10 days until departure

"Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim"

I have heard this quote hundreds of times. I hardcore relate to it. If you were to ask me the question, "who are you?", I don't know how I would respond. I am a lover of too many things. I am an optimist, a giver, a trapeze artist, an idealist, a smiler, a broadway-show-belter-on-long-car-rides-er, a learner, and an adventurer. I am Kathleen, I am Kate, y me llamo Catalina. I am a New Yorker, I am always busy, and I am generally a functional hot mess. I am always running somewhere, doing something, all while attempting to juggle relationships with my family and friends. The name of the game is balance. I have, in vain, attempted to balance cell biology, a romantic relationship, organic chemistry, friendships with 100+ people from all over the world, being a D1 athlete, upper-level sociology courses, memberships in the biology club, the chemistry club, and the community service club, while planning a service trip to South Africa, being a good roommate, being a tour guide for my school, tutoring, and somehow attempting to get somewhere from 5-8 hours of sleep a night. 

It didn't work out so well for me.

I was burnt out, stressed out, tired 24/7, sick of smelling like chlorine, not retaining the information I needed to do well in my classes, and generally pretty miserable. I was frustrated that I only had one body, that I needed to sleep, and that I could not be everywhere doing everything. This past year in particular, I learned that you have to pick and choose what is important to you. 

And here, in the epic saga of KEA, is where I start relating to the quote. I picked school. I love to learn. I love to reason. I love to think. To be honest, I would rather spend most saturday nights discussing ethical issues and social experiments than drinking a beer tower (or five) unlike the majority of 21-year-olds. Don't get me wrong. I can and will dance on tables with the best of them. However, I love school. If I could be a professional college student, I would. However sometimes usually, I feel like I can't explore my interests because I am too focused on earning admission to a graduate program, getting an internship, etc. "If you want to go to medical school, you need to take these classes, get these grades, and check these extra-curricular activities off your list". I cannot explain how many times I have heard that since my junior year of high school. I had spent hours and hours crafting the perfect "me" that medical schools want. Good grades! Hard classes! Foreign service work! Foreign medical service work! Hours of community service! Social sciences! Hard sciences! I have spent so long trying to keep my academic achievements on par with everyone else, that I have forgotten how much I love to learn. I wish I had another four years to take classes in Global Gender Studies, Physics, Spanish, Environmental Science, Philosophy, Psychology, and Rhetoric Literature. I wish I could have 20 more majors. I wish I could debate with people about the use of the oxford comma. One of my absolute favorite classes was Organic Chemistry. I did not get the best grade in the class. I wasn't even close. I wish I could take it again, without being graded. I feel like I would enjoy the journey of learning syntheses and mechanisms much more. I wish I could learn in an environment where I was not judged for everything I do by 5 letters of the alphabet.

As I start the application process to medical schools and graduate schools, I realize that to the application committees, I am not Kathleen Ackert: lover of everyone and everything. I am white. I am female. I am financially able to attend whatever school I want to. I am a biology major. I am 3.31. I am whatever I score on the MCAT. I am the girl that quit her athletics career because it was too much to handle as a science major. I am the girl who was incredibly disappointed in herself because she got a B- in general chemistry her first semester. I am the girl who studied abroad on the Galápagos Islands. I am the one who will probably talk too much and too passionately in her interviews, and they'll wonder if I am able to be committed to one thing. 

Sometimes I wonder if I am just perfectly mediocre at lots of things, and if my expected degree in biology will actually give me real-world skills that I need to succeed as a doctor/biologist/public-health-policy-maker/person. Am I actually a charlatan that just paid way too much for a piece of paper that says that I have a B.S in Biology? Bachelor of science, or bullshit? 

