Fly like an Eagle to the Sea, and the jungle, and the Mountains

It is common wisdom here and a source of bragging rights for all Ecuadorians that their country, a country most close in size to the U.S. state of Colorado, is one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet. Just to provide you with some trivial information, Wikianswers tells me, “Colorado is the 8th largest state with 103,729 square miles [and] Ecuador measures 98,985 square miles.” As you might imagine, at its size, Ecuador is not a very big industrial nation, which means that it relies on limited resources for national income. One of these resources is the export of fruits and roses, although the income generation and dependability (shelf life) of those products is sometimes iffy, another product, unfortunately, is oil, which is leading to the deforestation of the Amazon (a topic I address in another blog to come) and, finally, one of the most important national products of Ecuador is a service, tourism.

            If you ask any Ecuadorian what the most amazing thing about their country is, they’ll be very quick to tell you (or boast) that the tiny country of Ecuador has three incredible landscapes that very few countries possess: coastal, mountainous and jungle. The bragging rights provided by these three natural landscapes are the base for the entire tourism industry of Ecuador. The Ecuadorian government, past and present, has not been unwise in its exploiting of this natural resource. The former tourism campaign was decent, with its catchy slogan, “La vida en estado puro” (Life in its pure state), but Rafael Correa (current president of Ecuador) hit a grand slam with his investment in the new Ecuadorian Ministry of Tourism, “Ama la vida” (Love Life), simple, but great!

            So, why does any of this matter, am I working for the ministry of Ecuadorian tourism? I can assure you, as my bank account reflects, that I am not on the Correa Ama la vida payroll, but I would like to promote some tourism in this blog. It’s not my intention to solely promote Ecuador, but its triple threat landscape provides me with an argument that I think my readers will be unable to deny.

            It might not be convenient (or maybe it won’t meet your expectations) for you as the reader, but for me, the writer, it’s much more simple if I cut out a lot of the “anti-travel abroad” protests that I’ve heard over the years and narrow them down to the three most common: fear, egocentrism and money. One of the most typical things I hear from people in the U.S., when I talk to them about traveling abroad, is their proclamation of fear of the unknown. After that, I also get the very egocentric question, “Why leave the states when we have it all here?” Lastly, I usually get some sort of decree about the extreme state of poverty that the would-be-traveler is, supposedly, currently in. I know this seems formulaic; after all three arguments fit conveniently into three main points of the body of an essay, but let’s take a look at each one of these arguments individually.

            FEAR, this is most definitely one of the most powerful drivers behind a lot of our actions, isn’t it? When people in the states think of traveling abroad, they tend to get a very nervous and worry a lot about a little. “I can’t speak the language!”, “Rules, transportation, stores, bathrooms, etc. will be very different there!”, “What about converting money?”, “What if I get lost?”, “What about the out-of-control drug war?”, and “Aren’t things dangerous ‘over there’?”, are just a few of the worries I have heard. If you let fear rule your life, you may never do anything nor experience anything new. Most of these doubts or worries are completely irrational anyway. “Is it dangerous over there?”, it’s dangerous everywhere! The U.S. may be one of the most dangerous countries in the world, especially if you look at the murder and other crime rates, but that doesn’t seem to keep anyone from going to work or conducting their normal business. Those other things are just problems that you must learn to get over, they’re part of the experience. If you don’t speak the language, you do the best you can, if you get lost, you work to get found, and you figure all of these things out.

The next claim I want to address is the idea that the U.S. somehow has everything and, therefore, there is no need to travel to any other country. This claim is certainly untrue. I cite my early statement about Ecuador, the country just slightly smaller than Colorado, with its’ coastal, mountainous and tropical jungle regions. Is this also true for the U.S.? Coasts, check, mountains, check, and tropical jungle, no check. Where is the tropical rainforest in the states? The simple answer is, there isn’t one (unless you count Puerto Rico as part of the states). The 50 states have pretty incredible and diverse landscapes, but they don’t have everything. There is a rainforest, in Washington State, but the US is not in a tropical region, so there are simply things that we don’t have. Keep in mind, as well, that the US is HUGE, so it’s pretty incredible to think that Ecuador, a little tiny country has many things that the United States do not.

Anyone who has read Darwin knows about all of the incredible species he discovered on the Galapagos Islands. Ever get a look at the Galapagos tortoise in its’ natural habitat? Another interesting trivia fact, there are around 888 bird species in the United States, Ecuador has 1,515. You may be saying to yourself, “The number of bird species is VERY trivial,” and, “What do I care about birds?”, but I’m simply using that as an example of the differences. The diversity of natural wildlife in Ecuador is simply astounding and unlike anything else I’ve seen in the states.

The differences don’t only exist in the flora and fauna. If you’ve been following my blog regularly, you will have also noticed much dissimilarity between Spanish colonial constructions in South America and those British (the ones that are left) of North America. I’ve visited many countries in Latin America and one very incredible thing about their architecture is that a lot of colonial constructions are still very much intact. I should not only argue for travel to South America. Keep in mind that the modern Americas are very young, I have yet to travel to Europe or Asia, but, there, we’re talking about nations that are thousands of years old.

