The past few months

My failure to post lately is no indication that life has become less interesting on the equator, but rather that I've been withdrawn from it. I've spent most of the summer locked in our study listening to terrible lectures about secured transactions and property, with my nose buried in a bar-review outline. Then Monique and I were in DC with her attending some USAID trainings and me taking the bar exam and MPRE.

Nonetheless, the Citizens' Revolution marches on in Quito, and this past Monday the country celebrated its bicentennial with the inauguration of the new government. I was still in DC, but Monique and my cousin Robin got to greet all of the big Latin American personalities, including Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. Robin is living in our old digs at the Swiss Hotel while she and her husband look for embassy housing, and all of the heads of state stayed there for the festivities. Check out Robin's facebook page for photos in the lobby of all the big-wigs. With the inauguration, President Correa now has 4 more years to push forward his ambitious agenda of battling (or cancelling) Ecuador's foreign debt, strengthening minority rights, equalizing the distribution of wealth in Ecuador, and establishing Ecuador as a leader in the new Latin American left. I'm sure all this will make for an interesting and exciting couple of years for us.

While I was studying for the bar, Monique and I did manage to sneak out of Quito a few times for fun in the mountains. Here are some photos from our jaunt to Quilotoa, a beautiful volcanic lake 3 & 1/2 hours south of Quito:

The trip out here was an amazing drive. We passed about 6 snow-capped volcanoes on one of the clearest days we've had in Ecuador. We hiked around the rim of the volcano surrounding Quilotoa lake for a few hours, then drove another hour on a crazy dirt road to get to the Black Sheep Inn, a very comfortable eco-lodge in a small indigenous community. The next morning we rode horses down into the canyon below our hotel, picnicked on a sketchy bridge across a river, and still made it back to Quito in time for dinner.

A couple weeks later, still struck with volcano fever, we drove to Parque Nacional Cotopaxi, a huge protected area surrounded by three volcanoes. Unfortunately, this time we weren't so lucky with the weather and had to face a lot of fog and wind. It was still beautiful, and after we abandoned our plans to hike up to the Refugio which sits at 4800 meters, we had a great time driving and hiking around the high grasslands, checking out the wild horses, and playing on an ancient Incan fortress where we were the only people within in a few acres.

Well...I hope these photos are enticing enough to bring some of you down here. We feel really blessed to be so close to so much natural beauty (and for those of you frightened by the gloves and hats, we're also just a few hours from the beaches or jungles, where temperatures will make you pine for that cool Andean air). Tomorrow we head off to Greece for my brother-in-law's wedding, but soon we'll be back to the excitement of Ecuador. In September I'll start working full time as the Georgetown Asylum Access Fellow, and I'm really looking forward to continuing my work advocating for legal rights of refugees in Ecuador. We'll keep you posted.

Abrazos,

D&M

Born to love volcanoes

If my blogging has been lax of late, it's because life here has become fairly routine...my days are spent arguing with BarBri or the post office about where my ipod containing everything I need to know about being a lawyer might be (somewhere between Jamaica, NY and Quito, apparently), and learing the rules regarding res ipsa loquitor for tort liability. As I suspected, you aren't that interested.

We did manage to pull off an amazing barbeque/housewarming party last weekend. I found the perfect grill on our way back from Mitad del Mundo, the super kitschy and scientifically inaccurate monument to the center of the Earth in Ecuador, which is actually about 200 meters away from the real equator. As you can see, this 50 gallon drum can comfortably hold 3 spooning beer-can-chickens and leave plenty of space for barbequed tofu. We had about 50 people over on our patio for barbequed ribs and chicken estilo americano, and everyone seemed pretty happy with the results.

Mom, stop reading here....

Today my buddy Nick and I decided we would climb Volcano Pichincha, which taunts me daily from the window in our living room. It's supposed to be a fairly simple climb from the end of the Teleferiqo, which drops you off at a little below 14,000 feet to begin the hike to the 15,700 ft. summit. Nick and I happily embarked on our trek towards the summit around 10:30 this morning. It was a bit cloudy, but conditions looked pretty good for most of the hike. When we got close to the summit, the clouds were in pretty thickly, but we decided we might as well push to the top. The trail had ended, however, so we just took off up a scramble of loose rocks with a bit of hand over hand climbing.