My goal for my senior year is to add the word "no" to my vocabulary. I am sure this was one of the first words I learned, and one of my favorites for a long time as a toddler. I'm not too sure where or when I lost it. All I know (see, I can use homonyms!) is that for the last 6 to 7 years of my life, I have  been saying "yes" to everything and anything people ask of me. Of course I can help you with the biomechanics homework. Yes, I can be the TA for two Organic Chemistry labs. Sure, I'd love to give you a ride to the airport at 4 am. I have been saying "yes" and all of its synonyms to things that I might have not wanted to do for years and years and years because I don't want to disappoint people. I want people to think I'm dependable. But here's the thing. If you're a dependable person, people depend on you to do stuff. I'm also responsible. When you're a responsible person, people give you tons and tons of responsibilities. The major theme I've realized is that my life has started to revolve around the people I'm helping, instead of my own interests. Is this a bad thing? At first, people would say yes. You have to think of yourself first! You need to be healthy- physically and mentally- in order to help others. I wonder then, why I have been taught for so much of my life to put others before myself. As a member of the Catholic Church and a member of the Ackert family, I have learned to be generous, forgiving, honest, trustworthy, friendly, helpful, and considerate. So what am I supposed to do?

The golden rule, according to my wonderful kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Rosza, is to treat the others the way you want to be treated. After taking a few philosophy classes and attending a Franciscan school, I have some questions that pertain to this. St. Francis says in his peace prayer, "for it is in giving that we receive". So if I am giving purely for the purpose of receiving something in return, am I really giving? If I give because I want to give, but also because I know I will receive something, am I still giving? And what am I receiving? Happiness? Love? Another few lines for my resume? Something to talk about in medical school interviews? I draw parallels back to the golden rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated. So if I put someone else's needs before my own, am I basically saying that I want others to put my needs before mine?

Basically, today, I'm a little conflicted about things. Hopefully one day I will figure this all out. But for now, I am going to keep giving, keep smiling, and keep loving. Because even if I am technically being selfish for gaining happiness from giving, I love being happy.

21st birthday!

I celebrated my 21st birthday yesterday! Although the drinking age is 18 here, my family knew that 21 is a big birthday in the states, and planned accordingly! As promised, Pepe came to dinner with the bottle of whiskey. I can now say that I do not like whiskey. We had chicken, rice, and potatoes for dinner, and afterwards, my family brought out a cake! We have three french volunteers staying with us right now, so I got "Happy Birthday" sung to me in 3 different languages!

After dinner, I went to Iguana Rock with my friends. It is my favorite bar/discotec here! I gave them a flash drive with a "gringa mix" on it, and they played it for me all night. It was a great night with my friends.

Scuba pictures

Words, palabras, etc.

I am 13 days away from being back in the United States, and 4 hours away from being 21. I am having trouble describing how I feel, so I turned to John Koenig's, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Occhiloism (n): the awareness of the smallness of your perspective, by which you couldn’t possibly draw any meaningful conclusions at all, about the world or the past or the complexities of culture, because although your life is an epic and unrepeatable anecdote, it still only has a sample size of one, and may end up being the control for a much wilder experiment happening in the next room.


Liberosis (n): the desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone—rather to hold your life loosely and playfully, like a volleyball, keeping it in the air, with only quick fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.


Onism (n): the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you’ll never get to see before you die—and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.


Rückkehrunruhe (n): the feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness—to the extent you have to keep reminding yourself that it happened at all, even though it felt so vivid just days ago—which makes you wish you could smoothly cross-dissolve back into everyday life, or just hold the shutter open indefinitely and let one scene become superimposed on the next, so all your days would run together and you’d never have to call cut.


Vemödalen (n): the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist—the same sunset, the same waterfall, the same curve of a hip, the same closeup of an eye—which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy and cheap, like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have assembled yourself.

Fotos y español

Hola mi amigos! Yo quiero practicar mi español, entonces, estoy escribiendo eso articulo en español. Yo no tengo mucho practica escribiendo, solo hablando. Estoy tomiendo un classe de español proximo semestre, y yo pienso es interesante regresar y mira a mi articulo y vi mi escribiendo mal. Yo no tengo mucho vocabulario, y yo no se como conjugar en el futuro. Solo in presente y pasado. Yo tube un clase de español aquí, pero yo no aprendi mucho. Estaba muy estúpido.

