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Deborah Gray writes

...about her experience while volunteering in Ecuador.

Day 1: It's Not Just Reality That Bites!
My first experience of public transport in Quito was the Terminale Terreste. Even at six a.m., the place was packed by travellers all carrying their luggage covered in rice or potato sacks in order to protect it from the muck on the roof, or the dust in the boot of the bus, or from being stolen! Travellers take note! I had read so many horror stories about being robbed on the bus that I sat in a window seat hand-cuffed to my carry-on bag, and overlooking the trunk so that I could see what was being taken out! Not remotely necessary as everyone I met was so friendly and helpful although don't expect anyone to speak a word of English. Your Spanish needs to be up to it if you want more detail than simple grunts and points. I felt a bit lost, but I soon found myself being ushered onto my bus with some well meaning shoves onto my behind. Little did I know that there would also be a cabaret of sellers who hopped on and off the bus to sell their wares at every step of the way. Actually all very useful and I got a couple of packets of biscuits and bananas to see me through the six hour journey! Not quite sure how successful the tiger balm and watch sellers were though, I can't imagine you setting off on a journey only to go 'oh - I've clean run out of fake Rolexes - I'd better pick one up on the bus....'

Five hours through the arid and dry mountains of Quito later, and we began our descent into a more tropical climate. Suddenly the brown and heather -strewn backdrop (somewhat like Scotland or Snowdonia!) gave way to lush green vegetation and tumbling waterfalls - the rain began to pour and we started veering round these precipitous corners through the mountain passes for another couple of hours. Don't imagine for a second that buses are slow - they overtake with impunity, passing anything on the road, no matter where you are in terms of corners or oncoming traffic in virtually zero visibility due to rain or cloud. I wonder if the drivers get a commission if they arrive early. Clearly they don't have to get there in one piece or with all passengers and luggage intact!

Another bus change later and I was then well and truly in the jungle. Oppressive humidity and a deafening cacophony of insects! I arrived at the Amazon reserve and was taken to what would be my home for a month; a little basic wooden cabana with twin beds, a desk and a couple of shelves. Dark as hell with barely any natural light coming through the chicken wire windows (what the hell were they supposed to keep out?? I spent many a waking moment working out exactly how big spiders and snakes could be and still get in through the window!)

The cabanas nestle in a dense patch of rainforest, and a small network of paths link them with the bathroom and main dining room and offices. The Hilton it aint! Still I had a warm welcome from the other volunteers who showed me the ropes and explained how it all worked. Dinner was a mountain of rice and beans and homemade fruit juice, all concocted by the maternal Marina and her kitchen Chicas. These women were all larger than life with smiles that spread from ear to ear and once again not a word of English!

A couple of beers in the magical Tamborand bar, run by the Director's wife, and a good chat with the other volunteers revealed a range of interesting and different people from the US, UK, Germany, Scotland and Canada. I was approximately 15 years older than nearly all of them - but other than having to sit in the dark in order to disguise my wrinkles - it wasn't a problem. We were all there for the same reason - although mine was the only one connected with a mid-life crisis!

I thankfully slipped into my bed, tucked in the mozzy net extra carefully all around me and had a blissful long sleep - lulled into slumber by the singing of the cicadas.


Days 2-5: The Machete Queen
After a hearty carbohydrate-fuelled breakfast at some ludicrous hour (6.30am - for goodness's sake - this is supposed to be a holiday!?) I made my way to La Granja Organica (the organic garden) for my first day's work. I was set on the exciting task of digging holes, which proved to be my first taster of the tedious, laborious and exhausting work that would occupy me all day every day for the next month. It was backbreaking and I've never known such heat but it was also interesting as we learnt about needing to replant the banana plants in order to get rid of some voracious weevil type critters!

After four days of life in el Bosque - I have made the following observations.