As soon as we reached the highest point we could get to (we call it the summit, although the actual path may have led to a higher spot on the volcano), the clouds opened up and we were surrounded by hail and lightening and thunder. I'm not a boyscout, but I seem to remember a few things from my youth about not wanting to be at the highest point in the city in the middle of a thunder storm.

Nick and I snapped a quick photo and started our descent, but we were surprised to learn that the hail that fell over 10 minutes was enough to cover our entire trail with slick ice. It made coming down the way we had climbed up almost impossible, and we ended up sliding down a few hundred feet over steep, sharp rock on our completely unprepared, blue-jean-clad behinds. At one point I suggested waiting out the storm in a cave, but when I started sizing up the choicest pieces of Nick should one of us have to eat the other, we decided we might as well continue down the mountain and take our chances with the lightening. After about 40 minutes of harrowing alpine slip 'n' slide, we made it back to the trail, and found a few other wayward hikers who were equally concerned in not being hit by lightening. By the time we made it down to this horse, I knew we had the same thing on our minds (“Why the hell am I up on this rainy mountain when it’s sunny in Quito?!?!) An hour later we were back in line for the ride back down the Teleferiqo (a LONG line, as the municipality was offering 1/2 price tickets for dad for Father's day), and we got to laugh at the sissies who were concerned about being hit by lightening just because there was a thunder storm all around the cable cars.

Thankfully, we soon made it back to home sweet home, where I lit a fire, Monique prepared an amazing lasagna, and we sipped duty free whiskey and chilean wine till Nick's girlfriend called him home. Next time I'll bring a better raincoat and some gloves, but otherwise it was quite the adventure.

Till soon,

D&M

"Stupid Face"

Just in case you thought the rhetoric surrounding the U.S. elections was exceedingly juvenile, I thought I should share this recent exchange between the two leading candidates in Ecuador's presidential election:

President Correa: [Lucio] beats his wife; he has a stupid face; he's unqualified and incompetent morally and intellectually; he's a puppet; and he's a vain marionette descended from a hairy Guayaquileña. (I'm not sure about the translation of that last one: "fantoche de la peluconería guayaquileña" -- any help from you native Spanish speakers would be welcome).

Former President and 2009 runner-up candidate Lucio Gutierrez: "I've never beaten my wife or any women. You, Rafael Correa, I accuse in front of the whole country of having beaten you father, don Rafael Correa Icazas, God rest his soul, when he returned from the U.S. where he was detained for 5 years for drug trafficking [true story, at least concerning the detention]. You, as is your custom, taking advantage of your youthfulness, beat your father."

These two men have each served as President of Ecuador, and together captured more than 75% of the votes in last week’s election. Gotta love politics.

La revolución está en marcha

I know…I start of every blog apologizing for the lack of recent posts. This time I blame TVCable, the local internet provider. We signed a contract with them a month ago and they are just now getting around to installing our system. Apparently they provided fairly good service until last year when the government nationalized the company because its owners weren’t paying taxes, and now their offices are as bad as any other Latin America (or D.C.) bureaucracy. I guess you take the good with the bad in Ecuadorian “21st Century Socialism.”

Speaking of 21st Century Socialism, we had general elections here in Ecuador this past weekend. It was a lot more tranquilo than the ones held in Guatemala while we were in the Peace Corps, when the U.S. Embassy was concerned that one of the candidates, an ex-president/notorious war criminal would take the office by force should he not be elected. (Peace Corps made us stay in our sites in groups on “lock down”…we had a 3-day home-made hot-tub party. No coup ensued. But I digress.)

Here the voting is mandatory (you get a fine if you don’t vote), and for the first time ever, 16-year old kids, prisoners who have yet to be sentenced, non-citizens with 5 years of residence, Ecuadorians living abroad, and active duty military were able to vote. Although President Correa was basically a shoe-in for the highest office, this was still a big election because the Constitution made almost the entire government provisional, so most offices in the country were up for grabs. Nonetheless, other than a few burnt ballot boxes, some angry rhetoric, and tons of fireworks, everything went pretty smoothly during election day.

