A bit about Ecuador
Don't feel bad if you don't really know where Ecuador is in the world. Or if you do not really know very much about Ecuador. It doesn't make the US news that often--which is probably a good thing.
When I received my invitation to Peace Corps Ecuador in 1999, I remember a sense of excitement, a dream of burgeoning adventure, and then a feeling of shame: other than the fact that I presumed it was on the equator, I had no clue where in the world Ecuador was, nor any idea of all the wonders it had to offer.
In preparation for our family's year abroad, I thought it might be interesting to try to write a post on the nation of Ecuador. A little geography, a little history, a little anthropology, and some personal commentary. It's obviously far from inclusive.
Ecuador is a small South American country sitting squarely on the equator, nestled between Colombia (to the north) and Peru (to the south). At 176,204 square miles, it is slightly smaller than Nevada. When I write that, it makes it sound tiny, but let me tell you that Ecuador is anything but tiny.
Ecuador is mighty. Try traveling across it, or through it, or down it. I read somewhere that, on average, taking the 818 km (~500 miles) trip from the Colombian border down to the Peruvian border takes 18 hours. Having done part of that trip before, I'm pretty sure that's an underestimate. For comparison's sake, traveling from our home in Santa Rosa 550 miles south to San Diego takes about 8 1/2 hours -- or at least that's the google estimate.
I remember thinking distinctly during Peace Corps that if you could design a nation that had everything in it to be successful, it would be Ecuador: abundant fresh water, a plethora of natural resources, tremendous biodiversity, and deep national identity. It is a gem.
The Land
Ecuador is jam-packed with rugged terrain and natural beauty, including the majestic Andes Mountains that run through the center of the country in an almost vertical line. The Andes is the longest mountain range in the world, and Ecuador boasts Chimborazo, the highest mountain on the planet as measured from the Earth's surface -- the closest place to space on Earth. And Cotopaxi, among the highest active volcanoes in the world. At 9,350 feet, Quito, is the second highest capital city in the world.
Flanking both sides of the Andes, are regions referred to as transition zones, which contain cloud forests or tropical montane forests. These are higher elevation rainforests: foggy, mossy and abundantly green. The mountain slopes catch the air as it rises off the Pacific Ocean, so these regions are high humidity with lots of clouds and fog, and did I mention already green, green green? We will be living on the border of a cloud forest on the Western bank of the Andes.
There is nothing like the view out the window during the bus ride from Quito to La Josefina, winding down the western side of the Andes toward the coast: first you cruise through the sprawling capital city, before you know it, you see only llamas and sheep grazing in the dry grassy alpine meadows and then all of a sudden, you find your nauseous self plunging down into the verdantly dense cloud forest. Bus music makes for a perfect soundtrack. Alas, I will save more details for another day. Or maybe you should come make the journey and see for yourself?
Ecuador's largest region includes a small sliver of the Amazon jungle-- it is dense and luckily underdeveloped. While much smaller than the shares of the Amazon in Brazil and Argentina, in just 62 acres of the Ecuadorian Amazon, there are over 1,100 species of trees, among the highest of any region in the world.
And don't forget the 1,398 miles of Pacific Coast. And the Galapagos Islands, lying 600 miles off the west coast. More on those later.
The People
The diversity of the Ecuadorian people is just as impressive as its natural beauty. With a population of around 17 million, Ecuador is the most densely populated country in South America. Mestizo (mixed Spanish and Indigenous people) make up 60% of the population. Thirty percent of the population is Ameridian (aka indigenous, i.e. people who inhabited the area before Spanish colonization), the second highest indigenous population in South American, after Bolivia. There are 14 indigenous nationalities in Ecuador: Tsáchila, Chachi, Epera, Awa, Quichua, Shuar, Achuar, Shiwiar, Cofán, Siona, Secoya, Zápara, Andoa y Waorani. One quarter live in the Amazon; close to 60% live in the high Andes.
When traveling by bus along the Andes Mountains, on that vertical line that splits the country, you literally dip in and out of preserved (to varying degrees) indigenous communities with distinct language, dress, and cultures. For example, friends of mine from Peace Corps lived in a beautiful city in Southern Ecuador in the Province of Loja called Saraguro, which is a distinctly Saraguran town of 30,000 people, overwhelmingly Saraguran people with highly preserved indigenous culture. Zumbahua, a city we will travel to when transiting between Quito and our home, is a city of about 12,000 people in the Cotopaxi province, predominantly Quechua people who wear traditional dress: ponchos, straight black skirts, shawls, and black felt hats (men and women) and speak Quicha as their first language.
