May 31- Corriendo

“Corriendo” is Spanish for “running.” I went running today. I am…so…tired. THERE IS NO OXYGEN HERE. But I figured I had better start conditioning to climb Cotopaxi in a week and a half (because the summit is about 10000 ft. above Quito).

May 31- Fundacion Amor y Esperanza

We visited la Fundacion Amor y Esperanza today, meeting with the director Pancho Sola. Pancho is a gregarious man, excited to fulfill his vision for Ecuador’s poor areas, and full of the love of God. Literally from the moment I walked into the school run by the foundation, I could feel the excitement (Neil put it better, he said he could feel the “JOY”) of the place. There was activity everywhere. Pancho took us around to a bunch of the classrooms where we were greeted by shouts of “Bienvenidos” (“Welcome”) from the kids, many of whom crowded around us to get a better look or just hold our hands. The school really is a great facility for these kids.

In addition to education of children, the foundation is active in promoting health and adult education. But what they lack is a means to help adults start business and earn income. They want to expand into microfinance, and that is where we enter. Pancho seems to want us to help him figure out how to design a microfinance program, and hopefully our research can aid in that.

I would ask you to please just pray for us as we start our research. Please pray that God can use us to find something constructive for both these organizations. Pray God might use us as a tool to serve the poor here in Ecuador. Thank you.

May 30- Meeting in Ibarra

Today Neil and I traveled to Ibarra (about 3 hrs north of Quito, on the same road as Otovalo where we went on Saturday) for a meeting with FODEMI, a microfinance organization in partnership with World Vision. World Vision is a Christian aid organization, and FODEMI is a Christian organization as well. We met with the president and executives. Jannake Robbe, the communications director, is from actually from Holland and speaks English (for which I was very thankful). We talked in Spanish with the president, Luis Rios, and Senor Riofrio (yes, that translates as “cold river”) for about 45 minutes, after which my head was throbbing from trying to decipher so much Spanish. It was a good thing that Neil and Ms. Robbe were there to help me out.

We decided that we will be working with FODEMI in an area a couple hours south of Quito for the next two weeks. They are trying to figure out whether to expand their services in the area, so they are very excited to have us research there and answer some of their questions. We are thrilled that they want to help us. Also, I’m really excited to get to work with fellow Christians who are seeking to truly reach out to the poor in Ecuador in ways that can really change lives.

May 27- La Ciudad Vieja (The Old City)

With this being the equivalent of 4th of July weekend in Ecuador, we still haven’t really been able to make a lot of headway on the research. Today, we went down to Quito’s Old City to see the colonial buildings and churches. The architecture is just fantastic in its Spanish Colonial style. My digital camera was nearly dead, so most of my pictures from today are on film. The highlight by far was climbing to the top of Basílica de Voto Nacional. It’s a huge baslica on the northern side of the Old City. First we climbed the stairs to above the ceiling of the sanctuary, and crossed a wooden walkway that ran the length of the ceiling across the arches to climb up to the lower steeple. Then we climbed up a bell tower. First we were on stairs, then iron stairs, then a spiraling iron staircase, then rebar ladders, then rebar ladders with half as many rungs. At the top, we were above the bells with a truly unbelievable view of the whole city. We even climbed out to the ledge and let our feet hang over. The pictures really don’t do it justice (those are Neil’s feet).

May 26- It was a dark and stormy afternoon

Apparently we did not re-enter Quito on the same road on which we left. Thus, we missed our stop (there really aren’t stops here, you just tell the conductor when you want to get off). When we figured out we had gone to far, it was already raining. We got off the bus.

To say it was raining doesn’t really do this storm justice. It was pouring, like the type of rain in which your pants and shoes are pretty well soaked inside of 60 seconds. Also, the temperature had plummeted. Within moments after disembarking the bus, hail started falling. The thunder seemed to crack the sky in two and the lightning strikes were not far away. Anything not under my rain jacket was soaked and cold. This storm seemed downright biblical.