The worst excuse I’ve ever heard for not traveling is, “I don’t have the money.” If you wait until you do have the money, you might never have the chance to do anything until you’re at the point where your body is no longer able to enjoy it. Given, there are, most definitely, situations that take economic priority to travel, but I would suggest that some creature comforts can be sacrificed to increase your quality of life through a travel experience. Find a way, plane tickets are expensive, but other things are cheap. I can eat a complete meal here in Ecuador for $2.50 usd! I think that we sometimes have the mentality that our material purchases will improve our quality of life. People have this idea that they need to spend all of their money on a home, a car, a stereo system, a television, etc., which leaves them without a dime to spend on travel. People work so hard to pay for all of their material possessions that they’re trapped into a job where they are given two weeks off a year. Two weeks off a year is hardly enough time to go anywhere and, when you’ve already bought into the idea of a capitalist’s paradise, the only kind of trip you’ll allow yourself to have at that point is one straight from a brochure, all expenses paid. The expenses are definitely paid, at the highest price possible.

So, you might be wondering how the theme for this blog came about. At the end of February and the beginning of March, I found myself sitting on a beach*, under a tent, sipping on a 40oz beer that I had just purchased for a dollar and staring out at the Pacific Ocean waves roll in. I had a revealing thought at that moment, “Here I am, on the beach with little money in my bank account (but plenty of beer), happy as hell, and there are many people that will never do anything like this.” It made me sad, so I wanted to write an entry to try to convince my readers to travel abroad. Come down and visit me if you want! I hope I haven’t sounded condescending (that was not my intention); I simply want to encourage you to improve your quality of life a little without material goods. Leaving home means a challenge, a cultural exchange; quite literally, it’s an “experience of a lifetime”, and you shouldn’t wait any longer.

*I actually traveled from the Amazon (Yachana), to the sierra, Quito, to the Coastal city of Manta, back to Quito and, finally, back to Yachana in a period of less than ten days. I was able to visit three very diverse landscapes in less than ten days, that’s one of the reasons this country is so amazing. 

Man on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, or Maybe Not

The internet, connectivity, signal, Wi-Fi, web, online, etc., all of these words are things that have become very familiar to us in our “modern world”; and all of them are things that I have been without for several days now. It’s funny, but you really forget how much these “social networks”, more like “anti-social networks,” trap you in. My level of anxiety, from my state of “disconnectedness,” is nearing the summit of Mt. Despair, but, just before I get there, I’ve decided to take a step back and look at the plain irrationality of the whole thing.

            I think the most apparent thing that I should be recognizing is the fact that I LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON! I realize that it is quite a miracle of science that Internet, with a capital “I,” and the F-word (Facebook that is) have even found their way into the selva. Is Mark Zuckerberg aware that even underprivileged kids from the Ecuadorian orient, many of whom live in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t mean rural Indiana nowhere, have Facebook accounts? Would Mr. Zuckerberg be willing to donate some of his gazillions of dollars to my students if he did know this? Who can help me with this matter? Anyhow, my point, after that brief rambling session, is that kids here in the orient who have no computers in their homes, generally have regular access to internet while they’re here at school, thanks to Yachana. Unfortunately, the rule of the selva is that things tend to break with time out here.

            Our internet system is a bit of an intricate beast of technology, which I will not even presume to be able to explain with my little knowledge. Let’s face it, with things moving as fast as they are, a 2^nd grader can do things with a cell phone that are completely lost on me. At any rate, some way or another, an internet signal is aimed at a big satellite here at Yachana, which, in turn, is distributed by a series of other satellites and antennas. Believe it or not, the antenna at the high school spreads the signal it receives, from the lodge, which is about a mile away, all around the school grounds and gives us Wi-Fi (very slow Wi-Fi¸ but Wi-Fi nonetheless). A signal is also somehow sent down river (about 2-3 miles) to the Global Vision International Yachana reserve and distributed in a similar manner. As you might imagine, if something goes wrong with this system, it is a bit complicated to get it fixed. First and foremost, I have never passed a Best Buy while floating down the Napo River, and I don’t think that the Geek Squad makes house calls here. Can someone also look into that for me? As a result of a “down” in the system, we have now been without internet, within the entire Yachana community, almost since the beginning of the month.

            The first thing that this experience has taught (or rather revealed to me) is that, over the years, I have slowly and without knowing become very sick with a new disease known as, “Facebookus Addictulitis.” What is the cure for this disease? Well, scientist (mostly those born in the fifties and sixties) all over the world are hastily and desperately searching for a cure, but they have been, thus far, unsuccessful. I however, Christopher Mackenzie Baumunk, MA grad of Spanish Literature, believe I have come up with a remedy (or at least a temporary treatment). All you have to do is volunteer to teach at Yachana Foundation, in the interior of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and wait for something to go wrong with the internet. Alternatively, for a speedier cure, you could also bypass the wait and volunteer at a place in the selva that simply has no internet. Might I suggest a very unique experience with an indigenous Amazon tribe, perhaps the amazing Shuar people, or the Huarani?

