Welcome to Quito! We are so pleased and honored to welcome 15 new students to this beautiful country of Ecuador. And welcome to you, who may be following along and supporting our journey from afar.
We had an absolutely fantastic first week of orientation together here in Quito! As an SST leader, I’ve found it’s hard to describe how and why groups are different. More than anything I think it’s how a combination of personalities, attitudes and commitments to one another creates and fosters a shared dynamic that makes everyone within the group feel a certain way. We can already tell in these first few days this is a special group of 15 young adults, individually and together. Each student is bringing a unique value to the whole and over the last days have each added in their own way to our group’s very positive, encouraging and engaging group dynamic. We so look forward to sharing more with you over the next several months as our time in Ecuador unfolds together.
-Caleb and Nina
Wednesday night 2am, welcome to Quito! Even through there were snags along the way we all made it! It was a late night, but students still had lots of energy for the bus ride to the Fundación.Breakfast!Students on the roof of our house in Sector Los Laureles. We are calling our house “Casa Goshen” (you might see students refer to this later on in the term.) We hope it can feel like a home base for them beyond their host families or the Fundación. We plan to have weekly group time here on Wednesday afternoons.Casa Goshen. We had many moments of conversation during our days of orientation. More conversation, but this time over coffee!We went to the beautiful Metropolitan Park to do some hiking, and students found some time to kick around a bit too in the sunshine.Thursday we returned to the Fundación after a long day. As we were waiting on dinner to arrive, I came back to the sala to find many students hanging out doing their readings together…. and they claim they’re introverts! 🙂Friday night celebration dinner. Our last night as a full group before being introduced to host families tomorrow afternoon.When we arrived to dinner it was pouring rain so we ate down below. After dinner we emerged to find the sky had cleared for a beautiful sunset on the terrace overlooking the Panecillo.Neighborhood of the Fundación where students will take classes every day.Saturday morning we visited the Mitad del Mundo just north of Quito….. 0’0’0′ North and South hemispheres! We hadn’t realized it was Claire’s birthday, so we made an ice cream stop! Yumm. Happy Birthday Claire!After our Mitad del Mundo visit in the morning we made our way up to El Refugio a retreat center in Calacalí. A final fun few hours of team building to cap off our time of orientation. Skylar guiding AlexaJackson guiding Andrew with Simon and Carolina in the background.REACH!!! Over the course of a couple hours our hosts Luchín and Isabella lead us through many team building activities small and large, including this challenge of getting everyone over this wall! Jackson, Celeste, Sasha, SkylarCarolina with her host familyClaire with her host familyRichard with his host motherSimon with his host familyAlexa with her host familyAndrew with his host motherAnna with her host motherJackson with his host mother and brotherErica with her host familyCarissa with her host familySkylar with his host familyCeleste with her host familySophia with her host family. Sasha tagging along! These families are neighbors and very close friends, due to scheduling challenges they picked up Sasha too.Anna with her host mother Hello! We are Caleb and Nina, we’ve been living in Ecuador for a little over a year now and are so pleased to serve as the faculty leaders for this wonderful group and are excited to walk alongside students in this journey that is Study-Service Term! If you want to reach out to us for any reason, we’d love to hear from you!
If you want to know a bit more about us…. https://www.goshen.edu/ecuador/2021/08/29/ecuador-here-we-come/
For those of you new to our program, SST Ecuador is an integrated cross-cultural program that offers Goshen College students an immersive learning experience in Ecuador. The 12-week course is divided into two sections: a 6-week study portion in Quito, Ecuador’s Andean capital city; and a second 6-week, community service experience in Ecuador’s provinces. During the program, students will participate in five academic and experiential courses, which will help them engage deeply with diverse aspects of their experience (language, family and community, history, and culture) and explore aspects of their identity and worldview.
Thanks for following along! We’d invite you to subscribe to our group’s SST blog, for each blog that we publish you should receive a notification and link in your email the following morning.
