Obama – The View from Ecuador

On Tuesday evening Jen and I (along with four other Fulbrighters) were invited to an election party hosted by the U.S. Embassy.  We were initially trepidatious of going – did we really want to ring in the election with the Embassy crowd? – but decided it’s not every day that the State Department would pay for us to drink wine and watch Barack Obama get elected president of the United States.

With poll closing times recorded and voting proclivities of Ohio counties committed to memory, we dressed up and caught a cab to Quito’s Marriot Hotel, site of the party.  After a halfhearted frisking we were given white plastic top hats with red and blue stripes, two placards emblazoned with “Democrat” or “Republican” to be waved wildly at our fellow guests, and a small plastic flag to remind us all we were not the red or blue, but the United States of America.

The U.S. Ambassador says hi to the crowd and cameras

Once inside, we got the sneaking suspicion the Embassy had blown half of Ecuador’s foreign aid budget on chandelier hangings and finger food.  The place was crazy – two giant projection screens across a ballroom tuned to CNN Español, blue and red galore, and enough turkey, mini-burgers, and free wine to satiate 300-odd diplomats, officers, politicians, professors, and journalists.  Being both gringos and half the age of most attendees, our group was a hit with the TV cameras, so we mouthed ¡Obama! Into the lens, and generally felt slightly ridiculous.

We wandered through the crowd making small talk with folks in blue ties and smiling politely at those in red.  Eventually we settled nervously in front of a screen as Virginia leaned McCain and Pennsylvania took forever to report. (side note: CNN Español or CNN en mute are far more elucidating ways to watch election returns than standard news coverage…highly recommended)  Finally, Pennsylvania came in, and a glass of wine later we knew Obama had won Ohio.  A yell went through the room (loudest in our corner) and we hugged, kissed, cheered, clapped, cried, jumped up and down, and generally celebrated the next president of the United States.

Help is on the way!

As the evening progressed and Obama’s margin grew, the crowd thinned considerably.  Someone from foreign service had smuggled in champagne, and when CNN finally called the election for Obama he shot the cork at the ceiling and invited us over to toast the win.  Then we gathered in a semicircle around the large projection screen – Americans and Ecuadorians, some crying and some quiet – to watch McCain’s eloquent concession, and to soak in this new reality as Obama repeated his material and moving call for change. 

Watching the President-Elect

The next day we woke up…and it was all still real.  Our offices that morning were abuzz with chatter about Obama’s victory, and we were greeted with numerous congratulations on the results of our election.  Congratulations personally that George W. Bush would no longer run our country, and congratulations to us as representatives of the U.S. that we’d managed an extraordinary thing in electing an intelligent, thoughtful, inspiring, and, yes, African American man to be our president.

In the week before and days following the election, we’ve talked to around 30 Ecuadorians about a new U.S. administration.  Of this group, the large majority supported Obama, a few didn’t particularly care, and one guy asked why we weren’t afraid of Obama because he’s obviously a Muslim terrorist (idiocy, like hope, appears to be universal).  Among the group of engaged observers, several themes stand out that say a fair amount about the view of the United States from abroad.

First, Ecuadorian admiration for Obama seems to have little to do with the uplifting speeches, varied biography, and personal magnetism that have made him a political celebrity in the U.S.  Ecuadorians largely fixate on Obama’s race, on various pertinent issues (imagine that!), and on the fact that Obama is most definitely, most thankfully, not George Bush (People didn’t necessarily have negative things to say about John McCain – they just didn’t have much to say at all.  He didn’t represent a change for them, and Obama does.).

While many people we talked to identified Obama with change, several were unsure if the U.S. was ready for the change of electing an African American president.  As with other countries we’ve been to, in Ecuador the U.S. is often perceived (rightly or not) as a deeply racist, still divided country.  Thus the prospect of President Obama seems more of a surprise to many Ecuadorians than it does to us, and reminds us that policies aside, Obama has altered overnight how people view the United States.