Yo tengo un fin de semana bueno en Floreana y Santa Cruz. Yo fui con mi amiga, pero ella no habla español. Nada. Ella no sabe "yo tengo", o "Cuanto cuesta". Muy difficile ire lugares, porque mi español is no bien también. Yo se un poco ire otra lugares solo. Ella esta yendo a Colombia y Peru solo, y estoy muy miedo.

Estoy muy emocionada aprender mas español! Eso articulo estaba muy dificile escribir.

Mi "novio" aqui, Amir

Las Grietas

Arriba en Floreana!

Cabeza de Floreana

Playa Negra! El arena es negra porque 

Antes mi primero buceo (fiasco)

Scuba selfie con tiberon

Mi secundo buceo

Con Darwin!

A la finca de El Mas Quierdo, una lugar de almuerzo

Nosotros no gustamos papaya

Vamos a Floreana!

"When you go abroad, you'll get to travel a lot. I saw x countries in one semester!" I have heard people say this to me countless amounts of times. X would regularly equal 5, 10, or 15 countries. My friends who are abroad in Europe have been jet-setting all over; if you count Ryan Air as jet-setting. Studying abroad in South America is a little different. A bunch of my friends are backpacking through Peru, Colombia, and Argentina afterwards, but because I have summer research, I'll be going home directly after my program ends. My mom told me that I would want to travel afterwards! (Note to self: moms always know best). I guess that's just an excuse to come back to South America one day! 

I traveled a little bit in Quito. Part of my tropical ecology class included field trips to the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, Río Topo, and the Paramo. We also stayed the weekend in Baños after we went to Río Topo. That was my favorite weekend in Ecuador. Baños is the adventure capital of the world, and has really awesome nightlife! I would have traveled more, but I was a little hesitant because my spanish skills weren't great in Quito. We also went island hopping for spring break. Again, these trips were planned by the school. Santa Cruz, Bartolomé, and Isabela were absolutely gorgeous. Just a taste of seeing some of the other islands led me to want more. 

I knew there were some islands that were completely out of the question. For example, the island of Fernandina is only open to researchers, and Darwin and Wolf are only accessible by cruise ship. My best option looked like it was Floreana. Floreana is only accessible via Santa Cruz.  I tried vehemently to organize a trip straight there. If you have enough people, you can charter a boat there. However, I didn't have enough people interested, so instead my friend Karli and I are going to do a weekend mini island hopping trip! 

I am writing this on the two hour boat ride to Santa Cruz. I don't have class today, so I was able to catch the 7 am ferry over. Karli will take the 2 pm ferry over and meet me this afternoon. After getting absolutely everything planned for us, it was a bit of a different experience to attempt to plan a trip by ourselves. Because my Spanish is better than Karli's, I am going to find a hostel for us to stay at this morning. Then, I am going to go to Las Grietas. The word grieta means crack, and that is exactly what Las Grietas are. They are cracks in the lava that have filled up with ocean water. I am so excited to snorkel in them! There are a few of them, and in one of them there is an underwater tunnel that you can swim through with one large breath, and that the other side opens up to gorgeousness. Since drowning is one of my worst fears, I might not be doing that. Actually, I probably will. Sorry mom. 

On Saturday we are going to go to Floreana for the day. We will go to a black sand beach and get a tour of the highlands. I really wanted to go to the post office there, but it's only accessible by cruise ship. It's so interesting! It's not a traditional post office at all. It's literally a barrel, and when you go there, you're supposed to look through all the letters and if you find one that's close to where you live, you're supposed to take it and hand deliver it. Our friends in the marine track will also be coming to Santa Cruz that night, so we are going to meet up with them and go to Bongo, which is a cool bar/disco on the malecon. It's my birthday weekend, so I'm excited to dance! 

