So, it\u00b4s been long-time-no-post, but luckily absence makes the heart grow fonder (right?), so hopefully you will enjoy a quick update on my Ecuadorian life.<\/p>\n
Today marks my official first full day of the second chapter of my study abroad semester.\u00a0 Yesterday, I bid farewell to my Qutio homestay family and hopped on a bus north to a small pueblo named Cotacachi — the Ecuadorian land of leather goods, in case you were wondering — to start my Independent Study Project (ISP).\u00a0 My job for the next month is to live here\u00a0to research the water distribution and use within Cotacachi through many many interviews with many different people.\u00a0 (Added bonus:\u00a0 I\u00b4m living on an organic farm… it has a bicycle-powered laundry machine!)\u00a0 Here, there are a few issues with water, but the overarching problem is that there is a shortage — it\u00b4s expected that if things continue the way they are currently going, water will run out within the next 20 years.<\/p>\n
There are a few reasons\u00a0for\u00a0the unsustainable usage, but one of the big ones is the fact that within the last 5ish years there has been as massive amount of retired grinogs moving to Cotcacachi thanks to two very organized and savvy real estate agents who realized the great money-making opportunity:\u00a0 Cotacachi is a beautiful\u00a0location at a\u00a0bargain price, and who wouldn\u00b4t want to buy some Ecuadorian land for cheap, hire some Ecuadorians to do the labor for cheap, and then make some green off the profits?\u00a0\u00a0May sound ideal, but in reality things are not so pretty.\u00a0 The retirees (or extranjeros, we call them) are creating a separation in the pueblo due to the fact that they don\u00b4t speak the language or know anything about the culture.\u00a0 Those that own land can\u00b4t really do anything with it (let alone make a profit), and others are living in large apartment complexes that are not only completely against the local culture, but also using a ton of natural resources — especially water (this is where my project comes in).\u00a0 In the mean time, our friends the real estate agents are rollin\u00b4 in the dough.\u00a0 The anger of the locals is definitely present:\u00a0 yesterday, another student from my program Stephen and I stepped off the bus in Cotacachi to meet his host family for lunch, and what started as a casual meal ended up as our first informational interview regarding the subject\u00a0(Stephen\u00a0and I are studying\u00a0similar topics, but his project focuses more on the influx of extranjeros and less on natural resources).<\/p>\n
So, fellow friends and students, the moral of the story is:\u00a0 before your parents retire and move somewhere exciting and foreign, make sure they\u00b4ve done their research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, it\u00b4s been long-time-no-post, but luckily absence makes the heart grow fonder (right?), so hopefully you will enjoy a quick update on my Ecuadorian life. Today marks my official first full day of the second chapter of my study abroad … Continue reading