As for policies themselves, the three most common preferences for Obama regard immigration, finance, and the war in Iraq.  Favoring liberalized immigration laws is pretty straightforward in a country of 13 million people where over one million live abroad.  It’s also seen as a fairness issue given that Ecuador’s $3 billion in annual remittances comprise the country’s second largest source of income behind oil – a daily reminder of increased prosperity beyond the country’s borders.  The financial crisis is talked about here with increasing frequency, particularly given the instability of Ecuador’s petroleum-based economy.  There’s a sense that Obama (by not being Bush) will better guide markets to equitable growth, and will look out more for the little guy who lacks a fair shake in a globalized world.  Finally, it’s difficult to have a conversation about the U.S. and/or elections without a mention of the Iraq War.  Ecuador itself doesn’t have troops in the conflict; instead the prosecution of the war seems to confirm Ecuadorians’ stereotypes and fears about the U.S. as a self-centric, overly aggressive country willing to spend unthinkable sums on war.  Given this view, Obama is the easy preference.

Vermont gets 3...how about us?

As a final observation, a great number of Ecuadorians would like to have a vote in U.S. elections.  It’s not an unreasonable request, given how U.S. policies affect so many countries around the world, and the consensus seems to be that if places like Alaska and Hawaii get a say in mainland politics, Ecuador deserves at least two or three electoral votes.

While it’s been fascinating to witness the election from slightly south of the Equator, we have missed being part of this crazy and historic season in U.S. politics.  We’ve enjoyed our time and experiences in Ecuador, yet occasionally it’s felt nuts to be anywhere but in a swing state – or at the very least at home debating policy, following news, and sharing with friends and colleagues in the energy and camaraderie generated by the campaigns.  But at the same time it’s been powerful to see this campaign’s international reach.  Particularly the day after the election when we were thinking about the celebrations of our friends back in the States, going to work and feeling the excitement of so many Ecuadorians made us feel part of the community we missed back home. 

We’ve traveled a fair amount over the last eight years, but we’ve never met people remotely this excited about the policies, prospects, and idea of the United States.  It’s true that from a U.S. perspective Ecuador is still a small country in a world of large challenges, but today it feels enough to have a president who looks different, thinks different, and hopefully will act different than his predecessors towards this region. 

Good luck to President-Elect Obama, and congratulations from Ecuador.

Three Hours and a Million Miles Away

(A Trip to Ecuador’s Rural Northwest)

To see photos from the trip, visit www.picasaweb.google.com/jvorse.

Last week I (Jen) had the privilege of accompanying Fundación Esquel’s education coordinator, Alejandra, on a three day trip to the rural northwest region of Ecuador (the Noroccidente) to coordinate trainings for teachers at unidocente (one teacher) schools.  As we drove north the long city trickled to an end, and the dry hills of Quito slowly filled with tropical vegetation that encased the highway.  We wound our way back and forth, descending from 2,800 to 150 meters on switchback roads.  Alejandra was a well-informed tour guide, pointing out everything from a community tourism site where foreigners live with and work alongside an agricultural community of 200 that commonly shares all profits…to the changing landscape’s African palm trees — non-native plants that support the regional palm oil economy but destroy the soil after less than a generation.

I learned that Fundación Esquel’s education work in the Noroccidente region has three main thrusts: infrastructure investment, teacher training, and family engagement.  Coordinating this project means that Alejandra spends three days every week working not from Quito, but in the community — facilitating teacher training and professional development, visiting teachers in their schools to check in and follow up, and meeting with local nonprofits and government officials (we were set to meet with three local mayors…actually found two).  Within the Noroccidente’s larger towns there are modern amenities such as internet and a few hotels, but the surrounding region is dispersely populated with isolated access to social services. Thus by necessity unidocente schools gather a radius of children into one classroom, with six grade levels taught by one teacher.

Visiting some of these unidocente schools took me aback (the building pictured here is one of the region’s unidocente schoolhouses), as did seeing town upon tiny town of dilapidated wood, tin, and concrete homes.  Ecuador is South America’s second poorest country, but the part of Quito in which we live shields this reality — with posh coffee shops, gyms, restaurants, and high-rise condo buildings lining the blocks near our apartment.  While the more southerly part of the city in which we work presents a much grittier Quito, it is still nothing like the rural towns only a few hours outside the city.  (I should disclaim that we have not yet been to the true South of Quito — the poorest part of the city, where all of Fe y Alegría’s schools are located –- therefore I may be making an unfair comparison.)  While we would all like to be open-minded and money-blind, seeing some of the poorer parts of Ecuador for the first time was shocking to me.  I found myself unsure of how to react — should I try to appear as if it didn’t phase me? It seemed like this would be the appropriate and polite response in the company of the towns’ residents…on the other hand, isn’t it okay and perfectly appropriate to be “phased” — and yes, appalled — by conditions of poverty more extreme than I have experienced? I expect that this sort of inner conflict and confusion will be a repeated theme once Matt and I begin our travels in 2009, living in Fe y Alegría’s school communities across the country. But my first taste was last week.