On Sunday, Karli and I are going to see if we can scuba dive in Santa Cruz. I don't know if we will be able to dive and then make the afternoon boat back, but we will see! I am excited to see how my trip planning skills work out! 

I am also extremely thankful that I don't get seasick. 

Kate: The Translator

My family recently got three new volunteers from France. I thought it would be fairly easy to talk to them because Spanish and French are both romance languages, and I took four years of French in high school, plus two years of Latin in middle school. I guess as I learned more and more Spanish, my French left my brain. I could barely get a word out when I tried to speak with them in french! Brother David and Miss. Emmanuel would be so disappointed in me. I was so good at French in high school! My spanish speaking skills have way surpassed my french speaking skills. As I try to talk with them more and more, I am remembering stuff, but I feel so clueless! They do also speak a little english, which is nice.

I knew it was going to be difficult for me to speak with them, however, I did not realize how difficult it was going to be for my host family to speak to them! So basically, I am forced to translate. I’ll listen in either french or english, and then do my best to translate to spanish. Muy dificil! (or tres difficile, depending on whom you’re talking to).

Even though I’m still bad at Spanish, I actually realized that I am not as terrible as I thought I was. I have learned an incredible amount of Spanish since January. The other students in my program are actually amazed that I’ve almost caught up to the intermediate class! I think that this had to do with my confidence in speaking. From the moment I stepped off the plane in Quito, if I needed something or wanted to share something, I said it. No matter how bad I sounded, or even if I was completely wrong, I was always able to somehow convey what I wanted to say. Charades helped a lot in the beginning, and now I can usually just speak. I do have to say things in a roundabout way sometimes though, just because my vocabulary is pretty limited. If there was one piece of advice I would give a student coming here, it would be to just really put yourself out there when speaking in spanish. Your family will correct you when you’re wrong, and you’ll learn a lot! When I talk to the locals, a lot of them say that they can only speak English if they've had a drink or two! Speaking in a new language makes you so vulnerable, but I think you really just have to go for it. Even if you make mistakes, they’ll be really funny. (See my Kate vs. Spanish post). I have decided to sign up for a spanish class in the fall, so I can keep learning. Being abroad in a spanish speaking country has helped me decide that I definitely would like to be fluent in spanish.

I have the best host dad ever

I mentioned one day to my host dad that I would like to go to El Junco, a volcano with a freshwater lake in it, at night to see the stars. He suggested something even better. He told me that we could go to El Junco at 4 in the morning to see the stars and then to see the sunrise.

So at 4 am, Pablo, my friends Sam and Bryce, and I got up and drove to the highlands. We got there around 4:30 in the morning. We walked up to the top, where it was pitch black. Even though it was so dark, you could still kind of see the lake.

It was pitch black when I took this picture of Sam

Here comes the sun!

My host dad, Pablo

We watched the sun rise while we walked around the perimeter of the lake. It was incredibly surreal. It is, to date, one of the best experiences I have had here. Afterwards, we went to Puerto Chino and spent the early morning getting tossed around by the waves. We got back around 9 for breakfast. All in all, it was a great morning!

Post sun-rise

Then, Pablo asked me if I wanted to go scuba diving at night...

Transcendentalism: 2015 Edition

Wilderness therapy. The first time I met my friend Sam, we were on the plane to the Tiputini Biodiversity Station. We were discussing simple introductory things. Colleges, ages, and majors. He told me that he was a clinical psychology major, and I asked him why he opted for a program that is heavily populated with biology and environmental science majors, and has a strong focus on the natural sciences. (For the record, he’s not alone. There are some other unrelated majors here too…film, policy, and communications just to name a few.) He told me that he was interested in Wilderness Therapy. Three months later, I’ve realized that this is the perfect career for him. And that I am intrigued by the psychology behind it all.

