I want to start this blog post by asking people to send good vibes and positive thoughts down to Ecuador. On Saturday, there was a 7.4 magnitude earthquake of the coast of Northern Ecuador. The death toll is currently around 400 and there’s over 1500 people injured. People are hurting on the coast right now and there’s a long road ahead to getting things back to normal.
I am currently doing fieldwork near Baños, a couple hundred miles from the epicenter of the earthquake. At dinner on Saturday night we felt several minutes of shaking. I had never been in an earthquake before and it was a little disconcerting but there was no damage or injuries in our area. All of the students on my program are safe and we are continuing our ISP research as planned.
Last night was my host sister’s 23rd birthday. The whole family piled in the kitchen, sang happy birthday, and ate cake together. This past week I have been thinking a lot about family and the importance of family structure here in El Placer. In all honesty, it seems like families all run together and everybody is related somehow. If not by blood, than by very close friendships.
Members of the community call our host mom “Mamí Piedad” and she seems to be a mother to the whole community. She is always making extra lunch plates for people who stop by to chat. Children, people, and dogs are always coming in and out of the house to see Mamí Piedad.
Our host dad, Jesus, is a leader in the community and demonstrates so much love to all those around him. I enjoy watching him interact with his grandchildren; I see his eyes light up every time he holds a sweet baby.
The love that Mamí Piedad and Jesus show to their grandchildren and the community has generously been extended to my friends and me. We are only temporary residents in their home, but I have felt more “at home” here than any other place in Ecuador. Mamí Piedad makes sure that we have a plethora of delicious food to enjoy. At least once a day she tells us that she doesn’t serve bread in her house because it’s “unhealthy and full of chemicals.” Instead, she feeds us deep fried dough for at least one meal a day. Healthier? Doubtful, but definitely yummy!
When we first arrived in El Placer, Mamí Piedad asked us what foods we like to eat. I always find this an awkward question because I don’t want to ask for foods that the family doesn’t normally eat. My friends and I said that we LOVE vegetables, which seemed like a safe answer. Now we get salads and veggies three times a day, including breakfast.
One of my favorite things about living in Mamí Piedad and Jesus’s house are the sobremesas. Sobremesa is the time that a family spends chatting after a meal has been finished. Our sobremesa topics have ranged from serious to silly and I love getting to chat with Mamí Piedad and Jesus. The other day we had a more serious sobremesa about the lives that teenage girls have here in El Placer. Mamí Piedad told us that girls usually get married around 15 or 16 and start having babies soon after.
After that particular sobremesa I reflected on my own life. I feel so incredibly lucky and fortunate that at age 15 I was completely focused on school and sports and getting married and starting a family never crossed my mind. I am just starting to realize how lucky I am to have the opportunity to go to college, the opportunity to move away from my parents’ home as a single young woman, and the opportunity to travel.