As Alejandra and I drove, I asked her about Esquel’s investment in the region’s educational infrastructure.  Her answer started with the same words as would many of her answers over the next few days: “It’s the really basic things.”  She explained that the single greatest infrastructure need at these rural schools is access to sufficient and safe water — while we take it for granted, water is fundamental to the ability to have clean bathrooms at school, and the capacity to cook for students what may be their only substantial meal of the day.  In addition to water, Esquel supports the construction and maintenance of the schools’ physical infrastructure, whether building a new school or fixing leaks in the roof of an old one.

As part of Esquel’s work to improve infrastructure, we stopped at one unidocente school to drop off a mini-library. After some other towns we’d driven through, this physical structure was much nicer than I had expected — clean, colorful, and intact. The teacher, who lives in a room attached to the school, had already been trained in a curriculum that will help her use these reading materials with students in six different grade levels…in the same classroom at the same time. She now had the raw materials to put the reading lessons into action.

On the second morning of our trip, we awoke early to boisterous roosters and made the two hour journey (via even smaller, windier roads than the day before, but with spectacular scenery) to the town of Golondrinas. The site of the two-day teacher training was a weekend recreational facility for the provinces’ residents, located on a small pond and complete with an exotic, somewhat incongruous thatched roofed structure — one of the few buildings in the region large enough to accommodate the 60 educators. The teachers themselves were almost exclusively from unidocente schools in the county of Puerto Quito, and belonged to one of the counties’ three teacher networks. This particular network, working through its lead teacher-coordinator, had requested that the training focus on teaching strategies to facilitate literacy and math lessons for students of different grade levels.

As much as I hate to admit it, after observing and participating in the day’s workshop, my strongest reaction was not in response to the warm and welcoming people that I met, or to the content covered, but rather to the inconsistent — and sometimes surprisingly poor — grasp of basic concepts by the teachers, especially in math (for instance: “15-X+4=18″ garnered several different responses). When I shared this reaction with Alejandra, she returned me to the basics, explaining that the requirements for becoming a teacher and the difficulty of finding qualified teachers in this region are simply a different reality when only 30 percent of Ecuadorians finish high school.  After high school, aspiring teachers attend a one- or two-year institute, and continued professional development is particularly challenging in such rural settings.  Not to mention the fact that recruiting teachers to serve in these towns — and replacing them if they leave — is no small feat.

On our third day, we attended a different training hosted at an escuela completa — a full school of 125 students with a different teacher for each grade. The teachers at this training, part of a second teacher network of unidocente schools, had requested a workshop focused on managing their classrooms and teaching multiple levels at once. While I’ve encountered differentiated instruction to a small extent in the U.S., the logistical challenges of handling a classroom and teaching six different levels simultaneously takes on a whole other dimension of complexity. The day was devoted to discussions, brainstorming (in Spanish this translates to “rain of ideas,” which I love), and lesson planing to divide the six grades into three two-year “cycles.” While I studied the plans being devised, I puzzled over two frequent abbreviations – AA and AD. Finally, I heard the acronyms spelled out — “autonomous activities” and “directed activities.” And then in clicked: on top of everything else, the teachers had to ensure that they while they assisted one cycle of students in a directed activity, the other two cycles of students were engaged in autonomous activities.

Together, the three days were eye-opening, filled with educational challenges that I have never before encountered. Amidst my observations about unidocente schools and teaching methods, inconsistent and too-often insufficient teacher preparation, and harsh realities of basic infrastructure needs and impoverished communities, I would be remiss not to mention the positives — an overwhelming and refreshing culture of joy, a slower pace of life, and an attention to everyday interactions between members of a community. This pervasive, more relaxed atmosphere was notable in the towns we visited and the teacher workshops alike. It stood in stark contrast to what I’ve become accustomed to in Boston or even Quito, and was a pleasant reminder that for every minute we spend planning and working and analyzing, there are minutes of equal importance to spend interacting, connecting and reflecting.

