The Big Move

I am now a resident of El Triunfo (see some pics above.) For those of you who don’t know anything about El Triunfo or about how I ended up in this small Ecuadorian mountain community, read on.

As I was working on my study abroad plans during my sophomore year at Middlebury (plans that seemed to have changed every other day…) I mentioned the idea to my advisor about taking a semester off from official school-work. I already was set to spend the fall semester studying in Montevideo, Uruguay (which I did, and loved), but I wanted to do something different in addition to this experience. My advisor was very supportive of this new idea and one spring day when I passed him on the sidewalk returning from a morning class he said “I have the perfect spring plan for you, Megan. I have a friend connected to a community in Ecuador…” Thus, within the week I was having coffee with this “friend” (who happens to be an adventure-book author who was in El Triunfo about ten years ago writing about his search for Incan gold in the Llaganates (the national park and mountain range the borders El Triunfo)), and by the following month I had concrete plans to teach in the school in El Triunfo and live in the community the following spring.

So here I am. Having spent the month of January living in Baños de Agua Santa (a adventure tourism town that is about 40 minutes downhill from El Triunfo) and having travelled up in the bus or sometimes milk truck to the school every morning (waking up at 5:30 am to do so), I feel as though I am ready to start out here in El Triunfo. Although the area known as El Triunfo includes a few other small mountain towns, the area I am living has a little under 1,000 inhabitants. In this town center there is a school, church, discoteca, karaoke bar, a little restaurant, two small stores, a soccer field and volleyball court (or rather square shaped dirt area with a makeshift net). As my first day living in El Triunfo was yesterday, a Saturday, there was a lot happening in the town. Soccer games were going on (speaking of soccer, they 20-30 age group team wants me to play with them but as I have no identification card for the league they will have to pass me off as “Diana Rodriguez” in order for me to play…we’ll see how that goes), mora (blackberries) were being sold in the streets, a group of young men were playing volleyball, and of course a slew of girls from the school were already following me around. I ended up spending my first day playing with a bunch of the kids I teach in school (as well as with the 3 year old, Melanie, that lives in the house I will be staying in), watching a soccer game of the sixth grade girls, playing with a litter of puppies and having to turn down one as a gift (NOT easy to do), and being invited to make the 7-day trip into the mystical Llangantes mountains by the towns oldest and wisest treasure guide, Segundo, (while we were picking an Ecuadorian fruit called Claudias off of trees I might add).

Although I certainly miss my travel partner and while it was fun to be in Baños with all the action I am excited to be here in El Triunfo – I think it will allow me to be more involved in the community and focus more on school and teaching .