Apply Now

Lauren Selman writes

...about her experience while volunteering in Ecuador.

20 June 2004: Arrival, smooth sailing
I arrived late last night, after a bit of a storm upon arrival, but was graciously picked up by the Posada del Maple pick up service. The arrival here went very smoothly. The Ecuadorian people are some of the most magical people I have ever met and I have only been here one day. They are patient and loving and their city is so comfortable. Today I had the pleasure of meeting a fellow traveler from the Netherlands over a breakfast of tiny pancakes, eggs and leche and we explored Old Town and New Town today. I had my tape recorder with me today so I have been recording chants, city buzz and sermons and can’t wait to record the sounds of the jungle. Tomorrow I am scheduled for my orientation in the morning and then it is bye bye civilization, hello Rainforest. Everything has been easy to find and great. It is pretty hot here, surprisingly......I am off to the Amazon on Tuesday for my true adventure. Everything has been great so far.

27 June 2004: I Jane!
It has taken me forever to find internet in the jungle! I am living in the most primitive place I have ever been and in the most poverty stricken area I have visited. The reserve is surprising nicer than I expected. There is running water (cold, but running) and amazing food. We mainly eat a lot of carbs (Yuca and Plantans are a favorite). FYI, Plantains are what they make dog food out off....) There is a resident tarantula in the bathroom that we have named Gaston. He doesn’t bother you if you don’t bother him....I play football (soccer) with the kids down the street (Pacho, Alex, Eric) and I am going to start teaching at the local school next week. The kids absolutely break my heart! On the way here on the bus (Tena is an hour away from where I stay) I was sitting next to a 4 brothers and sisters. The oldest one was 11 and she was talking care of everyone. The little 2 year old boy had a huge infection on his forehead and all I wanted to do was care for them. I was very impressed to see that this 11 year old had taken on the role of the mother and was caring for them all.

I started my adventure in Quito and stayed there for about 2 days before entering the jungle. While I was there I traveled with a girl from the Netherlands and later I met a group of 4 from Quebec. The five of us traveled to the Mitad del Mundo which is the exact center of the world. It is one of the only places where you can stand on BOTH hemispheres! If you go to the bathroom on one half of the equator then the water drains counterclockwise and if you go to the other side it flushes the opposite direction. On Monday, I left the capital city of Quito and met up with 3 other volunteers, Dan (Canada), Nathan (England) and Nick (Utah) and we ventured to the bus station. We then took a 6 hour bus ride to Amazon. It was the most beautiful trips ever. We went through the Andes Mountains and passed several waterfalls. The jungle is thick and rich. We passed several communities that were solely one building for 5 families...all with at least 8 kids. We transferred buses in the only sign of civilization which is a little town called Tena (where I am now)...on the way the roads broke but that just added to the adventure... I am staying at Amazon biological reserve, which consists of a dining hall, an office, organic garden, botanical garden, a few cabanas and a pig named Chanco (pig in Spanish). There is a hammock porch that is my haven. I love it!!! I have been on site for nearly 4 days now and already I have tilled a field, met with a Shaman and climbed a 30 meter tower!!! Yesterday, I visited with the Shaman Gabriel’s family. I love them. His wife made a medicine for my roommates bug bites. It consisted of 8 different types of leafs and boiling water. It looked like it was very painful!! I am 1 out of the 3 girls here and 11 others guys. Julia is my roommate and our room consists of two bed and mosquito nets. The other night there was a scorpion, a tarantula and two beetles in our room. The 30 meter tower is El Torre and it is like climbing on the side of an antenna. You have a harness and two rusty carabinas and once you are at the top you feel like you are on top of the world. Another beautiful place I like to go is down to the Rio Napo. It is absolutely breathtaking. To get there you have to travel through the trees and muddy path and then the path opens up into a beautiful beach. The clouds glisten against the sky and the water rolls passed you at the most perfect temperature!!!! There mud and sand on the beach have the most geometric and intricate patterns, but you have to be careful when you are getting out of the water or else you will sink...it’s like quick sand!! Ahhh!!! There is also a huge log in the center of the beach that you can sit on and either read or look out into the abyss. On Tuesday night, I went for a walk down to the neighboring community and the sky was crystal clear. I turned off my flashlight and since I had my tape recorder so I was able to record the noises of the animals. I looked up and I had never seen this sky before as it is the first time I have been to this hemisphere. You can see Scorpio and the Southern Cross and parts of the Milky Way!!! My Spanish is improving at light speed and I have become the translator for most of the volunteers! Today I am going to go on an adventure down river about 3 hours with a couple of locals and will swim on logs and go rafting. I am learning so much about the Ecuadorian culture and just an entirely new way of life. There are no stresses that I have to deal with, the only requirement for the day is that I am at breakfast at 630 and in my rainboots at 7 and ready to volunteer. We do everything from gardening, feeding the pig and chickens, tracking in the jungle, analysis of seed data, and teaching. I love it here and I think this is the exact place and trip I needed!