• My wellies are my favourite item of clothing and I wear them all day and night, after checking for spiders. I wish North Face or Saloman would invent a properly structured walking shoe, but with a welly exterior as whilst wellies are practical and can be rinsed off easily - there is no support to your foot and you crave the comfort of a trainer. Anyone in R&D for walking boot manufacturers? You saw it here first!
• Food is carbohydrate and nothing else. Rather like Atkins in reverse - no protein. Ever. However I wolf down everything put in front of me and am always starving. If things really are too tasteless, amazing recipes are passed down by the other volunteers! Would you believe how tomato sauce can sex a dish up?! For dessert - mashed banana with sugar and drinking chocolate is a lovely way to satisfy a sweet craving!
• The bar is heaven sent so the cerveza (or three) at the end of a 7 hour day of hard labour is well worth it. Thus my plan of returning home wafer thin is not going to happen despite the exercise.
• Am actually enjoying cold showers (its just as well as there's no hot water) as it's the only time when you actually feel clean for about twenty seconds before mozzy repellent and humidity take their toll again.
• When not digging holes, I seem to be spending hours machete-ing acres of rain forest. Despite this wanton destruction - I am advised that this is all in the name of conservation and we are, in fact, making way to re-plant new trees and encourage new primary rain forest growth. I seem to have a particular talent with the machete - and am even more effective when I shout the names of various ex boyfriends and other irritating persons each time I take a swing!
• As well as the forest and various arable tasks - we also have twenty chickens and a pig, which we all have to take turns feeding, watering and cleaning out. I have found a way to manage the horrible task of feeding the pig. You scratch his head and sing for a while and then he calms down and sinks into a little trance. Then you run in as fast as you can, empty the food into his trough before he can charge you and then run out again! Our pig is a demonic swine and has been known to deliberately push volunteers off the platform into his mud bath (errr - not sure it's all mud, judging by the odour) but will apparently be serving his community and will be made into sausages next month! I just think he's lonely and needs more company.
• I am realising every day how little is important out here and silly things like shoes and shopping is meaningless. I've worn the same pair of trousers every day and don't even think about make up or rubbish! There are no mirrors and you really can't tell what you look like. That said, I did manage to precariously teeter on the loo seat the other day to peer into the hand-basin mirror (the only one in the station) and see if my bum looked big in my trousers! So my hidden shallows are still there! I think about my mobile phone (which is useless out here) and my IPAQ, IPOD, my laptop and all the other rubbish we fill our lives with at home. Utterly useless, meaningless and valueless here. It's great to be reminded that it's really only people that matter.
• The damage caused by the oil companies is phenomenal and nobody knows anything about it - we have a massive education job on our hands. However it is a very complex issue and one that requires considerable thought and partnership. A 'them and us' mentality will not work here, as conservation cannot function as a standalone interest. All stakeholders, the communities, the oil companies etc all have to inherently see the need to conserve and protect. That's the only way to achieve sustainable change and more work needs to be done to try and align objectives and understand all sides of the equation.
• Buses are great fun and if they are crowded, people will sit on your lap! They veer all over the place here to avoid pot holes and you often end up with people or chickens falling across you!
• There is no wildlife or big animals to fear. It's the ones you can't see that are the problem. However, my toxic waste 100% deet is proving very effective in melting the plastic on my watch so I am sure its scaring the critters!
• We start work at 7.30 everyday and work until 3.30 (with a lunch break). The late afternoon is free for relaxing, showering, playing football with the locals, making local beaded jewellery, hanging out on the river beach and then eating dinner.
• Getting up in the middle of the night for a pee in the forest is a very unusual experience! You first need to find your head torch (put this at the top of your essential items list, alongside 50 or 100% deet, wellies, and plastic ziplock sandwich bags!), then you check your flip flops for wildlife, you disappear out into the pitch black looking for somewhere private but safe, away from animals and stinging nettles! Inevitably this will be somewhere where the rain gets you so you look again for somewhere sheltered! Boys are used to this kind of activity but any girlies reading this - be prepared! The main station toilets are too far away for a 2am wee - so you really have to practice your technique! Does wonders for your thigh muscles though!
• The jungle insect noise at night is louder than rush hour traffic in London. The noise of the heavy rain is also incredibly soporific and I absolutely love falling asleep to it.
• We had the most amazing electrical storm the other night and turned all the lights and music off to hear it. Amazing light show - and I was worried that I was missing the fireworks at the marble hill picnic concert this year!
• I am safe, knackered, smelly and loving it.

Day 6: Un Compleanos Inolvidable Well - my birthday was quite unforgettable this year! The day started well despite the damp and my cards going all curly and soggy by breakfast time. Then, however, it went down hill. My first job of the day at 7.30 was shovelling sh*t - (meirda in Spanish). Chicken poo, pig poo, cow poo and goodness knows what else poo. Mucha Meirda everywhere. And I was standing up to my knees in it, shovelling. Nice. You can just imagine the heat of the jungle and this steaming pile to know quite how I was feeling at that moment! Then I got given my machete back again and Debbie, eco warrior princess set to work cutting a swathe through the forest.

