Quito mi amor...

the last two nights and one day we spent in Quito. The place has just turned into such a lovely city and it feels very cosmopolitan, not least because of all the tourists. But the restaurants are lovely and we ended up at this tapas bar tasting our way through lots of different wines, eating tapas and coincidentally meeting people from the camp. We had two nice nights out with some of the peace people and it was really good to see them in a non-prison style environment and actually just hang out together.

The centro historico is beautiful now - all the buildings have been restored, the streets are clean and it feels fairly save. They were preparing for a classical concert on Plaza de la Independencia which was going ahead on Thursday at 10am - unfortunately too late for me... que pena.

Nevertheless it was a lovely day spent strolling through the streets of Quito just relaxing before coming home and facing the real world... but that is worth a different blog!

Atacames

The last part of my stay in Ecuador I spent in Atacames, Esmeraldas. It was very very strange to come back to the place after that many years. I had told Sandra that we would arrive on Sunday at the break of dawn, which for her meant Monday early morning - accordingly she had a real shock to see me 24hours before she expected me. It was really nice to see her and I was very impressed with how she has changed the place. We stayed in the very same cabana I used to live in but it has now got a private bathroom and therefore was not really the place I remembered.

She has in the meantime been living in Montanita for two years and then came back to Atacames pennyless. The house and hostal had been rented out to some Spanish guy and the place was pretty much falling down, so she has had to rebuild the house and improve the hostal and she sure did a good job! Here's to all the strong women in this world!! It is impressive to see that she has the right mentality of running a place properly and that in that respect she has a properly European mentality - I mean, I am proud of her for pulling herself up after having lost everything and making a real effort to turn this place into a secret little paradise in the back alleys of Atacames. Just looking at the abundance of green right outside the window made me decide that I wanted to live in a more tropical place - I am amazed at how easily plants grow there.

I also met this guy Roosevelt who I used to know and it was really nice to see his surprised face - at the same time it is sad to see what has become of such an intelligent guy... I also hooked up with the owners of the shop on the seafront; they still recognised me and Esteban is actually a mediator and was very interested in the training. So I promptly lent him documentation for him to look through.
Atacames itself has changed lots and is a rather grimy and slightly intimidating place. I did not feel the same way I did when I lived there, but I guess that also has to do with the fact that I am now a different person. But still, it was great to eat lobster for £5 and drink massive cocktails for even less. The sea was really warm and nice and in the end I wished I had had more time to hang out there - at the same time all I ever wanted to get a glimpse of it and it's ok it stayed that way - there is not much to do there.

After 3 days there we set back off to Quito on the afternoon of the third day in order to avoid another night on the bus.

la parrillada

In that amazing villa which has a pool that is directly connected to the hot springs coming from the Ilalo mountain we had our closing party with some lovely hornado (grilled pork - those ones you see along the streets with peppers in their ears), mote, fried mashed potato, salad and ice cream. I spent a good two hours in the pool - which eventually made all my white clothes go orange - drinking cool beer and listening to music. The food was amazing and not served in prison style crockery - wow!

It was really nice and chilled and at the same time it was quite sad because I just looked at all these people that I have shared one amazing month of my life with and realised that I will probably never see them all together in one place again. And suddenly all the little things that have at times annoyed me about each of these people just dissolved into the air and this feeling of sadness overcame me. At the same time I was quite happy to leave and go to Atacames to meet my friend who I hadn't seen in 8 years.

The party ended at like 5pm and we just carried on at the camp, breaking the last rule we had not broken yet - drinking beer on the premises. It was great though and it felt like everyone was holding onto that straw and enjoying every last minute of being together.

the dream team ;-))

At around 10pm we finally set off to go to Quito and get the night bus to Atacames - oh no, not another night bus...

The last week...

The last week at the camp went by so quickly that I can hardly remember many details about it... we had two days of First Aid training which was really good and also quite a lot of fun. One simulation we did involved several people being very drunk (not really) and heavily injured by machetes and women screaming all over the place. In a different simulation I had to act an unconscious soldier that was knocked down by something similar to a tree - quite nice, I was just relaxing whilst people were taking my pulse and wrapping me in warm blankets.

On Thursday we had the last proper big simulation before the training more or less ended. I was part of the NP team accompanying three people from AJR who were in turn accompanying two locals to go and find a clandestine cemetery with genocide victims from the Guatemala conflict. We set off in the morning to walk to the place where the cemetery was believed to be - all in fila India, in case there would be any mines. We eventually got to a military check point where they separated us internationals from the Guatemaltecans and would not let us pass. So we had to go back and meet the general - who I'd had an interview with in a previous simulation. I am no good at talking to military people but thank god Phil was there and sorted out the situation. By that time all had changed however, and some of the military had massacred some villagers so we ended up spending the best part of 2 hours in the woods tending the heavily injured - who at regular intervals received phone calls and had to assume different personalities which were also part of the role play... ;-))

We did quite well I think, although the debriefings usually focus on what could have been done better - but it was all in all an exhausting but really good and really real simulation.

That night we left the camp after a debrief that seemed never ending and went for dinner at pizza hut - what a horrible place but that night it seemed like a restaurant worth 5 Gault Millaut points... how sad is that?

As usual we drank too much and went to bed too late and I woke up after about 3 hours sleep at some ridiculous hour of the morning with a hangover from hell. I was one of the first to hit the breakfast room and that actually sorted me out a bit. Then I just sat on the chair outside my room, lolling my head and staring holes in the air when my room mate Martha turned up in a similar state - I really enjoyed those 10 minutes just grinning at each other, unable to actually say anything that made sense.

