It seems like both yesterday and a thousand years ago we were packing our bags for Ecuador. Now that we’re back in Germany, I wanted to reflect on our experience living there. Without a doubt, we are different people now than when we arrived, in a good way! So, here we go.
First, this sounds obvious, but life in Ecuador is different than life in the United States or Europe. Even more, life in Tena is different than life in the cities, like Quito or Cuenca. That complete shift in lifestyle was one of the things I looked forward to the most before we moved. In reality, we had no idea what to expect, so we arrived with no expectations, ready to adapt to whatever the situation may be.
This was particularly hard in the beginning, given we spoke no Spanish (and very few spoke English), and EVERYTHING seemed chaotic. Not to mention that Shane and I are planners. It’s how I cope with uncertainty; I’m going to control all the pieces that I can control so I can let go of the rest. Well, when we first arrived, I had very little control over anything. 😆 In fact, we would relinquish much of that control to José (Shane’s master’s student at the time) and Lucie (the other postdoc) who could speak Spanish. This was particularly tough for Shane, who was there to co-lead a project. At that time, the insectaries for the butterflies were still being built, and Shane had to talk with the construction guy through Lucie and José, which drove him crazy that he couldn’t do it himself.
We’d also end up letting go of our lifelong and type-A personality-driven desire to be on time (well, sort of, haha). Once, when my Sister and Terry visited, we stayed at the Anaconda Lodge and had a long chat one afternoon with the owner. He offhandedly said something like, “If you’re going to worry about being 10 or 15 minutes late, you’re in the wrong country.” That really stuck with us, and we’d often quote that to each other when the other was panicking about time.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I still HATE to be late, but I came to expect it from everyone else, whether that be social activities, the bus schedules, or even appointment times. Sometimes, we had pizza nights on our roof for the lab, and it turned into a running joke that the party started at 7:30 pm for us but 8:30 pm for the Ecuadorians. Like anything, once you know what to expect, it gets better. Unless you’re Shane, and it’s a Sunday morning, and you’ve been sitting on the bus for 20 minutes waiting for it to leave with no clue what time it will actually leave. That waiting never got easier.
Overall, I’d describe life in Ecuador as organized chaos. Somehow, everything always works out. You just have to trust the system! For example, in Tena, there are very few designated bus stops. To get on, you simply flag down the bus. To get off, you yell ‘gracias!’ when you’re close to where you want to get off; then, they stop. How in the hell are you supposed to know this as an extranjero (foreigner)? Who knows.
Relatedly, Ecuador has no postal system (minus one Fed-Ex-type of delivery service). Our address was literally Calle Juan Montalvo, Tena. The street name and city. That’s it. Yet, somehow, if you needed to send things between cities, most commonly via the national bus line (pay ahead of time, and your package goes under the bus), it always arrived. You just provided the name, city, and phone number of the person receiving the package.
Another thing we had to get used to is WhatsApp and Facebook. Everything goes through these two platforms. Business information, the news, food deliveries, and making appointments. If you need to contact someone, you go via one of these platforms, primarily WhatsApp. At first, I hated this. Why do people not have websites? Why can I only get my information from Facebook? (which I generally try NOT to do given the rampant misinformation.) The answer is simple. Websites are expensive, and these platforms are free.
Over time, I came to really enjoy this. First, it’s SO much easier to text in Spanish than it is to call or speak in person. Plus, you can always translate the message to make sure you understand it correctly. Second, it’s so efficient. Why go through these contact forms and blah blah when you can go straight to the source? I ended up with numbers for taxis, laundry services, bus companies, nail salons, and pizza places. Shane’s group had contacts for soil, fertilizer, plants, etc. I’m going to really miss that system!
I’m (we’re) going to miss a lot about life in Tena. It’s hard to describe, but life moved at a different pace there. It felt more relaxed than life in the United States in the sense that people (in general) aren’t working for the next best thing. This pressure to make more money so you can buy the new car, the new house, the new *insert item*, from our perspective, wasn’t like that.