Then after a hard day in the office, we all marched to the beach. You walk for 20 mins through the jungle, which is hot, steaming, and absolutely teeming with life everywhere you look, then suddenly you quite literally burst out onto the banks of the river onto this incredible beach. Quite unexpected, totally deserted and absolutely perfect. Here it is dry, hot and sunny, and your clothes dry out properly, you can see the sun and really relax. The river, el Rio Napo is the life-force of the jungle and courses through pulsing life and water to every part. Amazing Amazonia! We had a lovely long swim and relax and then I saw my first tarantula! Got up close and personal and took some photos and I'm very glad I got used to it as I then discovered I have one living in my cabin! They are big, hairy and scary looking but actually I am not scared. It's amazing what you get used to here! I've named mine Humphrey in order to try and be less scared. However, since I found him, I am tucking my mozzy net around me a little more tightly at bed-time!

So my birthday work day ended well. I then invited all the crowd to our fantastic little bar, which is a thatched hut on stilts, filled with Ecuadorian artifacts. I bought everyone a drink and the volunteers gave me a piece of cake decorated with fresh flowers and a homemade card. The locals made me necklaces and bracelets made of fibre and seeds and nuts - they look fantastic!

Sadly though - my birthday ended badly as I had a bit of an emergency! In the middle of a slightly inebriated game, just as we were about to leave, I decided to show off and picked up a bottle of beer with my mouth and my two front crowns shattered! So - having started my day in the meirda - I seemed to finish it in it as well! The station director took me to a wonderful dentist here in Tena (a one horse town!) and he replaced them! I got my smile back in a couple of hours! They're not brilliant (I think a donkey was their previous owner) but at least I am no longer scaring small children - so I am a happy bunny!

What a birthday!


Days 7-12: Debbie, Queen Of The Jungle
Have had another few glorious days. Friday was another day of hard manual labour. This time shovelling spadefuls of gravel from the river to re-make the paths because they get washed away in the rain. Well - they haven't got a B&Q here so we have to improvise! Despite being quite backbreaking it was nice to have your feet in the river cooling off.

On Saturday morning we go into el ´Bosque´, which is the rain forest with a guide and we trekked for hours. Up and down steep hills, then along river courses, wading up to our knees. Our guide pointed out the millions of plants with medicinal properties. There are some strange leaves that apparently are good for obesity - but you have to hit the fat person several times a day with them! I've never heard of beating yourself thin but I'm game to try anything! Then there were the little leaves with seedpods teeming with tiny teeny ants. We ate them!!! Yes - I ate live ants and they tasted like little droplets of lemon sherbert. I did feel a bit mean recreationally ´using´ them but I saw it as an appropriate revenge for all the buggers that have been eating me alive this week! We also chewed on leaves that tasted of aniseed, onions and antiseptic, some that numbed your tongue and some that made your mouth tingle! We also picked fresh custard apples from the trees and munched on those as we hiked around. We stopped for a break on the shingle banks of a river and our guide then bashed up various coloured rocks on the blade of his machete and added water to them to make coloured paste. He then daubed it all over us and we looked mighty scary as we continued our trek! Then of course came the lunch served out of a banana leaf. We call this Bosque porcelain as we don't need plates or serving dishes, we just pick a nice shaped leaf and serve the rice and beans straight onto it. One of my favourite parts of the day when we're hiking!

Then - as we set off home - the rain came. Boy can it rain. Even through 50 metres of canopy you get absolutely completely soaked. Your wellies fill up and you squelch your way through the trees to get home. All the fallen leaves and trees are rotting almost as soon as they land and you are forever catching your feet in roots and suchlike. Amazing (I think!!). Once home, you have a cold shower and then wait the customary 5 days for everything to dry!

My Spanish is improving all the time and it really is so much better now after just 10 days here. Indeed, Pedro made me give the presentation on our organic garden on Thursday to two new volunteers in Spanish! Amazingly they appeared to understand it and I got all the messages across although no doubt my conjugation was rubbish and vocab slow. However I am enjoying the challenge of learning. It's nice to know that when I get home I shall be able explain in Spanish the principles of organic gardening, sh*t management and plant conservation, but still not be able to order a plate of food!


Days 13-15: Jungle Bling
Greetings from the Amazon reserve internet cafe!! Yes we are finally on line at the station!! Hoorah - no more 2 hour round bus trips! However, I don't expect to be able to get on very often as there are 30 volunteers here who are all clamouring for access!