After getting a quick explanation from him, I became more interested in what wilderness therapy is. I finally looked it up this morning, and I’m fascinated by it. My Mom would call it “outward bound”, where participants are guided towards personal growth, self-respect, and leadership skills. I would have loved outward bound as a teenager, and would still probably learn from it today. However, I am interested in wilderness therapy for different reasons. Yes, there’s the whole “going out into the wilderness to find myself” aspect that basically covers the whole transcendentalist movement. Emerson, Thoreau, and all that jazz. Wilderness therapy does not focus on behavioral modification. It avoids psychological games and manipulation to cognitively restructure ways of thinking, as found in many psychotherapy programs. Instead, it places people in an environment where they are challenged by nature. Which allows the leaders/counselors to observe how they respond to such challenges, complemented by a reflection journal for self-evaluation.

What I find interesting is how this lack of technology would play out in today’s “do it for the instagram” society. What happens when teenagers and young adults are disconnected from the internet? Something that I find prevalent among young adults is "social media anxiety”. When I post a picture on facebook or instagram, I often find myself thinking, “man, I hope this gets a lot of likes”. It is not uncommon for me to get about 65 likes on a picture, and if I get something lower (in the 40 range); I wonder if I even should have posted this in the first place. If I get 100+ likes, I know I’ve done something right. A picture of me standing on Mitad del Mundo, or the Equator, with a quote from Dr. Seuss earned me 128. Doing a flip at Playa el Garrapatera got me 106. A shot of me and my wonderful father at a wedding yielded 107. However, a shot of a letter I wrote to the Tooth Fairy at age 5 only netted 36. And for the record, it was really cute. Why do I even care about this stuff?

Of course, with age, comes a bit of wisdom. When my then 16-year-old brother visited me at college last year, he thought an appropriate way to start conversations with my friends was, “What’s your max number of likes on Instagram?” I winced every time I heard it. My brother seemed to be collecting intangible "like" counts, and unlike coins, stamps, or Beanie Babies, those likes contain nothing of value or fun to pass onto generations to come.  

Being in Galápagos has pros and cons. Pros include beautiful beaches, amazing snorkeling, and my life looking like it is straight out of Pinterest. Cons include eating rice and beans for every meal, mosquitos and biting horse flies, and island fever. I can’t decide if limited access to the world wide web is a pro or a con. You could say that I am “living life to the fullest” because I am not worrying about posting snapchats or pictures, and how many likes I am getting. Or you could also look at the document I have on my computer, which has the names and passwords to 5 different places with wifi on the island. I am not alone in this. A friend from high school is studying abroad in Europe right now. Her album title on facebook is “Man’s Search for Wifi”, a play on Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”, which we read in our 11th grade Morality class. Along with air-conditioning and pens, wifi is a hot commodity all over the world. I mean, if you didn't 'gram it, did it really happen?

Various people from my life have messaged me to say how incredible my pictures are, how jealous they are of me, and how hard it's going to be to come home. This calls to mind a tweet I saw about 6 months ago. “Don’t compare your behind-the-scenes life to other people’s highlight reels”. I know people who compare all aspects of their lives to people they have never met. These supermodels, television stars, and yoga gurus seem to have accomplished perfection- both physically and mentally- to the laypeople. Yes, my life does look like paradise in the picture of me in the Natarajasana, or Lord of the Dance pose that was taken on the apex of some rocks overlooking Puerto Chino, a beautiful white sand beach on San Cristóbal Island. But what isn’t portrayed in that picture is that minutes before, I was sprinting around the beach like a crazy person in order to avoid the biting horse flies that follow you when you’re wet. I’ve heard before that photographs can act as a “counter-memory” of sorts. In 10 years, we will forget what we’ve seen, but remember the picture and evoke some sort of feeling from that picture. Would my entire experience here have been drastically different if I didn’t have access to the internet or a camera?

In 2008, a response from my mother regarding “I need a Virtual Break. No, Really”, by Mark Bittman was published in the NY Times. She accurately said, "Our society's obsession with staying connected and current is not a recent one. In ''Walden,'' Henry David Thoreau asked a simple question, ''If the bell rings, why should we run?’'

