About Chris Fukushima

Hey to all from Ecuador … it’s been an eventful two weeks since I wrote here last. I’ve been granted a fair bit of autonomy in recreating the vision that is the reforestation area at La Hesperia, and Í’m making the most of it. We’ve made so much progress organizing, clearing, marking, planting, planning, constructing, and I now believe that the area is well on it’s way to becoming (once again, after a period of relative neglect due to a lack of volunteers) a model of reforestation. Another Canadian volunteer and I have just finished building a bench and a [...]

So it turns out I can write after all, since I´m here in Santo Domingo (for my faithful readers with maps, about 100km west of Quito) in search of some supplies. Not much time though, so I´ll try and sum up:
I had a great week of work, made a lot of progress planting areas vulnerable to landslides and organizing/mapping/caring for the reforestation area, which I´ve taken on as a personal project. It needs a lot of work, but we´re slowly making it into the place it was envisioned to be. Working with the earth is extremely rewarding. I´ve also taken [...]

¡Hola mis amigos!
It´s hard to believe I´ve only barely been here one week. La Hesperia is very, very beautiful, nestled in the cloud forest … very green, lush, deep, airy. I´ve quickly become accustomed to moving with the rhythm of the sun; early to bed, early to rise – and usually in time to catch the sun peaking shyly over the mountains, lighting the wooden porch outside our little room. There seems to be a fixed schedule for the weather here (an odd concept to me): 6am-12pm = Sun; 12pm-3pm = overcast (and the clouds start to mingle with the [...]

So much to say about the past three days … I’ll start at the beginning. Arrived Thursday night in Quito after a long day of travelling – or, I should say, after a long day of waiting and being transported around. I did very little travelling myself. But whoosh, 20 hours later, and I found myself in Ecuador. Had a lesson in Norwegian from a girl on the plane … also, talking about how many flights we’d had, we both predicted that our luggage would be lost somewhere along the way. And we were both right. So I spent the [...]

Well, here I am sitting in my cozy box of a house in Edmonton, and there’s nothing left to prepare. In three days I’ll be in Ecuador, dancing in the streets of Quito because I know that for the next 10 weeks, I’ll be as free as I’ve ever been in my life. No phone, no possessions, no military – just me, my pack, and a collection of people from all over the world come together to work towards a common goal of helping to conserve one of the most threatened bioregions in the world. Pretty, too. What a prospect!
I’ve [...]