We hoped to climb into the safety of a taxi for a ride back to our front door. Yet dozens of taxis passed by us without slowing down. In all our time in Quito, we were never looking for a taxi for more than a minute without getting one. Now in our hour of need, no taxi seemed willing to stop for a couple of tired, cold, and thoroughly drenched gringos being pelted by hail and attempting to dodge the lightning. We gave up. After probably 10 minutes of getting pounded by the storm, we just climbed aboard the next bus that passed by, thankful to get out of the rain and not even really caring where it would take us. Later on we did find a taxi and get home to peel out of our soaked clothes and to try to salvage our wet merchandise purchased at the market. The pictures show but mere remnants of the storm, later that afternoon.

May 26- The bus to Otavalo

If I thought 3rd world taxi rides were exciting, I had yet to ride a bus in the mountains in Ecuador. These bus drivers take handle hairpin turns at breakneck speeds without seeming to bat an eye. Meanwhile there’s a good 500m (about 1500 ft.) drop about 1.5m to the right.

Yet we did see some AMAZING scenery. For a good portion of the ride we saw various views of Nevado Cayambe (18933 ft.) , a volcano that sits on the equator. It’s a classic cone volcano, snow capped, and the third tallest in Ecuador. Also we met some UNC students on the bus who were studying at a Spanish school in Quito. However, they would only talk to us in Spanish.

In what Neil and I are quickly realizing is just how lots of things will get done on this trip, the manner of arranging our bus ride was rather unsystematic. After scouring our guidebook, we couldn’t really figure out how to get to Otavalo. So we just set out this morning and started walking, vaguely thinking that we might should go to the big bus station on the south side of town. Raulito said we should go to “Occidental,” and we couldn’t figure out if this was a street, a bus station, whatever. A little walking and a taxi ride later, we found ourselves on the dropped off on the side of a highway…apparently this was “Occidental.” Not until we saw some the UNC students flagging down a bus headed for Ibarra (a town further north of Otavalo) did we really know how in the world we were going to get to Otovalo.

(These pictures come from Google image searches)

More Otovalo Pictures

May 26- Market Day at Otovalo

It’s the biggest market in South America. Saturdays draw huge crowds of Andean locals and tourists alike (so much so that one Spanish speaker refered to it as "Gringo-land") Neil and I both spent more than we should have. The key to bargaining is to offer around half of their intial price, and then pretty reliably end up with a 25% discount.

May 25- Lost in Quito

The best way to explore a new city is to get lost in it.

Someone has probably already written or said something to that effect before, but if you’d like to quote it, you may reference me. Assuming that statement is true, then Neil and I did a darn good job of exploring Quito today. I think we covered half the city on foot. A few highlights or interesting tidbits:

-Apparently yesterday was an Ecuadorian holiday. Everybody in town decided to take the whole weekend off, so many stores and restaurants were was closed today. For most of the day we wandered around wondering where everybody was until we figured out waht was going on.

-We went by the U.S. embassy, figuring we’d be pretty welcome there. We were told that today the Embassy of the United States of America is only open for Ecuadorians today. I’ll just pretend that makes sense and move on.

-The Swissotel is really nice, and the concierge totally had no clue that we weren’t guests.

-Internet café, maybe not a highlight for you dear reader, but we did manage to send emails to our microfinance contacts in Ecuador and to a few people back home to assure them that we arrived safely,

-We went to the grocery store. The drinking age in Ecuador is 18. These two facts may or may not be related.

-We saw dirt bike races for little kids. Fue fantástico. Y yo tomé unos fotos:

May 24- Get a Passport

Reader, are you planning on traveling abroad anytime in the next year? Get a passport now. Not planning on traveling abroad? Get a passport anyway. It seems that the passport agency is horribly jammed up, so it’s a good idea to go ahead and get one. Neil almost couldn’t get his in time and other friends have had trouble as well. Passports are good for about a decade, so it's definately worth it.