Introducing…Fundación Esquel

As of today, I (Jen) have a new part-time employer. I will be working two days a week with Fundación Esquel, a 24-year-old foundation based in Quito.  Esquel’s work focuses on social and community economic development throughout the country, civic engagement, and corporate social responsibility.  Similar to that of Fe y Alegría, Esquel’s culture stresses local empowerment and participation, affirming its “belief in Ecuador’s people and their capacity to build their own future.”  You can learn more about Esquel at www.esquel.org.ec – they have an English version of their website (somewhat choppy but still informative).

And no, I’m not jumping ship from Fe y Alegría — I will continue to work three days a week researching their structure and management as a fiscomisional system (that is, a school system run by a religious institution that is liscenced by and receives funding from the state to be a public education provider.  In Ecuador there are essentially three types of schools — the state-run public schools or escuelas fiscales, escuelas fiscomisionales, and escuelas privadas.  After the state-run system, Fe y Alegría is the largest school network in Ecuador, educating about two percent of the school age population.)

Through my work with Fundación Esquel, I hope to complement our research of Ecuador’s largest fiscomisional school system with a working knowledge of Ecuador’s fiscal, or national public system.  Because of the nature of Esquel’s project-based, mostly regional work, I expect to gain on-the-ground insight into the realities of Ecuador’s public schools.  I also hope to support Esquel’s work on a new education project that faciltates the engagement and investment of the business community in public education — apparently a fairly new concept.

In addition to this education work, Esquel has enlisted my help to investigate US foundations that could be potential funders of their projects, which are currently financed largely by European investors.  And, with any luck (and time), I’ll also be involved with some upcoming policy work related to the new constitution — although the details and timing of that component of my workplan, like everything related to the new constitution, remain to be seen.

Oh right, some background — in case you’re wondering, this newfound association with Fundación Esquel did not fall out of the sky.  Two weeks ago I had an informational meeting with Esquel at the recommendation of a New York based nonprofit leader we’d been in touch with before coming to Ecuador.  In addition to getting an overview of the foundation from the vice president, I was also introduced to the education coordinator, Alejandra — a Quiteña a few years older than me who happens to have studied at Boston College…and happens to speak perfect English, which comes in handy for the occasional moments when my Spanish fails me.  She invited me to accompany her on a trip later that week to the Noroccidente region of Ecuador, a few hours north of Quito, to facilitate teacher training workshops for networks of teachers of unidocente schools — one-room-schoolhouses in Ecuador’s rural regions in which one teacher is responsible for teaching six grade levels in one classroom.  (More detail about this trip in the next post, I promise.)  From there Alejandra invited me to join her the following week at a meeting with the Ministry of Education, which is currently undergoing a massive transition, to talk through some of the implications of this transition on Esquel’s education projects.  Continuing to talk with the vice president, we decided that a more formal association would be mutually beneficial, and we discussed some of the projects that I would work on…starting today.

And so it came to be that I will be joining Fundacion Esquel (as a volunteer) two days a week.  The specifics are still somewhat of a mystery to me, but I’ve been quite impressed with their work so far and am excited to dive in.  I’ll keep you posted!

“¡Sí voté – voté sí!”

(Yes, I voted – I voted yes!…girl shouting into her cell phone after voting)

Many of you in the U.S. may be proud to elect a new president, but here in Ecuador we got a whole new constitution.  Last Sunday about 64% of the population approved a referendum that gives President Rafael Correa additional powers and strengthens social services for Ecuador’s impoverished majority.

As observers somewhat new to Ecuador, Jen and I have felt peripherally but increasingly aware of the “Sí” vs. “No” campaign waged through rallies, airwaves, late-night bullhorns, and countless scrawls of graffiti throughout the city (the picture above reads: I already lived the No – that’s why I’m voting Yes).  The push for “Sí” has been something of a referendum on President Correa, with much of his support drawn from universities, lower-to-middle class highland workers and Ecuador’s indigenous groups (though the latter’s is somewhat tenuous due to Correa’s perceived friendliness to mining).  The campaign for “No” was led by businesses fearful of Correa’s control of the economy, Jaime Nebot, the conservative mayor of Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil (Quito and Guayaquil have a historic rivalry), and by the Catholic Church, which objected to the constitution’s recognition of gay civil unions and liberalized language on reproductive choice (abortion itself was and remains illegal).