Hopefully, I’ll be able to make it back into town next week...


3 July 2004: Splish, Splash
I have only but a few minutes to update you on a week of adventures....I don’t know if I can do them justice, so just to give a brief idea, I shall attempt bullet points....

Monday: Bosque....a personal tour through the rainforest discovering the medicinal use of various plants
Tuesday: Taught my first English class. It went extremely well and I adore the children
Wednesday: Taught again....but classes were canceled so I took a trip to Mishaulli and visited a butterfly reserve. Over lunch a monkey came over and stole the food right off my plate... Little punk!!
Thursday: After a day of reforestation in the CCPA, I went down and met with a shaman. We did the traditional cleansing and spiritual service...........this experience could be an entire book!!
Friday: Worked in the organic garden, played football with the local children and realized again that we are all in this together...this great thing we call life!!!!
Saturday: Rafting down the Napo River....I got to be the guide down a majority of the rapids and it was a blast!!!!
Off to dinner... sorry for the brief overview....more later......


6 July 2004: Pictures
Hey Everyone!! I finally made it into Tena to send you some pictures of the wonderful adventures here. This morning I taught English and the local school and it was absolutely a hoot and a half. The kids crack me up and are so much fun to be around. A lot of them are the same kids that come out to play soccer in the afternoons but they are a whole different story in the class room. I have attached pictures from the school and from the reserve tower for you to enjoy. Next week I am going to Banos to ride on top of a train to Rio Bamba. Afterwards I will be traveling to Laga Agria which is one of the most oil contaminated regions and working with the local communities and teaching skills and helping them clean up. My computer here is very very slow!!!! I wrote a huge entry and then the silly thing froze on me. Believe it or not I am gaining patience with computers!!!


9 July 2004: School, Rain and Trees....
Hey Everyone! Sorry about the website change, but I hope you found me easily on this great wide world of the internet. I am in Tena today, because school was closed on account of the amount of rain. It poured buckets last night!!! It was like the whole sky opened up and rush is came on down!!! Crazy! I am having an absolutely amazing time here working with the kids and learning more about the local communities. Next week I will be traveling to Lago Agrio which is one of the most oil contaminated cities in all of Ecuador and I will get hands on experience working with communities who are faced with the aftermath of the oil companies who come through!!! I can hardly wait. Hopefully I will also have the opportunity to travel to Dia de Augusto which is a local community that is trying to set up an ecotourism industry and we will be working with the high schoolers to set it up. Tonight for dinner we are having a collection of maggots, cocoa beans and banana leaves so let’s hope I don’t get *tourista*!!! A lot of the volunteers are leaving next week so there will only be 5 of us left on the reserve until a new shipment comes but I think we can handle it!! I have been going on a lot of bosques recently which include hiking for about8 hours into the heart of the jungle with the jungle guards Milton, Gato and William in the rain. It’s a hoot! I must admit I have found a new love for my rubber boots!!!


15 July 2004: Top 10 and Bottom Statement
Top Ten Reasons Why Ecuador is Different than the USA:
10. Buses look like the interiors of New York cabs...fridge and all!!
9. Bug Bites are abundant and mosquitoes have daily buffets on my body.
8. I look forward to cold showers
7. My friends are 2 tarantulas in the bathroom (Gustav and Gaston), a pig named Chanchito, and 50 chickens
6. Coca bananas and chocolate mix of condensed milk, hot chocolate, sugar and butter is heavenly, yet still my pants are baggy
5. Little Bar, run by the owners wife, is the closest you can get to a night life.
4. Your midnight snack of spiders, cockroaches and mosquitoes that sneak into your mouth are your only source of protein.
Honestly, every meal is rice, rice, carbs, carbs, rice, fried dough....with the exception of maggot night!!
3. Rubber boats are your fancy shoes
2. You spend all your time with the same eleven people.
1. It’s Ecuador not the US, that’s the way it is! I love ECUADOR!!!

