LIFE IN ECUADOR BY MELANIE RUMPF

After living for 20 years in Germany I wanted to see and experience something different. Videos and pictures from TV and internet triggered the wish in me to live for some time abroad and see at least once in my life time the jungle. Through a coincidence, I ended up at probably the most unlikely place that not a lot of people would think about when travelling: Santo Domingo de los Colorados in Ecuador. It’s a city with 305,000 inhabitants between the Andes and the Ecuadorian coast and is in particular known for the indigenous group Tsachila. For 3 months in 2012/13 I should work there as a volunteer in a kindergarten and live together with 1 priest, his niece, mother, 5 Ecuadorian and 1 German volunteer in a parish.
This experience in Ecuador fascinated me that much that people still realize after 6 years that this experience changed something in me. Thus, I get often asked what I liked most about my time in Ecuador. The answer is not the jungle, that I wanted to see on the first hand, but: the people. Why? I explain you here, what I liked about them.

• Recuerditos: A ‘recuerdito’ was a small gift that people gave me once in a while, for example a ring, a wristband, or a bag. It was not the material aspect that I liked about it, but the gesture, which made me feel very welcome. The word ‘recuerdito’ indicates that it is some kind of souvenir that shall remind you of the person, when seeing the object, which is a nice idea I think.
• Sharing: If you have food in Germany that you could share you usually ask maybe the two persons next to you if they also would like to have something of it. In Ecuador this sharing took another dimension. While I was on a boat with maybe 20 people, two Ecuadorians went to every single person if they would like to have something from the snacks that they bought. They included everyone with this friendly gesture.
• Hugging: When coming inside a room at a party I was used from Germany to hug maybe the people you know the most. In some situations it can show in my opinion, how close you are to someone and indicate to some people that they don’t belong to your friends. In Ecuador you hugged everyone in the room, no matter if there were 20 or 30 people inside it. Including everyone with those friendly gestures made people feel more connected to each other, which I liked.
• Yo te invito: “I invite you.” A phrase that I heard several times. People invited me and in general each other to eat a pizza together or to go together to the cinema to watch a movie. Also, I got invited to stay for some days at their homes and see their city, although they only knew me for a few days.   
• Curiosity about foreigners: My Spanish skills really weren’t well when I arrived in Ecuador. This situation reminded me about one situation in school a few years ago, when a Polish guy came to our school without knowing German really well. Through the lack of language skills he had some problems to get integrated well. While I was in the same situation in Ecuador I felt well integrated. People were really curious about me, came and talked to me. This way I felt quickly as a part of their community and also was able to learn Spanish faster.
• No te preocupes: For an overthinker like me these words seem to be quite important. “No te preocupes” means “don’t worry”. It sometimes felt relieving for me to hear that. Ecuadorians seemed to be quite relaxed about things, where other people might get mad about you, because you might have said something wrong.
• Forgiving: Well, I probably didn’t experience this aspect because I was in Ecuador, but because I lived in a parish. I’m not really religious, but there are some values of church that I do support and one of them is forgiveness. Like everywhere in the world also in Ecuador you might have an argument with family or friends. During mass the preacher was telling how important forgiveness is and afterwards everyone was crying and hugging each other. The atmosphere really felt more relieved after the preaching and everyone seemed to be happier.

In this post I made several comparisons to Germany and I would like to make clear that I do love my home country and I also often experienced there really lovely and kind people willing to help others. On the other hand also Ecuador is not perfect and I even got once robbed there or was afraid to go out alone during the night, because it might have been dangerous. However, the main impression of my experience in Ecuador was good. These acts of kindness, that I mentioned, made people feel more connected to each other and created a caring and loving atmosphere that I loved so much about this country. I think that everyone can learn from these acts of kindness and try to integrate them in their daily life to create a society, where we feel safe and loved.
Gracias Ecuador por tu cariño, te quiero mucho! ​

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