In short, if we thought we’d fled the culture wars for the 2008 elections, we thought wrong.

To inspire clarity – or at least sobriety – into this milieu, Ecuador’s “dry laws” went into effect the Friday before Sunday’s election, banning purchase and consumption of alcohol in public.  Of consequence, many folks seemed to attack Thursday night intent on maintaining a buzz well through Sunday’s voting.  Our local swimming pool also closed for election weekend…unsure what inebriating effect that has on democracy.

On the day of the actual election, Jen and I checked out the polling scene at a local school.  Voting in Ecuador is obligatory (though not entirely observed) between ages 18 and 65, and so everyone brings their family to the polls.

Voting in action

We walked by multiple rows of armed guards, past stalls of vendors selling pizza, empanadas and coffee, and dodged boomboxes blasting tinny pop.  Once inside the school’s playground, we watched as voters were directed to one of 30-something stations arranged in a large L along the building’s walls.  We befriended an election worker, who explained that the stations were organized alphabetically and by gender, with lists of each adult who lived in the nearby area.  In order to vote you find your station, present an I.D. and fill out your ballot at a nearby, cardboard-shielded desk under the eye of a policeman hefting a three-foot automatic rifle.  Once you finish, election workers cross your name off their list, and hand you a small receipt as proof of voting (worth hanging on to – you can’t legally leave the country without it).

The Ballot

To get a feel for the crowd, we grabbed a notepad and asked some voters exiting the polls what they thought of the constitution.  Responses ranged from an energetic youth who exclaimed, “It’s super cool!” to a woman who looked at us, paused, and asked, “Have you heard of Cuba?”  Most reactions, as you might expect, fell somewhere in the middle, with a general appreciation for the new constitution’s increased social consciousness coupled with concern over President Correa’s consolidation of power.

By 5:00 p.m. on election day, exit polls showed that the constitution had passed overwhelmingly – an event that cars in our neighborhood commemorated by honking their horns continuously for the next six

Sí, the after-party

hours.  I walked down to a local campaign office where a crowd had gathered to wrap themselves in flags, set off fireworks, hug passersby and dance to salsa amidst frequent chants of “Sí! Sí! Sí!”

As for the constitution itself, we still haven’t read all 444 articles (a fact that hardly seems unique), but we’ve listed below a few major implications.  It’s also worth adding a few observations.  First, some U.S. papers have seemed eager to paint the constitution as a lurch toward socialism with Correa as an acolyte of Chavez.  That’s a subject for another post, but in short the constitution strengthens executive power but doesn’t nationalize industry a la Venezuela or Bolivia (we’ve been told it increases government profit stake in some natural resource exploitation, but the general philosophy is called “social and solidarity,” which tries to swing a balance between free enterprise, government, and social sector …think Northern Europe).  If anything, Correa has pursued relatively centrist policies during the campaign – alienating the far left just enough to consolidate his middle (sound familiar, Obama fans?).  Our second observation is that Correa budgeted the costs for his social reforms based on revenue from $150 oil.  Now that the price has dropped (at least temporarily) it’s unclear if or how Correa will change his plans, but the issue underscores the precarious nature of Ecuador’s economy and its challenge in managing sustained social development.  Lastly, Ecuadorian presidents and constitutions have a historically short shelf life, so one of Correa’s big challenges will be to convince the country that this version deserves the time to see its reforms come to fruition.

Anyway, what’s this constitution mean?

1. Increased spending and attention to public welfare including health care, social security, indigenous rights, community development, etc.  On education the constitution makes schooling obligatory through 12th grade (previously 8th) and free through the third year of university.  The government also must raise GDP spending on education to a minimum of 6% from its current level of 3.5% at a rate of at least 0.5% per year.
2. Presidential authority.  The president will now control Ecuador’s central bank and all tax policy, which were previously governed independently and by the legislature.  In addition, presidents can now serve two consecutive four-year terms.  However, the constitution (conveniently) “wipes the slate clean” for elected officials.  Correa (who was inaugurated in 2007) will likely win the election this February, and if re-elected could serve until 2017.
3. Creates a “Transparency and Social Control” branch of government that’s designed to coordinate services and reduce corruption within socially focused investments from private, public, local, and international sources.
4. “Nature” gains specific rights and protections under the constitution – the world’s first constitution to state this explicitly.  There are also stronger intellectual property laws on the appropriation of “traditional” knowledge (particularly relevant in the Amazon region).
5. Ecuador now recognizes gay civil unions and benefits, although “marriage” is still strictly between a man and a woman.
6. Military and police have the option to vote; previously this was prohibited.
7. Transition government.  The constitution passed September 28 but new elections won’t be held until February.  In the meantime the country will be governed by an interim legislative body (“El Congresillo”) charged with implementing the constitution’s major changes.  The Congresillo, however, will likely be dominated by Correa’s allies – causing his opponents (and some of his supporters) to fear that Correa will use the transition period to pass one-sided laws in the absence of traditional opposition.

