Students enjoy service trip to rural village in Ecuador

Senior Aakash Thumaty is the president of the ASB, a self-proclaimed tech geek and a known practical jokester. His friend Spencer Yen, also a senior, is known for his prowess in programming and his skill as a volleyball player. Senior Isa Berardo is a skilled soccer player and dedicated rally commissioner.

All three, along with guidance counselor Eileen Allen, traveled to a small village in Ecuador for a 10-day service trip organized by Me to We, a subgroup of the Free the Children charity. Assistant principal Kerry Mohnike won the overseas excursion in a raffle last February at “We Day,” a youth empowerment event held at the SAP Center.

Mohnike was unable to go due to family commitments, so Allen offered to take her place. The remaining two spots were open to current juniors at the time. Berardo and Yen were the only two students who applied for those spots.

Upon arrival, the group was brought to Bella Vista, a secluded village along the Napo River with a population of 200. Accommodated in Free the Children’s private lodge nestled in the Amazon forest, the crew settled into cabins next to local civilians.  

“The first few days, I stayed pretty quiet,” Yen said. “Everything seemed sort of gimmicky and cheesy, especially when we were handed journals to help us ‘discover’ ourselves and the world.”

But as the group began to interact at meal times and over card games, Yen got to know the other volunteers better. Speaking broken Spanish and using hand gestures, Yen was also able to communicate with the locals.

After getting to know the others, the crew was informed about the service project: to dig a trench to provide a clean water system for the Bella Vista community, which consists mainly of farming families. Volunteers were also instructed in how to transport cinderblocks, clear rocks and plant water pipes at specified locations in the rainforest.

Each morning, the volunteer crew took a canoe upstream 25 minutes to the trench, which stretched several kilometers deep into the forest.

“The digging got monotonous at times, so we would hold digging competitions to make it more interesting,” Yen said.

The weather conditions fluctuated greatly, according to Yen. One minute, it would be blistering hot. The next minute, there would be a torrential downpour and his boots were filled to the brim with rainwater.

Thumaty called the work grueling but rewarding. He remembers how one day when he was working in the village, he suddenly felt tired and thirsty after digging for several hours. After Thumaty sat down to catch his breath, a 3-year-old girl approached him with a small canteen filled with water. Thumaty thanked her graciously but quickly remembered the little girl had a scarce supply of food, let alone clean drinking water for herself.

“She offered me what little amount she had to thank me for helping with the project that would benefit her community in the long run, which opened my eyes to the tremendous impact I was making by simply lending a hand,” Thumaty said.

Fortunately, clean drinking water will be accessible to 34 homes in around six months. Berardo says she feels incredible joy when she thinks about the children and parents she met, and how they will be able to enjoy abundant drinking water for the first time in their lives.  

Thinking back on the trip, Berardo said she will long remember the interactions she shared with the women in the communities. Weaving colorful bracelets and shaping ornaments from twine stripped from stalks and seeds gathered from plants, Berardo recalls seeing how proud the women were to have a source of income.

“Something I’ll never forget is seeing these children and women and playing with them,” Berardo said. “Even with bellies swollen with parasites, their smiles never faded.”

Allen attributed the refreshing vibe of the trip to the lack of cell phone and Internet access while in the rainforest.

“I walked outside to our common area each night and it made me so happy to see all of the students playing cards, talking and sketching in their travel journals together,” Allen said.

Though the crew spent a lot of time digging the water trench, they also spent many hours with the locals and exploring on their own.

Yen recalls being tricked by Thumaty into eating a black pepper, one of the spiciest peppers in existence. Believing the pepper was sweet, Yen casually popped one into his mouth and “straight up died.” He sat down for half an hour, unable to function or talk, while the local children mocked him by eating several of the peppers like candy.

Even worse, Yen remembers the inadequate plumbing system at the lodge.

“One of the guys staying in my cabin clogged the toilet several times, and each time we would have to go get a neighboring villager to help us unclog the toilet, who always groaned, ‘Señor! Toilet? Again?’” Yen said.

One of Yen’s favorite moments was visiting a cacao farm and picking cacao fruit. Cacao produces chocolate, and they got to see the process of roasting, grinding and adding milk and cream.

Berardo, like Yen, wanted to indulge in the experience in every possible way. One afternoon, Berardo’s jungle guide found live grubs, large white larvae insects shaped like fat worms. The ones the guide found were the size of a “really thick and large thumb,” Berardo said.

The locals explained that the grubs are a common snack at the village. Hearing this and receiving a dare from a local, Berardo snatched one up, bit the live grub’s head off and popped it into her mouth.

“I just figured how lame it would be if I had come home and said I had the opportunity to eat a live grub and didn’t take it,” Berardo said.

She recollects that the weirdest part was the texture. The grub was “extremely chewy and wriggly,” and she had to bite the head off first; otherwise, the grub would bite her.

Besides snacking on a live critter, Berardo also spent time playing soccer with the locals. “There were 20 people on a team and we wore clunky yellow rain boots to play,” Berardo said. “It wasn’t ideal, but [it was] super fun nevertheless.”  

In another instance, Allen’s worst experience from the trip was her encounter with a massive flying bug. Allen is terrified of spiders and bugs; unfortunately, the Amazon has tarantulas on the ceiling and bug nets hung in every corner.

“The worst possible thing is if a bug gets into your cabin,” Yen said. “At 9 p.m. one night, I woke up to crazy screaming and instantaneously thought someone had been murdered.”

The blood-curling scream was followed by loud banging noises coming from Allen’s cabin. Running in the direction of the noise, Yen stopped in his tracks as an enormous bug with little wings zoomed out through the cabin door. It looked like a “little black blimp with eyes.”

The jungle guide went on to announce that it was the biggest bug he had ever seen in that area.

Despite the crazy incidents, fluctuating weather and back-breaking work, Allen and the students praised the trip as a life-changing experience.

“Working alongside the locals of the Bella Vista community, seeing how much pride they take in this enormous project and knowing how our help was making a difference is a feeling I'll never forget,” Berardo said.

Yen said his impression of so-called service trips where a volunteer pays a large sum of money to go to a third-world country has changed.

“Sometimes the cliche things to do are right,” Yen said. “Getting out of the Saratoga bubble of elite summer programs and internships to see a new place and meet diverse people was the best possible experience I could have ever imagined from this trip.”