Author Archives: tim

Today started with me seeing Veronica on the way to breakfast. “There’s been a change of plans,” she said. “You guys are leaving at 12:30 instead of 7:30. Some crazy stuff just happened. I’ll tell you about it later.” The plan for today was to take a yacht out to a very small Island called Daphne Mayor. We learned later that only ten people are allowed on the island per month because it’s eroding. So all we got to do was circle the island very slowly in the yacht. We saw lots of crabs, sea lions, blue-footed boobies, red-footed boobies – not much new. The second part of the excursion would be snorkeling. We took another 50-minute yacht ride (For a while on the yacht, a frigate hovered right above us – close enough at times to reach out and touch.); we then arrived at a small alcove back near the original launch point, where we’d be able to kayak and snorkel a bit. We saw lots of cool fish, including a blowfish, a shark, and some sting rays. Eileen and I also saw a baby sea lion. It was pretty cool, but we were in the water for a long time, so we kinda got chilled.

With us on our yacht were Veronica and five of the seven Perez family members. We had all just come from a pretty tense morning. The four mother chaperones on the trip decided to send all of the children with the teacher on the morning shift. Why? Because they wanted to keep the kids separated from the Perez son-in-law, who had been molesting some of the kids. He had apparently fondled a few of the boys in the pool here at the hotel, and he said some inappropriate things to some of the little girls, like “give me a piece of gum and I’ll give you a kiss.” While we were our for a morning stroll after breakfast, the mothers confronted the guy in the hotel restaurant. One of them said, “what did you do with the children?” And when he said, “nothing,” another mother shouted, “liar!” and threw a cup of coffee at him hard enough that it broke on his chest. Rather than being surprised, the rest of the Perez family was apologetic. “We’re good people,” they said. “He’s not even one of us.”

No police were called. The son-in-law and his Perez wife went to a different hotel for the night and changed their flight so that they wouldn’t be near the kids at all for the rest of the trip. Judging by the look on the Perez girls’ faces at breakfast as Veronica was finally telling me what happened, they knew. They looked sad, apologetic. I’m guessing this is not the first time. Veronica explained that things like this usually go unreported cuz people don’t want to admit they exist. The mothers will not call the cops; they will not send their children to a psychologist. It’s best if they just forget it happened and moved on. Freud would be so worked up, he’d have to take some of his cocaine to calm down.

It’s possible that husbands will mobilize and hunt the guy down. But these are all wealthy families. It’s best if scandal is avoided. Now that divorce is legal in Ecuador (as of five years ago), the young Perez girl may someday divorce here pedophile husband (his sister-in-law, by the way, is 13, just a year older than these other kids), but a divorce will not come out of this incident.

I wish I could keep following this story. I wish I could find out what happens when the mothers return and tell the other parents. Veronica says they’ll get blamed for allowing it to happen. What will that confrontation be like? Or will it even happen? The one woman whose son apparently got the worst of it is the president of the PTA. She’s the one who told Veronica she wouldn’t take the boy to a psychologist, that it’s best to just forget about it and move on. Will she even tell the other parents? And if so, what will the fathers do? Will the Perez son-in-law be one of those pictures in the EXTRA with a headline reading, “Lo Mataron”?

I must say, the kids boggle me. They don’t play the victim card here. They were all very willing to move on and keep having fun. And I’m not sure the Western approach to therapy is all that effective, actually; maybe it’s best not to dwell on the negative. The US definitely has Ecuador beat in terms of depression and other mental disorders. I, of course, don’t know anything about it, but maybe our treatments are part of the problem. Psychology isn’t hard science. In fact, it’s a philosophy, a philosophy about how the human mind – perhaps the most mysterious thing on this planet – processes, copes with, and understands experience.

I’d love to talk with some of these boys in 12 years, when they’re 25. What will they have to say about it all? How will they remember their fourth day in the Galapagos?

childmolester
Originally uploaded by wiscostorm.

There’s this family on the trip with us in our tour group. The familia Perez. It’s a couple, their father, their two daughters, the brother of the husband, and a son-in-law married to the older daughter. They’re from Ambato. Ther group was divided today such that the familia Perez and the familia Storm were together, and the children with their five chaperones were together. Veronica came with us. In a bus, we rode out to a private ranch, where we hiked around and saw some giant tortoises in their natural habitat, strolling around in the woods on the ranch. We briefly rode horses and then we hiked through a magma-formed tunnel.

