First Day of Political Ecology

Weather: Cloudy, humid in the A.M. Rainy mid afternoon, then really hot

I LOVE this class! Today, I reported to campus for 8am so Tammy (my professor) could give us an intro to the class. Around 8:45, Daniela came in to speak with us about the research on plastics we are going to be doing throughout the next two weeks. After her presentation, we broke up into 3 groups and headed to the boardwalk area to collect our first plastic samples. There's 14 of us in the class so it was 3 groups of 4 and another group of 2 that stayed at Playa Mann to collect trash there. Lucy and I were partners, so she picked up the plastics and trash we found along the boardwalk and I recorded everything we found. Once we were done we headed to have lunch at Otoy which is about a 30 minute drive from where we were. I got the alfredo with a side salad, not knowing they would put little pieces of ham in it. I picked them out and when I got to eating the pasta was really good. It was really rich so I couldn't finish it all, but still delicious. Dessert was homemade tiramisu which was absolutely amazing. I've only tried tiramisu once before and this far out-beat the one I had in the states. To top it all off, the restaurant had amazing views of Puerto Chino a big part of San Cristobal's coastline. It was absolutely beautiful and the whole restaurant is a farm as well, so there were some chickens roaming around with their babies and gorgeous flowers all around.

Post lunch, we headed to Puerto Chino to pick up more plastics. This was absolutely depressing because I have been to Puerto Chino and I never noticed plastics on the beach so I was curious as to what exactly we would be picking up. It turns out along the high tide line there's hundreds of microplastics that wash ashore each day. They were literally everywhere and I was just shocked a bit. I knew coming here this was a problem especially because of the pacific garbage patch. The Galapagos are painted as this microcosm of purity and cleanliness. However, there were more microplastics on Puerto Chino than actual shells. We just looked at the surface, Daniela told us if we dug below the surface we would be in one spot along the high tide line all day. Seeing this problem first hand woke me up a bit, I feel living on the east coast we are far from the problem. I learned today that's not the case. There have been studies done and most of the water we drink whether it be bottled spring water, or tap water has microplastics in it. Obviously, the plastics in spring water is so fine we can't see it but it's there especially since we are drinking from a plastic bottle. The fish we eat are also contaminated with microplastics because animals on the bottom of the foodchain like plankton consume the microplastics and then it just moves up the

food chain and over time fish accumulate the plastics within their systems. It's pretty terrifying and it's only a growing problem.

When we finished picking up the visible microplastics along the high tide line we went up onto one of the cliffs that overlooks the beach and the coastline. I ended up offering my hand to Tammy several times across the rocks because she didn't have shoes. She was also pretty unsteady on her feet so I ended up guiding her pretty much the entire way up (which was a 4 minute walk up some rocks). It was hilarious but I got to know her a bit better in the process. She is from the Chicago area, she's lived here in Ecuador for 15 years. She originally lived in Cuenca but now she lives in Quito. She is super tall, a bit all over the place, and speaks everything that is on her mind. As a side note, Anna (the girl I hiked Cotopaxi with) is in this class and was talking about all her hobbies today. I was like "wow I feel like I need to pick up more hobbies now." Tammy immediately chimed in without Anna hearing and goes, "no, no, no, do not compare yourself. I can assure you, you don't need any hobbies." We then went on to talk about what I do which is gym, school, work, hike, etc and it validated the fact that I don't need to get into knitting or have an Etsy shop to feel like I'm worth something.

Anyways, back to the cliff. We saw a couple blue footed boobies hanging out. A huge sea turtle swimming close to the shoreline, and when I went to talk with Tammy a bit we saw a school of yellow fish swimming below. I told Tammy about my internship search and how I used to be pre-vet and explained my switch of majors. Talking with her is really easy and I can tell already she is going to be one of the best professors I have. I wish I could have taken semester long courses with both her and Becky who taught my Wildlife Conservation course. We all hung out on the cliff for bit and headed down back to the beach. I assisted Tammy once again on the descent, it had warmed up since we climbed up so the rocks under her feet were scorching so she let a few swears go and I was laughing the entire way down to the beach. When we were all dipping our feet in the water, someone ended up seeing a ray and then Tammy saw a baby shark. I did not see either of these things but I believe they were there.

While standing in the water, a group of us were talking with Tammy about the adjustments here. She was the one that gave us a culture talk back when we first arrived in Quito so she was wondering how she did. I guess she's given them before but she was told to tone it down a bit for us. I thought the talk she gave us was so funny and actually entertaining. She was dead on about some things like the guys at the bars, and how there are no lines here. Us Americans want order to everything but if there's a local in line they're gonna get served before you. During the conversation a lot of us mentioned the change of pace as a challenge because we are accustomed to doing 5 things at once. I also brought up the fact that I've been getting asked about whether I'm going to grad school or not, where in reality I just want to get my Bachelor's and hope by the time I finish I have an idea of what I want to do because right now I have not a clue.

Tammy responded with a great point that deserves its own paragraph. She said that in the United States everyone is so focused on jobs and you are characterized by where you're working, where you live, how much you make. In reality none of these things matter. Here however, no one would EVER ask you where you plan on working or ask if you're going to grad school or not. Instead the questions you get here are where are you from, what is your family like, how big is your family, do you have a boyfriend. The questions are about you, and the person asking you genuinely cares. It's common in the states that if someone asks you where you go to school or what you want to do, they're comparing themselves to you and it becomes some sort of competition. So, when I return to the states and I get the "what're your plans post graduation?" I will simply say I haven't figured it out yet and if someone doesn't like my answer it's not my problem because I know I will do just fine for myself, and be successful on my own terms.

After the beach, we were going to go to El Junco but it was raining pretty bad so we skipped for today and are gonna go next week after our second plastic pick up at Puerto Chino. Today was an awesome and eye-opening day. It's so refreshing to be in a class I love as the last one was a bit boring.