Someone asked me what I was going to do in the Galapagos: "since you are working for the Charles Darwin Foundation, are you a biologist?" Remembering my failed attempt to understand freshman biology, I had to laugh. I don't like to admit it, but I am confounded by the finer points of "natural selection" and "adaptation." I suspect that Darwin would be disappointed in me.

As the greatest evolutionary biologist, he certainly had humble beginnings. He was a liberal artsy type (a divinity student) who, for five weeks in the Galapagos, came upon many variations among the finch population and recorded what he saw. He realized that the birds underwent countless adaptations so as to take advantage of the limited supply of seeds and berries. He proposed the revolutionary notion that all species evolve over millions of years, and that they are not fixed, as fundamentalists often assert. He hesitated until 1859, fearing what he knew was a direct challenge to Church and what has become "creationism."

This year is the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species, the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, and the 50th anniversary of the place where I will work, the Charles Darwin Foundation.

As the Galapagos morphed from desolate isles to tourist mecca, the scientists saw a need to reach out to the mushrooming immigrant population. The three Galapagos villages have doubled in size every ten years, and now over 30,000 people inhabit the islands. The local folks want creature comforts, and field biology does not put food on the table. Some say that the CDF's careful research studies are famous worldwide but almost unknown in Ecuador.

Basically, it turns out that that is THE reason I was offered a slot at the CDF wants to expand the work of science to include loads of contact with local folks. It seems that Darwin's world is threatened by a population explosion that brought the usual social problems plus tough issues concerning over-fishing, feral animals, and a controversy about who is going to enforce the law.

With a small team of educators, I will write curricula on the history of the Galapagos, with an eye to helping the communities of residents take charge of some of the tough social problems facing each village. The CDF now is focusing on the humans (along with the tortoises and sea lions), hoping to foster mentors, radio programs, blogs, and clubs. Could the CDF help to document the founding of a culture in the midst of the Tourist Rush? Could it nurture some social seeds that might flower some day as great schools, clinics and community centers?

So, who are the humans with whom I will work? Some of the original settlers were prisoners dropped unceremoniously on their desert island. Later, Norwegian fishermen built canneries, but how do you sell your catch when buyers are 1,000 km away? Nowadays, a few are born on the inhabited islands and are true Galapaguenos (gah-lah-pah-gen'-yos) , but almost all of the others are immigrants, eager to profit from the tourist rush. The immigrants arrive from mainland Ecuador and seek their fortune. The 3% of the land that is allocated for humans is filling up with cars, stores, and smoke. I have not even arrived but apparently the utopian Islas Encantadas are having a big, fat crisis.

The sudden influx of folks reminds me of the Yukon and Call of the Wild. The Galapagos is having its own rush. "A Gold Rush is a period of feverish migration of workers... Gold rushes were typically marked by a general buoyant feeling of a "free for all" in income mobility, in which any single individual might become abundantly wealthy almost instantly."(Wikipedia)

In the hearts of most immigrants, there is a longing for home, fear they might never see their village or city again, and a desire to belong to something in their new home. Like immigrants who went through Ellis Island, they had dreams of success and comfort, but many hopes remain unrealized. All have a longing to belong to a new community where they know almost no one and where the biggest industry is turismo.

Cut off from their ancestral neighborhoods, foods and folkways, they want to continue what made them feel at home. This means looking for people from home, using the slang from their province, preparing recipes from Loja or Esmeraldas. The differences within Ecuador, however, are akin to the distance between a small southern USA town and New York City. For example, the serrano immigrants, those from the sierra highlands, are conservative in dress and habits. The coastal people, costenos, love louder music, use less clothing and are physically more affectionate. Before coming to the islands, the mountain folks had a nickname for Guayaquil's residents: monos or monkeys. The coastal residents labeled the highlanders paisanos, or peasants, due to their farming on hillsides. But now they all have to live together. And the CDF and I are right there, in the middle of this turbulence.