Infrastructure?

Before coming to Ecuador I had never really considered how important infrastructure is in holding together a country. In fact, I am still not even sure that I am spelling the word correctly. However, during my time here I have come to appreciate its importance.

Ecuador is a country that really does not have enough money and also is lacking stability. There have been 8 presidents (I believe?) in the last ten years, with the present president facing an huge struggle with congress that could easily lead to his dismissal. It also is a country with a huge foreign debt, and that has not used the natural resources and money that it has wisely, often losing enormous amounts of money to corruption (I think that Ecuador was ranked as the second most corrupt country in the world fairly recently).

Therefore, there is really no significant infrastructure in place. Some quick examples, the sidewalks are not done by the government, but are instead mainained by the private landowners, meaning that they are not at all uniform and often are in terrible condition. The roads are in even worse condition, often death traps. While in the United States there are bridges being built to service towns of 600, the roads between cities in Ecuador are often 1 car wide and made of dirt. The buses are again privately owned, meaning that there is very little regulation of the condition of the municipal buses that domiante the city. The same is true of health care, of education, everything.

This lack of infrastructure is really holding Ecuador back. Something that is not even really thought of in the United States is an incredibly important issue here, where basic services are either extremely bad or lacking entirely. For the rich this actually is not that big of an issue, there are private services here that equal many of the best in the United States, private hospitals, private schools, and a car market with top of the line vehicles. However, for the majority of the country this is an obstacle that is extremely difficult to overcome, and until it is , may well be crippling for the country.

What is the solution? I must admit at this point the situation is extremely difficult, since the country is broke and divided. Serious steps would need to be taken to eliminate corruption before anything could be done, which would mean a shake up of many of the old powerhouses. Also, at least a reconstruction of the payment of the foreign debt would be necessary, since otherwise that will use what little money there is. In truth, foreign aid is probably needed to get the process started, with a careful management of how funds are spent. The other most effective but also maybe most controversial step would be for Ecuador to take more control of its oil resources, since that would represent a huge disposable income, similar to how Venezuala is currently generating income.

This is an issue the United States would be wise to start paying more attention to. The opening of the markets in Ecuador has not helped the majority of people, and they are beginnign to express their anger by moving towards the Chavez model. If the United States is serious about combating the power of Chavez in latin America real aid will be needed, far more than the United States is providing now. The United States had this opportunity nearly 20 years ago, choosing to fight against a popular and effective Ecuadorian president who did not embrace free trade rather than compromising in order to help the Ecuadorian people. That in many ways set in action the last 20 years. What will we do now?

The End Approaching

I woke this morning suddenly realizing that I only had about 2.5 months left in Ecuador. For the first time it did not feel long until my return to the United States. I panicked, I need to do more, see more experience, learn more Spanish, take everything in that I can before I leave. Also, I really began to think what I have learned during my time here.

Once of the most rewarding experiences for me has been learning to just accept a different state of life. Growing up in an upper middle class family in the ‘burbs of Boston I was accustomed to a certain style of life. I do not think that I was too spoiled, I certainly had to work and was not allowed to spend wantonly. However, I also lived a fairly charmed life.

Living here has helped me grow, to experience a somewhat different life. That is not to say that I live in poverty, in fact by Ecuadorian standards I still live a fairly good life. I am in a very nice apartment in the middle of Quito, with a beautiful view and am certainly not suffering. However, I also get woken up in the morning every morning by about 10 roosters (who I am going to shoot if I can ever figure out where they are). I have to turn on the electric heater for the shower 3 hours before I take a shower if I want it to be hot, otherwise no hot water for the house. Even then if Erin, Libby and I all want to shower they all better be under 5 minutes, because the hot water only really lasts about 10 minutes, then it’s a cold shower unless you want to wait another 3 hours. The water pressure is terrible, half of the I half to hold the shower plug while I shower or else it just is a bath, and even then my head is buried in the soap dish (better than the electric shower at my host family’s where if you wanted anything remotely hot you couldn’t have more than a drip). We are lucky in that we have a washer (in my host family the laundry was done by hand on a stone, still fairly common here), but we certainly do not have a dryer and hang all of our clothes to dry. For our stove we have a propane tank, and when that runs out we yell out the window at the gas truck to get a new one. Also, the oven doesn’t have temperature markers, making all baking just sort of guess work. Vacuum cleaners are really expensive so when we want to clean the rugs we just broom really hard, etc.

Sure I will enjoy having many of these things when I return to the United States, especially a shower that is hot and has pressure (and we are lucky, in many apartments even in Quito hot water is a luxury). Still, you quickly begin to realize how much you take for granted that isn’t really necessary in the least. How much less could we live we before the quality of life begins to really suffer? Quite a lot.