Ecuador Presentation and Slideshow

Expeditions in Ecuador

You are invited to a slide show presentation about our experience in Ecuador last semester

Tuesday, Feb 28th, 6:30 pm
at the
Belfast Free Library

Hiking through the Amazon to Shiwakocha

Semester students, Hila Shooter, Leah Soule, and Clayton Clemetson will be sharing tales from the adventure and showing photos of the breathtaking Ecuadorian landscape. There will also be a display of all the crafts (spoons, knives, backpacks, machete sheaths, Pilche bowls from the jungle and semester books) that we made throughout the semester.

After a long day of trekking

Can't wait to share our adventure with you!

Home

Dear friends and family,

    I just wanted to write to let you know that I’m home from my adventures in Ecuador, and that I had an absolutely fantastic time! As I slowly start to unpack my bags, looking around me at my new yet familiar surroundings here in Maine, I think about the last few months and how much I was able to change, to grow, from this semester. It has impacted my perspectives, my thoughts, my dreams, and most of all opened my eyes and my heart to the world around me.

    There is no one thing I could pinpoint and say “This is what made going to Ecuador so amazing.” I could tell you about the twelve other students, about what a close-nit and loving family we became, or about our teachers, how inspiring and caring and hardworking they were.

    I could tell you about the cold beauty of biking through the highlands, about the brown-green hills turning to mountains, turning to clouds and stretching on to the horizon. It was so continuous, so vast, so breathtakingly beautiful. And there was a peaceful loneliness in it too, like it could go on forever like that, the shrubby grasses, the occasional bird, the crunch of our tires on the gravel roads.

    I could talk about the jungle: the rush of the river as we pulled our paddles through its rapids, the moss that dripped from the branches of towering trees, the living buzzing crawling green rainforest that tangled us in its tightly interwoven ecosystem.

    I could describe the never-ending sky of fiery white stars, so close above, the only light apart from our dim headlamps as we climbed to the summit of the glacier-capped volcano Cotopaxi. There was a deep calmness there too, in the dark with nothing but the quietness of the giant mountain, the crunch of our crampons on the steep snow, our own will to keep going, to take the next thin breath, to get to the top.

    I could say how much we learned, from the smiling faces of the Ecuadorians we met, from learning to live so peacefully with the land and with each other, from the lessons we received about herbs, permaculture, weather, Spanish…

    But in truth, there are no words I can find to sufficiently describe a journey so powerful, so crazy, so beautiful. So all I can say is thank you. Now, looking back on all the things I have been lucky enough to experience, I feel a deep gratitude well up in my heart to all of you who made them come true.

    Thank you for making this journey possible for me, for letting me truly live my dreams. I feel infinitely lucky to have such beautiful and supportive people in my life. And now, after semester, I can see that because of your support in getting to Ecuador I have not only had the chance to experience this incredible journey, but also to have doors open beyond this adventure and out into the wide world.

I hope you are well, and happy holidays!


Hila


P.S. If you would like to read about some of our adventures more in detail our blog address is http://krokaecuadorsemester2011.blogspot.com. Enjoy!

New Blog Address

Hello all,

This is Flic (Hila's Mum) here. Hila is off on her adventure and having an absolutely amazing time!

She asked me to post the new blog address, so that you can follow her Ecuador expedition if you'd like to. So here it is:


http://krokaecuadorsemester2011.blogspot.com/


Thank you all so much for your incredible support of Hila.

Flic

Thank You

Hello all,

I sent this out as an email but am posting this here in case I don't have yours:



Dear wonderful friends and family,

I wanted to take the time before I leave to give you a small update.

First of all, I have two pieces of very exciting news:

In less than 48 hrs the semester will have started,

And I have made my $12,500 goal!

It’s hard to express how enormous both of those things are to me. After almost a year of fundraising and excitement for the expedition, it is now becoming a reality.

Over the past few weeks I have been gathering all of the equipment I need for the trip: the sleeping pad, the long underwear, spare strings for my fiddle, and packing it all into the plastic tub under my desk. Just this morning I ticked off the last thing on my packing list! How great that feels!

For physical preparations I've been hiking for 2hrs a day with 50 lbs in my pack. All the while running in the back of my mind are imaginings of Ecuadorian mountains. After such a long time of being there in my imagination it's hard to believe that soon I'm going to be there for real. Waves of excitement and anticipation crash over me as I realize that this adventure I've been looking forward to for so long is finally about to start.

It's hard for me to believe that I'm done with fundraising. It has been such a huge part of my life for the past year, and being finished feels a bit odd.

But what a ride it has been: from the cold November hours writing my fundraising letter, to the blistering heat of July, fiddling in the sun; from wheelbarrow races for the sports day, to wheelbarrow pushing while doing yard work; from painting and marketing my cards to cooking Ecuadorian meals, it has all been an adventure.

If you could go back one year in time and tell my past-self "Hila, by next fall you will have raised $12,500 to go on a crazy adventure to Ecuador" I would have scoffed. I would think you were insane. "I could never do that" I would say.

But the truth is, I have. And it is thanks to all of you.