A school administrator friend of ours best summed up the public opinion we’ve heard so far:  “It’s the constitution of our dreams,” he said, referring in particular to education.  “The question is, what will Correa do with his power?”

Finally, as a counterpoint to Ecuadorian politics, we’ve crammed into bars with other expats to watch the U.S. presidential and vice-presidential debates.  It’s been tough being away during such a pivotal election, but we’ve become absentee evangelists and live vicariously through blogs, and after watching McCain do the cranky codger thing and Palin set a record for most questions evaded in one hour, we can only say to those of you back home: Please don’t screw this up.

(To check out photos on all of the above, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/jvorse/) 

3 Weeks in Ecuador – A Micro-Retrospective

After three weeks in Quito with little blog to show for it, we’ve opted to turn a potentially lengthy chronology into a recap of significant impressions. Here goes…

“It’s the Altitude:”

At 9,350 feet, the altitude in Quito is no joke.  However, it does provide a nearly constant stream of excuses for why we feel tired in the middle of the afternoon for no particular reason, why we find ourselves completely out of breath after walking up half a flight of stairs, and why Jen randomly woke up last Tuesday with a twisted ankle (hey, might as well blame that on altitude too).

On the upside, the altitude means that Quito is a city cradled between mountains.  It is long and narrow, shaped like the inside of a canoe, with views of 19,000’ snow-capped volcanoes on a clear day and middling 15,000’ volcanoes on cloudy days.  With this topography, even as Quito has sprawled 30 miles from north to south, and even as its modern neighborhoods fill with high-rise apartment and office buildings, it is a city dominated by its natural landscape.

Buses: Darwinism in Transit:

To connect this long, serpentine city, Quito has three major bus/trolley lines running north to south – with one stop located 5 minutes from our apartment. These lines would not be out of place in a U.S. city; they have stops with platforms, a turnstile to deposit your quarter fare, announcements of upcoming stops, and a notable lack of roosters as fellow passengers.

By contrast, the rest of Quito’s buses are ordered chaos.  Recognizable by their blue color, the multiple destinations of these buses are painted on cardboard signs on the front window, and shouted by an attendant hanging out the door as the bus careens through the streets.  There is a distinct absence of “stops” for such buses – you flag one headed in your approximate direction, and it slows enough for you to make a running leap through the door.  These buses also cost a quarter, and roosters are much more likely traveling companions.  As for getting off…stand up when you’re close to your destination, ascertain whether the front door or the back door is the one letting people off today, and take a leap of faith. (It should be noted that once you get off the bus you’re by no means in the clear…crossing the street pretty much anywhere in Quito is terrifying.  Sometimes there are crosswalks, but they’re mostly just a waste of paint.  Look both ways before crossing the street, find a small window between cars, and RUN.)

Beyond the buses’ high speeds and crowds and rolling stops, robberies are a legitimate concern. We learned this lesson the hard way when Matt’s pocket and Jen’s bag were slashed during one particularly packed ride.  Luckily we weren’t hurt and all we lost was a copy of Matt’s passport, but it certainly was unsettling – all the more so because we consider ourselves fairly savvy travelers, and we didn’t notice a thing. Unfortunately, in some circumstances – crowded buses ranking high on the list – constant vigilance, and a little luck, is the name of the game.

