My heart is heavy and full as I reflect on my Fulbright experience in Ecuador. I cannot express my deep love for this country enough: her people, culture, and nature. I am grateful for the opportunity and space she made for me to explore what I love from the heights of the Andes to the depths of the Amazon. Despite many lonely days being an outsider in a new land, I have made a community and an impact; I will always be back to grow them.
Over the last month of my grant period, I spent most of my time in Cuenca analyzing and compiling information from all the community visits. Originally, I intended to summarize the results into a brief report about key themes to make the information compelling and accessible. When I began reviewing the data and writing; however, I found so much I wanted to share. Overall, the project focused on community-based ecotourism as a tool for rural women’s empowerment and conservation. In summary, I found that this form of local ecotourism creates income-generating opportunities for women and incentivizes the community to adopt more sustainable practices. Even more so, community-based ecotourism provides a sustainable economic alternative in which community members gain from preserving their environment for small-scale tourism rather than extractive activities. In addition, community-based ecotourism encourages the community to revive and maintain cultural traditions.
Community-based ecotourism has immense benefits for women and conservation in Ecuador; however, the organizations need to be locally-led and driven to uplift women and enhance conservation efforts rather than solely focused on building tourism. Literature suggests that a key issue for conservation efforts in Latin America is that oftentimes do not integrate unique gender perspectives, although women typically have less access to resources but are more likely to contribute to sustainable practices than men. Ecotourism initiatives have the potential to provide women with income opportunities if the organization sets out to augment the participation of women. Initiatives can accomplish this by providing local women with the skills and opportunities to take on leadership roles and influence decision making.
Ecotourism can also support local conservation efforts. Through youth environmental education and local regulation against extractive practices (hunting, deforestation, littering, etc.), organizations may utilize tourism activities to motivate sustainable behaviors. Many interviews revealed that ecotourism has taught local communities the value of protecting their environment. Initiatives can build this perspective through community involvement and education. With the intention of expanding conservation and women empowerment, community-based ecotourism is an effective tool for local sustainable development. If you would like to read more about my results and recommendations, please see my final report as attached.
I spent most of my time sifting through data and writing the report perched on Omar’s sun-bathed porch that looks over Rio Tomebamba. I met Omar in 2021 when he visited El Placer as a contract photographer for Red Pakariñan’s project, Mujeres Rurales. During my Fulbright grant, we grew close and my experience in Cuenca was only better because of it.
We began to spend time together during the holidays last year. Omar moved to Cuenca from Venezuela five years ago, so he doesn’t have family in Ecuador and neither do I. Due to this, we kept each other company while other friends had family obligations. Then, we both began to work together from his quirky apartment when I wasn’t visiting communities and he didn’t have client photoshoots in the city. He taught me how to make Venezuelan arepas which we would devour with the sweet plantains and beans dripping all over our fingers.
Omar’s friendship was an everlit candle in some of the darker times throughout my Fulbright experience. Frankly, it was not easy to make many friends in Cuenca. Gender dynamics made it so many men I met climbing or doing other hobbies were often uninterested in a platonic friendship. As for women, machismo can create a competitive mindset toward other women rather than inclusiveness. This is in addition to a culture in which most people grow up, attend university, and create a family in the same town and don’t leave. All these factors made it particularly difficult for me as a young foreign woman to make well-intentioned friends. Amid some of the loneliness, Omar, as a queer feminist man and foreigner himself, made it clear I was always welcome in his beautiful home and among his colorful and open friends.
“Hola bebe,” he would answer when I called to tell him I was on his street—Calle Larga, the strip of bars, clubs, and stylish restaurants of the city. I would often wait five or ten minutes before he unlocked the black metal door, often in a button-down long sleeve or hoodie pushed up above his elbows. He’d give me a kiss on my right cheek, but use the typical greeting to check if the boy with black-rimmed glasses was working that day at the textiles store across the street. “Cata, I’m in love,” he told me on the boy's first day. I laughed at his classic hopeless romanticism, then followed him down the long obscure hallway to his apartment.
Omar lives in an apartment built out of adobe and gray cement with paintings from other artist friends and his own quirky photos hung on the walls. The Andean sunlight cascades in through floor-to-ceiling windows and the atmosphere is often filled with diverse music from bossa nova to latin indie or salsa, but always my favorite. When he’s not using the bustling streets of Cuenca’s historic center as his backdrop, his apartment becomes his studio with eclectic wall hangings and sometimes, candles for lighting. Although I loved his apartment, I spent my time on his expansive balcony, listening to the rush of the river and soaking in the relentless sun.
All of this is simply an ode to Omar and the lovely ambience he creates. We’re going to write a book together one day, I guarantee it. But until then and the next imminent time I am in Cuenca, I will miss his radiant smile, vibrant personality, and s-less Venezuelan accent. His friendship is one I will always cherish.
“What’s next?” you may be wondering as I bid my Fulbright experience goodbye. Fortunately, the opportunity arose a few months ago when one of my colleagues, Dani, set up a meeting to review a funding opportunity from the U.S. Embassy in Quito. The request for proposals required the project to be implemented in Ecuador, but involve either a U.S. expert or be based on a U.S. methodology.
