I arrived in Quito about a week and a half ago! I’m living with a very sweet host mom and three other girls doing different programs here. Quito is about 9000 feet above sea level so adjusting to the altitude has been interesting. During my first few days doing normal things like making my bed or walking up a flight of stairs would leave me out of breath and walking up hills is a nightmare but I’m adjusting and when I get home I’m going to be in great shape! It’s been very rainy and cold every day but yesterday I finally saw the sun for about three hours before a torrential downpour started. There was so much that I was stuck on a bus for over an hour. It was rush hour and the bus was completely full and it started to get so hot and uncomfortable that people started yelling at the bus driver to just let us jump out onto the street. We ended up taking a huge detour to the Centro Historico. When they finally let us off the bus it was time to go home for dinner. We didn’t want to get back on another bus so we walked four miles in the rain to get back home, but it felt much better than being on a cramped, sweaty bus!

I started my internship last Wednesday at CEMOPLAF. It’s been really interesting so far. CEMOPLAF has a lot of different services. They provide maternal healthcare, gynecological check-ups, contraceptives, and much much more. I’m doing my internship with CEMOPLAF Adolescente, which primarily focuses on outreach and education for youth in Quito and other provinces of Ecuador. On Wednesday’s a group of young people come to train as promoters of CEMOPLAF. Each week they learn about new topics like sexuality, adolescent pregnancy, contraceptives, STIS, etc. The idea is that they will be able to teach their friends about these topics as young people are often more inclined to listen to their peers than to adults. On other days of the week we go to schools to give talks and prepare informational materials to pass out at fairs and other events. It’s already very clear to me how important the work CEMOPLAF does. 1 in 4 pregnancies in Ecuador is an adolescent pregnancies. There are also many myths here regarding sex and contraceptives. For example many people think that if you carry condoms with you or use other forms of contraception that you’ll be tempted to have sex. So, a lot of young people don’t use contraceptives or buy condoms, but they end up becoming sexually active anyways. Additionally, most schools don’t have any sort of sex ed and many young people are just told to be abstinent. These factors all illustrate why Ecuador has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Latin America. I’m excited to keep working with CEMOPLAF this summer and learn more about what they do and get to know more people that are involved!

Aside from working at CEMOPLAF, I have also been taking Spanish classes and exploring Quito. I’ve been finding lots of cool coffee shops and restaurants. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day so you can go to a restaurant and an almuerzo, which is a three course meal; soup, the main dish, and dessert, along with a fresh natural juice, usually just for $2-3! Today I went to the Botanical Gardens which was really cool! Ecuador is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world; they have over 4000 species of orchids. They also had a bonsai exhibit which was really amazing. One of the trees was 80 years old! I’m really happy I get to spend two more months in this beautiful city!