            Well, I have decided to respond to the plea of the band Third Eye Blind, “Wish you would step back from that ledge my friend…,” and not end it all quite just yet*. Ultimately, I think my internet-less experience is going to be a quite good one for me, even if I can’t see that at this point. I do think that my friends and family, you, the reader that follows this blog, will begin to feel just as disconnected from me as I do from them. That is certainly one of the unfortunate effects of this circumstance, but all I can do is apologize for my long absence from blogging and emailing. Even as I write this (in Word), I am uncertain when I will be “reconnected”. There is a very good possibility that I might not actually be posting this until the end of the month, when I’m in Q    uito on break. I have also previously written two other blog entries, which I have been unable to publish, but plan on doing so whenever the “access” returns.

            While I am writing this, I am laughing to myself slightly because of the vocabulary I have been employing. My mind reverts to It’s a Wonderful Life, also to the 60s, 70s, 80s and, even, some of the 90s, when words like blogs, blogging, emailing, Wi-Fi, etc. would have been completely unknown gibberish. I don’t have to go into this subject to much, because I know it’s one that is over-exposed as it is, but it’s interesting, isn’t it? Just think, we have even had to reinvent words, take words that used to have another meaning and give them a new one. A net is still used for fishing or playing sports, but it is also the Net and a mouse was a problem that required the use of traps with cheese, poison pellets or the purchase of a cat, but is now also what I’m holding in my hand, manipulating the cursor. From my point of view, that of a child born in the 80s who grew up in the nineties, this transformation and movement of technology is incredible. I remember the first modems that made that horrible sound, which I affectionately called “The Dying Cat,” the term “56k”, which meant it took one hour to download a song on Napster, the little AOL Running Man, “You’ve got mail!”, and the old Floppy Disks that were literally floppy! Now we have about a million words to identify our storage devices that are smaller than my pink finger, pen drive, thumb drive, memory, flash, and the list goes on.     

            Now that I find myself out here in the selva, without my precious connection, I realize how much a big part of our lives technology has come to be. I’ve almost always known technology like this because I grew up as it was growing up. It might be the craziness talking, but I think I am starting to like being without it! As many of you know, I have never liked texting and I am more than ecstatic to be free of that completely dehumanizing and, often times rude, practice. When I say it’s dehumanizing, I refer to the fact that it ties you to the machine and makes your response almost as instantaneous as the obnoxious beeping, buzzing or musical prompt it emits. I call texting rude, because it is often done right in front of you, while you are conversing with someone, having dinner with them or sharing a beer; the live, face-to-face, communication is abruptly cut off and priority is given to the machine and its’ prompt. I am curious as to how my family and friends are doing and I wouldn’t mind having news of the “outside world,” but I am glad to be free of the impulse to see if I have notifications or new emails.

            The lack of internet combined with terrible weather is also leading to some curious behavior issues. Thus far, this has been an interesting month; we are in the rainy season, which means, if it doesn’t rain a lot, it rains every day. I have been told that the rainy season lasts until June, so we can expect this weather almost every day for the next three months. I’m from Indiana, I’m no stranger to adverse weather conditions, but I must admit that I have felt a bit like a walled in cat during the past week. No internet, no electricity during the day (our inverter is down) and a lot of rain, make you look for new things to occupy your time in the jungle. I guess the Northern Russians must feel this way in the middle of winter, unfortunately we can’t resort to Vodka here. My students expressed their feelings of entrapment by trying to sneak off, without permission, to the community fair downriver, two days ago.

I feel strange because I am now the “responsible adult,” the “authority,” who is required to “lay down the law” and provide a punishment. I don’t much like being the authority figure, it makes me feel old and see myself as the mean parent (I don’t want kids, EVER), but, with the help of the other volunteers, all three of us looked like the bad guys and we decided on the punishment together. It’s funny, as I spoke with the kids I felt like I was repeating my mother’s words, “Son, you will never lose my respect or my love, but you have definitely lost my trust.” The kids, a group of five, as a consequence of their actions, no longer have permission to go to the community or anywhere else without our accompaniment and have also lost their next external internship, which means they will be interning at the lodge next month.  

            Well, I will wrap up this document (I call it a document because I have no clue when it will become a blog) here. Just as I finished that last sentence, the rain starting coming down even harder. The tin roof of the high school amplifies the impact of the drops and that depressing feeling starts to creep on in. I think I remember seeing a chess set around here somewhere. Does anyone remember Rocky IV, when Rocky’s trainer is playing chess with the Russian owner of the cabin that they’re training in in the middle of the Siberian dessert? That’s how I’m beginning to feel, minus the cold. I hope the kids know how to play chess. 

*My readers who are nineties kids will get my reference to the song “Jumper,” but, if you didn’t get it, take a look at Third Eye Blind’s, “Jumper,” on YouTube.