Every Sunday we work on making local arts and crafts (known locally as Artesania). We make loads of jewellery with nuts and seeds we find in the forest, all bound together on threads pulled, dried and spun from a local plant and then tied into squillions of tiny knots. It's surprisingly easy and looks great. I know have two necklaces on and two bracelets (my silver got removed ages ago as the deet was rotting it!!). So I am now resplendent in ´jungle bling´!

The last few days have been much the same in terms of hard labour and work - one particularly satisfying project was cutting down palm leaves to re-thatch a roof of a small shed. Looks great and is very easy so I will be a dab hand if I get stuck on a desert island. We also collected a lot of germinating seeds from the primary rain forest to help the local indigenous communities re-plant and re-forest some of their land. Very complicated dynamics with the locals as to a certain extent they resent the intrusion of conservationists. It really does seem that conservation and environmentalism is a luxury of those who have the choice - it's not something those living a subsistence existence really care about. However, after 30 years of effort, the reserve is now beginning to see an impact and the younger people in the communities are beginning to understand how limited the forest resources are.

I am now in charge of the bar when the owner is away. I am really enjoying this and it reminds me of when I used to work in my old local village pub in Bath. Only more sweat and bigger bugs!

The youngsters have now come to see me as a wise and knowledgeable woman and keep asking ´what's it like when...?´and ´does this ever change...?´. I think they just want to know what it's like when you're old!

Things I miss:

• Massage. Oh for someone with strong thumbs - my muscles are absolutely buggered and my back has seized up!
• Nice smells. I realised today that I have forgotten what nice smells are like as I haven't smelt anything that doesn't stink of damp, or mud, or sweat or insect repellent or mould for 3 weeks!
• Wind! There is never any breeze here, it never blows through the cabins and never cools anything. I am so looking forward to the crisp mountain air of the volcano.
• You!!

Days 16 - 20: "Close Encounters Of The Hairy Kind…"
Had the luxury of a whole day off on Thursday and used it to relax on the beach all afternoon. Fantastic! I've just realised how valuable personal time is, as we don't ever get it here. Very therapeutic! Felt very relaxed and now feel a lot more normal.

We then had a close encounter with the biggest tarantula I've seen since I've got here. We picked him from the forest floor (so he was completely wild, not a tame or de-fanged one) and let him crawl up our arms. It was incredible! He was huge (larger than a man's hand) but very light with just slightly sticky feet!! I enjoyed it and wasn't scared one bit. Apparently he was quite happy as long as he wasn't encroached and could keep walking. They just see us as another surface to crawl over! Can't believe it. If someone had said three weeks ago that I'd be letting the biggest, blackest, hairiest spider crawl up my bare arm - I would have laughed! Blimey the jungle does funny things to you!

Then Fanny, our splendid kitchen maid, brought out a bucket filled with huge enormous maggoty worm things. I can't believe I actually picked one up, as it was quite revolting. It was about the breadth of two fingers, yellow, and covered in an outer layer of loose skin. It was also very wiggly and warm! I thought they were for the organic garden and were going to be used to eat the compost but she told me they were a delicacy for the staff. Apparently you pinch off the head and pop them into a hot pan! Given that I have managed to eat ants and whatnot thus far, then I feel as though I should also try one of these - in best bush tucker tradition! Apparently though we have to wait to Sunday, so we'll have to wait and see! Something in me is hoping that they'll all be gone before I get to them!

We have an observation tower in the jungle here, which is 30m high. This reaches the top of the tree canopy at around 20m and then soars a further 10m above. It is made entirely of steel and is no more than 50cm in diameter. It is pretty much like 3 very skinny ladders stacked up against each other in a triangle. I climbed this morning and once we got above the trees it really started to sway. Quite unnerving but we were wearing harnesses so it was Ok. The top is no bigger than the size of an average round dining room table and you perch on this to take in the view. Fantastic. Can't believe I only have 5 days to go before returning to Quito and then spending my last 4 days in Ecuador in the mountains. Oh where does the time go. Better start thinking about Nepal!

Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Who won Big Brother? Any news? Is anything happening anywhere else?!


Final Day: Adios Bosque Bonita
Well - this is my last day here in the station. Actually feel quite sad about it and hope I have changed for the better and have learnt just a little more about the importance of friends and the unimportance of ´things?'

This week has been just as good as the others. I actually did make myself eat one of the wormy things (cooked, thankfully) last Sunday - wasn't overly excited about the prospect but felt that I had to! I was quite pleased with myself although I couldn't honestly say that I enjoyed it! I think that insect-eating is catching because that night one of our volunteers who was running out of beer money was bet $6 that he wouldn't eat a live beetle. Sadly (for the beetle) he did - most alarming crunching noises!