May 24- International Travel

Arriving in Quito, we had knew only an intersection near where our apartment was located and had the vague promise made to Neil over the phone, en español, that someone would indeed be there to let us inside. We landed, got our bags, cleared customs, and got a taxi.

The taxi ride from the airport was a lot like riding in a taxi in New York, that is if the driver were on speed. This guy cut in and out of traffic, roared down the central boulevard, and shot a gap so narrow between a bus and a chicken truck that Neil and I thought we were gonna die. Riding in 3rd world taxis is…FUN…no, EXCITING…well maybe just AN ADVENTURE. He did get us to el Club Oasis though, the place were someone was supposedly waiting to let us in.

Naturally, all the windows were dark. There was nobody there. It was at this point that I realized that this was one of the most haphazard things that I have ever done. If you are reading this blog, you probably know me pretty well. You know that I meticulously plan things out. Well, here we were in some unknown part of Quito, Ecuador at about 10 o’clock at night, exhausted from our travels, laden with luggage, and not even knowing if where we were going to sleep that night. I thought I had made a BIG mistake.

It turns out that I did do one thing right; I asked Neil to come to Ecuador with me. Neil habla con fluidez en español, pero a mí, no. We finally saw a light on through what seemed to be a half dozen gates, and after banging on the innermost gate repeatedly, an Ecuadorian man (whom I shall henceforth refer to Raulito until we learn his actual name) came to see why the hell a couple of gringos were rattling the gate at 10 o’clock.

To make a long story short, Neil busted out his Spanish skills and managed to get us into an apartment. We weren’t even given a key to it, but we were eternally grateful to Raulito. As of tonight, we are settled into an apartment, and that is a good thing.

How I’m going to blog

While we generally stop in an internet café at least once a day to check email, I don’t usually time to update the blog then. So I’m simply going to type up entries on my computer at the apartment, generally in the evenings, and every now and then I’ll take my computer to the shopping mall a few blocks away and upload entries and pictures.

What Am I Doing (Part I): Microfinance?

While microfinance is quickly gaining popularity as a tool for economic development and poverty alleviation, I realize that many people still do not know much about it. Honestly, I don't really know that much about microfinance; I'm doing research to learn more. But let me try to explain briefly what it is.

Microfinance really got started in with the Grameen Bank in Bangledesh in the 1970s. Muhammad Yunus, an economics professor, started the bank and won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his efforts. Microfinance involves giving offering financial services to poor people. In particular, I am interested in microcredit, the giving of small loans to entpreneurs to start and grow businesses that support their families.

As the microfinance industry has adopted best-practices models (basically models that aren't looking to give away charity money), microfinance institutions tend to feminize their client base. Women often present less of a credit risk. They tend to repay their loans at greater rates and are less more likely to spend their income on their family's well being than men. Still, men take microcredit loans and run small enterprises in the developing world. I am studying the men in microfinance, which I will talk more about in my next post.

Good night.

Ecuador and Microfinance Contacts

If anyone reading this happens to know people involved in microfinance, economic development, or banking in Ecuador, I would greatly appreciate contact info. I got in touch with a family friend (Dirk Cameron) recently who is on the board of Fundacion Amor Y Esperanza (translated: Love and Hope Foundation). It is a Christian organization that runs a school in a poor area around Quito. They are looking to expand their reach and even get into microfinance. Whitefield Academy in Atlanta is even doing a mission trip working with Amor y Esperanza this summer. If you'd like to see what Amor y Esperanza does in Ecuador, go to their website at www.amoryesperanza.com.

A Reason for Existence

So I decided to start a blog. It's not something I ever really thought I'd do. This blog exists to recount my experiences, most immediately during the summer of 2007. I intend it to be a place to jot down interesting observations and ancedotes and post some pictures for whomever might have enough time on their hands to read it. Additionally, while abroad, I think it could be a nice way for Mom and Dad to check in and see that I'm doing alright when I haven't called or emailed in a while. Dear reader, feel free to peruse this blog when you are bored, or maybe just procrastinating. Or maybe you'll read this post and never peruse again. I shall post again when events warrant. Thank you.