three days, three realities

three days, three very different realities. in the last few days i've been thrown into three very different parts of ecuadorian culture and it's hard to not notice the differences. on friday, we were split up into three teams of four and given four destinations that we had to reach via public transportation (bus) as a way of getting us used to using the bus system. the first team to reach the lighthouse at the top of the hill in Guayaquil, won. my team won by about 20 minutes, but the win didn´t come without some frustrations. lesson learned #1: ecuadorians do not know their directions or how to give them. we spent an hour walking around downtown guayaquil looking for the metrovia to the lighthouse. after all the teams met back up we went to this little hole in the wall bar at step 360 (there are over 440 steps to the top of the lighthouse) and had a few beers as we sat and talked a a bar that overlooked durán and the river. for that night we were taken back and forth between the poverty of durán and the money of guayaquil. the next morning kevin, our in-country director, took us to a resort at las playas, a beach town an hour and a half northwest of durán. it was one of the most fun days i´ve had in a while. the pacific ocean was really warm, we swam for a few housr, breaking against the waves. after swimming, we noticed a group of people and birds gathreing down the beach, so we assumed there was a dead animal. we ran down the beach and found that fisherman had brought their nets in and were letting people throw little fish up to the 50 or so birds that were hovering just overhead. it was such a surreal experience to be in ecuador, on the the beach, throwing fish up to birds who were no less that 20 feet above me. one of the coolest experiences of my life. after this we played a huge game of soccer on the beach and then relaxed on the hammacks. this wasn´t a volunteer program. this was vacation. yesterday was a dose of reality. we moved into our house here in the arbolito neighborhood and it dawned on me. i´m actually in ecuador. i live on a dirt road, next to people with no running water, pirated electricity, no air conditioning. we have the luxury of running water and in-door plumbing and we still cannot flush toilet paper. we have to take military showers to conserve water. i went from a nation with an unlimited supply of fresh water, to a nation that desperately needs what i so ignorantly took for granted. i didn´t live in a reality, that was paradise. this is the reality for most of the world.