Abigail Collingwood: 5/11-5/17

On May 10th, I arrived in Ecuador! I started my volunteer project on the 13th, so I had a couple days to get to know Quito before I flew out to the Galapagos to work with the Jatun Sacha organization on their environmental initiatives. I stayed with a host family for those three nights, and it was an amazing insight into Ecuadorian culture. May 11th was actually Mother's Day, so the extended family came over to celebrate. There is a real emphasis on family there as the cousins are all really close and the children don't move out of their parents house until they're married. I talked to one of the cousins a lot and it was really neat to see how much patriotism Ecuador has. He was very proud of how beautiful and diverse his country was. This was a common trend with the Ecuadorians that I encountered, and the patriotism became especially poignant during the World Cup. 

I was really excited to return to the Galapagos. I had visited before and had wanted to return and get to know the islands better, so I was very grateful that I had this opportunity. When I arrived on the islands on May 13th, I met the station director, Cesar. He told us that our main projects on the reserve right now are to reduce the impact of tourism, eliminate the invasive species, and prepare the reserve's garden for the winter crop. When I arrived at the reserve, I met so many volunteers from all over the world. It was really cool and inspirational to see how we were all brought together and all cared about environmental conservation. 

This week, we cut down mora, which is the invasive raspberry plant. It's hard work, but it was fun to work with a machete! We also collected fruit and cleared part of the garden to prepare it for crops. Everything in the Galapagos is about sustainability and reducing our impact on the environment, so the reserve prepares its own food to reduce the need to import it from the mainland which wastes resources. We also worked in the Galapaguera, which is the giant tortoise sanctuary. We worked with the national park to weed the cafe plant garden. It was neat to see all the little trees that were growing there and know that in a couple years they would be large and fruitful. It was a reminder for me that our actions now really do have effects, even if we don't see them now. There is an emphasis in the Galapagos of thinking of the future. When they make changes, they make them slowly because they are never sure what kind of environmental impact they could have. It makes me wonder about the kind of change we could effect if more places started being that environmentally conscious.