I spent my last three weeks interning at Reserva Pambiliño, an organic farm located in the
Choco-bioregion of Ecuador (or also known as Mosquito heaven).
Pambiliño focuses on conservation and
ecological restoration. Two brothers with their families started the reserve
five years ago when much of their land was pasture or monoculture.
Today, diverse plants, trees, and forest
cover much of their land.
80% of the
land has been left completely untouched to help restore the natural forest
succession.
Unlike many other ecosystems
and places where this process may take 50-100 years, in Pambiliño everything
grows extremely fast.
I quickly found out why because every morning it is hot, sunny, and humid, and every afternoon it
rains for hours!
Pambiliño has also set aside a lot of their land as analog
forest.
The goal of an analog forest is
to reestablish the primary forest that was once there, but through human
planting. Additionally, other sustainable plants are added that can be used for
people.
In their analog forests they
have cocoa plants, coffee plants, palms (for hearts of palm), papaya, and so
much more!
While there, I helped out with different day-to-day tasks
and also worked on a few specific projects. There are now two families who live
there both with two children under the age of three, which always made it a
lively atmosphere. We would all work in
the field, cook, and clean together! We also
had no wifi and very limited phone service, which was definitely a unique
experience that allowed us to disconnect and just be surrounded by nature.
The food was absolutely unbelievable and a vegetarian’s
dream. They use a combination of their
own produce and also other fresh produce that they buy in a nearby town. I think I ate more vegetables there then I
have in all my time in Ecuador. We had quinoa
pasta with roasted vegetables, yuka soup, mahado (plaintains mashed up with
onions and other veggies mixed in), the best hot chocolate in the world made
from our cocoa trees, and lentils with fresh veggies.
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| Harvesting the Café |
Aside from eating a lot of great food, I also worked hard on
different projects for the farm. I spent my first week helping to rehabilitate
their coffee plantation. That involved applying
organic fertilizer (which means it used to be human poop) to every plant,
chopping up banana leaves and banana trunks with a machete to lie on top, and
harvesting the ripe coffee. It
definitely gave me a new appreciation for organic coffee, where the coffee
needs to be picked every two weeks, peeled, dried, peeled again, ground, and
then finally it is ready for drinking!
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| Cutting down bamboo for the Coast |
In my second week we worked with the reserve nearby and the
pueblo of Mashpi (a super small town with only 100 people) to aid in the
earthquake relief. We cut down around 1000 bamboo trunks and loaded them up into trucks to go to four different towns
affected by the earthquake. This was a
really awesome experience because it involved everyone coming together, taking
days off of work to help the people in the coast build back better. Bamboo is extremely flexible and strong and
thus great for building and it also grows back fairly quickly!
During my third week I worked in the Vivero (Green House)
helping to create a database of all the different plants that are there and
deciding where could be the best places to plant them.
It was cool to see the plants when they were
so small and then look around the area to see what they will eventually become!
One day we went to the nearby school and actually used our plants to help make
a community garden for the children.
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| Willy Wonka and the Fruit Factory |
Some other highlights and funny experiences from my time on
the finca (farm) were playing soccer in the pueblo, swimming in the river, changing the dry toilet, which is a bathroom
without a flush which is then used to make soil and fertilizer, eating more
than 10 bananas a day, and visiting a nearby fruit farm.
At the fruit farm they grow over 600
different types of fruit and taking the tour there was like a scene from Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate factory, only with fruit instead of chocolate.
We tried fruit I had never seen or heard of
before and everything was either more sweet or sour than usual fruits.
Some examples
include: Chicle, Araza, Mangostin, Champadek, Cocoa, Borojo, Salak, and
probably 25 more that we tasted!
Overall my internship was a great experience and I
definitely learned a lot about life on a farm. I also learned how to
effectively conserve land, while also providing human benefits. I hope to return to Pambiliño some day and
see how my plants are doing!
Now, I am back in Quito for the last three days of our
program. Here, we have one last paper to
write and a presentation to give and then the semester is officially over. It is crazy to think how quickly my time spent
in the middle of the earth has gone. I am still amazed everyday by the
fantastic and diverse ecosystems that are all around in such short distances
from one another. I am so appreciative
for all the time I have spent in Ecuador and all of the amazing people I
met.
Luckily for me, the end of the
semester program does not mean the end of my time in South America. Following the end of the program, I am
headed to Peru with a friend to explore and climb Machu Pichu and then to
Columbia where more adventures await with my sister Elana!
Chau y nos vemos!
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| Pambiliño Family |
