throughout the year!

Connecting Community Assets

Here at Manna Project International – Ecuador we have now entered our busiest time of the year. This may not be the best aspect of the Manna model, but it remains a fact that the first several months for MPI Program Directors (year-long volunteers) is dedicated primarily to merely getting one’s feet wet. This includes orienting oneself to the culture and language, leading pre-established programs, and developing relationships within the targeted community. These are all vital tasks to the future work of each Program Director (PD) and Manna Project in general; however, they are not necessarily difficult or stressful tasks.

After the New Year, though, everything really begins to change. Not only are PD’s expected to maintain and continue all the work they have already been doing, but they are all individually asked to take on significantly more tasks. Some of these tasks are driven by the organizational model (i.e. planning and hosting four nine-day long spring break trips as well as two month long summer sessions), whereas others come from the individual drive and interest of the Program Director. It is really inspiring to me to see how other MPI-Ecuador PD’s have taken the initiative to create vital, though not necessarily easy or without stress, programming that will benefit MPI-Ecuador and the people we serve as well as Manna Project as a whole for years to come. I would like to give just a taste of some of these initiatives.

• Zak and Mark are developing a consortium of young, campus-based, international service organizations that (1) externally will be a one-stop shop for young Americans interested in international service and (2) internally will provide for opportunities of information and best-practice sharing so all organizations can improve and grow.
• Seth has been coordinating with Ecuadorian universities to develop a service-learning component where local education and psychology students serve and teach in our programming.
• Abbie has been in conversation with Aliñambi, a clinic at a local school, and Health E Clinic, a US-based medical philanthropy organization, to help Aliñambi expand its services to the community as a whole.
• Zak has registered a local savings and loan cooperative with a network of micro-finance operations that provides training and support in organizing, giving, and ensuring repayment of micro-loans.
• I, with the help of Mark and Abbie and the students and faculty at Aliñambi, have been conducting a socio-cultural diagnostic assessment of the households in our community based on Asset-Based Community Development and the Social Capital Assessment Tool. The primary purpose of this research is to discover everything that is good and strong about the communities where we work. We hope to then take this information and connect interested people and organizations so that Ecuadorian community members may serve and work with each other. Our goal is to become the place that people come to not only when they desire a certain service or to learn a specific skill, but also when they are looking to volunteer, serve, or teach in their own community.

These are just a few of the independent projects born out of the passions and interests of the individual Program Directors, and I would like to highlight one theme that unites this diverse group of projects: They all come from the perspective that our best role as young, energetic, and inexperienced college graduates is one of connector. Though we all have unlimited ambition and desire to do everything we can for these communities and the people with whom we work, we recognize our limited capacity to really help everyone in everyway possible. It is for this reason that we elect to identify what individuals and organizations believe will serve them best and to then connect them with experts in said area. Additionally, as highlighted by the work of Seth and Zak, we hope to make this connection with Ecuadorian individuals and organizations whenever possible.

It is for this reason that I believe that our research with Aliñambi to be so vital to the growth and future of Manna Project International – Ecuador. One major section of this survey asks individuals to respond to six pages of abilities and capacities to identify everything they can do well. This section is then followed by four short, but extremely important, questions which asks individuals to identify (1) which abilities they are very good at, (2) which ones they could be paid to do, (3) which ones they would like to learn, and (4) which ones they would like to teach to others. We believe the answers to these questions can really improve the economic situation of the community. We hope to diffuse this information to the community so that if they need some sort of work done, rather than calling a carpenter or mechanic or repairman from a larger city farther away, they may be able to call on a neighbor who is also looking for work. Additionally, we are very interested in providing for technical courses: Already we have identified that many women are interested in knitting and other forms of tailoring, coupled with the fact that several women are experts in these areas and would be willing to teach a course on these topics. On the one hand this helps the teachers because they earn money from the students who register for this course, and on the other hand the students benefit because they learn a skill that will help them find employment. And, the key, Ecuadorian community members are teaching Ecuadorian community members.

As I mentioned earlier, we are collaborating with Aliñambi on this project. After we provided a 25-hour survey training course to the eleven student volunteer surveyors, they have already conducted over 130 surveys in just over a week. Many of these surveyors are in their last year of primary school and are currently considering the prospect of going on to secondary school. In Ecuador, secondary school is a privilege not awarded to all. As a means of incentive for these students to collaborate with us, we have offered to help them pay for their secondary school tuition and/or school supplies or uniform. It is exciting to see that several students who were not considering secondary school are now talking about looking at available schools in order to register themselves.

