The Journey of a Friendly Giant

“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained.” During my time here, I’ve witnessed the tremendous importance that Ecuadorians place on family. A native friend of mine explained that, family is one of the most important aspects of a persons life in Ecuador. In the Galapagos, and in many indigenous communities throughout the country, the children reside in their parents’ house until they get married… After the wedding, they move next door (or very very close by). They hold great importance in cultivating, maintaining and prioritizing on family relationships as the most important value to carry on throughout life. As far as cultural integration goes, I’ve been receiving cooking classes for a few weeks now from a few women from the Puerto Hondo community; I've improved my spanish tremendously; I’ve learned how to dance Salsa, Bachata and Merengue, all ...

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...

Everyone is their own toughest critic. As Derek mentioned in his blog, learning a new language is not an easy task to take on. Despite the amount of compliments I do get from my nice Ecuadorian friends, my never ending mistakes tell me that my Spanish needs great improvement. There must be nothing more embarrassing than a language error while speaking. Saying the wrong word can turn a very serious conversation, into an instant joke. Laughing is fantastic, however when people are laughing at you, the blushing ... oh the blushing. "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it and join the dance." -Alan Watts  Not knowing much Spanish, has never stopped me from trying to speak. Though it has been a few years since my first spanish class, in the beginning, as horrible as I was, I attempted speak just as much as I do now. And through corrections, and constant reminders, I learned more and more. Being afraid to make a fool of myself had to be out o...