The next day was a normal working day working for a seed-collecting project. Spent several hours scouring the forest floor looking for seeds and seedpods and collecting leaves! Not the most scintillating project but was really exciting for the botanists who are really committed to the work. Then as we were walking back, we saw a live coral snake. V. V dangerous and it was hissing and spitting as we nearly stepped on it. We stepped back and watched it for a while before it crawled back into the forest. Very beautiful and colourful.

Tuesday brought my final kitchen duty. Went to feed the pig as usual and tried my customary piggy hypnosis trick (singing and back scratching - his not mine). Scarily it worked and his head began to nod and his eyes began to droop. Then suddenly his legs buckled and he slid forward, right off the edge of his platfom and went flying into the poo-pit below (an almighty splash!). Unfortunately he got one leg stuck on the higher floor, so he was effectively doing a handstand in the poo, with his head thrashing around in the meirda whilst his back leg was stuck on the higher platform. Eeek. Felt a bit guilty for starting porcine acrobatics so late in his life, before he gets a chance to develop technique!

On Wednesday I was invited to exercise the Director's horses so me and Angela rode through the rainforest on these healthy but scraggy old nags with the boniest backbones you've ever sat on. Given that we were riding bareback, my undercarriage will never be the same again...Oh the pain. Simply sitting down at all now is a bit of a challenge! Mine threw me immediately I sat on him as apparently horses here don't respond to short reigns and they simply buck. Nice! Lucky for me I landed on something soft and warm - yes, en la meirda again!! Given that we had no stirrups either, getting back on provided a further comedy moment and I contemplated leap frogging onto him or climbing on from a tree. Finally found a couple of big old oil cans to clamber onto but it was not my most elegant moment.

Heavy rains came on that evening and with them fairly dramatic storms and all sorts of trees falling. It's very dramatic as these things come crashing down in all directions. It also took the power out so we've had no electricity (and no internet) for 3 days. Makes for very romantic dinners a 20! Also, I decided to have a shower after dinner that night and so was quite happily singing and soaping away when all the lights went out. There I was - stark bollock naked in a freezing cold shower in the complete pitch black! I had to walk across the room dreading the sound of something unpleasant crunching underfoot and find my torch (thanks again Eileen, for the inspired gift) and make my way back again. Once back in it was quite easy to continue in the torchlight, although then this single glow in the depth of jungle darkness attracted all sorts of horrible beasties that decided to dive bomb me in the shower. They were mainly huge moths that make sounds like WWII fighter bombers (seriously) and large sticklike mantis things. Altogether a bit of a shocking experience!

We've now started a nightly bug evacuation and chase out all the noisy insects that will keep you awake at night. Interestingly on Wednesday night we also found a four-inch scorpion hiding in our cabin - we really seem to attract the wildlife! We couldn't really work out how to get rid of him so I decided to use the usual spider catching technique that we all use at home - big mug or glass and a piece of paper. So sure enough, Mr Sting was loaded into a beaker and the paper put in place. Then ensued a protracted conversation about whether a scorpion could sting through paper and still kill you, and as this took place we could hear all sorts of thrashing about in the mug! We decided that paper was too thin, so we tried to slide a thick book under the paper, which provided for more comedy moments as the mug began to slip. Then we went out of the cabin and into the forest and then I lobbed the lot as far as I could. Mug and all! Didn't really like the book anyway!

Last night I saw probably my most interesting bug yet. It was a smallish black beetle but it had two bright fluorescent green lights on its back like bright green eyes. That was interesting enough as it looked like an alien. However, then, as it crawled around it kept lighting up a third bright yellow light on its tummy, which illuminated the ground beneath him. He used this for taking off and landing so it seemed like landing gear on an aeroplane. All very weird but fascinating and completely natural. This place never fails to amaze me and most of us have no idea any of this is here!

So am now really preparing to leave. Am just sending these messages and then have to pack my bags before leaving at stupid o'clock tomorrow morning. I will be sad to leave some of the new friends I've made; the best bar in the world and the feeling of community that you get here. It makes me realise that we take our support systems and home environments for granted and often leave them by choice - hence the dissipation of the family unit. Here; we live, eat, work, play, hell and even shower together. Everyone is looking after and out for you and it creates a very safe place to be. I haven't felt this protected and safe in a long time, despite all the creepy crawlies!