Ecuador 2017: Reflections from Junior Team Member Jordan Geelhoed

by Jordan Geelhoed

 

So, before we left on our Ecuador trip, I was mostly nervous more than excited. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to go, but I was unsure of what to expect.

We would be out of country – heck, out of continent – for eleven days, in a third world country, without mom and dad. I was nervous about what kind of work we would do in this small town, I was even nervous about what we would be able to eat and drink. So, on the plane ride to Ecuador, I had many thoughts. Me and Devin had already left mom and dad back in San Antonio, flew over to Miami, and stayed in the airport for hours before finally meeting up with our group. I was never worried about our group, I always knew they would be great, and they were. All of them were so cool and nice and fun to be around.

So after meeting the group, we boarded the plane. The moment I stepped on the plane I realized there was no turning back (not like I could back out beforehand, my ticket was already bought), so I started to panic. Thankfully, I was about to get the exact remedy – a long plane ride. Most people hate long plane rides, but I love long plane rides. Especially when they have in-flight movies. I calmed down more watching Get Out with Devin (great movie, by the way), and then after watching John Wick I realized I may have been overreacting. As long as we were with ‘the man with the plan’ (a.k.a. Grandpa Glenn) we should all be ok.

Grandpa Glenn had every step of the trip all planned out. He paid for us on all parts, including flights, hotels, bus fare, that kind of stuff. I don’t know why I was ever worried in the first place. We landed in Guayaquil, and after we got off the plane, we stayed in some hotel, only for the night. The next day we took a long bus ride to the city of Cuenca, up in the mountains. This was not the last of our long bus rides during the next ten days, but I had enough entertainment in my headphones. Since we were out of country, my phone had to stay on airplane mode the whole time (mom and dad are very stingy when it comes to the cell phone bill), but thankfully music doesn’t require data, and I had downloaded podcasts beforehand back home (can’t live without my podcasts). They saved me during the long bus rides.

When we arrived in Cuenca, I was a little surprised at how cold it was. I had packed warm, so I was prepared, but I was a little thrown off because I came from San Antonio in July, where it gets to triple digits more days than not. In the southern hemisphere, it was wintertime, and not only that, we were up in the Andes mountains. Very different from the coast of Guayaquil. Cuenca was a very nice town, too bad we only stayed there for one night. Then after Cuenca we finally took off to Shaime.

Shaime was the town we would do the service work. We had four days marked out on the itinerary, but it was really more like two because of all the bus rides. From Cuenca to Shaime, our ride was about twelve hours long. It wouldn’t be so long if we hadn’t spent the whole ride winding through the Andes. I am notoriously bad with winding mountain roads, so I spent most of the ride with podcasts, cookies, water bottles, and sitting next to an open window.

Many times during the ride, I felt moments of genuine terror, due to the huge cliffsides and very limited protection on the road. Heights always bother me. I was fine once we stopped driving and got to the hotel we stayed in. We unpacked, and drove to the village.

They prepared a very cool welcoming ceremony for us, with some dances and music. We saw the surgery truck, and finally met with the medical students from the Ecuador school. They were part of our group as well, but separate from us because instead of doing leisure activities before and after the service, they would be actually doing medical procedures on people. When we got to the town, it was at night, so I couldn’t really tell how everything was. This wasn’t a dedicated working time, we just came to say hello and give a few consultations. The real work would be done over the next two days.

Our bedroom was mosquito netted and for good reason. In Guayaquil we were down by the coast, and in Cuenca we were up in the mountains, but for the rest of the trip we were down in the jungle. It wasn’t the technically the Amazon River we were staying on, but it was the Amazon Rainforest. Bugs were everywhere, all day. You couldn’t leave on a light on at night because the moths would come in droves (that was kind of a sidebar).

The first day of service was a little tame for me, Devin, Khoi, and Bambi (those were the other two kids our age, did I mention them before? They’re awesome). The med students did surgeries in the truck, while the ones not doing surgeries were consulting other patients.

