This final post has been a work in progress since my return to Canada. I have begun it many times and none seemed to convey my feelings
correctly. Ecuador left me with feelings of wonder at life’s beauty and bounty,
with new ideas to be realized and explored, and with reflections on how the
world works outside of my bubble that is Western society.
The three months between my post “The Juggle for Time” and
my eventual return to Canada were full of experiences I should have documented.
These included the last month I spent in Pueblo Kichwa de Rukullakta and the
amazing people I met while there. My experience moved past feelings of
desperation and self-pity and into feelings of immense gratitude to the people
who allowed me to live, participate and experience their life for a brief
period in time. Although I did not have much to give back – just my written
thesis – I take with me an appreciation and respect for grassroots
organizations and democratic means of community self-governance. Somehow, I
will find a way to repay them.
Just before Easter, I left my placement in Pueblo Kichwa de
Rukullakta. Back in Quito, my goal was to balance the increasing pressure to
pump out 45 pages of writing in two and a half weeks and the need to
refamiliarize myself with living on my own, i.e. cooking for myself. Although I
had many friends there for support, this time was full of a crazy amount of
stress. Let me tell you, the jubilation involved with finally handing in that
plastic bound manuscript to the hands of my professor was an emotion not quite
paralleled.
For me, April 23rd was an important day: it was
the end of the Trent-in-Ecuador program (signaled by the submission of our
final placement report) and my mom and stepdad’s arrival to Ecuador. I hadn’t
seen either of them since my goodbyes in the Halifax airport the previous
August (with the exclusion of Skype) and so the reunion was rather tearful. The
next 3 weeks included being a glorified tour guide for two of the four regions
of Ecuador: the Andes and the Amazon. We toured Quito, took a trip to a
hacienda at Volcan Cotopaxi, and a trip to a jungle lodge deep within the
Ecuadorian Amazon. These were separated by their boat trip to the Galapagos
Islands and my trip to Cuzco and trek to Machu Picchu in Peru. Finally, our
adventures concluded with a relaxing trip to Otavalo for some artisanal
shopping and enjoying the general Andean beauty before our flights home.
Once back in Canada, culture shock was a very big reality.
However, I had prepared for an experience that didn’t happen. I had readied
myself for feelings of immediate alienation but these came gradually months
later. I settled back into Alberta life smoothly with my summer job and
friends. However, there were two things that struck me upon return: first, the
overpowering and omnipresent need to consume, and second, the fact the those
with whom expressed interest in my travels really only wanted to know the bare
minimum.
The force to consume hit me within days and it was almost
debilitating. I had never realized before, but everything in Canada is geared
to make you consume. I cannot quite name why this happens or how, but it is
there. I also would consider Ecuador to be quite Western in places, especially
in Quito where there are billboards attempting to do the same thing. However, moving
from a way of living where I rarely bought anything to one that pushed me to
change my wardrobe every season, hit me like a ton of bricks. The feeling, to
put it lightly, is one of the scariest feelings I have ever felt in my life. We
are made to believe that we need to the newest and the greatest thing on the
market, and even our judgments of how we and other dress, eat, live is driven
by an omnipresent force to consume. Although I have again sold out to this
viewpoint, as it is hard to resist, I refuse to forget just how potent this
force is and how complacent we have become to it.
The second feeling was much more personal and eventually
stemmed my gradual feelings of alienation from those around me. I expected
people to want to sit down and listen to my stories or want to share in how
life changing it was for me. However, I was hit with the stark realization that
most people want a two-sentence synopsis and would appreciate if your
realizations do not change their lives too much. Although I ended up respecting
the expectations of other people, the realization that only a few people want
to share in my experiences was a hard pill to swallow. The resulting feelings of
being misunderstood resonated for a while but these too finally passed with the
rest of culture shock. To say the least, culture shock has many manifestations
and should never be underestimated, no matter how prepared you think you are to
come home.
Ecuador has left me with many memories and new perspectives:
ones that I believe have enriched my life. However, my reflections about
Ecuador will never stop driving me to learn more about our world. This trip has
opened up the door to many new and exciting possibilities and only time will
tell what they are.
You may leave the journey but the journey never leaves you.
I have started a second blog to continue documenting my thoughts and experiences on development, and you can find it here:
Confessions of an International Development Student (http://confessionsofanidsstudent.blogspot.ca/)
