What Mindo Taught Me to See

Since being stationed in the town of Mindo for my service portion of SST, I’ve noticed a big cultural difference between U.S. Mennonites and Ecuadorian “Mindo-nites” – pun intended 🙂 approaches to life. There’s a palpable sense of serenity and self-assuredness that every person in Mindo seems to carry. I felt this serene aura the minute I stepped off the Quito charter bus and was warmly welcomed with a chocolate bar by my host little sister. The feeling shocked me at first as everyone seemed utterly free from anxiety, which is extremely different from the fast-paced day to day life in the U.S. This made me wonder, why is everyone especially calm here?

Then, one day as I was walking home from the garden where I work, I remembered how I felt when our whole SST group first traveled to Mindo. As we all clumsily climbed out of our small white van, I was immediately struck by the beauty of the scenery; it was almost unearthly! In that moment I felt an overwhelming calmness wash over me, the same sense of calm Mindo-nites seem to exude. It was then that I realized how much this gorgeous landscape impacts one’s moods.

Of course the scenery here in the high-altitude cloud forest is exceptional with its exotic fauna, vibrant flora, and spectacular landscapes. Still, it occurred to me that this doesn’t mean we couldn’t appreciate nature in the U.S. just as much. A big problem in our society is that we tend to forget to take time to appreciate the natural world because we focus so heavily on media consumption. I’ve found myself personally guilty of this, especially in the U.S. and at times even here in Mindo, when I get too caught up in my daily routine.

It’s not only media consumption that absorbs people in the U.S., however. It’s also our obsession with documenting every experience by taking pictures with our phones, even when their small screens don’t come close to capturing the full sensorial beauty of the landscape. Too often, we seem to experience life only secondarily through our phone’s screens. Since being here I haven’t seen many Ecuadorians pull out their phones to take pictures. At the risk of naively assuming they are more in touch with the “real” world, Ecuadorians do seem to appreciate nature more fully than do many of us in the U.S. From now on, I intend to stop and smell the roses, no matter where they happen to grow.