Friday, July 17, 2009

Cuaderno de un economista licenciado

As you may or may not know, my first true experience with Latin America was in July 2007 when I spent a week in Cuba. While I had spent three spring breaks building houses in Tijuana before that, looking back now I can see that those trips were geared towards building houses and not towards immersing us in life in Mexico. The differences between daily life in Havana and Austin are striking, and since experiencing this I have always found it interesting to compare the infrastructure and technology I see in new countries to other places I’ve been.

The roads are in excellent condition here in Quito. Almost all of them are smoothly paved with asphalt; the rest are smoothly cobbled with large cinderblock hexagons like I saw in Nicaragua. I have seen one dirt road, and it was more like an alleyway in the Chillos Valley (where we work). I find this especially impressive seeing as how Quito is literally up in the mountains. Quito’s mountainous location makes it hard to have long straight roads like those in centrally-planned Cuba, but they still don’t strike me as overly curvey or even as serpentine as the roads in Tijuana. Perhaps the fact that water almost never freezes in cracks contributes to the roads’ smooth surfaces. Roads in general strike me as a key component of infrastructure for growth (other more professional economists agree on this). However, I hear it takes 30 hours to get to Peru, so I will reserve judgment until I see a little more of the country.

Public transportation is very accessible. Busses all over the city run about as frequently as they do in Dublin, Ireland. It could easily be that I was traveling with the wrong group, but I do not remember this much accessible public transportation in either Nicaragua or Cuba. Neither Nashville nor Austin is known for its accessible public transportation, so I have relatively little to compare Quito’s public transportation to in the United States. I guess I should ask Shawn, our resident New Yorker, how Quito compares. There is no printed bus schedule that I have seen, but I really cannot think of a time we have waited more than about five minutes for the bus we wanted. I would classify the busses as “clean,” even if they would not pass an emissions test in America. From what I can tell the busses are safe to ride even at night, which I know is more than can be said in some parts of America. It costs $0.25 to hop on each bus in the city, no matter how far you ride. If you keep your eyes peeled and find the right bus, you can probably get anywhere in the city for a quarter. You can get from the Chillos Valley (where MPI lives and works), to anywhere in Quito for about $0.50. However, if you are living on two dollars a day this fare changes from “accessible” to “impossible.” As a final note on busses for now, the current directors guessed that there is something like 80 different bus companies that operate in Quito and the surrounding area. I wonder if this is an example of almost perfect competition (remember, all busses are $0.25) or an example of a place where a natural monopoly should have occurred.

Food is cheap. Shockingly cheap for a Norteamericano. You can get a gallon of strawberries or 30 small oranges or a star fruit or many, many other things for one American dollar (remember, Ecuador dollarized and does not mint anything besides 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50 centavo coins, which are used interchangeably with US change. They also love the dollar coin here; it is estimated that about half the dollar coins in circulation are in Ecuador). Eating lunch out normally costs between $1.50 and $2.00; if you really splurge you can end up paying $4.00. It is hard for me to tell, but I would say prices seem about comparable to food prices in Nicaragua. Ecuadorians are very proud of the fact that so many fruits and vegetables grow here, and rightfully so; you can eat a much tastier, healthier, more balanced meal here then you ever could in Ireland for a fraction of the price. Food also does not seem to be scarce here, like it is in Cuba. Seeing how we are in the mountains, it is hard for me to trust the fish for sale in the markets of Sanloqui (other than trout).

Water is “passable” a best. At its worst it can do some real damage. We are encouraged to drink the water and eat the food in Quito, but we use filtered water in the house out in Conocoto. Even in Quito, it is easy to catch a parasite (I have already heard too many stories). From what I can tell, this problem affects gringos much more than Ecuadorians (surprise!). I think I once heard that it takes a clean population to have clean water, so I don’t really know how to fight this problem. My plan is to make friends with the first parasite I get and try to set up a symbiotic relationship with it. Naming it should help.

Inflation is currently low, but that hasn´t always been the case. Ecuador Dollarized in 2000, and before that inflation was apparently high (I had a discussion about this with mí profesora yesterday, but I still have a lot to learn). When they dollarized, prices jumped way up, but since then they have apparently been pretty constant. Things produced in Ecuador are pretty good, imported goods, especially electronics, are pretty expensive.

There are plenty of other major features of life here, like healthcare and education, that I just don’t know enough about to form an opinion on yet. But I’ll be sure to continue to take notes on what I see.

Chao!

Chet

Song of the Blog: The name escapes me, but one of those traditional tunes you sing to babies. Emelio (6 months old) was playing with something that played one of those songs a lot yesterday.

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