2017 Bri’Andra

Week 1: May 22nd, 2017

The two smallest Ecuadorian minority groups are those within the Afro-Ecuadorian and the Indigenous communities, both groups making up 7% of Ecuador’s population respectively. The statistics may not be completely accurate, as the demographics are established based upon personal identification factors; however, these two groups are unquestionably minority groups. Because of my identity as a black woman, I tend to attend to the minority relations. Although I’ve previously interacted with Afro-Latinx individuals from several different backgrounds, I was still shocked to find that Afro-Ecuadorians bear a striking resemblance to African Americans, even so much that I and another black woman at my site was told that we could come from the Esmeraldas or Valle de Chota. Both areas are heavily populated with Ecuadorian African-descendants. Just as African-Americans experience prejudices in the U.S., it seems that Afro-Ecuadorians also experience discrimination as well. From many of the interactions I’ve had with Mestizo individuals, mixed-raced people with Indigenous and European backgrounds, I’ve heard Ecuadorian Afro-descendants being stereotyped as whores and thieves. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to have extensive interactions with any Afro-Ecuadorian people. My work with Yachay Wasi, the school at which I was placed, and some of the weekend trips planned by the Yanapuma Foundation would act as an amazing means to explore and become familiar with the indigenous cultures, but I’d also like to explore the Afro-Ecuadorian subculture as well.

Yachay Wasi, although not exactly what I expected it to be, is a school based after an amazing concept, and I am incredibly excited to spend the next five weeks serving that community. I am still enthralled by the school’s combination of contemporary education and indigenous teachings. Fernandito, one of the school’s leaders, discussed the disconnect of the new-age generations and the earth due to modern teachings and technology. Yachay Wasi’s teaching disciplines intercepts this disconnection. I feel that this method of teaching could be extremely beneficial to American children, as technology is beginning to take on increasingly significant parts of our children’s lives. Although knowledge about the earth is incorporated into our schools’ curriculums, incorporating actual interaction with the environment could provide an array of different lessons and perspectives.

Considering my service at Yachay Wasi from the perspective as a global citizen, I feel that more-so than leaving a personal imprint on their community, my purpose is to keep the vision of the school’s pioneers alive. This school is one of many following the joint modern and indigenous-based curriculum, but many of the other schools were closed due to lack of funding. Because Fernandito and his wife, Laurita, are fighting opposition for Yachay Wasi to remain open, supporting them in the form of volunteer service shows them that others also support their vision; and in this way, I feel useful. From an individualist perspective, however, I hope that I will be as useful at Yachay Wasi as my experience there will be for me.

Week 2: May 29th, 2017

I’ve been lucky enough to not have to make any personal adjustments, aside from waking up early and holding the majority of my conversations in Spanish, to become accustomed to what small part of Ecuadorian culture I’m currently experiencing. I say “small” because I don’t feel that I can fully claim to experience “Ecuadorian culture” after visiting a school for a couple of hours 4-5 days a week, visiting a few restaurants, and going on 2-day-long excursions on the weekends. As far as the culture at Yachay Wasi, I haven’t done as much “adjusting” as just simply enjoying myself and taking in whatever new information presents itself. Although the service experience hasn’t been completely what I expected it to be, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying my time there. I’ve been teaching piano lessons to the schoolchildren despite not having had any contact with a piano since stepping foot on Vandy’s campus; however, the kids really love their 15-minute-long lessons and each of the children that I’ve had the opportunity to teach has successfully learned the Major-C-scale and the names of all the keys (minus the sharps and the flats). I haven’t had time to find a music store with entry-level songs in it, but the kids seem to enjoy learning by ear, so I think I’ll continue to use the method I started with.

Last week, during the excursion in Tena, I injured my right pinky, and it became a bit infected. While at Yachay Wasi, Laurita showed me how to use a few of the flowers to clean my wound and bandaged my finger with a small bit from an aloe vera plant. I was worried that I’d have to go to a clinic to see if I’d developed a subungual abscess, but Laurita’s indigenous remedy worked wonders over the weekend. She also showed me a few other plants that could be used to treat cavities and ear infections. I’m looking forward to learning more about the different plants that we’re helping to cultivate and the different things that they can be used for.

Because I haven’t been there for long and don’t want to inadvertently place the ideologies that I’ve developed from having only attended American schools onto Yachay Wasi, I’m not exactly sure that I’m equipped to say what the school “needs.” I would say that it wouldn’t hurt if the kids had a few more balls to play with; the ball that they usually play soccer with is about the size of a large grapefruit and doesn’t have much air in it. Additionally, it seems that Laurita and Fernandito would like to incorporate more indigenous-based teachings into the school’s curriculum, as the gov’t requires a hefty amount of the curriculum to be centered around modern teachings. I feel that, conversely, the gov’t should require a certain amount of the curriculum to be centered around how to care for the earth because that is an issue that eventually must be addressed by our generation as well as the next ones.

Apart from my house family, the cohort, and Yachay Wasi students and staff, I haven’t really had the opportunity to connect with people in Ecuador. My house family and I have spent quite a bit of one-on-one time with one another because my roomie unfortunately came down with some type of pharyngitis after the trip to Tena, so I was able to get to know them a little bit better. I’m becoming surprisingly connected to the many individuals within the cohort, despite only seeing everyone who isn’t at my site on the weekends. I haven’t had a 1-on-1 with my site leader yet, so I see him about as infrequently as everyone else. However, I feel like the amount of time I spend alone is pretty essential to my experience here in Quito. Although I’ve experienced the cat-calling phenomenon since my pre-teen years, it’s a bit different here. Instead of the common “hey, beautiful” and whistling, I often hear “morena” and “morenita,” very clear plays on my brown skin. Men haven’t been as overt with their cat-calling in the U.S. as they’ve been here when it comes to my identification as a black woman, especially since that (overt) type of race-based hyper-sexualization has been frowned upon for the last couple of decades. But men haven’t been alone in that effort: in an attempt to complement my beauty, I was told that my skin was “pretty” not “black.” I’ve definitely received these kinds of back-handed compliments before, but I guess I just wasn’t expecting them. I realize that my black features will consistently dictate how I will be received throughout this trip; I just hope that they won’t interfere with my ability to positively receive others.