I was mugged. I knew it would happen. For anyone who stays in Ecuador for an extended period of time, it is an inevitability. Yesterday, Lauren and I met a friendly American tourist who asked us if we had been mugged yet. Strangely enough, we were mugged three hours later. I’ve had things stolen from me…
Read MoreCommunity, Connections, and Loneliness: Reflections on Moving and Traveling
As a child, I grew up in a farming town of about 15-20,000 people. For years, I dreamt of leaving my small town and exploring the world. Living in a big city, learning more about new people and places, and having greater opportunities available seemed like the ultimate lifestyle. This isn’t to say I didn’t…
Read MoreThings Ecuadorians Like
Ecuador will always have a special place in my heart. It´s the first country I visited outside the US (when I was 17!), it’s the place where my sister lived for a year, the country that my brother-in-law is from, and it is the first country I have stayed in for an extended period of time.…
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A day in the life of a WorldTeach Ecuador teacher
At 6:21 my eyelids flicker open. My alarm, set for 7:45 am, is at this point a hopeful dream. The rays of sun streaming in through my thin lilac fairy curtains push me out of sleep and into wakefulness long before I am ready to leave my subconscious. The sound of the news comes into…
Read MoreHow was your day? Musings on friendship across distance
I prefer deep conversations. I like conversations that stimulate your senses and make you reconsider what you thought you knew. Discussions that leave you hungry for more knowledge and a greater understanding of the world around you, that you vividly recall months and years later. Even as a child, I preferred serious conversations to surface level chats. I still…
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…
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 