My update for you begins last Saturday. After a very muddy bosque with jungle guards Gato, Milton and Willan, I returned to the Amazon station for my daily meal of carbs and my nap. At about 3:30, Margarita (a 17 year old high school student that works for the station) invited me to her house for the evening. As we drove further from civilization, the clouds separate and community rules the sky. Our first encounter is with the afternoon soccer game. IT is fantastic! Families line the side lines and laugh, smile and cheer together. I sat with Margarita´s family, who all live in the same community. Margarita´s sombreso (nephew) entertained us endlessly with his great laugh and gigantic cheeks!! GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!! Our team wins 3 to 1!!! After the fame we journey to the volleyball court for a little game. As we were playing, I reached up for the ball and caught my toe against the concrete. Sangre (blood) was everywhere. Unfortunately I did not have my first aid kit but the never stopped me. My mom once told me she made a splint out of bike pumps so I figured a toe injury was no big deal. The top part of my toe has been ripped off and I was left to look around. What would these people have when they don’t even have shoes. It is interesting watching the community respond to this minor accident. Many of them did not know what to do and did not know where to start. I promptly asked someone for some scissors. None. That’s okay, God gave me teeth and Claire’s Beauty boutique pierced my ears. I then took the corner of my shirt and started the cut with my earring and tore a nicely sized piece and wrapped it around my toe and secured it with the duct tape I always have wrapped around my water bottle!! (duct-tape is imperative for travel) The rest of the afternoon I spent lifting girls and dipping them, whilst teaching them basic swing dancing steps that translate nicely to salsa. We returned to Margarita’s house to get ready for the evening’s events which consist of a dance and a children’s performance. Margarita’s sister, Irene, led me to a bucket of water and simply instructed me to wash. Scrub, Scrub, and freezing water later, I am clean (and so is my toe). Once everyone is ready, we travel down the street to where her sister lives and then a bit further to where her brother lives. Once the family is gathered we continue to the community center (a shelter area that we had played volleyball under earlier that day). The same group of people that were gathered and playing soccer earlier were now supporting the local school children’s production. The sense of community amazes me here!!! I look back on my life in Petaluma and see how that sense of community was pursued. Families joined together at Montessori, Marin School, recitals....to support one another.

The question lingers, "What is a community?" Celebration. Unity. Love. Gathering. Laughing. A common task. A statement. People. Golden Bears. Plants. Can it be redefined? For those of you who read this, what does it mean to YOU??

To further this interest, I have been looking deeper into the pursuit to educate the locals about the impact of oil companies in their lives. There is a pipeline that runs directly in front of the reserve where I am staying. Around me is 2,000 hectares of trees and bosque that supplies oxygen and ozone worldwide and down the road around children laughing and playing in there school yard. If this pipe were to break it would destroy this wonderful treasure. When the line was put in the oil company promised to give the community internet access. Months later, there is a pipeline, increased risk, but nothing for the community. Luckily, it is pretty safe where I am staying but the foundation is run by wonderful people who are dedicated to the safety of others. However, up north in Lago Agrio and other poverty stricken areas, oil companies are destroying plants, communities and lives. Two volunteers went to visit the site before I arrived and they shared their pictures and stories with me. Photos of oil running into streams where families bathe and gather their water from. Oil is then burned, and the flames create a distinct inferno that reaches the sky. Oil prices are around $2.00/gallon for families that earn less then one gallon costs. This all might seem very heavy for a journal entry but as I learn more about what is truly happening behind our "civil" lives I feel I must speak out. Upon my return, I hope you join me to share my trip and learn about what I have done and what you can do to put a stop to all of this. It isn’t going to change overnight, but the more people who are aware the better. So please, read, read, read, read and stay informed.


28 July 2004: Toxitour
Hello, Hello from the Amazon!! It has been nearly 2 weeks since I have been able to find a functioning computer to send you an update on my latest adventures. It would take a book longer than Conrad´s "Heart of Darkness" to share with you two weeks events...