Counting the ballots is another story. Monique has explained the system they use to count votes at least three times to me, and I still don’t understand it. It’s some complex formula by which they count votes for individual candidates and then count votes for entire tickets, discounting the weight for tickets with more candidates. I don’t feel so bad though, because the people in charge of counting the ballots also didn’t understand the system, and it looks like 30% of the votes will have to be recounted. Oh well. It’s clear we’ve got at least four more years of Correa, which I’m sure will make things exciting for us as he continues his populist “Citizenship Revolution.” And it was enough of a draw to bring Jimmy Carter down to check out the situation. Monique got to sit really close to him at a talk on Wednesday.

Our house is slowly shaping up, although our stuff is still not here (supposedly coming next week). But I’ve got a hammock, a terrace, a little grill, and a newly purchased hand-crank meat grinder for making burgers and (guinea pig??) sausages, so I’m pretty much satisfied with life. For anyone near the D.C. area, Monique and I will be back in town for my law school graduation the weekend of May 17. Hope to see you all there or here.

-D&M

Current Events

Sorry for not posting anything lately…I’ve had midterms over the past week, and although not quite as demanding as my work at Georgetown, it’s been keeping me busy.

Our star-studded stay at the Swiss Hotel is quickly drawing to an end, but rumor has it that along with Iron Maiden we have been neighbors with Santana and Richard Gere. We went to go see Santana at the stadium down the street and he actually put on a great show, even if he wouldn’t hang out with us at the hotel bar. Just about everything is now in order with our house, and we should be moving in next weekend, although our stuff is still somewhere on the high-seas between here and Miami.

It’s election season in Ecuador, and the air is rife with controversy. My favorite commercial got pulled off the air for violating election laws—it was a 2-minute long homage to Ecuador, set to the tune of Hey Jude, with “na-na-na” changed to “cuidadania” (citizenship) and “patria” (patriotism). The electoral commission said it was illegal publicly funded propaganda for the ruling party, but is sure was catchy.

The biggest election scandal has been the coming to light of a variety of connections between the current administration and the FARC, the largest guerrilla movement in Colombia. A former undersecretary and minister in President Correa’s cabinet are both currently under investigation for a wide range of personal and business ties to some of the more infamous military and narco-trafficking personalities of the Colombian conflict. The story has created quite a stir in Ecuador, although it’s probably not going to be damaging enough to hurt Correa’s reelection chances in April.

As long as we’re talking about the destabilizing effects of international involvement in Colombia, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the more astounding articles I’ve read lately, documenting the financing of paramilitary death squads by Chiquita Banana. This is just one more chapter in the ongoing saga of the banana industry being directly responsible for torture and murder in Latin America (Chiquita is the rebranded United Fruit Company, who helped the CIA spark the 35 year Guatemalan civil war). The article doesn’t mention it, but Attorney General Eric Holder (of whom I’m actually a big fan) was previously a defense lawyer for Chiquita in a case regarding these payments.

On a lighter note, Monique and I got to see some world class soccer yesterday at the Ecuador - Brazil World Cup qualifying match. We packed in with about 40,000 screaming fans (in Spanish the same word is used for fan and fanatic, and this match made abundantly clear why there is no distinction). The tickets were all general admission, and although we got there 2 hours early we still weren’t able to find a seat and had to stand for the entire game. But we did manage to corral a spot about 50 yards from the field, close enough to see Ronaldinho’s goofy smile whenever he came near the corner.

Despite being considered a less-skilled team, Ecuador outplayed Brazil for most of the game (probably because of the altitude), although Ecuador gave up a stupid goal with about 10 minutes left in the second half. We thought all was lost until Ecuador tied the game with about 2 minutes left, leading to the entire crowd to get soaked in beer, soft drinks, and home made confetti. I’ve never seen a crowd so excited about a tie, although considering that the Brazilians are some of the best players in the world I suppose it was quite an accomplishment for a small country like Ecuador.