In the afternoon, with the two groups reunited, we walked out to Tortuga Bay, a good surfing beach, but since we had so many kids with us, we hiked down the beach even farther to a big lagoon. It would be much safer than the turbulent waves on the main beach. We spent a lot of time fearing the sun. Eileen, Will, and I went swimming and discovered that I don’t float. Eileen and Will could pretty much just lay on their backs and remain at the surface. Not me.

After we’d been there a while, a launch showed up with a small family riding in it. One of the mothers in our group asked the driver of the launch how much he’d charge to take the kids out for a ride. Twelve dollars later, they were in the boat, getting a tour of the lagoon. When they came back, the Perez couple and their younger daughter invited us out on the boat, meaning they’d pay for us. We accepted and got a 15 minute ride out in the lagoon. We saw some sea turtles and some sting rays.

In the meantime, Ecuador’s national team beat Paraguay 5 – 2.

We went out again after dinner and ran into our WorldTeach friend Emily, who is in the Galapagos for the year. She accompanied us to the Santa Fe Grill and then Angie, Will, and Veronica went with her to another bar. They didn’t stay out too late. One of the other mothers, Angeline, joined them, and she and Veronica serenaded Angie and Will with both Spanish and English songs on the walk back to the hotel. Will and Angie went to bed; Veronica and Angeline found out something that would completely change the mood of the vacation for everyone.

Okay, so the Galapagos entries will be coming in daily installments for the next four or five days. We´ll get pictures posted within the next few days. There are a lot.

Angie got in last night. Our landlords were kind enough to take us to the airport to pick her up. When we got there at 11:45, however, to our horror, she was waiting in the international arrivals area. Her plane had arrived 20 minutes early. Who´d have known? We fit the four of us – Will, Eileen, Angie, and me – into the landlords´ toyota camry. Marlene and Luis both came along for the ride, so on the way home, six of us were stuffed into the car, a number disorienting enough to cause Eileen to get her fingers caught in between the door and the dashboard when I closed it.

We of course didn´t get to bed very early, and consequently, we were all suffering when we had to get up at 6:00 this morning to go to the airport for our Galapagos flight. Everything went smoothly, but in Quito, we discovered that we´d be on the tour with about 15 – 20 5th-grade kids — kids who proved to be pretty obnoxious when, for example, we were getting off the bus that had taken us from the airport to the ferry, and one of the overanxious little tykes exclaimed,”Chuta! Por esa mochila!” (roughly, “geez, this backpack is in the way!”) He continued trying to push by us in the two-foot wide bus aisle after I had picked up the backpack in question.

Our guides here don´t speak much English; Angie and Will are pretty much the only ones who don´t understand Spanish — though Will´s doing pretty good actually. I´ve been translating for Angie whenever I can afford to stop concentrating fully on the understanding the guides myself. At lunch today, which immediately followed our arrival in Puerto Ayora, the guides gave us an exhaustive list of rules to follow (thanks 5th graders) and told us about our schedule for the day. We´d be going to the Charles Darwin Research Station.

Once there, we saw some iguanas and baby tortoises in zoo-like open-air enclosures and we saw some massive tortoises more or less roaming free. It´s true, you can go right up to them and pretty much touch them, though you´re not supposed to. You´re also not supposed to take pictures with a flash. Nonetheless, one gringo-looking woman, taking pictures just before our tour arrived, violated the rule. Our guide said, “no flash!” to which she replied, “there is no flash!” and then she proceeded to take a picture with her flash. She and her husband were pretty salty about being reprimanded. “That´s why people don´t like Americans,” Angie observed. Exactly.

After the tour of the research station, we stopped at a small rocky beach for an optional hour of swimming and/or relaxing in the shade. Will and I went in; Will brought his snorkeling mask. I tried it out – a little reluctantly – but fell in love. There were so many fish, and they too, like all the animals in the Galapagos, were pretty unafraid of humans. It made the ocean much less intimidating.

Well, we’re in the Galapagos. I plan on posting several days’ worth of blogs when we get back to Quito. The trip has been great so far, though it just took a turn for the strange. You’ll have to wait, though, to hear all the news. This place is very cool, but very expensive, and we’re gonna get off the internet before our money runs out. Will and Angie are enjoying themselves. They’ve been a lot of fun. Today, we’re gonna go on another yacht tour; we’ll be able to do some kayaking and snorkeling on a different island. We’re taking tons of pictures and we’ll be posting those as soon as we sift through and decide on the most post-worthy. We’ll be back in Quito either tomorrow or on Wednesday. Apparently, it’s very easy (and free) to change your flight from the Galapagos, so we have some flexibility. In the meantime, sorry for the delay. There’s lots to say, just no time or money to say it.