I have lived in the community of Santa Rita for more than five months now as a Global Citizen Year Fellow working with Runa. Runa put me to the task of working with the community to develop a GIS-based map that delineates areas of conservation and production to help Santa Rita in its planning for agricultural growth. Santa Rita lies at the base of the Andes mountains where they meet the Amazon Basin, and is a biodiversity hotspot resting in the Sumaco Biosphere region. Next to Santa Rita is the Colonso Protected Forest, a reserve of approximately 10,000 hectares "managed" by the Ministry of Environment, although every person I spoke with in Santa Rita while working on the project had no idea it was government-owned, because they had never seen any sort of “forest management” there.

Community events in Kichwa communities are highlighted by extensive citizen participation. Living in Santa Rita and watching my host father, Patricio Andy, interact with the community has been a rewarding foray into the Kichwa democratic process of massive village-wide assemblies. Throngs of people eager to be heard and discuss problems facing the community take turns speaking over the course of day-long asembleas, and ever so often guest speakers are in attendance. Runa attended the February 3rd assembly in Santa Rita to present our recently-completed GIS map of Bosque Colonso, a large rainforest preserve stretching between the towns of Tena, Archidona, and a number of Kichwa communities.

That morning after preparing our presentation at the office, I returned to my community with Eliot, Cass, Alexandra, fellow volunteers Grace and Catherine, and fellow Global Citizen Year compatriots Kirin and Andy to present the fruits of Runa's recent work. I started my presentation with a bit of Kichwa, my linguistic limit being the equivalent of “Good afternoon friends, my name is Chacho. Thank you all!”

Alexandra and I discussed the project, our goals in regards to its application, and how we believe it will be useful for the community members. Francisco Andy, the principal of the Santa Rita elementary school and a dynamic public speaker commanding much respect in the village, translated everything into Kichwa for the community members who have limited Spanish vocabularies. In addition, we gave a special thanks to Wilson Andy, the Santa Rita representative on the farmer's association and an invaluable partner in the project. Wilson took the majority of the map's dozens of GPS points on a number of expeditions deep into the forest, and without his help and immense knowledge of the landscape, the project would have taken much longer to complete.

I joined Wilson on one of his expeditions into Colonso to take GPS points, and it was one of the scariest and yet most transformative experiences of my time in Ecuador thus far. We planned a twelve-hour trip: six hours up the mountains and into the forest, a night spent on a small ranchito, and six hours back. However, it turned into a three-day whirlwind. We walked (by Wilson's and the GPS's calculations) over 35 kilometers through puro bosque, or pure forest, getting lost at several instances, running out of food halfway through, and making it back at 2 a.m. on the third day. Although I was terrified, the biodiversity of Amazonian Ecuador was finally made obvious to me. Monkeys, birds, insects, and plants of every shape, size, and color filled my senses and I truly realized why this incredible resource needed to be protected.

I personally think this map will be useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, this map is the first digital representation of the community and surrounding selva, or forest, that Santa Rita has ever had, and it may be used in ways that we never thought of when planning out the project. In addition, I think that the community members will be better equipped to plan out their farm plots, which pad the community for one kilometer in every direction outside of its residential center. Property boundaries will also be concretely determined, as will the exact limits of the Colonso preserve. And with all this information, Runa and Santa Rita will be able to work together to build more productive livelihoods and protect the great Colonso forest.

We pass on this map with high hopes and best wishes to Santa Rita!

Living the in the community of Santa Rita and working as an intern for Runa since September of last year has given me the opportunity to meet some extraordinary people.

My neighbor Vicente and his wife Jacinta have become extremely close friends and have helped me truly understand the culture and tradition around guayusa. When I arrived in September of last year, I was invited to the first of what has become a near-weekly invitation to 4 a.m. chats over hot cups of guayusa about our thoughts on the week ahead, reflections on my dreams and my goals, and the latest village gossip. Vicente, a short, well-build man hardened by years of work on the farm, constantly feeds me new Kichwa vocabulary to add to my small-but-growing list. His patience and easy smile as I try to learn the non-Latin-based language make time with him and his family some of my most cherished in Santa Rita. His wife Jacinta, slightly taller than the majority of Kichwa women and always wearing green, speaks softly and sparingly, but her shyness is broken ever so often by a broad, beautiful smile and infectious laugh. I am regularly invited to boisterous dinners with them and the other neighbors, laughing as we move from topic to topic over a seemingly endless supply of rice and yuca.

Another neighbor of mine, Wilson, one of the village leaders and the Santa Rita representative on the Runa farmer's association board, has become another close companion. After getting home from work at 6:00, he can always be found sitting on the neighbors' front porch watching the day's pickup soccer games, people returning from the fincas (farms) around the community, and the flow of people coming back from Archidona via the Expreso Napo buses. He enjoys hearing about my work, what I think of Ecuador, and without fail, asks daily when I plan on returning after I leave in April. I accompanied Wilson on a crazy two-day adventure deep into the jungle to collect GPS points several months ago, and jokes about how gringos and the deep forest don't mix are told and re-told to no end. Although he commands much respect in Santa Rita (being one of only a handful of college graduates), his humble, kind nature and utter loyalty to the people he's grown up with has been extended to me, and people like Wilson are the reason I feel so at home when I return to Santa Rita every night.

Before living in Santa Rita, I thought that leaving the other gringos that I work with to live in a Kichwa community would make me long for English and the comfort associated with being around people who have lived the American lifestyle. This has proved to be far from the truth, as the incredible opportunity to work as a Runa intern has also turned into the chance to get out of my skin and form wonderful friendships with the very people that Runa works with to bring guayusa from the farm to the mug.