As with any research project, this one costs money. We worked with Aliñambi to come up with a proposal (if you would like to see it send me and email and I will be happy to forward it along) that currently sits at $4500. Aliñambi has offered to provide supplies and funds to cover $1000 of the cost. Another US partner, Health E Clinic, has offered another $1000 bringing MPI-Ecuador’s expected contribution down to only $2500. We are using the money from Aliñambi, Health E Clinic, and some of our reserves for the initial stages of this research, but we are need of more funds if we hope to do everything we have planned over the next several months. If you believe this project to be important and are interested in providing support we would greatly appreciate it. This will probably be my major project over my remaining months here in Ecuador and I am really excited about the prospect of conducting this type of research and then taking the data to encourage and support the community members to take the initiative to grow together.

Spring Break – Part II: UNC and Duke

In addition to being one of the two leaders of the first Iowa Medical School group, I was lucky enough to also lead a mixed group for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. At first glance mixing students from these two rival universities may sound like sacrilege, but this group, composed entirely of freshmen, did not understand our shock at such a combination as many of them have a special service scholarship where they are required (giving the opportunity?) to take classes at both schools and together. The only thing I can imagine that even comes close to this Duke and UNC partnership would be that ESPN commercial from a few years ago with a guy, in a Michigan shirt, and a girl, in an Ohio State shirt, making out. I remember being completely grossed out by such a horrific display of humanity, until the caption comes that says “Without sports…this wouldn’t be disgusting”.

Seriously though, once I got over my initial confusion as to the formation of this group, I cannot say enough about the preparation and quality of work that they put into their projects. More than any other group, they stayed in constant contact with us from as far back as November as we organized their activities here. These students proposed two major projects, both of which were carried out more successfully than I could have ever imagined. Their first project was a health education campaign among our students in our principal after-school program. They planned three courses in the areas of exercise and physical fitness, nutrition and hygiene, and sanitation and parasites.

What impressed me the most, however, was not their understanding of these topics, but rather the manner in which they presented them to our 30 some kids between the ages of 4 and 11. Teaching is not an easy task, especially when trying to present to such a group as diverse as ours; nevertheless, they managed to create activities which not only engaged and entertained all kids at all times, but also were highly educational. Not only did they highlight the most important and useful aspects in each of these three areas, but the kids actually learned what they were taught. This learning was clearly evident at the end of the week: As an incentive to encourage kids to attend these presentations we offered a party for all kids who came to each of the three class sessions. Although this was a party with cake and games, the games served as a review of all the content presented throughout the week. The kids not only seemed to enjoy the games, but they also demonstrated a clear understanding of the content as they made their way through the various “party” games.

Their second project, and what will be most important for our long-term work here in Ecuador, was a “Community Profile” within the frameworks of Social Capital and Asset-Based Community Development. These are two complementary frameworks that really attempt to reevaluate the entire process of community development worldwide. Traditionally community development has been based on the idea of identifying what a community needs and then initiating programs and activities that respond to these. Throughout history the data has shown that such a model is completely ineffective. In order to effectively develop communities a paradigm shift is required; simply searching for problems and then reacting to said problems will do nothing more than provide a quick-fix those problems, not to mention you are left in state of only realizing what is wrong with a community. These approaches ask you, rather than to look at what does not work, to look at what does work. They ask you to start from what the community already has, rather than what it lacks. The real drivers of community development are not good-intentioned outsiders (often times with money), but rather committed people, organizations, and institutions from the actual community. These approaches, I have to admit, are relatively new and poorly understand by many and may or may not be effective; nevertheless, focusing on the needs and problems and then throwing dollars at these problem has proven ineffective and something else must be tried.

We are currently in the process of mapping the assets and strengths of the communities where we work, specifically by completing an Individual Capacities Inventory. We recognize that seven gringos cannot effectively develop a community, but a community with individuals mobilized to work for themselves and their neighbors in a way they want to while at the same time doing what they themselves say they are good at is the only way we see that communities can build themselves.

As you can see from my run-on sentences, this is something that we are passionate about. The MPI-Ecuador team had talked several times about the imperativeness of this paradigm shift, but had never really done anything about it until we were provided the impetus by this group of freshmen from the Triangle in North Carolina. We may now have added a substantial amount of work to our activities here in Ecuador, but we really believe that we have finally started down the road that will allow for the people in the communities where we work to use their strengths to build their (not our) community.

Finally, here is a link to more pictures from their week here.

