(I’m going to preface this by saying featured photos are NOT mine – they come from the newspaper El Comercio.) So I’m sure some of you are aware of what’s been going on in Ecuador recently, but in case you’re not, here are the basics: The federal government has been subsidizing gas for years, making …
Tag Archives: Spanish
What it’s like to live in a “post” dictatorship state
Before coming to Chile, I read a lot about Pinochet’s dictatorship. I read that it lasted from 1973-1990, and that, since then, Chile has recovered beautifully, evolving into a thriving democracy. Unfortunately, after many lectures and conversations with my host family and teachers, I realized that the state of Chile is not as it seems. …
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Photo Diary of Chilean Independence Day Celebrations!
As I mentioned in my last blog, the entire week surrounding September 18th, Chilean Independence Day, is completely filled with celebrations of every type from everyone. I was lucky enough to be able to share these celebrations with my host family and friends, and I would love to share some of them with you via …
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Service Abroad
One of the classes I’m taking while in Ecuador is called “Service Learning”. Half of the class is about serving as a volunteer in an organization in the community, while the other half is a discussion on what doing volunteer work abroad is and should be about. The organization I chose to do my volunteer …
Homestay Family, Bella Vista, and Corn Tortillas
For three of the four weeks I’m in Chile, I get to live with my host mom, Claudia, and her twelve year old son, Lucas. My host mom is an incredibly talented photographer, and her house is full of her photos and different types of artwork. She’s completed many projects and books capturing human rights …
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Deja Vu in the Midst of Culture Shock
Most of the time, when you go to a new country, everything seems new. You don’t know what’s going on half of the time, and they call that culture shock. But sometimes, occasionally, you spot weird similarities between cultures and they stand out more than all of the differences in the world. For example, when …
Two Seasons by Vivaldi: “Rain”
Summer is ending for everyone in the US. Technically, it’s the end of summer here too, even though most of Ecuador is south of the equator. Actually, that means that the rainy season is upon us. Since Ecuador is on the equator, it doesn’t really have seasonal variation except in rainfall. It was kind of …
Human Rights Alive in NYC
Much of our time in New York City was spent laying the foundations of human rights and traveling to different sites to see human rights work alive in NYC. When referring to human rights work, it’s important to distinguish the difference between Human Rights (HR) at an institutional level versus human rights (hr) at a …
Moving to the City
One of the things that makes this experience really different for me is that this is my first time living in a big city! Even though I, technically, live in Cumbayá, which is just outside of Quito. I grew up in a borough (not even big enough to be a town) that was small enough …
Eating in Ecuador
So – plantains! They’re just one of the changes between the food here in Ecuador and the food in the US. Here, we eat plantains almost every day. I learned that there are about a million ways to eat plantains including boiled, fried as empanadas, and as “chips”. Also, I learned that there are approximately …
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