I say that with a major asterisk, though, because people in Tena hustle. The vendedores (sellers) work early morning to evening hours and often seven days a week because they need to live. They need to feed their families. Poverty is a notorious problem in the Amazon region. But man, you can buy literally anything from a street vendor, and I love that. Kitchen spoons (best ones I’ve ever owned), inflated kid pools (on sunny hot days), portable fans, speakers, charger cables, rugs, hairdryers, fully assembled shelves, jewelry, shoes… the list goes on! I think my favorite vendor was a man with a cart selling dog and cat collars, but the cart played “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in meows and barks on a loop, regardless of the time of year. 😆 I’ll also really miss the man selling morocho (a typical warm drink made from corn) in the early morning. I could tell what time it was by the sound of his voice yelling, “MOOOOOOROOOOCHHOOOOOO!!!” echoing through the streets around the same time every day.
And you can’t forget the food; I think we kept the coco juice, pan de yuca, and cevichocho carts in business.
The other special thing about living in Tena is that it’s in the Amazon region, called la Amazonía or el Oriente. Obviously, the surrounding nature is spectacular, and spending the afternoon at the river is a common pastime. However, Ecuador has over 25 recognized ethnic groups, many of which are indigenous and call the Amazon region home, for example, the Huaorani people, who weren’t contacted until the 1950s. Many indigenous people speak Kichwa, a derivative of Quechua (from the Incas), and it’s quite common to hear people referred to as “Kichwa,” which has become synonymous with “of indigenous origin.” However, it’s important to note there are many languages and independent cultures among this group. Nonetheless, leave any of the cities in the Amazon region (Tena and Puyo, for example), and you’ve entered various Kichwa communities.
All this to say that these groups were unknown to us before we moved to Tena, and it has been a great pleasure to learn their history and culture (and a few Kichwa words, e.g., achachay! very cold!).
Of note, I went on a few community tours during our time in Tena, which has the potential to be really awkward and make you feel like you’re exploiting the community. However, the ones I went on did not feel like that at all. In fact, the guides were either from that community or had a direct connection, and the people were happy to share a piece of their life with us. Usually, this included a demonstration of how something is prepared, for example, yuca bread, chocolate, or natural fibers. Honestly, the best tour I did was through the Hakuna Matata Lodge near Tena (look into their Explorer package). All this to say, don’t be afraid to try one of these tours (but do be aware of ones that keep exotic pets for tourism purposes, as these aren’t ethical tourism practices).
As I mentioned earlier, Ecuador’s nature and landscape are incredible. I cannot overstate my love for la naturaleza in this country! If we’ve talked about Ecuador’s nature, then you will have certainly heard my spiel on the topography changes from Quito to Tena. That’s the thing. For such a small country, the landscape is so diverse! In one day, you can be on the coast, in the high Andes mountains, or in the Amazon jungle. (Ok, maybe not in one day because driving takes forever; the roads are so curvy!) This country started my love for birds (lookin’ at you, Choco and Yellow-throated Toucans!) and coatis (which I didn’t know existed). The Galapagos and our hike to Quilotoa were amazing, sure. But some of my favorite memories were wandering around looking for butterflies in Balsas, Buena Ventura, and Vilcabamba.
Speaking of butterflies, let’s talk about them since they are the entire reason we were there! I won’t go into butterfly logistics or what Shane thought about working at the university in Tena. That’s something I hope Shane will talk about in a later post once he’s a bit more recovered from the stress of, yup, working with butterflies.
On the surface, working with butterflies sounds relatively easy. But, in reality, you have three key aspects: the plants that feed the caterpillars, the caterpillars that become butterflies, and the adult butterflies. At any given moment, if any of these three collapse, your entire system is at risk. And, go figure, very rarely did anything go smoothly simultaneously. Not to mention that animal care is an daily activity. So, as much as we loved our time in Tena, it was a bit tainted by the work. Well, not the work itself, but the amount of work and the relentless nature of it.
