throwing up is not fun

a saturday afternoon, just got in from a weekend in Estancilla, a little community about an hour from Bahía. We left thursday pretty early, around 9 am and arrived around 2 where we met up with our host families. the ride there was horrible. i was crammed in the back of an suv, a third row pull-down seat out of the reach of air conditioning, but in full view of the sun which seemed to follow us the whole way there. i am also not sure what kind of shocks the thing had because the whole ride was an unpleasant aggitation, a queasy mess of an experience that was not helped by me having the onset of the flu. so i careened around the car, bopping my head on the roof of the suv a half dozen times, trying to squeeze into the one inch square through which i found the relief of ac.

we took a small tour of a school that had received funding from the humanitarian arm of the dole corporation, dale (a rough spanish translation would be {give him or her}), with the dale representative leading the way in her dale shirt and dale button. it is the dry season here and so the changes did not look as great as they potentially could be. everywhere we see construction it looks like it has just finished because the mounds of dirt and dust simply do not go away without rain. as was the case in the school. after our little tour of the school we headed over to check out the new polytecnic university nearby. wow. the place was an oasis in the middle of shrubland, a small school but obviously well-planned with esthetics a guiding principle. it was meant to look good, the few classrooms were nice but it was the accoutrements that were the real meat and potatoes. the auditorium was beautiful, seating about 150 in splendour, with a small but stately stage. a couple of cultivated gardens surrounded the area, with landscaped pools and rock gardens around them. that evening andy led a charla or talk on recycling to a group of ecoclubs from estancilla and naranjal. it was a spirited affair and pretty basic, but it is obvious that andy has crafted his presentation over all of his 20 ( !) years. we were given the opportunity to present a short talk as well but passed on the idea as the talk was already going long and i was feeling ill. i begged away from the festivities to my host family for dinner, a plate of rice, some soup, patacones with cheese... some other stuff i am sure but do not really remember (this keyboard does not do apostrophes and that is why i am not using them...). anyway, i did not manage to finish much before my stomach decided it had had enough. i slumped back to my room, complete with mosquito net, to see if i could survive the night.

so... around 2 am i woke up with horrible pains in my stomach. i made my way to the bathroom, and without getting into details, i lost my lunch. first time in like 5 years or something... afterward it felt like a fever broke and i started sweating profusely (earlier i had felt a little chilly, despite the hot tropical air). i slept a little better afterward and woke up to hear that we were taking a little bus trip.

the bus trip ended up being a promotional tour of a local engineering firm and their project to supply the province with irrigation canals. they were diverting a number of rivers to ensure that water reached the regions farmers. Carrizal Chone it was called, a project by odebrecht, hidalgo e hidalgo s.a. they had built a wonderful visitor centre and testing farm to showcase the potential positive impacts of the undertaking, and led us through a video, question and answer period and tour of the grounds. it really was impressive the size and extent of the project, and the effort to which the corporation was going to to win the support of the local population. the experimental farm was organic (although the land was non-virgen and had not been organic for at least three years...) and they had areas where they demonstrated how to create and use compost and organic pesticides. some of the fruits being grown included honey dew melons, fine grade cocoa, and export quality lemons. there was little mention of domestic oriented production, most of the plants under cultivation were meant for export.

after our trip we headed back to estancilla and decided to head to the river for a dip because our trip to bahía had fallen through. i was still reeling from the heat and stomach aches and decided not to go in the water, much to the chagrin of the kids who were plodding in fully clothed.

i tried to have a nap after that and woke up just in time to help jane lead a presentation to the groups on ecology. what a disaster. the kids showed up 15 minutes late and contined to come in well after we had begun. the talking was incessant and loud and brought the ire of the dale woman more than 7 times. we broke them into groups and gave them paper telling them to draw the perfect ecological world. it was a good experience for us because we had to speak spanish the entire time, and for me because i speak more spanish than jane so i was in command. that was kinda neat, going around to different groups and telling them what to do, answering questions and understanding what i was saying... for a bit i felt pretty damn good about myself. it was also the most comfortable i have felt in ecuador. weird cause of the circumstances but it felt good to actually be doing something productive. i also enjoyed making the kids feel comfortable, at home and that their voice was being heard. giving a crayon to a kid and telling them to draw whatever they feel is missing is great. one girls face lit up and she immediately began drawing birds, little arcs of blue in the sky.

after the presentation we went to this party one of the kids was putting on at his house, a few blocks away. the music was slow and undulating, not the quick footed salsas and cumbias that jane and i were expecting. and the kids, oh my god, 11 and 12 year olds sliding up to each other in mimicked sexual innuendo. it was somewhat awkward to see, but no one seemed to take notice and besides, everyone else was already dancing that way.

once again i slipped out early to catch some zzzs and hopefully give my tummy a rest.