When making my decision to live and teach abroad three years ago, a major concern for me was language. How will I communicate? How will I get what I need? Will the locals understand me? How will I make friends? Learning the spoken language is obviously one of the most essential steps in getting to [...]
Author Archive
November 29th, 2011 - 6:00 am § in Careers, Ecuador, Looking for Opportunity, Tips & Resources, Volunteer, Volunteer Spotlight
La Vida: Teaching English in Quito, Ecuador
First off, thanks Rob for the recent guest series on various volunteer and development opportunities. Your experiences and incites were concise and objective, great advice to the budding idealist in Latin America. While reading your entries and others on the site lately, I have been deeply consid[...]
Movember in Quito
Living abroad for me is a constant balance between trying to learn the language and fit into the Latin culture, while simultaneously keeping some American customs and cultural practices. I enjoy trying to blend in to the fabric of Quito. Obviously, I physically stand out as a foreigner, but I a[...]
Mindo’s Green Revolution
“Han escuchado la historia de tourism en Mindo?” Have you heard the history of tourism in Mindo? “No.” Ok, well….. It’s a story of deforestation and reforestation; of destruction and rejuvenation; of changing perceptions of land use; and of ecology. Last week when I visited Mindo (a smal[...]
Ciclovia Vigilantes
“Ladrone, Ladron, cojelo, paralo!” I was on my cell phone coordinating a bike outing with several of the new teachers here in Quito when I saw a gruff man, have stumbling, half jogging across Rio Amazonas. Then people started yelling, breaking the early-morning silence with pointed commands: [...]
August 19th, 2011 - 10:08 am § in Uncategorized
DH Urbano en Guapulo
Back in Quito and the first thing I do, of course, is go watch a downhill bike race. No sooner had I stopped near one of the smaller jumps to talk to a friend, when one of the racers took a terrible nose dive off the jump, doing a face plant and twisting as his [...][...]
