Bonding

 An old tradition for the Pro-Bosque (Pro-Forest) foundation employees is an annual camping trip. It is probably the only time where all of the employees from the different departments, as well as the interns are at the same place, at the same time without their serious work faces on. This past weekend, I happily joined the rest of the team at the Cerro Blanco dry tropical forest at 5pm for our camping adventure. When I arrived, they were preparing what I consider a gourmet meal for camping. They had shish kabobs with beef, chicken and sausage, a big pot of rice, avocado, a garden salad and maduro, which translates as: ripe. It’s sweet cooked ripe plantain bananas. Everyone contributed to the cooking, while laughing, singing and taking pictures.

Okay.... so we had a kitchen for some of the stuff :)

Outdoor bbq

Dig in everyone!

The "young people" table :)

After some great conversations about family, friends, and traveling, the food was all gone, and we were all satisfied. It was nice to get to know everyone on a more personal level and we found out we had the strangest things in common (we were all the eldest in our families!). I was perfectly full, happy and couldn’t stop giggling. Just when I thought the night couldn’t get any better, my manager got up and said “La noche es joven” meaning: the night is young. There was a short list of activities we had yet to do, all of them were traditional for Pro-Bosque. We began with a night hike in the forest; everyone started chatting amongst themselves in excitement. When we were told “No flashlights allowed!” We all laughed at the funny joke, but when our flashlights got confiscated, nobody was laughing anymore. I was thinking, “Uh oh, this is probably a bad time to admit that I’m a bit scared of the dark!”. This was PITCH BLACK, we couldn’t see our own hands only inches away from our faces. I held hands with two other girls, and we were off.

Getting instructions

Our adventure awaits

I was asked to put my camera away because the flash was blinding our slowly adjusting eyes. Surprisingly enough, slowly but surely, we started seeing a little bit, with great help from the starlit night sky and the full moon. My fear was fading, and I was amazed by the amount of things that glowed in the dark. This reminded me of the movie (Avatar) a little bit. There were so many interesting things going on in the dark, not to mentions the sounds of the nocturnal animals. My fear turned into wonder and amazement with every new discovery. The crickets of the forest sounded like little ambulances, and the frogs, like ringing telephones. I got shivers when I heard what sounded like a bunch of witches laughing in the distance, those were the bats. There were many times when our guide told us to stop, remain silent and duck very low. This allowed us to hear animals that sounded like they were right beside us. The whole experience was indescribably incredible.

At the half way point during our hike, we sat down on large rocks around a pond and were told traditional Ecuadorian ghost stories. My favorite one was the last story that was told. It spoke about the spirit of nature, the trees, the plants and the animals all had spirits. When people disturbed the peace that existed within the forest, it angered the spirits and they received nightmares about their death. The man that was telling us this story started speaking very quietly near the end, and this forced everyone to lean in. He suddenly screamed and we all screamed with him, out of fear. We must have laughed during the whole way back to our camp, feeling a bit silly for getting so scared about a story.

The second activity was ready for us when we returned. There were candles lit up on the floor, and little papers underneath them with a date and a historical event that was related to nature. There were also green strings on the floor that outlined a path that we had to follow in order to read everything in the right order. After reading all of the papers, and “Travelling time” we were all given a lit candle and told to stand in a circle. Then, we were asked about a change that we wanted to see in the world. My answer was “A change in how food is made, factory farming, over processing etc etc. Our health should be the most important thing, and people shouldn’t get paid as much as they do for making us consume chemicals” We were then told a story about a man that did and a man that hoped. It was very inspiring, and the moral of the story was to be part of the change, and join people that believe in what you do because you are not alone. We then took turns speaking around the circle once again , but this time stating one way we could contribute to being part of that change. After we finished saying our answer, we were told to say “Yo creo, yo puedo, yo voy a hacer un cambio” meaning: I believe, I can and I will make a change; and then we blew out our candles.

Time traveling walk

“Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solutions.”

- David Joseph Schwartz

 

There were a few other activities, but I think this blog post is long enough :) The whole experience was very rewarding for me, and I felt like I not only gained 20 new friends, but also a support group. Because they knew what I wanted to do, many people gave me numbers, and resources of places in Ecuador where I could volunteer to learn and speak about the “Slow food movement”.

To summarize, the food was delicious, the conversations were enriching, the jokes were hilarious and the activities were empowering. We also bonded in a way we never could have during work hours.

In the morning everyone was given a bracelet to remember their camping trip, and the lessons that they hoped came along with it. 

My beautiful green bracelet