This week after a couple days of class we made the trek west through the mountains to the region of Mindo for an extended weekend. The lush cloud forest was a refreshing break from the congested concrete valley of Quito. Leaving Wednesday morning from the Fundación, we…
Orientation and the first week of class are already behind us! Wow, we’ve already covered a lot of ground! I think everyone felt like the time has flown by. Here is a glimpse of the story in pictures: Orientation breakfast at our partner organization la Fundación Sobrevivencia…
On Tuesday evening our SSTers arrived safely in Ecuador and are beginning their orientation to their new Ecuador surroundings! One student has been held up by visa issues. We are working hard to remedy the problem and plans are taking shape for her to rejoin the group soon. Our thoughts and…
Yep, you got it, we’re back! For all of you who forgot you were subscribed, get ready, we’ve got a new adventure coming your way! After more than a year and half of Study-Service Term (SST) unit cancelations we are jump-starting things again here in Ecuador. On Tuesday, 6…
What is “Service”. The concept of service in a North American context generally revolves around productivity. In our lead-up to service with the current Ecuador SST group, we spoke at length about what service is and is not in a global context. A short synopsis is as follows: Service =…
If you’ve been checking the Ecuador blog for updates over the past two weeks you’ve been met with silence…. at least internet blog silence. The final two weeks of the study portion of Spring 2020 SST have been a blur of non-stop action. It began with an intense session of…
As the beat of the SST drum marches on, students shifted from a focus on Ecuador’s biodiversity to Ecuador’s ethnic diversity. Depending how you subdivide it, Ecuador has 14 distinct languages and more than 30 unique people groups and subgroups. The Ecuadorian constitution was amended significantly in 2008 to recognize…
Week three of Spring 2020 Ecuador SST thrust students into the biodiversity that is Ecuador and all the complexity that comes with it. One of the neat elements of SST is there is so much learning that takes place outside of a traditional classroom environment. This week our lecture on…
The theme of week two of SST has been ascending and descending…. After a lecture on the history of the Catholic church in Ecuador, students visited some of the historic churches in the Centro Historico of Quito. At the national cathedral they descended into the crypts below the church before…
Ecuador SST 2019-2020 version 2.0 kicked off this past week with strange global climate change induced sunny weather during the start to the rainy season in Ecuador. Students missing the sun in North America quickly realized just how intense the sun at high altitudes on the Equator can be. What…