Could he have known that we are capable of a nearly Pavlovian response every time we hear the phrase ''You've got mail’’?”

I find it amusing that 7 years later, I have the same thoughts floating through my head. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose. However, as I don’t know a single person who uses AOL anymore, I am going to modify her last sentence. Could he have known we are capable of nearly a Pavlovian response every time we see a new SnapChat story?

Sorry for the tangent. To return to my initial interest in Wilderness Therapy, I think that programs like this are great. They show people that you can have a good time without being validated by “likes" from "friends" on the internet. Teenagers and adults alike aren’t able to escape to their virtual realities where they have so carefully crafted their lives in a series of pictures. They are eventually forced to face their real problems, and learn how to cope- without the whole “lay down on a couch while Freud psychoanalyzes me in therapy” stigma. They’re in a setting where it just happens naturally. Being in the wilderness is a place conducive to exercise and health, and physical well-being definitely fosters mental well-being. Having control of yourself physically shows that you can take control of yourself mentally. Not everyone likes to open up, and if placing focus on naturally occurring challenges, such as finding food or shelter exposes what you're really struggling with, nature is the place to do it.

I think I’ve had my own sort of wilderness therapy here. I definitely have grown personally, and have fostered a greater sense of respect for both the world and myself. My last class on global climate change really opened my eyes to a lot of things that I had just ignored in the past because they didn’t affect me personally. It can be really difficult to live here. Almost everything has to be imported, and you better like rice and beans. It’s always hot and humid, and there aren’t as many opportunities for a quality education as there are on the mainland. Health care is not great, and many people live their entire lives in poverty, while I'm in la-la land 10 miles south of them wasting away the afternoon reading a novel on the beach complaining about how I don't want to study for a test later. My eyes have now been opened. Maybe in the past I would have just ignored it, but now I want to see a systemic change take place. Call me a high-minded idealist, but I think I just might be able to make that happen.

I’d like to tell my old self and all teenagers two things. One, is that you don't have to always listen to what society deems as "acceptable", and two is that life is more than the posed pictures that garner you a bunch of likes on social media. It’s about the moments where you’re present. You’ll find out what makes you happy and what doesn’t. It’s about the relationships you form. You’ll find whom you genuinely enjoy spending time with, and that you don’t have to be friends with everyone. But most of all, it’s about investing in experiences, not stuff.

My host dad took this picture of me when we went to El Junco (a volcano with a freshwater crater lake) at 4:30 in the morning to see the sunrise. As much as I would like to say I practiced yoga on top of El Junco, I did the Natarajasana pose for the picture. I'm such a hypocrite.

Puerto Chino, night snorkeling, and the best host grandpa ever

Hola chicos!!

Yesterday was absolutely amazing. We did not have class, so my school organized a trip to Puerto Chino! Puerto Chino is an amazing beach. It has fine white sand, crystal clear water, and a beautiful little area to climb on some rocks. We spent the day swimming and exploring, and had a lunch of chicken and rice (typical) afterwards. Here are some pictures from that!

Me and Indira, one of the administrators at school. We love yoga!

The apex of the hike!

The untouched parts of Galápagos are gorgeous. Hopefully we can make more of an effort to conserve the islands!

Then, my host dad told me he would take me night snorkeling in Darwin's Bay. I was SUPER excited for it, and it was incredible. We saw one of the administrators, Indira, from GAIAS on the way there and she came with us! We saw 9 turtles, caught a lobster, and pet a pufferfish! I wish my gopro was better at taking pictures in the dark! I was so scared of the black sea urchins. I don't know if I can do the experience justice in words, and my pictures aren't great. The black sea urchins come out at night. They are huge, and if one stings you, you will get a fever and be in a lot of pain! They were sparkling when we shone our flashlights on them, and I can only begin to explain how dangerously black and appealing they looked.

Langosta, the lobster we caught! Pablo literally just swam down and picked it up! I have a video, but it will take approximately 30 years to upload.