Almuerzo, Oh My

$1.25 and some tasty fried fish

The Ecuadorian almuerzo (lunch) is a wonderful thing – a set menu consisting of soup, rice, beans, some sort of meat, a salad (which we’re not brave enough to eat), fresh juice, and sometimes a dessert. The cheapest almuerzo we’ve tried was $1.25 (near our office in the south) while a splurge might set us back $3.00.  The soups are usually very tasty – frequently variations on vegetables, sometimes flavored with slightly scary pieces of meat, and, much to Jen’s delight, often incorporating cilantro.  One of the traditional soups is called locro, which usually involves potato, cheese, and avocado, but you have to read carefully and make sure you’re getting locro de queso (cheese) and not yaguar locro, a version with cow’s blood.

A special note on juice, because it is good enough to deserve its own paragraph…compared to the U.S. version, juice in Ecuador is a clearly superior species of beverage.  The variety of fresh fruits is incredible, including some familiar – orange, pineapple, blackberry – and others as unknown as they are wonderful – maracuyá (passion fruit), babaco (a fruit that Jen once compared to a really sweet pear, but is actually the size of a football), and guanábana (sweet, white, delicious fruit).  The consistency is generally thick and wonderful, reminding you that the fruit juice you’re drinking is – gasp – actually made from fruit!

GOOOOAAAAALLL!!!! (We Chose the Right Country)

Estadio Atahualpa, Quito

Recounting the piety and pandemonium of soccer in foreign countries is something of a travel cliché. That said, watching Ecuador beat Bolivia 3-1 in a World Cup qualifying match was pretty great. We arrived at Estadio Atahualpa four hours early (no assigned seats), and after buying knockoff team jerseys, amused ourselves alongside other Quiteños with very large, very cheap beers and occasional chants of national pride / Bolivian mockery.

Go Ecuador!

The game itself was as you might expect – long crosses, diving saves, endline dashes, faked injuries, and quick goals that made the stadium go flat out berserk. After the second Ecuadorian goal, fans somewhere above us started throwing their (not yet empty) beer cups in the air, so we put on our raincoats and kept cheering until the final whistle.  The end result, we decided, was a sign from the gods, as we were originally slated to do our research in Bolivia, but had to switch to Ecuador at the last minute. Apparently, we made the right choice.

Now and Then We Go to Work

To break the monotony of bargain lunches, huffing up the stairs, and surviving public transit, we’ve found occasional time to go to work. Fe y Alegría (the school system we’re studying), has a national office about 30 minutes south of us by bus, in a neighborhood that’s right on the border of Quito’s wealthier North and the grittier, sprawling South. We’ve allotted about a month to learning how the system operates, which we’ve been doing through lots (and lots) of reading, interviews with staff, and attending occasional meetings and conferences.

Hopefully we’ll have more to report once we get up to speed, but one immediate impression has been Fe y Alegría’s clear and consistent message of building communities and active citizens, rather than “simply” teaching students. It is an ethos coherently conveyed through written materials and conversations with staff alike – one that unabashedly permeates the culture of the organization. It will be interesting over the next few months to see how this identity translates to the classroom, but for now it is certainly a thought-provoking window on the purpose and scope (razon de ser…reason for being) of education – a theme we’ve certainly heard in the U.S., but never to this extent.

We Have a Home

After two weeks of living in a hostel on the edge of the Mariscal (or “gringoloandia,” the tourist center of Quito), we have a place to call home for the next 4 months.  Combing the classifieds and navigating the fascinating world of real estate agents in another country and another language was an adventure in and of itself.  After several days of searching, we got the hang of asking the right questions, learning more or less to recognize the “gringo rate” for an apartment that should have cost half what the agent quoted, and understanding that “unfurnished” in Quito means no fridge, no stove, and no sink.  Yet after a week’s worth of apartment hunting, we’d not only found a home, but had mastered some of the city’s geography, public transportation, and neighborhoods.

 

Fútbol in the park near our house

We share our sixth floor apartment with two other Fulbright fellows – Matt and Nina – who are each doing public health projects.   We live in the northern (wealthier, safer) part of Quito, just a few blocks from a major bus line, and one from a large urban park, Parque Carolina, that bustles on weekends with families and geriatric soccer matches.  Our neighborhood is a mix of commercial and residential – there is a gym right across the street with spinning classes (an arguably unwise idea, as at 9,000’ our heart rates fly through the roof at any modest effort), and a nice array of restaurants ranging from pastry shop to bagel mecca to traditional Ecuadorian almuerzos.  Still, the neighborhood is not without disconnects.  When we look out our living room window at high-rise buildings, shops and cafes, there’s almost no way of distinguishing whether we’re in an Ecuadorian or U.S. city.  While we appreciate the convenience and relative safety, it’s a stark contrast to the endemic poverty faced by many of the students and communities with whom we’ll work this year.  Of course, this feeling is familiar to many individuals who do socially-focused work in urban centers, but it’s all the more acute in one of South America’s most impoverished countries where income inequality is several multiples beyond that in the United States.

