I will be leaving this country on Monday, probably for many years if not for good. Many of my posts have been about the stuff I did that day or my frustrations and I wanted to take some time to reflect on this experience. Overall I am glad that I did this study abroad. It hasn’t been the most enjoyable experience, but it has been a good one. Being on these islands for the past few months has made some things clearer to me, and made me realize how much things mean to me back home.
I am not an island person, that is for sure. I like cities, I like lots of people, I like going to the movies and shopping and I just enjoy the bustle of cities. However, I have discovered that I can’t focus on that if I want to enjoy my experience. If I focus on the things I enjoy doing, like going to the beach, and focus on my school work it is much easier to deal with the island situation. That was how I made it through the last five weeks; before I was getting depressed, but when we started our two week trip I made a commitment to enjoy the last few weeks, and it helped a great deal.
I don’t know that I can say I have embraced the culture much while being here. This could have something to do with the fact that a lot of the culture is “island life,” which I am not suited to, or it is similar to aspects I dislike about US culture. For example, I don’t like the relationships between men and women here. Women are still seen as being second place, with the man in charge. This sentiment is only half and half among the population, but it can be frustrating. I understand that it is a different culture in a country that is less developed than the United States, but that idea is prevelant in the states in many areas as well. Call me femenist, but I don’t like it. It irritated me when I heard comments such as I would make a good wife because I could cook. I also really don’t like the disrespect shown to women here. I don’t appreciate whistles, hisses and catcalls, or having my chest or body stared at and commented on. It is disrespectful and rude, and I don’t care where you are from, I find it unacceptable. This is not a comment on Ecuadorian culture, because this occurs in the US too, and I don’t like it there either.
This experience also brought home to me how much my family means to me. I obviously survived the experience, but I am like my mother and I need to be close to my family. We have always been very close as a family, and these four months have been hard because I wasn’t just far away, I was in a completely different country. I cannot just leave my family and only see them infrequently, and being here has only emphasized this fact to me. I still in tend to travel and I will not turn down the perfect job simply because it is far away, but my connections to my family are very important to me.
My biggest complaint, I guess you could say, is that so much time was spent on these islands instead of on the mainland. The culture of the Galapagos Islands is almost completely different from that of the mainland, and I feel like I never really got to know what the mainland was like, especially because I had the two week trip in the middle. For one thing, I got some whistles and hisses on the mainland, but it was not every day, multiple times a day like on the islands. Some people on the Galapagos seem to have this feeling that they are somehow special and better than mainlanders because they live on the islands. “There is no poverty on the Galapagos,” my host mother once told me. People come for many reasons, a lot of which are economic. It is better to be poor on the Galapagos than on the mainland and people feel like they have the right to be there. But so far everyone on the mainland was talking about how beautiful and incredible the Galapagos were, and many of the people on the islands don’t seem to see that. They see it as another place to build and make money. It is somewhat baffling to me. This does not apply to everyone. Many people on the islands understand how special where they live is, and they are very nice people. But this is the minority in my opinion.
I also wanted to stay on the mainland because there were many things there I wanted to see. Mountains, forests, cities, there were so many possibilities that I never got to do. If I could do this again I would stay in Quito for my program. We got to see several of the islands, but I feel like there were more options on the mainland of things to do and see. I was looking forward to exploring Quito, visiting Chimborazo, maybe making a trip to the Amazon if I could swing it. Being on the islands was nice and our two week trip was fun, but at a certain point it is like visiting the tortoises; once you’ve seen a few, you’ve seen them all almost.
Make no mistake, these islands are very special. Just because I am not an island person does not mean I cannot appreciate their beauty. I just don’t want to live here. There are so many endemic species here, like the tortoises, penguins, cormorants, iguanas, etc. I loved seeing the Blue-footed Boobies and the Naska Boobies, and there really are some beautiful dive sites on these islands. I think that they are very important places, and a wonderful spot for ecotourism, if the word ecotourism is not abused and the tourism truly is sustainable. I also think that it is ok if people live on these islands, if the population is managed properly. Right now population growth is almost out of control, and it is causing problems for this beautiful place. I would love to come back some day and spend more time on Isabela, maybe get to visit Espanola and see the albatrosses, or go to Darwin and Wolf to dive with the sharks. These islands really are incredible places and need to be preserved. I just wish I hadn’t seen so much of them. 
I am oddly excited to go back to classes at OSU. I am so used to challenging classes and real work that being here has been kind of frustrating. The level felt like a high school class. I suppose it was fine for people who never had any of these topics before but for me I was not happy. Knowing the classes I’ve had and what classes are like at OSU, I am somewhat amazed these courses count for ones back home, because the level is not equivalent at all.
So before this turns into a rant, i shall take my leave. Suffice it to say that Ecuador is a beautiful country and I would love to come back someday. maybe I will go on a South American backpacking trek at some point in the future, who knows. It is certainly a country worth going to, all parts of it, with some very unique experiences to offer. Even though it has not been the easiest four months and I have had my problems and frustrations, it was a good experience and I am glad I did it. If the experience had been perfect I don’t think I would have learned as much about myself, and it gave me more experience for the future in dealing with situations like this. I made some good friends and met some interesting people, and saw things most people will never see. I can say I spent 3 months on the Galapagos Islands; now that is something. There were ups and downs, as with everything in life, but it could have been much worse. I say goodbye with some regret, although I am mostly excited to go home, and I hope I am able to come back to the country someday.
Chao, Ecuador.
There were some little tide pools and some that were bigger and deeper. Apparently one year they actually found an octopus in one of those, but not this time. Ah well. We couldn’t get out to the place where they had some experiments set up because the waves were too big, but lots of cool stuff was found in the tide pools anyway.
