USAID

10/25/11

            Today we visited the US Embassy to speak with a member of USAID.  Some people weren’t exactly jazzed about going, which confused me because this is what I think TBB is all about! I forget his last name, but we spoke with Chris, a member of USAID who is on his second year in Ecuador. It was a very interesting talk, especially because this is the type of career that I could see pursuing one day. At least, that’s what I thought going in.

            I believe that Chris himself is good in intent, but USAID itself gets bogged down in the bureaucracy.  For example, he was very eloquent when telling us all about USAID’s mission to protect the environment in Ecuador, particularly biodiversity.  But he became very tongue-tied when I asked him if USAID had gotten involved at all after the Texaco oil mismanagement in the Amazon (one in ten known species in the world lives in the Amazon Rainforest.) Basically, the biggest threat to biodiversity in Ecuador, and they did nothing. I can’t speak for USAID, but I’m assuming it was because Texaco is an American company. Although I’m not sure how quick they’d have been to act had it been BP, because that might hurt diplomatic relations.  He even said that USAID had never worked with an indigenous tribe in the area of the oil spills, which confuses me because he also said that they worked with the Hourani…

            Although USAID does seem to do some good, if I were to get involved in this line of work it would have to be through an NGO. Perhaps it’s sometimes easier to go through the government, but I know I couldn’t deal with the bureaucracy. I need to be able to fight whichever battles I want to fight.  Besides, ever since Ecuador expelled the US Ambassador from the country, they’re only receiving 17 million dollars from USAID a year.

Towards the end of the talk, Chris seemed to become more honest with us. He admitted that he didn’t agree with USAID spending the most money on certain countries in the Middle East (not even including military spending.) He also told us that his next location is Iraq for a year.  I can’t decide if you have to be a really good person, or a really bad person to leave behind your wife and kids to work in Iraq for an entire year.  Hehe, another interesting fact: United States government members working abroad must take their vacations in the US. This is to “re-program” them, so that they don’t become more loyal to their new country than the US. Isn’t that a little frightening?

On a separate note, my Ecuador photos are now on Shutterfly!

http://tbbwest.shutterfly.com/

            This will be my last post in Ecuador, as tomorrow we are moving onto Peru to hike Machu Picchu. After that, I’ll be going to China for six weeks! I really miss Los Naranjos, but I don’t see missing Quito all that much.  Although the people are very helpful here. While searching for the restaurant tonight, four different people told us not to get mugged!

Love,

Katherine