Last week, I have the pleasure to travel to 24 de Mayo, a community near Coca, for three days with Angel (a worker at the Center of Conservation of Amazonian Plants). I left the reserve at 5:30 in the morning to travel to Tena, left Tena at 8:00 and arrived in 24 de Mayo around lunch time. Our mission while we were there was to tend to the community’s nursery reforestation project. In order to promote reforestation, members of the reserve take plants and plans to local communities and try to educate the communities about the importance of reforestation and the environment. Unfortunately, a large population of these poverty stricken communities cannot grasp the concept of reforestation and the urgency to protect the rainforest. To give you an idea of this community, picture one road that is the town. Gravel and dust fly about each time a car passes. There are 8-20 children per family. Our night accommodations are a cement floor with the cockroaches and frogs. Children run around with clothing pierced with holes of time. Everyone is barefoot. There is a new oil establishment placed in 10 km down the road. They are bound for contamination.

This experience was absolutely amazing! To update you further on all my events I shall continue. On Sunday morning, the group of twelve volunteers but bundled up in life jackets for our adventure down river. Picture the rounded rocks beneath your feet as the sun rises through the most lush clouds you have ever seen. The sun’s rays trickle through the drops of space to replicate a Constable sky. We are going to an animal protection and rescue center down the river about an hour. At the center, we are greeted by a group of volunteers, like ourselves, from Germany who have been volunteering for about 2 weeks. Their responsibilities include feeding, washing and caring for the animals that have been rescued from all around the area. Some of the animals we see on our tour include: Scarlet Macaw, blue headced parrot, boa constrictor, capybara, african dish, pechie (wild pig), weasel cats, great windeg trumpet birds, water tutle, ocelot, large spider monkies that can lift up to 63 kg, anteaters, tapirs, and arieras. We enter the gift shop as the tour ends and as people buy Huorani blowguns and spears, I am drawn to the poem on the wall:

PACHAMAMA: "There’s a monkey in the jungle so scared of the unknown cause greedy selfish people took away his home; Pachamama is under pressure. Pachamama maybe will die. Who are we to kill here Pachamama should stay alive and the monkey in the jungle tries to stay alive but greedy selfish people want the monkey’s life; we are all just small fish in a darkening blue sea, change we could, if we would ignite the fire of unity."

Honestly, who are we to kill Pachamama? She gave us life in her paradise! With this poem in my head we walk back down to the canoe. On the way, a monkey finds Camilla´s afro of lush thick hair to be the perfect place to nestle into. How sweet! He paws his way through the thicket and is biting softly until she is finally successful in pulling him off and onto the ground.

The twelve of us board the dug out canoe and we continue down river. About 10 minutes later the guide drops us has off on and island to enjoy our lunch. We jump into the water. Free spirits, bounding for freedom in the water. Dive after dive, we splash around in the water. After spending so much time with nature you soon notice that you are being to shift into the things around you. I am shape shifted into the water.

For lunch, we enjoy wonderful beans and rice of banana leaves. We have forks but the majority of people do not want to use them and take the ol’ primitive eating with the hands routine.

"I’ve been to Greece and the Isle of Nice"; the song continues in my head as I lie in the warm sand, "I’ve been to Paradise, and it’s in Ecuador!" The sun rays glisten off the Aztec sands that are laid with gold as the volunteers walk around the barren island of rocks, peace and freedom.

Paradise folds into a pocket in my memory as we board the canoe back to the Amazon reserve. Have to ever been on the border of the rain? We are standing knee deep in the Amazonian waters as we can see the rain moving towards us. Our adventure just got a little more exciting. In order to get around the island, the men are instructed to get out of the boat and push us through the stone lock beneath the boat, but to no avail the women must join in. We all slug through the Amazonian waters, pushing the canoe to clear waters. Once clear, we gracefully step back into the canoe. The waters race by the boat at tremendous speeds as we putt passed at 3 meters a minute while the rain pours at a much quicker velocity. Eventually, we make it.

The rest of the day was filled with a quick run at 4 o’clock, our weekly meeting and a trip to the Tamboran (our local little bar) for one of the volunteers birthday (Andy’s) last night. The highlight for the evening, however, was the practical joke played on Dan by Nathan and Andy when they so stealthily stole the bed planks from underneath his bed so that when his return he would fall through.

The time has gone by so quickly here and I dread my final day, but am in anxious anticipation to share everything I have learned with you. I work daily with people who are so passionate about the problems with the oil issue and I have so much to teach you. After volunteering here, I will then be traveling to Lago Agrio on August 3rd, to see the most oil contaminated regions in all of Ecuador. As a matter of fact the majority of Ecuador’s oil exports go through Lago Agrio. In Joe Kane’s "Savages," he describes the oil town compared to the city near the community I visited as "five times more filthy. Five times more desperate."


