Though Ariana and I met briefly in Toronto before arriving in Ecuador, we really started to know each other during the four days we spend together in Guayaquil. We bonded over the ridiculous amount of red tape, modes of transportation required, and sea sickness we overcame to arrive on Isla Isabela.
I have mentioned her throughout this blog because she has been a pivotal part of my experience here. She seriously has the cutest laugh I have heard in a long time, and I hear it often because she is equally happy as she is analytical. I have learned so much from her since we met five short weeks ago. Getting to know her has been a joy that I hope to continue beyond this experience, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to get to know a bit about her too.
I asked her to write a blog post to serve as your introduction to her. Below is what she had to say!
I have mentioned her throughout this blog because she has been a pivotal part of my experience here. She seriously has the cutest laugh I have heard in a long time, and I hear it often because she is equally happy as she is analytical. I have learned so much from her since we met five short weeks ago. Getting to know her has been a joy that I hope to continue beyond this experience, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to get to know a bit about her too.
I asked her to write a blog post to serve as your introduction to her. Below is what she had to say!
Hello everyone! I’m Ariana and I’m a Master of Global Affairs (MGA) candidate at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. I’m here on the beautiful island of Isabela with Amber-lee as part of a required global internship component of my master’s program. Rebeca (my fellow MGA and partner in research here) and I will be with IOI for a total of 9 weeks here for our internship.
Rebeca and I have been conducting primary research on the public health implications of current model of the economy of the town of Puerto Villamil here in Isabela. What does this mean? Well, given that the economy of Puerto Villamil is modeled almost exclusively around tourism and related hospitality services (restaurants, bars etc.), there is little to no local production of anything – food, FMCGs (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), construction materials etc. This translates in to close to literally everything having to be imported from mainland Ecuador, which has the potential to cause serious, long-term public health issues via two main routes. The first is through poor nutrition as a result of dependence of non-expiring and processed foods that are easy to ship and low local agricultural production, which is the focus of my end of the research. The second, which Rebeca is focusing on, is through the generation of high levels of waste, both in negligent packaging (in food products and other FMCGs) and biohazardous materials (in construction and healthcare materials etc.), which is then treated poorly within the local waste management system and transferred back to the population via different routes such as (extremely) unsanitary water systems and through airborne diseases.
The aim of our research is to produce a coherent policy document providing primary data to the end of connecting currently prevalent public health issues with the service-oriented, import-dependent model-in-development of the local economy – for the sake of advocating for a rethinking of the way this relatively recently started local economy is stewarded at the national policy-level.
But enough of that – a bit more about me! I come from a family with a Canadian mother and a Turkish father, and was born in Ottawa but then moved to Ankara, Turkey when I was four and then Istanbul when I was 12, where my parents have now settled. After finishing high school in Istanbul I moved to Montreal to attend McGill University for my undergrad, where I studied Economics and Political Science. After graduating I moved back to Istanbul where I first worked at a legal aid clinic for refugees and asylum-seekers for a bit and then went traveling/volunteering in permaculture in South India for a few months before moving to Toronto last August to start my masters degree. My focus in my masters is on the global food and agricultural policy, while I’m particularly interested in understanding the ways in which food policy can interact with local environmental movements and poverty alleviation efforts in highly rural parts of the world.
Some of the things I enjoy most in life (in no particular order) – sunshine, coffee, listening to and exploring (primarily house and other forms of electronic) music, my cat Phoebe, the view of the Bosphorus Straight that runs through Istanbul, red wine, dining out, summers on the Aegean Coast, good chats with good friends, thinking and reading about the world (hence the degree in international affairs), being outdoors, cooking, dancing with friends, and traveling.