Street Food and the People Who Eat It

A lot of us on this trip are huge fans of The Travel Channel. shows like No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain and Bizzare Foods with Andrew Zimmern are my two favorites (although no reservations is way better, Bourdain´s a badass and Zimmern is a nice guy but kind of a goober). The idea of walking around a new and unknown city, chatting with people and trying mysterious and delicious local food is something that i had really been looking forward to on this trip. If it´s made from a weird animal, or a weird part of a familiar animal, or if it seems like it could potentially force me to become close friends with my host family´s bathroom, all the better. Most of the students on the trip have been reluctant to try street food for fear of getting sick, but a couple friends and are totally fine with that, because it means more for us! I´ve eaten skewers of grilled meat 3 or 4 times now, and I´ve never had an adverse reaction. It´s also freaking delicous. I don´t know what they use to season this chicken and steak, but it is unbelievably tasty. As long as a person uses common sense, it´s not difficult to determine a reputable, tasty, and relatively sanitary vendor from a not-so-reputable one. If a stand appears to be busy, selling lots of food to locals, it´s usually a good sign. If you come across a creepy man wearing a cowl in a back alley offering you a strangely colored piece of fruit, just turn around and walk away. DON¨T LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO SAY YOU SHOULDN¨T EAT IT (unless they´re a doctor!). We were out with the host-brother of a kid in our group who told us "don´t eat the street food, it´s rat meat." I am so glad I did not listen to him. Grilled, seasoned chicken skewers with a hunk of fried banana are Cuenca´s hidden treasure. And i think i can tell rat from chicken.

Pro-Youth Protests

It´s pretty clear that while Cuenca is a very liveable city, with relative economic stability, plenty of great bars and restaurants, fairly safe residential neighborhoods, good universities, potable water, and excellent food, there remain many serious social dillemmas. The public schooling situation, for instance, is pretty terrible. The schools receive little funding, and public school teachers receive low pay, so needless to say the quality of education is far lower than that of private schools in the area. The school day is split into two halves, with half of the students taking class in the morning and the rest taking class in the evening due to overcrowding of schools. Not only does this disrupt the traditional Ecuadorian familial bonds, but it puts the evening students in a dangerous situation, with most taking buses or walking home after school. Recently, a young boy was kidnapped while walking home from school during the day. As far as I know, he was returned safely, but the charges against the kidnapper were dropped. This is probably due to the strange enforcement of Ecuadorian laws. For instance, if someone accosts a pedestrian with a knife, demanding money, and the person gives up their money to avoid being stabbed, they legally have not been robbed, they have apparently willingly given up their money. The legal system has many strange loopholes in Ecuador. This kidnapping instance outraged many local students, including those from the Universities of Cuenca and Azuay. I was with a group of friends the other day walking around downtown Cuenca, and we saw a group of something like 40 college students carrying signs and chanting protests against the unjust legal protection for the youth. They carried signs that said "We are the voice of those without voices," and "NO! to abuse of children." It is clear that the Correa administration has a long way to go to improve its protection of human rights.

Threats to biodiversity in the Amazon

About a week ago or so, we spent 4 days at a biodiversity research station on the Tiputini River in the Amazon Rainforest. The sheer number of species and amount of life around us was mind boggling. Never in my life have i seen so many types of birds that are all so wildly different, or seen a 6 inch wide spider and been told it was a "medium" one. We saw spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, sloths, macaws, toucans, tarantulas, geckos, and dozens of other creatures. At night we saw caimans, scorpions, massive scorpion spiders, lizards, tree frogs, things that simply don´t exist anywhere else in the world. I will definitely remember it as one of the most impacting experiences of my life. We met a national geographic photographer named Pete Oxford--google him. He takes pictures like a monster--and he had quite a bit to say about the Amazon and the threats it currently faces. He told us that, in ecuador, the only protected areas are national parks, and even national parks don´t have exclusive rights to their sub-surface terrain. On the way in and out of Tiputini, we saw camp after camp of oil companies, specifically Repsol, a company currently under majority Chinese ownership. Their cutting of the forest and burning of fossil fuels, creation of roads, building of bridges, and influx of workers has reduced primary tropical rainforest to secondary and tertiary forests with much less biodiversity and life. Correa has stated publicly his support of the Yasuni National Park, and his intention to prevent further exploitation of oil reserves that would harm the Amazon, but the future still remains uncertain. Hopefully in the coming years Ecuador can create legislation to better protect its unique natural treasures.

Ecuadorian Graffiti as an Outlet of Public Opinion

One of the biggest faults that people have had here in Ecuador and around Latin America with President Rafael Correa has been his habit of attacking the press, and not permitting negative opinions of his presidency to be published. He has sued multiple newspapers into bankruptcy, arguing that as a citizen, he has the right to sue a private company, but also using his influence as president to claim immunity to insult. Although the SIP, the organization that monitors and supports free press in Latin America, Correa has continued to keep a chokehold on the Ecuadorian press.
While driving through Ecuadorian cities, especially Quito, Otavalo, and Cuenca, i´ve seen tons of examples of politically pointed graffiti that represent the popular voice of the Ecuadorian citizen. In Otavalo a message on a wall read something like "NO to a criminalized government!" Here in Cuenca, the graffiti is more pointed to the specific issues that affect the city, including the threat of mining companies exploiting land near the city. most cuencanos worry that mining with contaminate their main sources of water. Tags usually say something along the lines of "Agua es vida, no a la mineria" or "Water is life, say no to mining." I personally love to see things like this. it ensures that even when the government strikes out against public protest, the people still put their true message out there.