October

Whew!  After several weeks full of studying, exams, and presentations, midterm has finally passed!  In the last few weeks the emphasis has definitely been STUDY abroad, but now I can go back to study ABROAD because we have a whole week off from classes and I am spending it in the Galapagos Islands!  I will take lots of pictures and share them with you all when I get back, but until then, here are two stories about life in Quito.

1. Bombolí

Last weekend I smelled two types of decay.  The first was when we stopped on the side of the highway on the way to Bombolí.  The trash bags thrown carelessly over the guardrail and onto the mountain slope had split open and their contents were festering.  The stench was disgusting; it was vile and burned my nose even through the folds of my scarf.  We looked beyond the trash and studied the rolling landscape; ridges that should have been covered with lush green cloud forest were brown, burned with forest fires caused by careless people.  The soil layer here, about an hour outside of Quito, is so thin that the forest almost grows right out of the rock, and fire damage can take up to 1000 years to repair.

This mountain is hurting.

The second decay I smelled was sweet, moist, spicy and full.  We walked through the wooded trails of Bombolí, crunching leaves and squelching in mud, and I couldn’t get enough of it; that smell of trees, dirt, and rain – the smell of life!  It took me back to a childhood full of running barefoot through the backyard and walking through the woods with my dad.

Dandelions :)

Bombolí is a large swath of land owned by an Ecuadorian couple, Oswaldo and Mariana.  Thirty years ago they built their house, which is not connected to electricity, and have lived there ever since, dedicating their lives to conserving their piece of paradise.  The difference between Bombolí and the land that surrounds it is striking.  As we walked, Oswaldo stopped to show us all sorts of things, from the quality of the soil, to a 600-year-old fern, to a tiny orchid flower.  “People need to go out and be in nature more,” he said, “we nourish life and life nourishes us, and the only way to combat nature’s destruction is through education.” 

Bombolí

On the bus ride home we learned that the government wants to build a tunnel through Bombolí because the current road has had problems with landslides (caused by erosion due to lack of vegetation), and Oswaldo and Mariana may have to sell their land, because they are getting too old to maintain it.

2. Rain

The rainy season (“winter”) has started here in Quito, which means that most days are overcast and cooler (65°F rather than 75°F) and it rains almost every day between 3 and 5 pm.  One day a few weeks ago, Alyssa and I were walking to her house from the bus when it was raining very, very hard.  As we were trying to cross the main street (with 3 lanes on either side), we got stuck on the median.  We didn’t think of anything of it, this usually happens when we try to cross that street.  However, this time when the cars started rushing past, they deluged us with waist high waves of water.  We both jumped and screamed, and then tried to use an umbrella as a shield while laughing uncontrollably, much to the amusement of the people safe on the sidewalk.  The shield was ineffective; we were soaked within seconds.