As I sit here in the Runa office in Archidona, I cannot help but feel the panic bubbling up in my chest: my time in Napo comes to an end in just a mere two weeks. All that has happened over the past six months and all of the people that I have met here in Ecuador have come together to shape an experience that now defines my sense of self and my sense of normality.
It is hard to realize that I have no idea when and if I will see all of this again, and it is even harder…

A drinking culture is undoubtedly very prominent in Ecuador and more specifically very prominent in the Kichwa communities surrounding Tena. When I lived in Alto Tena, it was common to see the community borrachos stumbling around at all hours of every day, and there was rarely a weekend without a community party.
Something I heard time and time again in Alto Tena after someone had made some sort of scene was ‘estuvo borracho, estuvo borracho’ (“he was drunk, he was drunk”). Being drunk is a totally acceptable excuse to have gotten into a fight, to have spent the night sobbing…

It is truly amazing how quickly things can change, how suddenly experiences can be over, how unexpectedly new beginnings can appear. This has been so heavily on my mind over the past couple of weeks as my time in Ecuador has taken an unforeseen turn.
Two weeks ago, I moved out of my community of Alto Tena. The move was abrupt and quick, and it happened before I had really even been able to register that I would be leaving. There were lots of tears, both from me and my host family, and I struggled to come to terms with…

Guayusa is a native plant to Ecuador that the Kichwas drink as a traditional tea. My past six months have been positively filled with guayusa, both through my homestay and through my work, and, given my proximity to and close work with the stuff, I cannot believe it’s taken me this long to write about it.
Guayusa is undoubtedly a treasured part of the Kichwa culture here in the rainforest. Some might even call it the blood of the Ecuadorian Amazon. As tradition goes, the Kichwas get up around 3 or 4 in the morning. They allow guayusa to gently…

Seven months ago when I left behind my comfortable life in Chapel Hill for the first time, I left behind a community of friends and family that I had known for practically my whole life. I was on the brink of an experience that would alter me in ways that I previously could never have imagined, and that would, undoubtedly, push my sense of family and my sense of home beyond the well-defined boundaries of Chapel Hill.
As I sit here in Archidona, my time left in Ecuador diminishing at an alarmingly quick rate, all I can think about is…

Check out what a typical day in my community is like by clicking here…!

One month ago when I first arrived in my small Kichwa village of Alto Tena, my mind was blown. I simply could not fathom how unbearably slowly time passed in my community, and it was hard to imagine being able to spend six months living in a place where a day felt like a week, and a week felt like an eternity. The hours are long in Alto Tena, that’s for sure, but after being there for a few weeks I am beginning to see just how beautiful that is.
Every single morning, the people in my community wake up…