Anyway, that was also the day of the final interview. My interview went well - I seemed to have met the expectations of the trainers; they did say that I needed to improve my communication with military people though ;-)) But that can be done - at least I have had two opportunities to practice when others have had none.

That same night the village was celebrating something and there were folkloric dances and other musical contributions, amongst which a young boy - el nino cantante - who should have better stayed at home and watched telly. He was so out of tune that most of the people seemed to disappear the minute he started "singing". But it was a really nice evening; we even knew some of the villagers by then: the kitchen ladies, the lady with the food stall, the owner of the only bar, the internet guys, etc. The whole place seemed like the perfect little village where people are still happy and carefree in the midst of a cruel world - this view was probably tainted by lack of sleep and general exhaustion of the mind.

That night was the last night in the bed at the camp which resembled a hammock more than it did a bed, but nevertheless had become my home and refuge. In the morning I had to pack my bags - which I absolutely DESPISE; but there were no two ways about it - it had to be done.

We also had a closing ceremony at which we all picked up a stone and put one thing into it that we wanted to leave behind in Ecuador and we all got a little finger puppet which should remind us of the good things we are taking away. It was a good way of closing this experience.

Finally we were all handed our certificate that we attended and passed the course along with the cd's and dvd's with all the files and fotos on it. And then we set off to Alvaro's auntie's villa who happened to be in that same village as well...

La Capilla del Hombre

Now this was an amazing thing to do! If you ever find yourself in Quito with a couple of hours to spare go and visit the Capilla del Hombre (Chapel of Man) near Canal 8 / Bellavista. It was designed by Osvaldo Guayasamin, one of Ecuadors most famous painters. The chapel was dedicated to man rather than god and it is really just an impressive museum on the top of one of the hillsides of Quito, looking out onto the city and the Pichincha. The paintings are beautiful and represent Latin America and its people. I was very very impressed with it all and had a really good time there, not least because there was a concert practice and two people were playing the piano for the entire time we spent in there.

Other than that I can't really say much more about the place - other than, go and see it!

El puente de San Miguel - Colombia

Hi All,

as most of you already know I have returned safely to Brighton and have had a bit of a crazy time since I last wrote. I am updating this blog anyway just for memory's sake and in case anyone is interested in what we actually did in those two weeks I was incomunicado.

The day after my last post we set off to Lago Agrio in the province of Sucumbios which is about half an hour from the Colombian border and accordingly receives quite a lot of Colombian refugees. The bus journey was one of the worst and best of my life at the same time. The road was bumpy, the music rubbish and the bus stunk of cow dung, but we had a good laugh with all the people. My Italian friends decided that it was time to sing some Italian songs and they did their best - but it was not really appreciated as everyone was trying to sleep. Anyway, it was an unforgettable moment and I have already wound them up about it more than they deserve ;-)

We arrived in Lago Agrio at 4am which is when I finally managed to get some sleep folded up like a blind passenger - accordingly sleep was not exactly invigorating. We then had breakfast and eventually went to a meeting with FORCOFES which should have started at 8 but did not actually start until 9 and so we ended up not having a great deal of time with these people. Still, it was interesting to present NP to these people - they are farmers fighting against the Coca fumigations of the Colombian government which affects their crops and health - and learn something about their struggle.
From there we went to ACNUR - which I thought was some local NGO dealing with refugees but it is actually the UNHCR; so much for feeling like I knew anything about the world... We were all actually falling asleep by then and were only managing to stay awake throughout the presentation because of the coco cookies that went round. It was really interesting to hear about the security measures ACNUR takes, as this was one of our main concerns.

From there we went on to the Ecuadorian Red Cross - must admit that I don't remember much of their presentation as the guy spoke really fast and blurry and my eyes were REALLY dropping by then. Still, I slipped in some of the "Oh, I used to work for the Red Cross - do you work with the Swiss Red Cross by any chance blah blah blah" - it made me feel more important though.

After the Red Cross we went on to the refugee alberge where people can stay for a few weeks until they find somewhere else to live. There was only one woman there with her children. This was a kind of weird situation, as we were all cornering her and asking questions about her escape from Colombia to the point where the poor lady started crying. I felt very bad and intrusive, even though I did not ask any questions. It was a very touching experience as I have never been confronted with people who have had to leave everything behind including some more children. At the same time it was an important experience as I have realised that there is so much work to be done in the area of conflict resolution and I really want to dedicate myself to this type of work.

After all these visits we could finally go and have some food and guess what? We went and had Pizza!!! it was actually quite horrible but at the same time when you're on an involuntary rice and potato diet anything that remotely tastes like pizza tastes like a slice of heaven. After that feast we even got some REAL coffee - I mean coffee made from beans, rather than some freeze-dried s**t that does not even have caffeine in it. It felt like so much luxury...

Towards the end of the afternoon our smelly bus - which by then had taken on the smell of tired and sweaty people and their stuff - took us to the puente de San Miguel which is actually the border to Colombia. We walked across the bridge and spent an amazing 10 minutes on Colombian territory. We never actually left the bridge but we took some pictures of the river and the bridge and it was actually quite a nice place. However, you can never quite forget the fact that this country is at war and that people are going through such a hard time there.

After another hour or so in the village by the bridge we set off back towards Quito in the "Rincon del Amor" (the bus) - with people dancing to the most hideous cumbia song the world has ever had to endure - "que calor que calor, ooo e ooo" - well, it does not sound funny now, but had you been there you would be laughing or at least smiling now.

Round about 1am we finally arrived back in the campamento... it was an interesting but extremely tiring trip.