5 August 2004: Bye bye Jungle...Brrr...
I just finished my last day at the reserve and I am missing the forest already!!! My last few days in the forest were exceptional!! On Friday, I work up to go with 2 other volunteers and the volunteer coordinator the local community of Colonial Bolivar to pick up mulch and rice for the chickens and organic garden. It was probably up there with being the best day of work. We played in the warm shells of rice and plunged into wood shavings. Coming back we were on the verge of missing the bus back to the reserve, but luckily we didn’t. We piled our 20 bags on top of the bus and climbed aboard, with them, of course. The four of us sat comfortably on the warm bags of rice and were having a great time when suddenly it began to rain! Moving through the water that harmlessly fell on the soil became lethal against our faces. IT felt like little pebbles were hitting my face! OUCH! We wheelbarrowed everything to the organic garden and chicken pens. Then we went searching for the capybaras through the bosque. However, we did not find any....Instead of work in the afternoon Alejo (the owner of the reserve) gave a moving speech about the oil crisis and the history of the station. Did you know that on average a person in Spain will produce 74 tons of CO2!!!!! CRAZY!!!!! We got in a pretty heated debate about it afterwards!

At 6:30, after a refreshing run down the street of the South America´s gem, the volunteers had a final barbeque. There were 3 chickens, and 12 pounds of beef (not fair for us vegetarians).....We headed over to the Tamboran and had a splendid night of laughing and dancing. Pedro, his friend and I dressed in the traditional Quechua wear and danced around the fire to the traditional music. I wore beaded attire and tried my best to not laugh considering I had red paint all over my face and arms. If the red tattoo on my face wasn’t enough, we did whituk tatoos on our arms. Qhituc is a natural die that stains the skin for about 5 days. I got the Pachamama symbol of the sun on my arm. On Saturday, I went on one of the best bosques I have ever been on. I went with Don Gabriel and he taught me about practically every plant we passed. ¨This one cures Tb, this one cures internal cancers, this one helps a woman’s period, this is for child birth...¨It was fantastic!!!! But now that I am out of the jungle for a couple of days, I best tell you where I have been. I was planning on going to Lago Agrio, but the volunteer in charge changed the date so I could no longer go. Instead I have been spending the last couple of days exploring the Northern region of the Quilotoa Loop. The Quilotoa Loop is at an altitude of about 3500m, unfortunately, we suffered a bit of altitude sickness. However, we did come across a professional climber from Switzerland who gave us coca leaves that you fold and put between your cheek and teeth and it helps you acclimatize very quickly! Miracle! We visited the beautiful volcanic crater lake, Laguna Quilotoa. It was absolutely breathtaking!!!!! We descended 400 m down to the bottom in about 40 minutes, but due to the altitude adjustment it took about an hour and a half to climb back up!! The moisture is sucked out of your face and you get dizzy all the time! Small steps and s turns up the steep hill made us make it to the top with the exception of a road block of sheep and llamas we came across. The sunset was incredible as we were bundled in hats, scarves and sweaters!! The sun goes over the last bit of tree starved land and left a golden kiss on the clouds as it disappeared for the night. Yesterday, we woke up boiling from the 10 layers of blankets that protect you from the cold chill. The mission for the day was to hike to the next village along the rim of the crater lake....quite a feat! It usually takes people about 6 hours to complete the walk to Chungchilan but it only took us 4!!


13 September 2004: Home at last!!
I returned home from a two month adventure in Ecuador in South America, 3 weeks ago. After two weeks of Berkeley classes and English being spoken around me, the adjustment into our culture is getting easier. They say that to come back to your own culture from a transformative culture takes ten times longer than it did to adjust to theirs. I would agree! When I came home, I held a dinner for friends and family to learn about the oil development down there and the action I have been taking to slow it down and eventually stop it. Since 1970, over 300 ethnic groups have been eliminated from Ecuador due to oil mining, meanwhile 18 million gallons of oil has spilled into the heart of the beautiful gem we call the Amazon Rainforest!! It's scary!!!

"Saving the Rainforest," is a term we often throw about freely as a empty dream. But, the drive and devotion I saw down in the Amazon, gives me hope that this dream will come true. We are all simply human and we dream and we each have the power for our dreams to come true. A new spirit of active engagement is rising in the world. It has been fascinating learning how programs intersect with this emerging phenomenon, and practical ways we can move our world toward an equitable and sustainable future.

Thank you GVN, you changed my life!!!