Our main jobs were to keep the kids busy and help with little odd jobs in the clinic. The clinic was just an empty room with mattresses. We brought a whole bunch of meds and supplies in big, bright orange duffel bags to give to the people. Some of the bags had dolls and little pillowcase dresses, so we gave those out to the kids.

The town actually surprised me at how sophisticated it was. No, it wasn’t New York City, and it was in no way glamorous, but I half expected us to be living in huts. There was even satellite and cable for the TV’s there, and internet for the computers. I didn’t even know there was gonna be electronics there. Although, the kids did look pretty amazed when I would occasionally pull out my phone. Khoi would always try to introduce them to american internet with memes and internet videos, and it was always funny how they would react to them.

The first day was pretty chill, and the second day was like that with one or two twists. For one, I got to witness a surgery. It was for a man with a cyst on his eyebrow, I believe. Grandpa was there, teaching the med students what to do and stuff, while I just watched in the corner of the truck. It was pretty gross, but I kind of liked the experience. The dude was perfectly fine afterwards, too. Also, at the end of the day, we did our presentations. At the start of the trip, we were given a medical topic to research. I was given “skin grafts”. Grandpa told me the basics on the bus ride to Shaime, but to be totally honest, I didn’t do any research, and I forgot a lot of what Grandpa said to me. Thankfully, the presentation wasn’t that serious, otherwise I would’ve looked quite the fool.

Also, come nightfall, something special happened. Grandpa Glenn packed these Chinese lanterns, and that night was when we lit them off. They flew into the sky for what felt like forever, until they looked like stars in the night. And the stars. With no city buzz, you could see any constellation you could think of. Then the doctors sang ballads for what felt like hours, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t understand at all what they were saying (it was all in Spanish), but I loved it. It was probably the best night of the trip.

The next day, we left Shaime. In the morning, we took a boat down the river. It was really nice to see the rainforest in the early morning, but the water was very cold. We left around lunchtime in our bus, only about a four hour drive. That was the last time we saw our bus and its drivers, who we were with for the past four days. The next four days, we would be served instead of serving. I don’t love myself for saying it, but I think that was my favorite part of the trip, as opposed to the service work. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the service work as well.

We arrived in a town called Zamora, where our bus dropped us off. After that, it was only a short taxi drive to Copalinga, where we were staying. Copalinga was an eco-friendly lodge right in the middle of the rainforest, so there were plenty of birds and monkeys around, which was super cool to watch. They served us breakfast and dinner, and the dinners were some of the greatest meals ever. They were really something. I don’t really like soup, but they had some amazing soups there.

The next few days consisted of long hikes in the jungle, trips down to the river, relaxing times in a hammock, and exotic nature sightings. We also met another hotel resident who joined our group, Lena. She, Colby, and Eric (they were two guys in our group I never think I mentioned, but they’re great also) were the big explorers. They would climb mountains and go in the river, while people like me would stay behind and go on the flat hikes. We did do this one hike one day, which was thirteen miles, about the length of a half-marathon! That hike was pretty stressful for me because there were a lot of steep cliff drop-offs. Not only that, we kept hiking even after nightfall. We were late for dinner that night. I didn’t love that hike.

But all great things must end, and after four great days in Copalinga, we had to ride all the way back to Guayaquil. That was the longest drive, almost fourteen hours. Not only that, we were all crammed into a small van, as opposed to stretched out on a big bus. I had podcasts, so I was fine. The final night we stayed in a lovely Holiday Inn hotel, where we just prepared for the long plane ride tomorrow.

That final ride was plenty fine for me (because I love long plane rides), but everyone else seemed a little bit sad. Rightfully so, we were leaving the Amazon and the Andes to go back to our normal routines back home. In Miami, everyone had long layovers. The ones going to D.C. had about four hours. Eric, who was going to San Francisco, had a six hour layover. But me and Devin had a nine hour layover, going to San Antonio. We said all our good-byes to everyone when they left, and boarded our plane home.

What have I learned from all this? I don’t think I learned anything new, just reiterating what I know to be true. Don’t take things for granted, love what you have. Do important charity work, not everyone has what you have, etc. But I really loved this vacation, highlight of my summer, potentially the year, who knows.