Final exams and presentations are done, and now we're about to begin one of the most exciting and terrifying parts of the program: Independent Study Projects! Every SIT study abroad program has an independent study project (ISP) as part of its curriculum, and entails the students traveling to various parts of the country alone to complete a project in the final month. In our program, the students are scattering to many parts of Ecuador - the coast, the Amazon jungle, the sierra, and the cloud forest. We will be working with an on-site advisor on our individual projects and then writing a 20-30 page scientific paper in Spanish about our research.
For my project, I'm heading to the small coastal town of Puerto Lopez which is about an 8 hour bus ride from Quito. During the month of November, I will be doing a medical anthropological study about dengue fever, and how much knowledge the people living in Puerto Lopez have about the spread of the disease. I'm really excited about the project since it has the potential to shed light on measures to reduce the incidence of dengue in this town, but I'm also nervous because interviews are my primary information source and people on the coast speak rapidly and with a different accent than I am used to. There are actually three other SIT students that are doing their ISP projects in Puerto Lopez as well, on different topics.
We had our goodbye pot-luck with all of our host families on Wednesday, and it was a hard realization that I only have a few days left with them. Luckily, I will be spending two days at their house after the program ends, before I fly back to the States. They have been an incredibly caring family and treated me like a daughter throughout my stay - I will miss them immensely when I have to leave.
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