Nancy Germeshausen Klavans Cultural Bridge Fellowship: Quito Summer 2006

I think the best decision i made in coming to ecuador was my living arrangements. After mulling over various options including living in the touristy areas, i opted for a family home that is close to the airport. Filled with thoughts of sleepless nights listening to airplanes flying over top i was pleasantly suprised.

My friend Bahar had managed to get a placement in Ecuador working in a hospital here which was great. So when we were deciding where to live it was not such a problem to live a bit further away. We opted to stay at a house where we could be fully integrated into ecuadorian culture. Although a bit pricier it was a safer bet than the core of the city.

A long delay in miami got us into quito around midnight. So when we woke up today we were excited to get a chance to explore, since i might not have as much time to do that when work starts on Monday. The first stop was Baca Ortiz, a poor pediatric hospital in the heart of Marsical Sucre. On the drive down, the city reminded me a bit of places like saudi, kenya and lebanon. Not because they are architecturally similar in the least but more because in all those places, advertising is so huge and prominent. We dorve down the mountain to see signs of KFC, ALLEGRA OR DOMINO PIZZA. Quito is visibly quite poor yet very colourful. From where we live the whole city looks like it is resting at the edge of a mountain with spots of blue, yellow and orange. 

The people have a distinctive look to them for sure..Bahar and i might be able to blend in Italy, Spain or other latin countries but here we are not only about 4 to 6 inches taller but our facial features are quite different. Most people have a strong indigenous look.

When we arrived at the Baca Ortiz, it was obvious from the enterance that this was a very understaffed pediatric hospital. There were streams of children filling the waiting room hoping for a chance to be seen by the doctor. It seems that volunteers come through here quite often as the director knew the proces that bahar needed to follow to become registered there.  I hope to go in to work with her at least once during our stay here to get an impression of the health care system.

Right now we were walking around trying sort out possibly taking spanish classes, finding a way to get phones. We have been repeatedly warned of the increasing crime here both petty and more serious. We are quite cautious and defintely don´t plan on going out alone at night.

Tomorrow we will be shown around more by our hosts but i look forward to starting my work on monday.

till then…..

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