Last Day in Loja

Today was my last full day in Loja.  That's kind of a bummer, but it was a pretty good day so I do feel like I had a good conclusion.

I went to work at Arcoiris as usual, but today was my last day obviously.  I immediately got to work on the website, since the last few days have been crunch time.  I've had all kinds of suggestions for the website, and it has been pretty crazy.  I even have a bunch of things I still need to finish in the US.  I think I' ve worked 12 hour+ days for the last 3 days in a row. Not to complain though, I actually love crunch time.  I enjoy the feeling of urgency and importance and deadlines and all that.  I really want to be able to see projects all the way through like that whenever I end up with a steady job.  I'm kind of a workaholic though.

So around lunch time, someone went and picked up empanadas and we all gathered in the sala de reuniones for my despedida (farewell).  Ángel said a few words, we all chowed down, and it was a good time.

Did I mention we have a German intern now?  She just started earlier this week, and she's working on her thesis.  She's been living in Quito for about the same amount of time I've been in Loja, though, so she's a pro.  And she lives in the visitor's house in the reserve, and hitches a ride to and from on buses.  Which is crazy, living way out there in the forest.  It would be fun though.

Anyways, then it was back to work.  A while later Luis popped in and gave me a mass amount of coffee and cocoa, which was awesome. 

And in a totally unrelated event, I agreed to help Luis and Leonardo (another dude at the office) set up something on Google Earth from the US to promote their coffee fincas.  Seriously though, it wasn't a bribe, Luis is just super nice like that, and they've actually been wanting me to help them with that for awhile.

And back to work.  The website is now very different, in a good way.  Besides visual changes, we now have an image gallery.  I was working on this code before (it will absolutely come in handy again), so I was able to crank it out in a day by combining that code with the noticias code.

And everyone is really excited about the website.  It's actually really, really cool seeing people working with the tools that I created, updating and filling out the website.  They're really psyched about the website now, and it's turning out really cool.  I'm very proud.

I was working on a new Announcements system when I had to call it a night (around 9?).  The idea is really cool, but it kind of overlaps the noticias system a bit, so I'm trying to work that out in my head... If Arcoiris can use the two separate systems though, that works fine.  We'll see when I get to the US.

The site is back up now, with links to the English sections removed while that part is rennovated.  Most of the Spanish text is being changed, so we'll need to translate again.

And IE support is a bit sketchy, which is bad, but I'll get on that also when I'm back home.

And some other work with my other job, which I'll be continuing.

And Turkiball.

And you never know, maybe I'll have time to relax and hang out with my family before school starts...

Back to my last day, though.  So I said my goodbyes to everyone at Arcoiris as they left, with just me and Ángel and Paola left slaving away at the end.  Ángel promised me some cuy if we finished the site, which we kind of did, so we then left to eat.

We went to the zona de los cuyes, as Ángel called it, which is a plaza near the Hipervalle.  And yes, finally in my last day in Loja, yo comí la mascota.  I had half a cuy, luckily the half without the head.  It was pretty good actually, and I'm not too picky about food, so I was fine.  Kind of stereotypically like chicken, but darker and less dry.  And with really tough skin.  And a rat body.

Then we went to El Viejo Minero, an old bar in the centro.  We hung out for awhile, talking about Arcoiris and stuff.  I heard a lot of history from Ángel, including the history of Paola in the organization.  And I heard Ángel's history with Arcoiris, which was much deeper than I thought.  I had heard before that Arcoiris was started by a couple students at the universidad técnica, and it turns out that Ángel was one of those kids, 20 years ago.  I never knew that.

So originally these students were looking to start like a chapter of another ecologic organization, the biggest one in Ecuador at the time whose name escapes me.  They traveled to a meeting to make their proposal, and basically weren't taken seriously and were sent packing since they were just a bunch of kids.  The only thing they got out of the trip was a tiny book about starting ecologic clubs.

And that they did.  When they arrived back at Loja, they began talking to business owners in town trying to get them to donate anything useful to their cause.  They wound up talking to Dr. Guzman at his clinic in town, the same el doctor that currently runs Arcoiris who I see almost every day.  He donated a bunch of furniture, which they set up in someone's garage, and Arcoiris was started.

And long story short it eventually grew into the influential organization it is today.  That's inspirational.  If any of my entrepreneurial projects/ideas turn out half as successful as that, I will have done something awesome in life.

As a change of pace for this entry, after that a really good band started playing.  I believe they were called Afuera del Sitio, based on the flyers on the wall.  The frontman was the bass player, which never happens.  He did play a 5 string though, which makes them slightly less cool.

After the show, Ángel got to talking about how thankful he was for my work, and the impact the site would have for Arcoiris, and how it ties into all that history he was telling me.  He ended up giving me his necklace, which I think I've seen him wear pretty much everyday since I've been here.  I'm not going to start blabbing about my thankfulness in a blog entry he'll never read, but wow, what a nice guy.  We ended the night talking about all the great future projects we could do for Arcoiris using more technology like the website.  In a way all this makes me want to stay even more, but if I think about it it just brings a better conclusion to my trip.  I'm ready to leave, and now I can just start thinking about when I come back.

  I head out tomorrow, though I still have some unfinished business left in Loja, so it will probably end up being later in the day.  My host family is coming back tomorrow, so I'm going to wait around to thank them one last time.  I'm also going to see Luis and Paola, and I should see Ángel and Arcoiris Paola one more time as well.  Then I begin my 3 day or so trip to Quito at my first stop, Cuenca.

I'll continue writing though, so this isn't quite my final post from Ecuador yet.