Having learned Spanish in a little community in Guatemala where everyone is extremely formal in their mannerisms, I’ve always felt my vocabulary of vulgarities has been lacking. Fortunately, 90 minutes of Ecuadorian soccer filled in what 2 years in the Guatemalan campo could not. Seeing 14 year-old kids screaming chants that would make a sailor blush was a bit disarming, but I suppose it’s all part of the fun.

Well that’s all for now. Keep in touch and look for cheap tickets to come visit!

-Dan and Monique.

Iron Maiden...Excellent!!!

Just to let you all know what a VIP (pronounced "Beep" in Spanish) I am, today as I was leaving our hotel for work, I noticed a 12 foot banner across the street. A corner had fallen down covering the text, but I could see a scary-looking devil peeking out. I assumed there was a protest against the U.S. or Israel, so I went to check it out, and to my delight I saw about 200 black-haired tweens with piercings. It turns out Iron Maiden is staying at our hotel in anticipation of their concert in the national stadium tomorrow. I walked right by Nicko McBrain signing autographs in the lobby. I'm going to change into all black now and head down to the hotel bar humming "Wrathchild" to see if I can score some back stage passes.

Of Cable Cars and Guinea Pigs

Monique and I finally found a house that fits the embassy's daunting list of criteria...it's safe, in a nice neighborhood, and not too big or too small. The landlords have to ground all the plugs and make some other modifications, but hopefully we'll be moved in by April 1st at the latest. It's a great place with an amazing view of Quito, a big kitchen, a fireplace, a yard and a terrace. And lots of room for guests...we're very excited.


Now that we're done house hunting we have a chance to do all the fun touristy stuff we've been itching to explore. Last weekend we put our faith in Ecuador's infrastructure to the test, by riding the Teleferico up to the top of Pichincha Volcano. It was quite the harrowing experience.


The Teleferico is a cable car that launches from a hill above Quito, and climbs 4000 feet, dangling it's passengers high above the sides of a lush volcano for a mile and a half ride. You end up at close to 14,000 feet, and can see the entire sprawl of Quito along with the surrounding valleys. For a linguistically amusing description of the attraction, check this out. After a bit of hiking at the top, we hurried back down to beat the dark clouds rolling in (the thought of riding the Teleferico through a storm wasn't very appealing, although it didn't look like a few thunder clouds was going to slow down the operation). Lucky for us, there is a make-shift amusement park at the bottom of the mountain, where we played air hockey and rode sketchy carnival rides for the rest of the afternoon.





Our work has been very interesting lately. Monique got to travel to near the Colombian border this past week for the inauguration of some USAID funded water and infrastructure projects. It sounded like quite the event...the U.S. Ambassador attended, and they had a local karaoke star for entertainment. As thanks for the projects, the local government presented Monique with this basket of potatoes and carrots, along with a manila envelope containing a smoked guinea pig wrapped in foil. Monique refused to eat the little rodent (I think the teeth put her off), and I didn't think I could finish the whole thing, so after nibbling on the hind leg I gave it to one of the kids who camps outside our hotel selling bubble gum. I guess they don't teach kids here not to take guinea pigs from strangers, because this girl's eye's lit up when I asked, "¿te gusta cuy?" (do you like guinea pig), and as soon as I gave it to her she ran off to show the delicacy to her mom.

Although I have yet to be paid in guinea pig for my work, things have been very busy at the office. The Ecuadorian government is about to initiate a program to register the majority of the hundred thousand or so Colombian refugees who are now living under the radar, and Asylum Access is collaborating with other civil society organizations to make sure the process is carried out in line with international human rights law. The project is going to begin on the Northern Border and I probably won't get an opportunity to go up there until school is finished, but all of our clients are very interested in the process because it will be much more streamlined than the normal refugee status determinations. This weekend I gave a Know Your Rights presentation to about 30 refugees focusing on the new registration process, and also on the rights granted to refugees under the new constitution. The KYR presentations have been a really fun part of my job, because the attendees are very engaged in the presentations and excited to mobilize other refugees to assert the rights.

The weather has been great all week, so I'm going to try to enjoy some sun by the pool before the clouds come in. Hasta pronto,

Dan & Monique