A few adventure updates

(There are some corresponding pics on facebook if you want to check them out :) )          

  Dia de Campo- Last Saturday was the big celebration of Amauta (the school we go to here) in the campo.  All of our group and our families got together to have a huge game fiesta basically…which for those of you who know me well is really a dream come true.  Funny side note…again about Ecuadorian time…the day supposedly started at 10:00, but the first family arrived at 11:00 I think, my family at 11:30 maybe, and it wasn’t until 12:00 that everyone arrived.  We balanced limes on spoons and ran, danced musical chairs, jumped roped, Sam and I kicked some ass in a three legged, my brother and I danced with tomatoes,  my mom and I raced in hay stacks…and lots more.

            Manu Chao/Calle 13 concert: Last week a few of us went to the concert Manu Choa and Calle 13, two pretty popular and very different bands.  Manu Choa is currently working with indigenous groups against the the plan to drill Yasuni for oil that I talked about earlier.  Calle Tres is kind of a rebellious underground hip hop band. It was a ton of fun, and people from all over Ecuador and South America came.  The streets were full of hippies from the coast, brownies, rebels, etc…very different from your typical Cuenca.  We also ran into a friend that works at our school, and she and her friends happened to bring 5 bottles of zhumir, and I happened to have a Spanish exam the next day, which turned out to be a deadly but enjoyable combination.

            Soccer Game: Last night a bunch of us went to another soccer game…and Cuenca won again!!! (apparently…not that any of us had any idea after the game itself).  I found out after the game when a guy with three tape recorders came and what I thought of the victory…I froze up of course and I think I told him I was from Minnesota… (as Katy was behind the interviewer trying to tell me what he had actually asked…)  We then somehow managed to get a bunch of signatures from the Cuencan soccer hotties….

            Agua Rongo: The other day we went to a really neat mountain forest an hour or so from Cuenca, which is named after the plant Agua Rongo, an epiphyte that is pretty sweet….it gets huge and becomes a microhabitat for little lizards, bugs, spiders, etc., it stores water for the ecosystem during the dry season, and people make tequila out of it.  Agua Rongo is small, but it one of the best protected and least changed forests in Ecuador.  What’s really neat is that it’s not government or state protected…its surrounded by 5 communities who all work together to protect it, and they have done an excellent job.  It remains a pertinent water source for the country. 

            Flooding:  There has been some serious flooding all over Ecuador, including in Cuenca…on the Coast people were literally boating through the streets.  Crops everywhere are dying, and staple produce items have doubled in size.  Apparently, in Cuenca, in two hours, it rained more than it did all last year…wow.  When I got off the bus, the driver wished me “Buena Suerte” , as I jumped into a calf deep pool of water.  When I walked home from the bus stop, I literally crossed a rushing river in the street to my house.  A mile or so away from my house, a few people drowned in their house. 

            So we were going to have class and go to a museum but… then we ended up saving (well mostly our professor and his friends) a sea turtle. The sea turtle was taken from his home on the Ecuadorian coast and brought to a market in Cuenca to be sold.  Sea turtles are desired as a delicacy food, for their beautiful shells, and for their blood which is thought to have a number of special powers.  A number of sea turtle species, including the one we found, are now extinct.  Illegal trafficking is a huge problem all through out Ecuador and South America.  Many animals that arrive at Amaru (the zoo we volunteer at and have class at), have been rescued from the black market, and now have to live outside of their natural habitat because they no longer can survive in the wild.   Most of them aren’t so lucky, and many species are endangered because of illegal trafficking.  Luckily, this turtle is now on its way back to the coast to be released.