“Are we eligible to apply?” Dani asked me from the other end of our Zoom call.
“What type of project did you have in mind?” I responded.
She shrugged. “I thought maybe you would know.”
It seemed like a stretch to consider myself an expert in anything or my Fulbright project a methodology, but we applied for the grant, regardless. With the support of EcoMinga as well as my mentor, Eric, who has recently founded a new non-profit---Fundación Binara---we designed a project to support one of EcoMinga’s collaborating communities in creating an ecotourism initiative. Using the expected recommendations from my Fulbright project, we proposed to lead a series of workshops, community events, and craft two strategic plans for the initiation of a community-based ecotourism organization.
The community of Villaflor de Manduriacu was a natural fit for the project for a few reasons. It is located loosely adjacent to EcoMinga’s Río Manduriacu private reserve and in the Chocó Andino. This region is a UNESCO biosphere reserve which recognizes the abundance of biodiversity yet the imminent threat of destruction from mining and other extractive activities. Over the last few years, the community has also shown unified interest in expanding ecotourism along with other forms of sustainable livelihoods. For these reasons, we believed this community would benefit substantially from this project.
When we submitted the project proposal in April, I did not imagine the Embassy would award us the grant. I had limited experience in grant-writing and was unsure whether my Fulbright project would be enough to meet the requirements. At the least, I believed that the RFP provided the opportunity to design a project on which we would receive feedback, improve the proposal, and submit it to other funding opportunities. However, in late June, Dani and I were overjoyed to find a congratulatory email in our inbox that the U.S. Embassy had selected our project for funding.
So, the story continues. Although it is a year-long project, I have an advisory role and I am not required to spend the entire project duration in Ecuador. I will support the direction of the project and coordinate with local contacts who will implement workshops and other activities with the community. During the last few months, I will spend more time working with community leaders to set goals and create a strategic plan for expanding ecotourism in the future.
Fortunately, we were able to visit the community of Manduriacu before the end of my grant period as most of us had never been before. We drove up a bumpy dirt road that wove through pitahaya, or dragon fruit farms with their cactus arms hung over wooden stakes. We parked Eric’s white dad van in front of the football court and looked around the 200-person community. We could see a number of wood and cement houses painted baby blue or soft pink with aluminum roofs. The clouds billowed over the mellow mountains and obscured the looping vines, human-sized leaves, and various palm species sticking out above the canopy. We heard the river cascading over smoothed boulders nearby and exchanged knowing smiles. Although rural and remote, this community will be a much needed homecoming from the bustle of the outside world.
“How does that sound?” I asked as I stepped back from the small whiteboard. Daniel, our community liaison from EcoMinga nodded, “That looks like a plan.” I had just finished sketching out my four objectives and timeline for the project activities over the course of the next year. We were sitting in EcoMinga’s computer room which they created during the pandemic so the local children could continue to take classes online. The project team from EcoMinga and Fundación Binara was gathered to discuss the project activities and timeline. The rest of the room looked at me and nodded in agreement. Dani began to jot it down into a spreadsheet on her Macbook. I felt a profound sense of confidence well up within me as all I had accomplished washed over me. The validation from my team to lead a significant project with a local community showed me that through my Fulbright experience, I am more than capable of designing and implementing a large-scale project in Ecuador.
This is what I have gained from Fulbright. Undeniably, the funding, prestige, network, and cultural connections are a significant part of the program; but, my Fulbright project has taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to. I can climb an 18,995-foot active volcano (a story for another time). I can learn from Achuar women who only speak their native tongue in the depths of the Amazon. I can design, implement, and lead sustainable development projects in rural Ecuadorian communities. Fulbright showed me that I am so much more capable than I ever imagined I could be. That belief is like a gold key which unlocks all the wrought iron gates I thought existed in my life and in my career. The immense challenges I have overcome with my own abilities during this project taught me that I can face any challenge that may arise as I reach for my next ambition.
During the last week of my Fulbright grant, I watched out my balcony window as the iridescent hummingbirds visited the magenta bell flowers. They reminded me of the beginning of this adventure, when I sat writing my Fulbright application at Rina’s kitchen table two years ago. At that moment in time, I could not have imagined the adventure and challenge which awaited me. Yet reflecting on it all, newfound strength and gratitude rise within me for the experience.
One hummingbird rests briefly on the shiny metal railing and tucks her wings. The sun illuminates her violet feathers which shimmer across her back. Not only do I see all the fiery and powerful women I have worked with in her, but I also see myself. Arriving at the end of this journey, I recognize the inner strength, energy, and light which has grown into a radiating force propelling me forward. My Fulbright project has been an ultimate challenge, but through these pressures, I have transformed and found that I have everything I need within myself to realize my own potential. Just like all the beautiful women I have come to know and the small hummingbird still perched just in front of me.
Although kilometers or miles apart, we all remain connected to each other, the hummingbirds, and all the breathing creatures of pachamama. I see the ceibo in our cottonwoods and the cara cara in our red-tail hawks. Ecuador will remain a part of me with a little piece which will always call me back home.
