Hola from Santa Domingo, Ecuador! Currently on our way to la playa for our last day here on the finca (banana farm). The finca is a banana/plantain farm. It is beautiful here! Our first day we picked bananas and plantains to help the farm’s weekly harvest. The owners of the farm are the kindest people. They made their home feel like our home. Even though Chari and Juan Carlos (the finca owners) came from a tough background with pretty hard situations, they overcame it all and stayed positive. We stayed here for a week and saw so much.
The second day here was a recovery day, after working our first day picking bananas and packaging them for sale. We were all tired from a hard days’ work. A few of us (not including myself) went on a small hike around the finca (banana farm). They came back with achiote and sugar cane. Achiote is a small fruit that Indigenous people use to dye their face (sometimes to indicate if they are single).
By day there we were ready for adventure again. But before we could get to that, we had to do Spanish class. I was lucky enough to get Juan Carlos for a teacher. The whole class was taught in Spanish which was great for reinforcing what was just taught but more importantly, the adventure. We went on a long hike with Patricio, Chari’s brother. Patricio showed us everything grown on the farm from cacao seeds to aji, the tiny spicy pepper from hell.
The fourth day we went for another walk in the mini-jungle (la selva). This is land that the family preserved to make sure the animals were still in their natural habitat and nature can still run it’s course. We also found out that Ecuador is one of the only countries that changed their constitution. Before, the old constitution allowed for the privatization of natural resources, but now they are making it as if nature has rights of it’s own. It’s fascination being here and learning something new everyday, sometimes without even realizing it.
