Work

My internship in Ecuador was in the Agriculture Department of the San Francisco Univerisdad de Quito and lasted for 9 weeks. My work has been mostly about studying plants, soils from different parts in Ecuador and fruits (broccoli, dragon fruit and bananas). Here the plants were examined for harmful fungi and checked whether these fungi prevent or improve diseases. For this purpose, the plants were stimulated to grow in differently composed hydroponic systems for 4 weeks and then inoculated with the fungi extracted from the DNA. During the waiting period, i.e. the 4 weeks, dragon fruit were inoculated with previously extracted and purified fungi to see if cross-contamination could occur. Here it was found that no cross contamination occurred after the experiment was conducted for 9 weeks. Another part of my internship was the production of biodegradable fertilizers in my professor's company. For this, the soils in Ecuador were analyzed for their components in order to find out the respective nature, ingredients and deficiencies of the soil samples in order to produce an individually effective fertilizer. The main components of this were various previously cultivated fungi, which were adapted to the respective plant species. In order to determine the components and composition of the soils, they were thoroughly cleaned beforehand and then brought to a pH value of 4, so that this could be better adapted to the respective plant species and so that the cleaned end products could be better stored.

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Experience

The Ecuadorian people are mostly very open, welcomed us with open arms and were always warm and helpful. Even though the country is very divided, in terms of income and financial means, we were never exposed to dangerous situations, but have heard some dangerous things from friends and our host family. The area where the university is located is the more upscale area and is in Cumbaya ( which still belongs to Quito). Fortunately, my host family was only a 15 minute walk from the university, so I was able to walk to the university in the morning and walk home from the university in the evening or at noon. The way to and from the university was an interesting walk every time, as there seem to be hardly any rules regarding driving. The only rules that exist are red lights during the day, but they don't stop at them in the evening unless there are cars nearby. At first this presented a challenge, however I was told you just have to walk the streets with "confianca" to get ahead. For vegans, Ecuador presents a bit of a challenge as Ecuador is very meat focused. However, I was very impressed with how many vegan alternatives there are in Ecuador. However, eating in restaurants is really hard, as the only vegan alternative here was usually rice with beans or plantain for dessert.

Discover

IAESTE Ecuador organized some excursions for us trainees, so we all had the opportunity to get to know Ecuador and the surroundings of Quito. Work was great, the trips with and without IAESTE people were fun and I had the opportunity to visit some nice places in Ecuador. Ecuador is very diverse as it is divided into different tropical zones. It ranges from the Amazon rainforest to volcanoes to Galapagos and white sand beaches. All in all, I had a great experience with my IAESTE internship.

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