The Journey of a Friendly Giant

In my Dynamic blog post I spoke about an interactive activity that I was asked to prepare for a group of kids from an environmental club of a nearby community. Since then, thanks to the two supervisors that were also present during the activity, I’ve been asked to do more dynamic workshops three times after that. Each time just as rewarding and inspiring as the first time. Two of the administrators of the programs all recommended and shared my “ tree game ” to other teachers and community members. One of the groups even recorded the entire thing for guidance on how to facilitate the activity in the future. I didn’t blog about them all to not be overly repetitive, however, the most recent event was very different.  This happened about a week and a half ago, in a small beach community named Anconcito that’s located about 2 hours away from Guayaquil. This community, like many others surrounding it, had no street signs, no banks, no clinics, and no hospitals. It did have markets, sm...

Being the largest and most populated city of Ecuador, Guayaquil is known as the city that “makes money”. With nearly 3.1 million people in the metropolitan area, Guayaquil is located on the western bank of the Guayas River which flows into the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Guayaquil. Its convenient location makes this developed city, the center of Ecuador´s business and manufacturing industries. The city of Guayaquil takes pride of being the economic centre point of Ecuador. However, the poor air quality, busy noisy streets, and loud city noises doesn’t necessarily make the city a tourism hotspot. In fact, many tourism websites and books describe Guayaquil as a great central location to travel from , and that is not recommended to “stay in”. “If you don’t like something, change it; if you can´t change it, change the way you think about it.” – Mary Engelbreit Other Ecuadorian cities are much greener and they take pride in their biodiversity and protect it with care. Guayaquil understand...

This passed week has been the week of connections and discoveries. When it comes to my plans for Puerto Hondo, the community I am working with, I’ve met many people that have inspired me to think BIGGER. It all began with an Ecuadorian friend of mine, Raquel, who owns a small NGO consulting organization here in Guayaquil. When she told me about her organization a few months ago, I instantly offered my help if she ever needed any volunteers. Her few months of silence led me to believe that help wasn’t something that she required. Nevertheless, to my surprise she called me one evening after work and asked for a strange favor. “Can Lindsay and you go to Bucay to do some food tasting please?” My love for food forced me to instantly agree with excitement. The conversation was very short because she had a meeting to attend; she thanked me for the favor and quickly hung up. After my happy dance was finished, I began to realize that I had absolutely no idea exactly what I was doing for her. ...

When are you going to start working?¨ I must have heard that question about 50 times already from absolutely everybody. My answer is usually ¨Why?... Jealous?¨;) People think I am on a long vacation since I haven't mentioned work. I wish. The truth is, I have in fact started working, but not in the way that the other interns have. Some of my fellow colleagues from the Niagara College, CIDA funded internship program began working almost immediately after their arrival. However, I have officially been here for 4 weeks, and my first full month has been an orientation period like no other. "If you like your job, then it's hardly work at all. In fact, you would do it for free if this world didn't require you to have money." - Lisa Unger  In my first blog post entitled Passion  I spoke a bit about Cerro Blanco, but since then I have learned much more. I now know that the protected forest of "Cerro Blanco" is one of the very few remaining dry tropical for...