Sunday in Guayaquil

Yesterday I caught up with Eric who leads the environmental NGO "Pro Bosque" which protects and manages a large area of dry tropical forest owned by HOLCIM/LAFARGE just outside of the city of Guayaquil. The area is the home of the almost extinct Great Green Macaw, a bird only found anymore here in Ecuador and in Costa Rica. Eric and I worked during the 1997-2009 period on a few projects between Niagara College, College of the Rockies, UEES and Pro Bosque. I also did some nice work with Eric on eco-lodges in the park financed by Rotary Clubs in Canada. It was great to see Eric again. He is certainly one of my environmental heroes who does not just talk but is full of action. He came 27 years ago from California where he grew up and became a certified forest fire fighter and park ranger. Eric is active around the world in the Society of Eco-System Restoration.

Today (Sunday morning) I went for another nice walk on the riverside "Malecon" boardwalk. In the photo above is the hill I am going to go up later today with another colleague from here (Jessica from the Canada Ecuador Chamber of Commerce). It has 444 steps! Below just a few shots from the scenery here and people going about their way and their work....

Coffee in Ecuador

As a true coffee addict it is always important for me to get a nice "cuppa" wherever I am in the world. This is a brand of coffee made from coffee beans grown here in Ecuador. It is very good and rivals the amazing good Juan Valdez coffee I got hooked on in Colombia during my year there (2013). It gets me going for some hours of work on presentations and reports in my "office away from home" here in the hotel these days......

Last night I had dinner with Jihna with whom I worked many years when she was a member of the international office team at UEES. She started a new venture (owned by a company in the UK) two years ago with four staff members and now she has already more than 40 employees. She is a real go-getter in her mid-thirties also raising three teenager boys. Wow! Well done, Jihna! The office space she designed is hip & hop, colorful and you can just imagine the atmosphere of these folks...

This weekend I will catch up with a few other colleagues from the period 1997 - 2007 here. So a few more posts will follow of the days here in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Iguanas and the "Malecon"

The famous "liberator" Simon Bolivar has of course also here a statue. After my year in Colombia (2013) I better realize the impact this man had in this region of South America. His statue is located in a small park right across from the small hotel I am staying here in Guayaquil (UNIPARK hotel).

These Iguanas are some of the prehistorical animals who survived thousands and thousands of years in this region which has one of the most incredible rich diversities of ecosystems in the world. They don't worry about nothing and just "hang out" every day in the sun (and in the trees) of this park. Just look at this fellow below (I actually feel a bit like him today.....).

 A few hundred meters from my hotel there is the large river delta which connects the city of Guayaquil with the Pacific coast line. The region is full of huge mangrove areas which little by little get restored again after almost devastating negative impact from the shrimp farming during decades. The mangroves are a very important natural protection and an essential part of the local ecosystem. Along the river the municipality constructed 10-15 years ago a long boardwalk called the "Malecon" and I always love walking over this boardwalk which stretches several kilometers.

The walk this late afternoon was a lovely way to end the day after a series of good work meetings. This weekend catching up with several old colleagues from the previous period of work here, and then on Monday and Tuesday our workshop delivery at the UEES University.

Guayaquil in Ecuador

This week I will be a few days with old academic friends and colleagues at the UEES University in the city of Guayaquil on the Pacific Ocean coast of Ecuador. I visited here the first time in 1998 just 5 years after this institution was started by Carlos Ortega. Fun fact: the first time I visited the city of Guayaquil was in 1983 when I traveled with back-pack through South America. The UEES was partner with Niagara College and College of the Rockies (BC) in a project funded by the Canadian government on tourism development and ecosystem restoration (we worked on new curriculum development, teacher training and experiential learning with a local conservation NGO). Since then UEES has done a lot of expansion and this week we will sign a cooperation agreement between UEES and Seneca. We will also deliver a workshop at a national conference of electronic engineers hosted at UEES.

The campus has a wonderful green design and now also a complete conference center (see photo above). They offer many of their courses in English which makes them a great partner for exchanges of staff and students.

A wonderful campus with some nice places to hang out such as this cool coffee shop....

Andrea is in charge of all the international partnerships at UEES. She knows what life, study and work in other countries is because she spent a few years in Germany and the USA. Andrea oversees the assistance of students from many different places in the world:

Next visit she will have Seneca in Toronto on that map as well. The Canadian flag is already there and they also have some students from Holland (Radboud Uuniversity in Nijmegen).

Many UEES students find their way to Canada which is a popular destination for them. And they have a very nice team of support staff for incoming students from around the world.

Goodbye Robben!

Goodbye to Arjen Robben who played his last game for the "men in orange"  tonight (2-0 win over Sweden which was unfortunately not enough to qualify for the World Cup 2018 in Russia). I have enjoyed your speed, your shots with the left foot and your passion for the game (a little less sometime your acting when tackled but you can be forgiven for that). I thought in 2010 during the finals hosted in South Africa that you had the goalie of Spain beat but somehow the goalie got his big toe on it (after that brilliant pass from Wesley Sneyder). That was the closest we ever got to winning the World Cup after the star studded team that left it for Germany in 1974.

Thank you Arjen and thank you Wesley. It is now up to the next generation to see if they can qualify for the 2020 European Championship and the 2022 World Cup.

Love it that Iceland qualified for Russia 2018. They w ere the sensation of the European Cup two years ago and totally deserve to be in Russia. A country with 330,000 people whose soccer team qualifies. That is even better than Uruquay already so many times with only their 3 million people!

A relaxed tournament for us to watch next summer. I am cheering for Egypt and for Iceland! And of coursse always for Brazil and Colombia. What the heck. I cheer for all the teams!!

MSF Canada starters in 1991

In late1990 I met with these three guys and we started MSF Canada in 1991. Richard Heinzl started the ball rolling in 1989 as a recently graduated medical doctor and he visited our MSF projects in Mozambique while I worked there. Jim Lane was a school friend of Richard in Hamilton and had recently finished his law studies in 1990. James Orbinski did medical school at McMasters University together with Richard. James worked in MSF projects in Peru, Somalia and Rwanda (during the 1994 genocide there) and was the International President of the MSF movement in 1999 when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to MSF. James gave the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in December 1999 in Oslo, Norway. Last week we attended the house warming reception of MSF Canada in their new offices (see the previous post).

New MSF Canada offices

Busy day at work with - among other activities - hosting the Senior Trade Commissioner from the Philippines of their Consulate in Toronto at Seneca. We are starting to do some interesting contract work in the Philippines. Late afternoon I made the hour and half trek downtown to be at the tail-end of a "house warming" of the new MSF Canada offices (Medecins sans Frontieres / Doctors without Borders). The photos below are hopeless quality because I was too excited to see the nice office space and what it has grown into from what we started here in 1990....

Jim Lane, one of the founders of MSF Canada and still a Board member. I slept many nights in the house of Jim & Georgina when we started MSF Canada in 1990 on a shoestring with a small budget from MSF Holland. Now both sons of Jim and Georgina study at Seneca College; small world....

James Orbinski, also one of the founders of MSF Canada, who later went on to become the MSF International President and who gave the organization's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 1999. James now works at York University; we'll catch up in November sometime for lunch...

Richard Heinzl, the man who got the idea of MSF Canada rolling. He is catching up with some MSF staff in one of the meeting rooms of the new MSF offices.....

The organization grew to more than seventy staff. So nice to see. Wanted to apply for a job especially after seeing that they even have and R & R room.....