Just yesterday we returned from the bush. We had been living at Yachana High School for the past week. Yachana is a very unique education system that is literally situated directly in the middle of NO WHERE. 

 

The Lodge is there to help support the school financially as much as possible. The school itself is 20 percent self-sustaining in food, finances, power, etc. From raising cows, pigs, and chickens, to running a microsized hydroelectric dam for power, the ultimate goal is to be 100 percent self sustaining. 

 

The students wake up every morning for breakfast at 6AM. Breakfast was definitely interesting, anything from plantain mush, to spaghetti with chicken still on the bone and of course more plantains. After breakfast they get together for assembly and go over the day’s tasks as well as a “thought for the day” type of thing. After assembly the students are divided into four groups and each group is assigned a different job for the morning. They work from 7 a.m. until 10 a.m. and the work isn’t easy. The first day Jake German, Josh Johnson, and I all had to carry 6-10 foot Mahogany beams over a quarter mile on our shoulders. The beams will be used to build an additional greenhouse. After work, we had a much needed break for about two hours. The kids all went and changed clothes and went to their daily classes. Then we had lunch and after lunch we got to do some teaching. 

 

My first teaching experience at Yachana is what really opened my eyes to how the place works. Every student was there to learn. Most of them were attentive and nearly none of them were disruptive. They showed a level of maturity that I didn’t see in South Quito. I struggled all week trying to figure out where the change in behavior and attitude toward learning may have come from. I never heard a single complaint out of anyone in the morning when the breakfast bell sounded at six. I never heard a complaint about carrying 150 lbs on a shoulder, or planting an entire field (over 250) Papaya trees. Furthermore, they were ready and focused during their classes for the entire day, from 10:15 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. The students showed a high level of camaraderie especially for high school students. Something about the working together for a common goal, I suppose, is what makes them so close. 

 

But I found something even more interesting when I talked to the students one on one. Every student shared the aspiration of attending a university after their third term at Yachana. Some wanted to venture to the US, while others were content with the schools in Ecuador. And every student, wanted to return to their homes, various villages, cities by the coast, even some from Quito, to try to help their home communities. This is what really impressed me about Yachana. A completely different outlook on education than the kids from South Quito. Surely, differences in childhood upbringing elicited some of this attitude in the students at Yachana, but I believe that the school itself also fosters the “giving back” attitude.

 

Of course, we had some interesting moments in our free time as well, more cultural/jungle exposure than anything. A few pretty interesting hikes during the day and the night landed me in a few not-so-usual situations. During the day hike I was dubbed jungle Shaman and got a nice face painting to show it. When we went for the night hike, our guide, Abel, assured me it was fine to put the four inch scorpion spider on my face. So I went ahead and tried it. I’ll try anything twice. Then the usual personal hygiene problems, giant spiders and tree frogs needed chased out prior to taking a refreshing, ice-cold shower. And, last but not least, I managed to hold an impressive 20ish bbpn (bug bites per night) average for the entire week. We were there for four nights, you do the math. Other than that I had a wonderful time in the Amazon, and I would definitely go back! The animal and plant life we saw, and the experiences we had, were worth the distress of the jungle..