There is also a sizeable Afro-Ecuadorian (black Ecuadorian) population-- around 7% of the country. A majority of Afro-Ecuadorians live in Northwest Province of Esmeraldas and the Chota Valley. The story goes that in 1553, twenty-three enslaved Africans managed to escape a Spanish slave ship that capsized off the Pacific Coast. They set up a free colony in Esmeraldas, which then forevermore became a safe haven for future slaves who escaped. Afro-Ecuadorians have unique music, dance, and other cultural identities.
Like so many parts of our imperfect Americas, there is serious structural racism in Ecuador, and unsurprisingly racism has a particularly negative impact on indigenous and afro Ecuadorians. In fact, in 2019, a UN coalition of human rights experts concluded that the Ecuadorian government needed to target unacceptable levels of racism, particularly with regards to Afro-Ecuadorian people. In that report, UN officials pointed out that while only 7% of the population is Afro-Ecuadorian, they constitute 40% of those living in poverty.
When Ecuadorians talk about their own country, they often refer to it in three parts: La Costa, La Sierra, and El Oriente (coast, mountains, and jungle), and there are important differences in language, food, music and culture in these distinct regions. Warning, I am going to overgeneralize here. Serranos are known as being more subdued, more intellectual, more serious and straight-laced; while the Costeños are thought to be more laid back, more outgoing, more raucous and possibly more fun. We will be living in the transition zone between the Sierra and the Costa. Because we will live in this transition zone, we will benefit from milder temperatures (excepting tons of rain during wet season), a mix of native Serrano and Costeño cultures, and access to the best of produce from both.
The Agriculture
If all the above wasn't enough to convince you of its beauty, Ecuador is crazy fertile. You could grow practically anything almost anywhere. Check the stickers on those bananas you just bought (Ecuador is the world's leading exporter of bananas). Mangoes too. Cut flowers, mostly roses and carnations, are a huge Ecuadorian export. Ecuador may or may not be the birth place of quinoa (Peru and Ecuador like to spat over several such topics). And word on the street is that there are over 350 varieties of potatoes grown in Ecuador. Maize (corn), soybeans, yucca/cassava, potatoes and other veggies are grown in the Sierra; coffee, bananas, sugarcane, cacao, palm oil, and rice are grown in the coastal plains.
In La Josefina, where we will be living, a large portion of the land is used as pasture for milk cows, and there are several small cheese producers in the area. It is all fresh cheese (queso fresca), with a rubbery texture and a propensity not to melt that takes a little bit of getting used to. At least there is cheese! Most people have their own chickens; some have pigs. Many locals also plant and harvest their own yuca, bananas, plantains, sugar cane, and oranges among other crops. There are regular weekly markets in several surrounding towns where farmers from the Sierra bring their veggies and potatoes to trade for bananas, yuca, and other coastal goods.
The Language
I love the sound of Ecuadorian Spanish. It is extremely comforting. And simply beautiful. No bias here. The primary language of Ecuador is Spanish. But most folks don't call what they speak Spanish; if you ask an Ecuadorian if they speak Español, most will chuckle, smile sweetly, and call their language Castellano, a tip of the hat to Castilian Spanish -- typically attributed to northern and central Spain. And they are reasonably proud of the way they speak Spanish.
One remarkable thing about Ecuadorian Spanish is the frequency of use of the diminutive. This is the -ito and -ita in Spanish. For example. You are not my amigo (friend), you are my amiguito. Those are not panes (bread rolls), but pancitos. And they are not on the mesa (table) but the mesita. Even my name is usually diminutive-ized; in Ecuador, I am almost always referred to as Verito (rather than Vero). I have no idea about how this came about, but it's mighty endearing.
The accent is really variable, depending on the region you live in Ecuador. This is not unlike the US. People from the Sierra have a slow, lilting accent with a dramatic emphasis on the double L (ll). So ella is not pronounced e-ya, but rather el-lya (not unlike some Argentinian accents). On the coast, the Spanish is more slurred together, unsurprisingly more lackadaisical, and words are often cut short (vamos a la playa sounds something more like vam-A-la-pla). I am going to be curious to hear my children pick up the Ecua-accent. And Paul too.
Some of my favorite Ecuadorian slang words include bacán (cool), chevere (also cool), pana (buddy or close friend), ñaño and ñaña (brother and sister), and guagua (baby). Several of these slang words come directly from the most commonly spoken indigenous language in Ecuador, Quechua.
References:
- https://data.fs.usda.gov/research/pubs/iitf/ja_iitf_2019_helmer002.pdf
- https://www.britannica.com/place/Ecuador/Languages
- https://minorityrights.org/
- https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/best-afro-ecuadorian-destinations
- https://www.livescience.com/27897-andes-mountains.html
I so love reading all your posts! This one is my favorite so far. So excited to continue to read about your adventures!!
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