[Note: This event happened near Christmas, but the message is still applicable to my life now.…]
 
 
 
“Do you want to go [incoherent words in Spanish]?”
“Sure. Where are we going?”
“[Incoherent name of town in Ecuador]!”
“Alright. What time do we leave?”
“Six in the morning on Saturday.”
 
It was certain from the start that I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing. I never found out till I got there, and this is how most of the situations of my life living in an Ecuadorian family start out.

Click on this link to see a day in my life!
Day in the Life…

It is 10 AM and you are hungry, so you decide that you would like to take a break from your semi-mediocre job at managing the karaoke equipment at the bar in this sleepy little town to walk over to Comidas Típicas. At this small restaurant, you see the maito and Kichwa families…and then you see something not so tipica.
A white girl. In a skirt, nontheless. She walks in your direction, talking on her cell phone, and you give her a quick wink…to which she winces.
After filling up on banana leaf-wrapped tilapia, you ask what appears to be her host…

(The fact that this is from Halloween is a testament to my adaptation into Ecuadorian culture)
Witches, tarantulas, haunted houses. Yes, all perfectly scary, but this Halloween nothing is scarier than “BIG PROBLEMS”. A month ago, another fellow and I had a conversation about how Global Citizen Year’s motto should be this phrase because each fellow is investigating big problems with taunting solutions like health, education, the environment, etc.
Our conversation drifted to what we consider the BIGGEST problem facing the world today, and I brought up a fact I had heard before that “99% of children with disabilities around…

Nothing cheers you up after a day of dropping thermometers, dealing with screaming feverish children, and language misunderstandings like big, huge bugs and giant rainstorms. In all seriousness…nothing does.
Sometimes I feel like I am living on the Discovery channel. Even in my own house you can see the mile-long lines of ants carrying leaves, or even those bugs that look like leaves. Before I go to bed at night I look around my room and wonder, “Are there bugs near me, many of which I have never seen before?” Yes. Am I going to do anything about it? Nope,…

…
View from the Spanish classroom

As fellows we were all asked questions before we left about why we were taking a gap year. In my house it was “Will this experience be worth it?” If I had already been abroad for a year in Germany, then was I wasting time before starting my career? After my first week in intensive Spanish classes, I am finally starting to answer this question.
I am going into this experience with no more knowledge of Spanish than anyone who has ever been to a Mexican restaurant. Of course living in an Ecuadorian family is not a Mexican restaurant. Communication is