Safe Arrival

DUKE and UNC are here!

We are eating dinner, it was a long day of travel, but everyone seems really excited to be here!

Spring Break – Part I: Iowa

One of the classic aspects of the Manna Project International model is the fact that we host university spring break groups. Our first group came for nine days in February from the University of Iowa Medical School. I have to say that I was thoroughly impressed with behavior and work ethic of this group, not to mention the extreme joy and humor they brought to the Manna house. I have to admit that I was slightly worried how a group of students from Iowa would be able to handle life in Ecuador, but Abbie and I (the MPI group leaders for this trip) never ceased to impressed by these students.

As these are all medical students, their principal project involved volunteering in local hospitals. We focused our efforts at three major urban hospitals in Quito: Hospital Tierra Nueva, Hospital Eugenio Espejo, and the Isidro Ayora Maternity Hosital. The first of these hospitals is actually private, but they are famous throughout the region for their quality of service as well as their affordability. Insurance through this hospital is a mere $3.00 a month, with which patients receive medical attention considerably superior to that which is provided in the public hospitals at comparable prices. Though this is a small hospital, they do their best to provide as many services as possible to local Quiteños. I get the impression that are students all thoroughly enjoyed their experiences at this hospital, being provided the opportunity to observe and assist in the Emergency Room, Surgery, Pediatrics, Psychology, Physical Therapy, Radiology, Dentistry, Obstetrics, and General Hospitalization.

The other two hospitals are large public hospitals that serve thousands of patients a day. Espejo is a specialist hospital located in one of the tallest buildings in Quito with just about every possible speciality available in Ecuador at an extremely low-cost. The Maternity Hopsital is also public and, due to its clientele, is a very exciting place to care for mothers and babies. Because so many of these mothers cannot afford quality pre-natal medical attention for themselves and their children, many babies are not born fully healthy and immediately have to go into intensive care. Although several of our medical students are not planning on going into maternity care and obstetrics, I think they really appreciated the experience of understanding just what it takes to bring life into this world.

With each trip we provide a weekend excursion that serves two primary purposes: (1) relaxation and diversion after a strenuous week of work and (2) a chance to reflect upon and evaluate the experiences gained and knowledge learned during the week. Iowa chose to take their excursion to Volcán Cotopaxi, a majestic glacier-capped volcano towering above Quito at 5897 meters (19,460 feet). What most of the group chose to do was drive up to 4500 meters and bike downhill some 28 kilometers through Cotopaxi National Park. I have to say that this was a great bike road surrounding by the amazing scenery of Volcán Cotopaxi, Volcán Rumiñahui, and the Limpiopungo Valley filled with Andean grassland and wild horses and llamas.

Fortunately for me, two students chose to not only ride bikes down the mountain, but also attempt to summit the mountain. Because we are so close to the equator, this climb must be done during the night; therefore we woke up at 11:45pm the previous night to complete this climb. We were on the trail by 12:45am and continued the climb, complete with gaiters, boots, ropes, and ice axes, for the next five hours. With about 25 people leaving the refuge together between 12:45 and 1:00, I was the first person (of only nine) to reach the summit just at sunrise at 6:00am. I will not deny that this is one of the most difficult things I have ever done, but I would not have been able to accomplish it without my guide. He did an incredible job of setting a very, very slow pace, but a pace which required minimal breaks. Although I have never walked on such a steep slope for such a long time, I never felt excessively tired or too sick to stop moving and I attribute this to the pace that my guide set for me. I will always remember what it felt like to reach the top: the view, of course, is breathtaking, but more than anything, you just feel like you are on top of the world. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but after completing a climb like this, one really feels like he or she can do anything.

I have included several pictures from the week here, but the entire album (along with pictures from the Carnaval parade) can be found by clicking here. Oh, by the way, did I mention that I did this on my birthday. Yes, I had a great birthday topped off by a night of dancing with my MPI Program Director friends and new-found friends from Iowa. I actually made it to the point of being awake for all 1440 minutes of my birthday (midnight to midnight)!

GO DORES!

This does not really have anything to do with our work, but last week we finally managed to get internet at our house. I was so excited that I went back to check on the Vandy basketball and baseball teams, only to realize that I can get the game's Live Audio here in Ecuador! Anyways, last night Vanderbilt (#14 in the nation and 18-0 at home this year) hosted #1 Tennessee (first time in school history at #1). Highlights are included below (let's just say I'm happy with the result)!

VU Commodores Writeup/ESPN Postgame Highlights and Interview

ESPN Video Highlights

GO DORES!