Tortuga

We pet a pufferfish! This was one of the weirder experiences I've had.

Muchas tortugas!

My birthday is in 11 days! Pepe, my host grandpa, asked me if I liked whiskey the first week I was here. Being underage in the US, I told him I had never had whiskey before. He then told me he was going to get me a bottle for my birthday. I thought he was kidding, but today he told me to come into his room, and then he pulled this out of his underwear drawer! Every Saturday and Sunday morning, he asks me if I'm "chuchaqui". That's Ecuadorian slang for "hungover". I don't really drink that much, so I always tell him no. He always tells me that I have to be chuchaqui on April 29th...the day after my birthday! We'll see, Pepe :)

Mi familia

Am I actually helping?

I don't think that the work I do here is helpful. I don't speak spanish well, I have no medical training, and most of my time at my placement is me walking through poor neighborhoods with the doctors and nurses carrying papers.

I don't think that I'm very helpful here. I'm a 5'0" white girl who is part of a service-learning program. I don't know if I would choose to spend my time volunteering in the hospital if I wasn't mandated to do so. However, I think I can still help. I've spent the last three years in various health studies related classes. I come from an area populated with generous people. I am optimistic and creative. I am good at coordinating programs and writing, and my undergraduate brain enjoys thinking of ways that I can help. I don't know if I am helping by accompanying the doctors and nurses on their home rounds. However, I have the ability to help in a different way. I am going to write a paper and share it with IPSL, my school, and the internet. I plan to expose what is really going on at the hospital. I think that a lot of people will be shocked. If my host mom had not flown to Guyaquil and gone to the hospital there, she would have died from the pills that the doctors here gave her. I am going to be applying to medical schools and graduate schools for public health when I get home. I can be trained to actually help. I can develop programs and policy for public health systems in developing countries. I can work on my spanish, so if I decide to again participate in international service in South or Latin America, I can actually speak to people.

I am going to be telling the story of how "I found myself on the Galápagos Islands" to countless people when I get home. And this will definitely be a part of it.

My mom went to Guyaquil to go have her baby!

At the airport before she left! I hope she will get to come home with Abby Kate before I leave. They decided to make her middle name Kate, after me. Isn't that crazy? I didn't know that I had such an impact on them! I will miss my family so much when I go home. 

Ashanti loves me. I swear.

Relative Need

It makes me feel so shitty to see people in developing worlds who have this life goal of a car or a house or a television. One out of three. Hopefully. As a resident of New York, these things are expected of me. I already have my own car. I’m considered weird for not having a television. I will most likely have some sort of house or apartment in the near future. Why do I deserve these things? I feel so entitled when I think about how much I have, and how I feel like I need things that other people have. Need is relative, I understand. I need to go to college to get a “good” job while some people here can only dream of attending a university in the United States. Don’t even get me started on what qualifies as a “good” job. What can I even do to help? Everybody always discusses what we can do. My issue is that no one ever does anything.

I feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders sometimes

In 2012, the US, China, and India all signaled that they will do nothing to cut their carbon emissions. As a member of society, I try to save energy on a daily basis. I don’t leave the water on when I brush my teeth, my family keeps our house cooler during the winter and warmer during the summer, and I recycle. Each developed country gets a carbon quota. The US has said that it will do nothing to cut our carbon emissions, so when I save energy, does that give the US permission to use more in big businesses and factories? What even is democracy then?

Whoever said that ignorance is bliss is was SO right.

Kate vs. Spanish

I have had quite the experience learning spanish here. I'm still horrible, but I can hold a conversation now. However, I thought it would be funny to recap some of the funnier experiences I have had.

(Quito, Ecuador)

Scene: Kate is sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in front of her. She puts milk in and looks around for a spoon. There isn't one. Ana Lucia (her host mom) is standing next to the spoons. 

Kate: Ana Lucia, yo necessito un cucaracha pour me cafe con leche por favor.

Ana Lucia gives her a look of horror, and then starts laughing hysterically

Ana Lucia: Kate, cuchara, no cucaracha. Cucaracha es un bicho!

