In Ecuador there are two seasons—the dry season and the rainy season. One is hot, the other is hotter. After I arrived here, 4 months went by with no more than 2 or 3 rain showers. Everything was brown and dust was EVREYWHERE. They joke about the dust here all the time. Even my host brother said he missed it while he was in Switzerland. Sort of like how I miss the smell of cow manure in Kutztown…
But, now we’ve hit the rainy season. The brown mountains and dead trees are starting to look like the Andes that I remember from my last trip to Ecuador—pointed, craggy mountains with what looks like a spray paint coating in green. And all of that beloved dust? Mud. And TONS of it. I always end up with muddy streaks down the backs of my calves from getting in and out of cars. Taxis with chivalrous drivers pull right up to the curb to drop us off so that we don’t have to leap down into puddles and mud banks. The paved roads are bad. Filled with bigger holes, bigger rocks, and bigger mud slicks. The unpaved roads are nearly impossible, and a lot of them are closed down.
On our way to the beach we pass through some of the countryside. We saw houses, farms, bridges, and entire streets flooded with water. It was awful to see, considering that the people who live out there are some of the poorest. But, I figure that they must have learned how to deal with it every year when the rains come.
The flooding also hits my town and the surrounding areas. Today in the paper, I saw an article that said 85% of Chone (town about an hour away) was under water. There are big effects on business, health, and people's day to day activities. Luckily our part of town doesn't flood too much, but we still get hoards of mosquitos (the Amazon was nothing compared to Portoviejo) and all the mud.
A picture of Los Tamaridos--the part of Portoviejo where my aunt lives
Another from the Diario--Portoviejo's daily paper