The Year in Pictures

This is a really cute slideshow put together by some of our counterparts in Nicaragua. Enjoy!

Manna Project International "2007 in Pictures"

Wait for the awkward alpaca picture....

¡Carnaval!

This video shows one of the more than 50 groups participating in the Chillo Jijón (the large area encompassing many of the barrios where we work) Carnaval Parade:

Valparaíso, Chile

The coastal city of Valparaíso (Valpo) made for the perfect location for us to finish our trek across the Southern Cone. We arrived in Valpo before sunrise on the 31^st of December. After resting in the morning we spent the afternoon grocery shopping and preparing dinner for New Year’s Eve. The V Region sits on the Valparaíso Bay and is composed of the cities of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar (both about 300,000 inhabitants) and surrounding communities. This region is famous throughout South America for having one the world’s best fireworks shows; remember in the Southern Hemisphere that New Year’s falls right in the heart of summer. After preparing our food we climbed up the hill overlooking the city and bay and spent a beautiful summer night relaxing and enjoying our picnic in a park. As we looked down into the bay we could see many boats as well as what appeared to be floating docks a kilometer or two offshore. There were actually about twenty of these docks stretched out over a fourteen kilometer distance. As midnight approached we, along with everyone else in the park, prepared to open the champagne and begin the countdown. At the moment the clock struck midnight the entire city went dark amid the screams of children and the popping of champagne bottles. After a couple minutes of joyous hugging in the dark the sky exploded into a wash of colors. Every single one of those docks was a platform for fireworks. From our vantage point we enjoyed the bright and shiny fireworks display from as many as ten synchronized platforms at once. Never in my life have I seen such a brilliant horizontal fireworks display. We sat in awe of the exploding fireworks that not only spanned the entire bay but also went around and beyond the heads on either end of the bay. This amazing show continued until 12:30 at which point we walked down the mountain towards the waterfront and danced until eight in the morning on the historic shipping dock.

Other than the New Year’s fireworks, the biggest summer draw on the V Region is the beaches of Viña del Mar. Not only did we start our vacation on an Atlantic beach, but we also finished our vacation on a Pacific beach. I’m sure you can imagine what it is like to relax on the beach in the middle of the summer so I will not go into much detail here.

Valparaíso city’s most famous tourist attractions are its elevators. The Andes Mountains start only a couple hundred meters inland from the bay and so once Valpo started to grow into a port city the majority of the population began to live up in the hills surrounding the bay. For this reason there is a series of about fifteen elevators throughout the city bringing people from sea level to the residential neighborhoods twenty meters away. All elevators were built over one hundred years ago and frankly are not very exciting. The stations have fallen into disrepair, they are more expensive than taking a public car or bus up the hill, and it is actually faster to walk up the stairs underneath the elevator than to take the elevator. Nevertheless, taking an elevator really gives one the opportunity to explore the real neighborhoods of Valparaíso.

During one such exploration in a random uphill neighborhood a lady came running down the hill at me yelling things that I would rather not translate into English. I tried to ignore her and keep walking, but she eventually caught up to me and interrogated me as to why I was breaking into her house. I had done no such thing (I actually hadn’t even walked onto her block), and told her that I was just wandering around and taking pictures. At this point she got really confused and asked why I would be taking pictures. I told her I was on vacation and wanted some memories from Valpo. She told me she thought I was Chilean (and a thief), but became very happy that I was from the US. Apparently she and her husband lived on Long Island, New York for close to ten years in the 1990’s. We got to talking and she told me all about how she loves Americans and how during her time in the USA they were always so wonderful to her. She talked about her family and how she has a daughter that has sole United States citizenship. I thought this lady was very pleasant and really enjoyed meeting someone who can be openly critical of our government but still love our people.

After a while this conversation began to run on and I was ready to go. I was just about to tell her that I had to get going and find my friends when a man comes sprinting down the hill with a terrified look on his face. I thought this was somewhat odd until I saw another man also sprinting down the hill with a knife in his hand. I heard the first man bang on someone’s door around the corner, but apparently they did not open it as I heard him and the second man yelling and arguing and struggling below us. At this point the lady I had been talking to invited me to her house to meet her husband and daughter. I was a little wary about going to her house, but I figured that was a much better option than walking downhill into the knife fight.

