I’ve been Ibarra for a little time now, but last weekend I got to finally meet my site mentor in person. She was back in the States renewing her license; how much of a pain is that?! She is an Occupational Therapist who practiced for many years on the east coast then started to coming to Ecuador periodically. After a few years, she took steps to become more and more permanent here, and now she is a co-founder of an outpatient (mostly pediatric) clinic and also has her time filled with other organizations around Ibarra. Before establishing CRECER she had no experience as a pediatric-focused OT, so that has given me hope, as I am un-experienced with kids and prefer the adult population. On Friday night, Elaine attended a gala since CRECER received a nomination for best inter-intstiticuional collaboration in the city of Ibarra. She came back from the event with a trophy, CRECER won! She has done a lot of work here to promote OT services, and the local university recognized this.
It is reassuring to see her work as an OT abroad, as this career is not well known in America, let alone throughout South America. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the field, the quick and dirty is that it is a rehabilitation discipline that works across the lifespan in order to promote independence in patients’ everyday lives through meaningful occupations. Imagine a stroke survivor re-learning how to get dressed and take a shower; or a school-aged child learning social skills in order to participate greater in the classroom; or an oncology patient suffering from fatigue learning techniques how to re-schedule his or her day in order to conserve energy for activities of daily living or personal interests- just to name a few.
I am an OT student, but an OTA (A for assistant) student came back from a weekend trip as well, so now I have a friend to hang out with during the day or to walk around with after work. She has been her for five/six weeks, so she was able to show me the ropes around the pediatric clinic. The building is shared between physical therapy, occupational therapy, and social work services (speech therapy in the works). The PT and SW disciplines are employees of the municipality of Ibarra, while OT with my site mentor is not, therefore she is non-profit. However, all services at the clinic are free to patients and families. The picture below is a mural in the therapy room; if you look closely, you can see the developmental sequence of children in a natural environment, growing from left to right.
Working with children has always been a challenge for me, as it’s difficult for me to connect with them on a therapeutic level. Plus I only have one cousin who is 5 years old, so not a whole lot of exposure to kids for me. The main diagnoses here are Cerebral Palsy, Down’s Syndrome, Autism, and general developmental delays. In the US, patients need a doctor’s referral for OT services. Here, nothing is needed except for parents hoping to get their kids therapy. And the kids that I’ve seen were so willing to work with me, even as a stranger. The best part of therapy is me attempting to converse with these kids in my Spanish. I am able to get buy just fine for the day-to-day routine, but trying to talk to these kids is a new challenge for me. I’m really hoping to improve my Spanish during my time here, and I know it will in due time.
In coming posts, I’ll write more about the treatment sessions and equipment/resources that are available here. The pediatric clinic will only be a small portion of my time spent in Ibarra. Other locations include an adult daycare center (FUNHI), a traditional nursing home, a community center, and possibly other sites that I will be observing and exploring with the physical therapists at the pediatric clinic. When joining the PTs, my aim will be to look at new places where occupational therapy isn’t currently present but could benefit from services. Once these locations are established, future students will be able to start providing treatment, at least that is the goal.
Aside from the clinic, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Ibarra. Going on a short run around town or even just walking to find lunch and dinner is helping me to know the streets better. There are too many panaderías to count, $3 full course lunch deals, and a ton of good dessert places. With the OTA student Lisette, we got a slice of chocolate cake with 3 small scoops of ice cream for just $1.60- so that was a dessert before dinner moment. Plus, the ice cream is available in many local fruit flavors. Ecuador, as well as Colombia, are incredibly biodiverse countries, so there are a plethora of fruits here that I have not heard of nor yet tried. My favorites are maracuyá (passion fruit) and guanabana. Buying bread products is dangerous, as I can get a croissant or panecito (bread roll) for 15-25 cents. Lisette and I are go to the fruit market, a panadería, and/or grocery store every day. In addition to food, Ecuador is well known for exporting flowers, especially roses. A dozen roses only costs $2.50- so had to buy them! Walking around the other day I saw this truck and thought of how beautiful they all looked.
This first working week has been wonderful. I get to wake up at 7:30am with the sun shining, walk a quick 10 minutes to either CRECER or FUNHI (more on FUNHI later), and a two hour lunch break everyday. I believe that if we adopted the lifestyle pace of Ecuador, people would be much happier. To have time in the day to truly rest and enjoy lunch with company is a blessing not often seen in the States. We also got to celebrate Thanksgiving here at the house with us who live here along with co-workers from FUNHI and CRECER. It was delicious to eat American comfort food, and the cranberry sauce I brought from Columbus was a new treat for the Ecuadorians to try. Elaine and her housekeeper, Vivi, prepared everything for the first time in Ecuador, and it was a great success.
This weekend, I got to watch the OSU-UM game; I was so happy to be able to watch it here because Elaine has an app where she can watch basic channel American television. Go Bucks!!!! I’m bringing some Buckeye Nation spirit down to Ecuador. I also planned a solo trip to the town of Cotacachi and Laguna Cuichocha. I rode the bus for 50 cents to Cotacachi, about 45 minutes. I took a taxi directly to Laguna Cuichoca from the downtown; the lake is a crater lake after an eruption from the Cotacachi volcano. The hike around the entire crater is ~5 hours, so I only covered about 1/3 of the rim it for a shorter afternoon (and the altitude was killer). After hiking it, I paid to go on a boat around the lake for a different viewpoint. Both the lake and surrounding land was so beautiful!
Once back in town, I grabbed a coffee at a local place called Cafe Rio Intag. This place sells coffee produced in Ecuador and is one of the places more well-known for good coffee. In the past, most high quality coffee from Ecuador was exported while citizens drank instant or low quality coffee. Now there is more of a movement to keep the good stuff inside the country- delicious. I bought a bag for my mom who is a coffee lover. Also in this area, I saw and heard so many people in their 60s-70s speaking English and was quite perplexed. I guess Cotacachi is a huge town for expats and retirees, as it is a more rural area but the community is still very strong for those living abroad. The other big area for expats is Cuenca, which is one of the largest cities in Ecuador located in the high sierra of the south-central region.
The aesthetic of this cafe was so relaxing, I wish I had more time to spend there in the afternoon. On the way back to the bus station, I strolled through the leather markets, as this is a huge town for leader products. I bought myself a batido, which is more or less like a smoothie, and walked around the artisan markets for a while enjoying my time. I had a great time in Cotacachi, so I know I will be back at least once or twice before my time in Ecuador is up.