Shane worked six (if not seven) days a week for over two years. On the other side, I was home by myself six (if not seven) days a week for over two years. Don’t get me wrong, I’m great at being by myself, but it also gets old. Even with assistants, time off for Shane was a true struggle since there was often too much work for Shane and the assistants together. If you took away one person, and it became even more overwhelming. And, if the assistants needed days off, for example, for Ecuadorian public holidays, then I became a research assistant for the day.
I love living abroad and the challenges that come with it, but this work scenario challenged us, professionally for Shane and personally for us both. It left no time for much of anything else, which changed the dynamic of our relationship. A simple example is meal planning and grocery shopping, which we used to do together and enjoyed doing (as crazy as that may seem). However, since Shane was at work, it all defaulted to me. He had no brain space left for anything other than keeping the project afloat. And I had to make some serious adjustments in my expectations of what he could give and the reality of our day-to-day life.
I say all this because I think it’s easy to look at life abroad with rose-colored glasses, both from our perspective and an outsider’s perspective. It’s easy to talk about all the wonderful and exciting things about living abroad because it IS all those things! However, it can and will be challenging in various ways, and it’s important to acknowledge those challenges. Moving somewhere where you don’t know anyone, where you don’t speak the language, where literally every mundane task requires that extra bit of effort; it’s not for everyone. I think we’re a bit addicted to those day-to-day challenges, but it doesn’t mean that some days (or weeks or months) aren’t really hard.
And, while I’m being serious, I think it’s important to acknowledge that we lived a very privileged life in Ecuador. A European salary and my freelance work goes a long way, and life isn’t that easy for a lot of Ecuadorians, especially those in el Oriente. Not to mention, workers’ rights are quite poor, and primary/secondary education in the Amazon isn’t great. We are also healthy people, so other than one trip to the public health clinic thanks to a wasp sting (which was FREE, by the way), we didn’t need to rely on the healthcare system, which can vary in quality. As a whole, we were shielded from some key elements of society that greatly affect quality of life.
Also, since being back in Germany, we’ve been starkly reminded of how advantaged life is here. For example, in Tena, the need for emergency medical services was often announced on the news channels on Facebook; you can dial 911, which works sometimes, but the infrastructure isn’t as equipped in Tena as it is in Europe or the US. Another example. There is only one road from Quito to Tena with two key bridges, one of which we ended up nicknaming “the death bridge” because trucks and motorcycles literally fell through it, even after it was “fixed.” Moreover, in Tena (and most of Ecuador), the water is not safe to drink. For this reason, we used a Berkey water filter (purchased in the US and brought to Ecuador), and carried cups of water to the bathroom to brush our teeth. (breaking this habit has been surprisingly hard!) Now, we continue to use our water filter because we like the taste of filtered water, not because it’s a necessity. Germans may not prefer to drink tap water, but there is no safety issue. And we can flush the toilet paper again! (also a hard habit to break 🤣 – donde está el baño bin?)
While we were in Ecuador, these things just became normal. Eventually, you don’t think twice about it. As a result, our requirements for life have shifted; there’s a difference between what you need and what you want. Clean drinking water is a necessity. An ant-free home is a want. 😉
Jokes aside, in the same way living in a 30 m2 basement apartment with no kitchen sink (ever washed dishes in the bathroom…every single day?) completely changed our perspective on our apartment requirements (e.g., ground-level or above, windows, sink in the kitchen), living in Tena shifted our perspective on what’s required for life (e.g., a clean and safe place to live and clean water).
