“Of a population estimated at thirteen million, seventy percent live in poverty or subpoverty, and seven to ten percent, maybe more, live abroad.”
International travel—especially for an American—is a strange animal. In the U.S., we lead lives of privilege that are rare and unique compared to most countries in the world, and traveling only reinforces that idea. Don’t believe me? We have an endless supply of clean, drinkable water flowing from our (multiple) faucets. We can flush our toilet paper. And did I mention that we have drinkable water at all times? FOR FREE.
At the same time, when we travel to another place it becomes a part of us. I spent eight days in Ecuador and, while I was there, I felt like I came to know it inside out. Call it ignorance or immersion of the moment, but the places we spend time in forever stay close to our hearts. Their identity becomes a little bit personal to us, and, if it’s a really good trip, we feel like it becomes a part of us (or we a part of it). So when I came back to the U.S. and realized I actually know nothing about Ecuador, its history, or the causes of its problems, you can imagine my surprise.
“I spent eight whole days there,” I couldn’t help but naïvely thinking. “I must know more than the average person.”
Oh, how wrong I was.
At the same time, when we travel to another place it becomes a part of us. I spent eight days in Ecuador and, while I was there, I felt like I came to know it inside out. Call it ignorance or immersion of the moment, but the places we spend time in forever stay close to our hearts. Their identity becomes a little bit personal to us, and, if it’s a really good trip, we feel like it becomes a part of us (or we a part of it). So when I came back to the U.S. and realized I actually know nothing about Ecuador, its history, or the causes of its problems, you can imagine my surprise.
“I spent eight whole days there,” I couldn’t help but naïvely thinking. “I must know more than the average person.”
Oh, how wrong I was.
Turns out I didn’t know much about the country aside from the people I met while I was there and the brief lessons I overheard while in Arbolito. So to combat this total ineptitude about the subject of my blog (yes, I see the irony here), I’ve been reading up. And what I’ve found has been interesting, saddening, and even implicating for me as an American.
After reading about the history of Ecuador, it’s clear that since several centuries ago, Ecuador has had a complicated history that, for the purpose of this blog, I won’t get into too much. (Side note: the book I’ve been devouring to get all of this information is called Histories of the Present: People and Power in Ecuador by Norman and Dorothea Whitten. Check it out.) Anyway, in the 1980s/early 1990s, Ecuador’s economy experienced a shift that can explain their current, poverty-stricken state. In the 1970s, under military rule, Ecuador experienced severe economic growth that unfortunately came to a screeching halt in 1981 under President Osvaldo Hurtado when the petroleum boom ended. This crisis was worsened when environmental disasters further crippled the economy; severe drought, flooding, and an “El Niño” storm all combined to eventually wreak an estimated $640 million dollars worth of damage. The next President, León Febres Cordero, entered office in 1984 during a difficult time for the country. A somewhat controversial President for his own governmental and military actions, he formed close governmental relations with the United States during his time in office. However, an earthquake in 1987 devastated the country and worsened the exporting of oil and, thus, the economy.
After reading about the history of Ecuador, it’s clear that since several centuries ago, Ecuador has had a complicated history that, for the purpose of this blog, I won’t get into too much. (Side note: the book I’ve been devouring to get all of this information is called Histories of the Present: People and Power in Ecuador by Norman and Dorothea Whitten. Check it out.) Anyway, in the 1980s/early 1990s, Ecuador’s economy experienced a shift that can explain their current, poverty-stricken state. In the 1970s, under military rule, Ecuador experienced severe economic growth that unfortunately came to a screeching halt in 1981 under President Osvaldo Hurtado when the petroleum boom ended. This crisis was worsened when environmental disasters further crippled the economy; severe drought, flooding, and an “El Niño” storm all combined to eventually wreak an estimated $640 million dollars worth of damage. The next President, León Febres Cordero, entered office in 1984 during a difficult time for the country. A somewhat controversial President for his own governmental and military actions, he formed close governmental relations with the United States during his time in office. However, an earthquake in 1987 devastated the country and worsened the exporting of oil and, thus, the economy.
After learning about all of these hardships and bumps in the road, the next quote I read in Histories had some added context:
As we get older, it gets harder and harder to deny the sometimes detrimental presence of the United States in other countries worldwide. Don’t get me wrong—I love being an American. I know we as a nation have our faults and our complicity in unfortunate and sometimes unethical situations, but overall I am grateful for our freedoms and for the ideals this country was founded upon. But as I was reading Histories and trying to keep all my newly-acquired “Ecuador” facts straight, I saw another familiar country’s name in a not-so-positive light. In a chapter entitled “Ecuador in the New Millenium,” it was noted that in 2004, the country celebrated its 25th year of democracy but that it had also been “turning in on itself, going nowhere, and that it had lost all sense of direction.” And then a string of unfavorable words explaining this going nowhere-ness caught my attention especially: “Two interrelated consistencies that enshrouded this path in 2004 and continue to cast their pall in 2010 are the increased presence of Colombian drug traffickers, paramilitaries, and guerrillas and the dominance and hegemony of the United States of America.”
What could the hegemony of the United States have to do with Ecuador’s problems? (An ironic question, I know.) And then the book explained it in a language all Americans can understand: dollars.
When I was in Ecuador in January, I expected to have to exchange money in the airport and figure out the exchange rate, but, much to my surprise, there was no need; U.S. dollars are nationally accepted in Ecuador. How convenient and easy, right? January me would have nodded happily, but after reading about the dollar’s effect on Ecuador, “easy” and “convenient” are not the two words I would choose to describe the conversion.