Thank you so much for supporting me so greatly: to all who have so generously contributed, who have hired me over the past year, who came to a fundraising event, who have stopped to drop a dollar into my busking tin, who read the blog, who have asked about my trip, who gave an encouraging word.

As I look forward to the months ahead I can't help but look back as well, I notice our front yard and remember playing "jungle" in the tall weeds, I see the hill behind our house and think how many times I pretended I was a mountaineer as I climbed it. It's only now that I realize I haven't been looking forward to this trip just for the past year—I have wanted to do this my whole life.

You have my gratitude from the bottom of my heart: without you I could not do any of it, I feel infinitely lucky to have your support.

Thank you for making my dream come true.


Hila


P.S. I will post a link to the new blog so you can follow our travels in Ecuador, if you'd like to.

Hello Again!

I realize this post has been a ridiculously long time in coming, my apologies.

But maybe this is well-timed after all, as I am leaving in exactly a month and one day! As you may guess, I'm jumping with excitement. My fundraising—i.e. life for the past year—is coming to an end, and in about two months (after a few weeks of preparations together in NH) we'll be setting off for Ecuador, for the jungles and highlands, rivers and volcanoes. Wahoo!

Fundraising has been going really well; my main endeavor this month has been busking (playing fiddle on the street) for about two hours each day.

It's a fun job: playing tunes and smiling at people, and thanking them as they generously drop money in my tin. It is lovely to see folks walking down the street raise their heads and nod and smile, or stop for a moment, tapping their feet in time to the music. I feel lucky to be able to connect with so many people through something that I love.

Busking

I also got to play at the Farmer's Market on July 1st, which was very enjoyable. While I was there a friend came by to record some of my fiddle playing, and a short interview about the Ecuador trip and my fundraising endeavors. He very generously included the piece in his Saturday radio show on WERU which aired the following weekend (thank you Scot!)

At the Farmer's Market

Speaking of which, I also was invited to be interviewed about the trip and fundraising on Belfast's Channel 2 TV. (I have a link to the clip if you're interested: http://www.vimeo.com/24253791). (Thank you, Ned, for taking some of your time to interview me).

It has been very exciting to start seriously preparing for the trip. Last week my mountaineering boots came in the mail! I took them out for a good two hour scramble up the cliffs and felt the rising anticipation as I knew that soon these boots and I would be climbing our way up a glacier-capped volcano.

First Hike With New Boots!

They will take some getting used to: the soles are so stiff that it's a bit like walking on blocks of wood. But all in all they are pretty comfortable and extraordinarily light.

My main fitness preparation right now has been jogging 5 miles a day. And I'm actually coming to enjoy it—the peace and rhythm I get into.

There are also other ongoing preparations, like learning Spanish and checking my packing list. It seems every time I turn I am reminded of the adventure ahead. It seems sometimes far away, sometime so soon—but always when I think of it my heart leaps with joy.

Until the next post!

Hila

Sports Day Fun!

What a fabulous Old Fashioned English Sports Day and Cream Tea we had yesterday! I for one had an enormous amount of fun, and Mum said that yesterday she laughed just as hard as she did when she was a little girl. Here are some pictures:

The ladies' hop

The judges having a yell-off!

I think Jen won

Bean bag race

Prize ribbons

Finish line

Egg and spoon!

Adult's egg and spoon!

Wheelbarrow

Three legged

Dash to the finish line!

Under 50s race

After the races were over we all trotted down to our house for a cream tea! There was a bit of confusion as to what exactly a cream tea is... cream in the tea? On the scone with jam? Jam in the tea? But eventually I think we all ended up with a "proper" cream tea: scone, jam and cream, separate from the tea.

We were very pleased that some "real" Brits (other than my Mum) showed up to show us how it all is done!

I hope everyone enjoyed themselves as my family did. Thank you all for making this a true FUNdraiser.

Cheers!

Hila

Old Fashioned English Sports Day and Cream Tea

Hi all,

For our next fundraiser event we are going to have an Old Fashioned English Sports Day and Cream Tea!

Here's the poster, very generously designed by Susan Guthrie (thank you!)

 

Please come, all ages are invited. We'll have races! (Egg and spoon, three legged and others!) Croquet! Dressing up! And more. Plus a proper English tea with jam, homemade scones, cream and of course tea. As well as homemade organic lemonade. Bring your teacup, chair and your mum (if you want to).

On Mother’s Day
Sunday, May 8th
Starting at 1 P.M.
In Monroe on Red Barn Rd

RSVP: Hilaecuadortrip (at) gmail.com
Suggested donation: $10 a person, $5 for kids


My mum came up with the idea, and we're having a great time thinking up ideas for sports and prize ribbons and gathering tea pots and things. My mum has been telling me about the sports days they had when she was little, and they sound very funny (it's quite handy that she is British and has actually been to English sports days, and that she grew up with cream teas). We found some old black and white pictures of egg and spoon races and sack races from this kind of event online and were just hooting over them! I'm very excited about this one.

Really, I'd love for you to come join the fun, bring a friend, bring your kids, bring your mum! (Or not.)

Cherio!

Hila