Composting toilets, crater lakes, and Cuenca

Followers of the Traveling School, we´ve arrived in the stunningly beautiful colonial city of Cuenca!

The girls have entered their second set of homestays with families from the city, and are actually free of us (or vice versa) for about a week and a half. Its strange to feel like a regular traveler here, suddenly free of the appendages of teenage girls. I miss their company, their energy, and even their drama but am grateful for some time to catch up on emails, grading, lesson plans, on relationships, on the future, on my own life which is perhaps put aside occasionally here.

Over the last two weeks, we´ve been in Quito - where the girls re-enacted the brutal hacking of 1860s president Moreno with a machete for history class...where we saw a beautiful exhibit of Andean photography and a wax museum of the history of Quito...where we went to the Guayasamin museum and saw the original works of Guayasamin - an contemporary and friend of Pablo Neruda, Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro whose paintings capture human suffering, injustice, and oppression in a way that I have never before witnessed. We also went to his Capillo del Hombre - which is a chapel of sorts that he built as his last great work - his testament to the unification of all of Latin America...to the suffering and violence and oppression that people here have faced. You might recognize his work Hands - a series of massive paintings that show faces covered by hands reflecting emotions of Tenderness, Anger, Frustration...Both teachers and students were moved to tears in the Capillo and it reminded all of us of things that are perhaps easy to forget at times when you are moving and traveling so constantly.

After Quito we loaded all of our massive packs, eleven girls and four teachers onto a public bus from Quito to Chugcuilan - a rural mountain town where the Black Sheep Inn is located. Encounters with a drunk man who was harassing women on the bus gave them a perspective on machismo here...the unfortunate situation of a man practically sitting on a woman´s lap and the bus driver doing absolutely nothing but to explain apologetically to us that the man was intoxicated...

The Black Sheep Inn is an award-winning eco-lodge that has worked over the last twelve years to incorporate all aspects of itself into permaculture. From composting toilets to rainwater harvesting to solar power to gravity driven laundry, to herb gardens it is absolutely exemplary.

I was inspired and excited by being at the Black Sheep...this is all so possible, we just need a place to start. The girls did a series of inquiries into all the aspects of permaculture at the hostel, and to see them so excited made me ecstatic. Part of their midterm for their science class is to design a permaculture system for their own homes - using what they know of the geography and climate unique to their hometowns and houses to figure out how best to use the energy and resources around them. That on top of their proposals as to how to address the issue of rainforest deforestation and oil exploration in the Amazon make me proud to be their science teacher as they begin to engage with all of this.

Being in Chugcuilan also meant being in a mountainous region completely formed by volcanic activity. We did an unbelievable day hike - the most challenging we´ve done to date...We took a bus out to a crater lake called Quilotoa and hiked back to the Inn, along the rim of the crater, down through fields of volcanic ash, through a tiny mountain town, wedged through giant slabs of canyon rock, across a river, and finally straight back up. The girls attacked the hike with vengeance - we spent a good several miles pretending we were secret agents sneaking around, launching attacks on the sheep targets below. They also passed the miles with renditions of songs from the Sound of Music - much to my chagrin...8 miles and as many hours later the girls were tired and sore but excited as well. Some of them have never in their lives done anything like this...and to see how each of them makes it through astonishes me. These girls are being challenged constantly - one day physically, the next day mentally, the next day emotionally...There are always the breakdowns, the bodies that are sick, or tired, or hurt, the tears - but each one of them is making it through this in their own way. I see them dig into the reserves and I see them each rally to bring each other along. I struggle with the wanting to accompany them through what I know for some of them is the hardest thing they have ever done and needing to give them the space to experience all of this for themselves and to realize that they too will make it through on the other end.

We left Chugcuilan at 2:30am on yet another public bus. This marked the beginning of a thirteen hour epic travel adventure down windy dirt roads inches from the sides of cliffs. I should note here how eternally grateful I am for dramamine, as I think it may have saved some of the girls (and their dutiful nurse) from a good deal of...excitement? As it was, we did have one unfortunate incident after which I found myself holding a bag of vomit as the bus driver yelled to me Botalo, botalo! meaning Throw it out! Throw it out! I froze, stared at him, and then pitched the whole thing out the window of the bus. I actively choose not to imagine its landing.

We´ve since arrived in Cuenca - a bit of a culture shock. The colonial architecture here is absolutely beautiful, and we´re seeing a city brimming with the contrast of modernity, bars, salsa clubs, historical conquest and poverty right on top of each other. The shops here are filled with white-skinned mannequins sporting the latest fashions, and I feel myself turned off to being here in some ways. I am glad, definitely, that the girls are getting a sense of so many different aspects of Ecuador and have had the experience of their homestays in Agualongo to compare to these...

Which brings us to the four of us teachers who for the next seven days are just travelers unless there is an emergency. We´re eating well on our teacher budget here, and have big plans to go to the hot springs, to hike, to go dancing, to see where all of this takes us. I´m excited for the chance to reflect on all of this, on myself as a teacher, on how the four of us work. I´m also just excited to spend some time getting to know these women that I teach with...each of them has their own quirks and uniqueness...today we determined that I´m the only one who doesnt consistently make my bed...they are amazing, knowledgeable, excited, fun and constantly inspire me to work harder and get better at this crazy wonderful job.

Next stop: Galapagos. Many booby references to come!

I´ll post photos soon - have many to transfer from my camera!

Much love to all of you,
Heather