One of the best aspects of living in Ecuador is the preponderance of holidays. In the 6.5 weeks that I’ve been here, there have already been two holiday weekends. Talk about awesome. Now, when you’re a foreigner living in abroad, you’re almost obligated to aprovechar de the holiday weekends and go see more of what your beautiful…
Read MoreI Live Here Now
Quito is no longer new. I’ve been here almost a month and a half, and I am beginning to feel like life here is my new normal. Our training with WorldTeach ended, and along with it the camp-y feeling of spending all my time with 24 other volunteers, visiting tourist spots in the city on the weekends,…
Read MoreEcuaTweets: Month 1 in 140 characters or less
I’m not going to lie, the idea of “EcuaTweets” monthly blog posts was not my own. Before coming to Ecuador, I did my research and read countless Peace Corps and WorldTeach blogs. One of my absolute favorites was a PCV blog by a Cal alum in Zambia (fishinginzambia.wordpress.com). I loved reading his insights and anecdotes…
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Journey to the Jungle
As a little girl growing up in the Central Valley of California, I was lucky enough to have easy access to both mountains and beaches. Every year, my family would usually take two vacations: one to the beaches of Sea Ranch, and another to a national park in the Sierra Nevadas. While I thoroughly enjoyed…
Read MoreAdjusting to Ecuador (or, why I spent my first day off in my room)
Today marks a little more than one week since I arrived in Quito. Since last Saturday, life has been a whirlwind of training and getting acquainted with this beautiful Andean city. Life at 9,000 feet is different than back home beyond just the difference in altitude, though. Figuring out how to exist in and navigate around a place so…
Read MoreI left my heart in Latin America
It happened. This morning, approximately 2 minutes after my alarm went off, I received an email notification from WorldTeach telling me I was accepted to the September 2015 Ecuador program. After their email about notifying me by early June, I was stunned, to say the least. Right at the moment I had more or less…
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Elizabeth Seeks 