**if you don't know spanish, I asked for a cockroach for my coffee instead of a spoon

(San Cristóbal, Galápagos Islands)

Scene: Jehovah's Witnesses come to the house while Kate is home alone. She takes the flyer, says no gracias, and they leave. Later, her host grandma (Yolanda) and her host dad (Pablo) come home and she attempts to tell them what happened.

Kate: Hola mi familia! Antes, testículos de Jehovah vinieron a la casa.

Yolanda and Pablo burst out laughing

Pablo: Kate!! No no no! Testigos de Jehovah! He breaks into a whisper Testiculos es (he points down)

Kate: Oops.

***I basically told them that Jehovah's testicles came to the house

(San Cristóbal, Galápagos Islands)

Scene: Kate is trying to do her laundry. She walks downstairs to where the washing machine is. Gina, her abuela's friend who is from the coast and speaks with a strong accent is down there cooking dinner. She speaks absolutely no english at all. Kate cannot find the soap.

Kate: Hola Gina!! Donde esta la sopa?

Gina gives her a weird look. Later, at dinner, Kate tries again with her host mom. 

Kate: Julissa, donde esta la sopa para lavabo mi ropa.

Julissa laughs

Julissa: Kate, jabon!

Kate realizes she has just asked for soup to wash her clothes with

I am sure there will be more to come later.

Mi hermana, Ashanti

In honor of national siblings day, this is a picture of me and my host sister, Ashanti. She is a little diva. She refuses to go swimming anywhere except Isabela Island because she says the ocean is full of "caca". (You can look it up yourself). We were baking a cake in this picture!

It is incredibly depressing to be in the know. I was so happy laying on the beach and snorkeling in the crystal clear waters of the Galápagos Islands before I knew just how devastating humans are to the world.

Tourism has and will continue to affect marine habitats in a negative way. Different habitats see different problems. For example, tourism at sandy beaches has caused the sea level to rise. A high level of dive tourism at coral reefs also does not bode well. Visitors can transmit coral diseases and parasites between reefs, as well as leave garbage, residual sunblock, and more. People hiking/walking leads to the trampling of nests. As tourism develops, there is the risk that tour operators will search for underutilized and often more secluded and pristine areas, which leads to a decrease in biodiversity.

Basically, we suck.

Mas fotos

Thoughts

Being stuck on a small island has both benefits and drawbacks. It is somewhat reminiscent of what Siena is like. I am constantly bumping into people I know all day every day. Everyone gets catcalled here, and mine can be especially bad because I was in the Miss. Carnavale pageant. It can be hard to find a place to get away. So today, my friends Sam and Jake and I thought it would be cool to swim out into the ocean where the boats are all anchored and sit on a buoy. Sam is one of my really good friends here. He and the other two IPSL students, Bryce and Ellen, are really fun to sit and talk with. He is a clinical psychology major at Tufts, and it's really cool to have all these different perspectives because you see how other people think and why. For example, Bryce is from Kansas and goes to school there, Ellen is from Georgia but goes to school Ohio, and Sam is from Idaho but goes to school in Boston. We literally represent every region of the country! Anyway, we had this awesome conversation about philosophy and how humans have and feel the need to define everything from a human viewpoint. We sometimes don't have words for how different parts of the world communicate with each other. It was fascinating. I really am going to miss the friendships I have made here.

Tomorrow is Easter. It has been fascinating to see what a holiday is like when it's not completely commercialized. I haven't seen one chocolate bunny yet! I was planning on going to the Easter Vigil mass tonight, but then I heard it was four hours long (totally in Spanish) and I got scared away. I will go with my family tomorrow instead. It's funny that I got so scared away by that, because when I was in South Africa, I went to a 3 hour long mass that was completely in Zulu and absolutely loved it. Even though I totally am missing Reese's Eggs, the lack of commercialization has made me think about holidays on a higher level, and made me appreciate them more.