Another huge shift in attitude for us was our perspective on language learning. We spent six years in the Netherlands, and I could understand quite well (and had a Dutch-English work situation), but I would never say I spoke Dutch. We were in Germany during the covid lockdown, so beyond the basics (i.e., mit karte bitte! at the grocery store), we didn’t learn German. In Ecuador, Tena specifically, Spanish isn’t a want; it’s a need, and that was the driving factor we finally needed to actually learn and USE a language.
First, Spanish is FUNNNNN! Do we sound like native speakers? Hell no. But was every single person we encountered patient and helpful with our broken (but improving) Spanish? Absolutely. It was the complete opposite experience of that in the Netherlands (sorry Duchies), where I was literally laughed at for trying to speak Dutch or told to not even bother. (Stop doing that if you want people to speak Dutch!) Spanish came more naturally than Dutch or German, given its similarities to English, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. Essentially, we’ve spent every free moment for the past two years listening to podcasts in Spanish and doing Duolingo. Shane had his work colleagues who helped him every day (muchísimas gracias a Pamela, quien enseñaba Shane todos los dias, si el quería o no 😆). I took classes on line and talked with people when I could (muchísimas gracias a George, quien quería un intercambio de idiomas real y no usaba Tandem como Tinder). We arrived with essentially zero Spanish, but by the time we left, we were having parties and going to dinners entirely in Spanish. I even read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (I mean, Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal) in Spanish!
We still have work to do before Spanish is permanently in the brain, but I feel immensely proud of our progress and grateful for everyone who helped us along the way.
Tip for anyone encountering someone learning your language: don’t speak louder. Speak slower, and rephrase your sentence if they don’t understand. They will really appreciate it!
I think now, we’ve reached the point of the post where I’m going to just list off all the things that I’m going to miss about living in Ecuador. Ya know, for posterity. So, in no particular order…
The trash truck (which played the official song of Napo to let you know it was coming), the way the fog over the river in the morning could predict the weather (fog meant it was going to be a scorcher!), Oropendulas and Rufus-collard sparrows (local birds), encebollado (the national dish of Ecuador and the best $3 lunch of all-time; I recommend Cevichería Bachita if you’re ever in Tena), Tres Hermanos (our local grocery store), leaf cutter ants, Grandma at la tienda around the corner (who would give you change in candy if she was short on coins), our apartment (but not the couch), the house geckos (all named Arthur or baby Arthur), pan de yuca, the walk across the bridge to the gym in the morning, the way the river Pano and Tena converged, $1 worth of eggs in a bag, El Mercadon (the best fruit and veggie local in the city), Cafetería Hamilton (and tigrillo de yuca), the view of the Sumaco volcano from our roof, ALL THE PARADES (sometimes also viewed from the roof!), monkeys, roof party nights, el Parque Lineal (the park where I took many a walk), coco(nut) juice, the walk from Aula 11 (the lab) to the insectaries at Ikiam (the university), fried tilapia, cheap fruit, Bunker (the restaurant that finally fulfilled our dream of being a regular; they knew our order and stopped giving us menus), resort for the day (before they changed the rules), the off-tune police band, helado con queso, the lab kitty and puppies, smushy bus rides (ok, maybe not, but you can get anywhere in the country for cheap, and I like that), $1.50 per kilo laundry (wash, dry, fold, and deliver!), and cheap lunches (for example, secos for $2.50 and bollo de pescado for $3).
Last but certainly not least, the positive experience we had in Ecuador is majorly attributed to the people we met, both those that we met in passing and those who became friends. Without exaggeration, every single person we met in passing was welcoming, patient with our Spanish level, curious about what Shane did for work, and interested to hear what we liked about their country.
A todas las personas que se convertieron amigos, dijimos antes de salir, pero nuestro tiempo no seria el mismo sin ustedes. Gracias para compartir tu vida y cultura, y, mas importante, tu amistad.
And with that, sadly, life goes on, and we’re off into our next phase of life.
Pero, Ecuador siempre tendré un pedazo especial en mi corazón. Espero que nos vemos muy pronto.
Nos vemos,
The Shwits 