In 2000, Ecuador’s national currency went from the sucre to the dollar at a conversion rate of 25,000 sucres per one dollar. And while I won’t pretend to know much about conversion-rate fairness or ideals, I do understand that, at the time, gasoline alone started at $1.50 a gallon and, because of the conversion, people were (by comparison) suddenly making only a dollar or so a day. This fact alone gave me flashbacks to a fact I learned from my group leader when wandering around Guayaquil one day—it is not uncommon for a family of four to live on only two dollars a day. (Coming from a family of four, I still have a hard time seeing how this is possible.) Histories continued to explain that now 10+ years after the conversion, the consensus is that the adoption of the dollar has been mostly beneficial for the middle and upper classes, but for “the rest of the country” the benefits are questionable if present at all. And while the greater good is a real and understandable thing, it’s important to remember that the middle and the upper classes occupy only 20 percent of Ecuador while “the rest of the country,” for whom the dollar has been detrimental, occupy an overwhelming 70 percent of the people. And, in that case, is the dollar truly beneficial at all?
I know that at this point you might be wondering what the point of all of this is. “What’s your thesis statement, Kath?” Where are you going with all of this information?” Truthfully, I’m not all that sure yet. But regardless of how I’m going or where I’ll end up, examining the history of Ecuador gives me a bigger picture of not only their own issues and obstacles, but ours, too. Ours as Americans, ours as internationally-traveling citizens, ours as people in a world that’s getting smaller by the day. And, for now, that’s enough for me.
“Of a population estimated at thirteen million, seventy percent live in poverty or subpoverty, and seven to ten percent, maybe more, live abroad.” You read that right: 70 percent of all Ecuadorians live in poverty or subpoverty. With rounding, another 10 percent lives aboad, leaving a tiny 20 percent of an entire country of people living above the poverty line. For a comparison that you can relate to, the 2012 U.S. Census found that more than 16 percent of Americans lived in poverty. With the U.S. economy as bad as it is, we can all comprehend how 16 percent is too big of a number for a country where people deserve to live in dignity. Sixteen percent of people struggling to put food on the table isn’t acceptable by any standards. So when I read that 70 percent of Ecuador—a country, like all countries, where the people deserve dignity and stability—lives in poverty, I quite literally couldn’t believe it. And while Ecuador’s worse-off situation doesn’t take the pain of our own 16 percent away, I found the greater connection between our poverty: the U.S. dollar.
As we get older, it gets harder and harder to deny the sometimes detrimental presence of the United States in other countries worldwide. Don’t get me wrong—I love being an American. I know we as a nation have our faults and our complicity in unfortunate and sometimes unethical situations, but overall I am grateful for our freedoms and for the ideals this country was founded upon. But as I was reading Histories and trying to keep all my newly-acquired “Ecuador” facts straight, I saw another familiar country’s name in a not-so-positive light. In a chapter entitled “Ecuador in the New Millenium,” it was noted that in 2004, the country celebrated its 25th year of democracy but that it had also been “turning in on itself, going nowhere, and that it had lost all sense of direction.” And then a string of unfavorable words explaining this going nowhere-ness caught my attention especially: “Two interrelated consistencies that enshrouded this path in 2004 and continue to cast their pall in 2010 are the increased presence of Colombian drug traffickers, paramilitaries, and guerrillas and the dominance and hegemony of the United States of America.”
What could the hegemony of the United States have to do with Ecuador’s problems? (An ironic question, I know.) And then the book explained it in a language all Americans can understand: dollars.
When I was in Ecuador in January, I expected to have to exchange money in the airport and figure out the exchange rate, but, much to my surprise, there was no need; U.S. dollars are nationally accepted in Ecuador. How convenient and easy, right? January me would have nodded happily, but after reading about the dollar’s effect on Ecuador, “easy” and “convenient” are not the two words I would choose to describe the conversion.
In 2000, Ecuador’s national currency went from the sucre to the dollar at a conversion rate of 25,000 sucres per one dollar. And while I won’t pretend to know much about conversion-rate fairness or ideals, I do understand that, at the time, gasoline alone started at $1.50 a gallon and, because of the conversion, people were (by comparison) suddenly making only a dollar or so a day. This fact alone gave me flashbacks to a fact I learned from my group leader when wandering around Guayaquil one day—it is not uncommon for a family of four to live on only two dollars a day. (Coming from a family of four, I still have a hard time seeing how this is possible.) Histories continued to explain that now 10+ years after the conversion, the consensus is that the adoption of the dollar has been mostly beneficial for the middle and upper classes, but for “the rest of the country” the benefits are questionable if present at all. And while the greater good is a real and understandable thing, it’s important to remember that the middle and the upper classes occupy only 20 percent of Ecuador while “the rest of the country,” for whom the dollar has been detrimental, occupy an overwhelming 70 percent of the people. And, in that case, is the dollar truly beneficial at all?
I know that at this point you might be wondering what the point of all of this is. “What’s your thesis statement, Kath?” Where are you going with all of this information?” Truthfully, I’m not all that sure yet. But regardless of how I’m going or where I’ll end up, examining the history of Ecuador gives me a bigger picture of not only their own issues and obstacles, but ours, too. Ours as Americans, ours as internationally-traveling citizens, ours as people in a world that’s getting smaller by the day. And, for now, that’s enough for me.