At her house I met her husband, who was equally gracious and loving of Americans. Once he realized that I spoke Spanish we also talked for a long time about their lives in the US and about my work in Ecuador. They even made me a sandwich, and I really like to eat so that was pretty awesome. It is very refreshing to know that there are friendly people that just want to share in their happiness with others. After we conversed for a while I met their daughter. She is an adorable little eight year old girl with an interesting identity (that she does not even really comprehend). Although she does not speak English, she is an American citizen, having been born on Long Island to legal immigrant parents. These people showed me all their old New York State driver’s licenses and work ID cards to help ease my concern of going to a strange Chilean home. This girl lives in Chile with Chilean parents and speaks Spanish, but she is not a Chilean citizen; her parents actually had to earn a resident visa so they could bring their daughter home. The question, however, is if having an American daughter and absolutely loving the people of the United States, why would this family return to Chile? Everything changed for this family on September 11, 2001. Rather than living in happiness and security, all of sudden this family began to live in fear and confusion. Their baby daughter was only a year old (she does not even remember the attacks on the World Trade Center) and she was (and is) the most important thing in the world to them. With the increased national pride rampant throughout the country, they began to hear stories of American citizens being separated from immigrants (documented or undocumented). Despite the life they had made for themselves in New York, they were terrified that they would be deported and their daughter would be sent to a foster home in the US. Eventually they felt that the only way to keep their family together was to leave the country.

Despite the fear instilled in this family by our country that eventually caused them to leave their entire way of life to completely start over again in Chile, this family still loves the United States. The father is already talking about how once his daughter graduates from high school that he is going to send her into the US Air Force so that she may continue her education, gain job security, and learn about her country.

Mendoza, Argentina

More than any other city we visited on this journey, Mendoza has been engineered by man. On the face, the two most defining characteristics of Mendoza appear to be completely contrary to one another: (1) 60% of Argentina’s wine comes from here and (2) Mendoza is located in the middle of a desert. One does not realize this, however, upon walking around the city. Though only about 130,000 people (again a tenth the size of the last city we were in…), the city is inundated with parks, plazas, and tree-lined streets. I do not use the word inundated lightly either as this natural beauty would not exist without water. For thousands of years, humans in the region have diverted the waters of the streams and rivers coming down out of the Andes (strongest in the summer snow-melt season) into an elaborate system of irrigation channels that not only line every single city street in Mendoza, but also provide each and every vineyard the life-giving power of water.

Though nature fanatics would be struck by the stunning number of trees and parks that line this city, Mendoza is not a natural city. Though many modern humans would be saddened by the overgrowth of modernization and globalization, at a loss to the simpler, more traditional indigenous way of life, Mendoza has never been a simple traditional region. For thousands of years Mendoza has been engineered by man; historically by darker skinned immigrants from the North and Asia, and only recently by lighter skinned immigrants from Spain and Italy.

Our time in Mendoza was highlighted by two events: wine tasting and outdoor adventure. I will talk first about the later. We spent one morning rafting down the Mendoza River. Though we only spent about one a half hours on the river, we were in for quite a ride with a crazy guide. At one point some of our group tried to form a mutiny and put Seth, an experienced guide in Colorado, at the helm. Our revolt, however, was unsuccessful, though we did manage to survive unscathed despite the wild antics of our guide. Nevertheless, not every boat managed to make it down without incident. On the largest Class IV of the river, one boat absolutely missed (or hit?) the hole and flipped four times! All the other boats went into rescue mode and, since we were in the front, we took off screaming down the river in search of oars and people (fortunately we have experience with hard-paddling thanks to our days in El Chaco). The first item we came upon was a semi-shocked person. We pulled him into our boat and, I kid you not, he did not move or show any sign of awareness for a good ten minutes, which was slightly awkward since he was sitting on Seth who was trying to paddle. We did not have time to check on him because we continued hard downstream in search of oars. We managed to recover six of the seven paddles before relaxing and realizing that our new friend was actually alive.

That afternoon we climbed to the top of some cliffs and rappelled down. Fun!

Enough excitement for one town…The next day we decided to relax and take a bike ride through wine country. We rented some bicycles and spent the entire afternoon riding around from winery to winery. We visited mostly small, family owned vineyards that do not export. The employees at each vineyard were very gracious to us. They offered tours of the vineyards and wine-making facilities. They also offered detailed wine-tasting experiences and taught us how to examine the different aspects and qualities of wines. I really feel like I learned a lot about how wine is made and how doing different things in the production will result in a different kind of wine. The only drawback is that I feel very informed on wine in Spanish, but I am not quite sure how much of this I would be able to translate into English. Nevertheless, this was a very good day spent with very good friends.