Reforstation in Las Lagunas de Mojanda

I have lived in Ecuador before. It was only for four months in college, but it was one of those life-altering experiences that I loved so much I somehow convinced Andy (who up until this point in his life had only studied French) into taking a hiatus from our lives and join me on this South American Adventure. While I lam loving our journey so far, I am constantly reminded of the differences between my trip eight years ago and my trip now. The good side: I am not in school this time, so I no longer have to plan my travels around classes or assignments. Also, I am not alone here, I have Andy. Also luckily, it seems that with age, we have not lost our desire to do new things. While almost everthing you do in a foreign country is new and exciting, it seems that especially with South America, you must also use the adjectives "dangerous" or "not so safe" or ¨I don´t think my mother would approve." While not much has changed since eight years ago in that I, and now Andy, still do these things and think of them as rare opportunites in traveling. However, the main difference between then and now is eight years ago I did them worry free, and now while I am doing them, I am doomed to think of all the things that can go wrong and the ways to die or escape death while doing the activities.
Take for example my fear of flying (a relatively new fear of mine that has come with age). In short, I am afraid of falling from the sky and the fire-y crash that will surely ensue. The only thing I have found to calm my fears is I imagine myself escaping from the fire-y crash. So, in order to do this, I locate all exits, count the number of rows to the exit (in case it is too smokey to see). If I am in the window or middle seat, I imagine the chaos and think about whether I could crawl over the seats if I needed to. This can go on for the whole flight, but you get the picture. I think about the possible disasters and how to escape them which brings us to our newest adventure.
The foundation where we are working brings high school students from Quito to help in reforestation projects and to help out in general around the farm. For the latest group of students, I imagine their permission slips for the trip went something like this:

Dear esteemed parent,

We are delighted to inform you of an amazing educational opportunity for your son/daughter. We will be spending seven days on a beautiful farm forty-five minutes north of the city. Your son/daughter will be able to learn about the workings of a farm from milking cows to planting vegetables. It will be a wonderful lesson in the value and appreciation of our resources.

Also on this trip we will be helping in a reforestaton project. We will be traveling to the Lagunas de Mojanda--picturesque lakes near the top of a volcano--to plant native trees that have previously been destroyed. The children will be riding in the back of a dump truck for the hour drive up muddy switchbacks. There will be no adult supervision in the dump truck, and the students will be clinging to the sides of the truck to remain standing. A few of the boys will probably climb onto the top of the cab of the dump truck to ride there without sides or anything to hold onto. They will be grabbing onto trees and low hanging electrical wires as we drive. If your son/daughter has a girlfriend/boyfriend, this is an excellent opportunity for them to make-out and cling to each other almost like having sex, but with their clothes on. The road may be so muddy that we cannot make it all the way to the lakes, or it may be just muddy enough that we get stuck and have to roll back down the road for a while before we get to a place flat enough where we can get enough momentum to make it up the side of the volcano.

Everyone is greatly looking forward to this trip. Please sign and date the bottom of this form as permission for your son/daughter to attend. Also, by signing, you acknowledge we are not responsible for accidents or the sudden death of your child in the back of an open dump truck.

This is the only way a permission slip would have worked, because this is exactly what happened. While we had an amazing time and got to learn a little about the native ecosystem, and got to help out by planting native tree species, the transportation situation was a bit interesting. Interesting in the way that I will never turn down an opportunity to ride in the back of a dumptruck in South America, but the whole time it was happening, I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong and how I "could" escape them. So, for example, I was looking for the exact spot I would need to place my foot and hand in order to jump out of the back of the truck and calculating the distance of my fall if the breaks suddenly went out on the truck sending it careening over the edge of the small dirt road. Or how exactly I would hike out, and my food and water provisions if it were too muddy to get the dump truck out of the tree-planting area.
While these ideas that run through my mind are not always fun, it has lended an intersting new element to traveling in South America the second time around.