On a more cheerful note, sharing our apartment with Matt and Nina has brought an unexpected community to our life in Quito.  When planning our research we assumed that immersion in our project and the amount of travel it requires would make our year in Ecuador fascinating, but fairly solitary.  By contrast, there are around 8 Fulbrighters in Quito, each with their web of U.S. and Ecuadorian connections, which creates a more social atmosphere than either of us expected.  

Why Are We Here?

Good question, and one with both professional and personal answers.

Officially, Jen and I will be in Ecuador from August 2008 through June 2009 thanks to a Fulbright grant I received to research public education. We will work jointly to study “Fe y Alegría” (Faith and Joy) – a public school system run by the Jesuit Order that serves 1.4 million students from disadvantaged communities in 16 Latin American countries. Fe y Alegría Ecuador serves approximately 26,000 students and 33,000 adults at 80 school centers, receives state funding to qualify as an Ecuadorian public school, yet enjoys significant autonomies from the traditional public system. Fe y Alegría schools are noted for their extensive community engagement, a service-based dedication amongst faculty, and higher rates of student and teacher retention compared to similar public schools.

Fe y Alegría Ecuador, Oficina Nacional

In a nutshell, Jen and I will examine Fe y Alegría’s success at scale. We will particularly focus on Fe y Alegría’s semi-autonomous structure and religious-public-school identity – and the potential within both elements for controversy as well as positive school change.

To accomplish these goals we’ll need a few years, but for now we’ll spend roughly four months in Quito getting to know Fe y Alegría and its place in the larger public system. Drawing from our work in Boston, we’ll use as a starting framework five areas of Pilot School autonomy – governance, budget, staffing, curriculum, and schedule – to compare Fe y Alegría’s management to more “traditional” public schools. As no U.S. system has achieved Fe y Alegría’s scale, we hope to learn how a large, alternative public school network maintains quality and consistency across different contexts.

After four months in Quito, we plan to visit five to six Fe y Alegría schools for one month each in culturally distinct regions of Ecuador, with a focus on indigenous communities (maximizing as well access to

Jen maximizing access to 14,000' vistas

rainforests, vistas, beaches, etc.). We’ll study how Fe y Alegría’s structure translates to on-the-ground school operation, and increasingly explore the role of religion in the success of Fe y Alegría schools. Guiding frameworks will include the manifestation of faith in areas such as teacher motivation, character development, curriculum relevancy, and community engagement. Particularly in communities of diverse beliefs, we will also examine the implications of Fe y Alegría’s faith based identity, with a larger question of whether Fe y Alegría’s lessons could translate to an ethically driven – but not religious – public school network.

Of course, all these aims are preliminary, and may look different a few months out. Jen in particular has a few other projects up in the air, including working on Fe y Alegría’s public policy efforts and relationship with the national system. We’ll keep you posted, and hopefully share on this blog some conclusions from our evolving research.

Finally, we have inquired, and there are no Fe y Alegría schools open in the Galapagos. We’ve offered to start one, and will let you know if there’s a need for faculty.

Welcome to the Blog

Welcome to “Where the Pavement Ends,” a chronicle of Matt and Jen’s adventures in Ecuador.

We will be here through June 2009 researching public education systems, and also climbing mountains, living in a rainforest, honing our Spanish, sampling unique foods, and collecting interesting stories to relate in this blog.   Hopefully, it will end up as part travelogue, part reflection on Ecuadorian education.

If you’d like to subscribe to posts via RSS, or receive email notifications when we update this blog, please click on the links in the top right column.  If you’re a fan of photos, we’ll be posting albums at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jvorse/

Finally, a note on title:  ”Where the Pavement Ends” is one of the mottos of Fe y Alegría, the school system we will primarily be studying this year.  Fe y Alegría aims to educate students from rural, poor, or marginalized areas, where quality services might not otherwise extend.  Hence the phrase – “Where the pavement ends, Fe y Alegría begins.”  

And so we begin, as well.