Service visits: opportunities for connection in Ecuador’s “provincias”

By Hillary Harder

During the Service term, leaders have the privilege of traveling to visit each student at the home and volunteer assignment where they are spending their time during the second half of SST. For us, that meant traveling to several of the provincias of Ecuador. We enjoyed truly wonderful visits with each student, their host families, and their volunteer placement supervisors!

Pichincha province

Our first visit was with Maille at her placement in Quito. Maille is living and working with a wonderful long-time SST host family who also happen to be her volunteer placement coordinators. As an American Sign Language Interpreting major at Goshen College, Maille is putting to good use both her knowledge of ASL and her studies of Lengua de Señas Ecuatoriana during the Study term. Her service placement is with an association that works with the Deaf community in Quito, providing educational programming, sports and recreational activities, social events, and advocacy in helping people who are Deaf know their rights. Maille has the opportunity to give presentations on various topics that are relevant to the Deaf community not only in Ecuador, but also for folks of other nationalities throughout Latin America who are connected in this work. We enjoyed a lovely evening with Maille and her multilingual host family, and we always receive regular updates from her host father, Miguel, on Maille’s many contributions to the association’s activities.

Chimborazo province

Two of our students are living in the city of Riobamba in the Chimborazo province during the Service term. Goshen College has had a long-standing partnership with the municipal government of Riobamba since the beginning of the SST program in Ecuador, leading to many fruitful volunteer placements for GC students in various facets of the local government.

Dayanara volunteers at the municipal centro medico in Riobamba, a medical clinic that provides comprehensive healthcare services to municipal government employees and their families. As a nursing major and CNA, Dayanara is getting the opportunity to see what the healthcare system is like in Ecuador as she assists with tasks at the clinic and builds relationships with the nurses and doctors. We enjoyed being greeted by Dayanara in her white coat as soon as we arrived at the clinic for our visit.

Dayanara’s host family is new to the SST program, but they are no strangers to the long tradition of partnership-building in Riobamba, as her host father is head of strategic planning in the municipal government. When he learned about Goshen College and the long-standing SST partnerships in Riobamba, he and his family actually reached out to ask if they could host a student! Their home is lively, warm, and welcoming.

Kate has two service placements in Riobamba. In the morning she volunteers at the Instituto San Luis, a school on the north end of town that also has well-established connections with GC and SST. While school is out for the summer, the Instituto has a robust curso vacacional, an educational summer program for kids. Kate teaches her very own class for the students every morning, which she designed with objectives including both English language development and music-making. In the afternoons Kate works with the Orquesta Sinfonica Municipal de Riobamba (Riobamba Municipal Orchestra) and their youth orchestra program. We enjoyed watching Kate in action both leading songs and rhythm activities with the younger kids at San Luis, and coaching a brass sectional with the older students at OSMUR – valuable practice in her trajectory as a music education major. In the evening we spent a delightful hour with Kate’s host family, including a feast of quimbolitos and humitas.

Bolivar province

Two of our students, Luca and Mackenzie, live and volunteer in the Bolivar province. Both of them live in the capital city of Guaranda with wonderful host families who have been part of the SST program from the very beginning. We were graciously welcomed to each of their homes for a visit. All of the host families throughout our visits expressed over and over the joy it brings them to host Goshen College students, and to get to know the unique personalities and interests of each student over the years. Family visits are full of stories, memories, and mutual gratitude. It is truly humbling to see the relationships built over the course of many years that lead to one of the most central elements of the SST program: the experience of living with a family – whatever form that may take – in a different culture than one’s own.

While our students live in Guaranda, they each commute to a nearby small town for their volunteer work. Luca takes a bus each day through winding mountain roads to the pueblo of San Simon, where he volunteers at a foundation called Su Cambio por el Cambio. Founded by Catholic nuns and sustained by local experts in various fields, the foundation encompasses a wide range of initiatives, from services for older adults to tutoring for kids. In Luca’s case, his focus is entirely in the areas of livestock and agriculture. The foundation has vast fields and gardens of crops that are cultivated to feed its clients and staff. In addition, many farm animals are raised for meat, milk, and grazing. Luca’s supervisors – director Hermana Marina, veterinarian Dr. Holger, and the head of the agricultural department, Rosa – couldn’t say enough about Luca’s hard work, spirit of collaboration, and many contributions as a pre-veterinary student with lots of experience under his belt working in veterinary clinics.

Mackenzie’s daily commute via pickup truck takes her to the vibrant little town of Salinas, which has a unique history of strong community-based initiatives and a highly developed local economy. Once an impoverished salt-mining town, Salinas underwent a transformation in the 1960’s led by a charismatic post-Vatican II priest who brought funds and a vision to support local industries, community-centric decision-making processes, and a strong sense of identity and storytelling. One of these initiatives is a local radio station, Radio Comunitaria Salinerito, whose mission is to disseminate local news about local people, unlike the big-city radio stations out of Quito or Guayaquil.

We met with Mackenzie and her supervisors, who oversee many of these community projects, incuding the radio station. They were quick to tell us about Mackenzie’s work on the radio station’s website, a much-needed update that coincided well with Mackenzie’s communications and graphic design skills. Mackenzie also leads weekly singing classes with local kids as part of a new music program initiative in Salinas.

Service visits are an opportunity for connection: with the students, who have embarked on a monumental experience unlike anything else in their lives; with host families, who open their home time and again to a new young person from a North American university, showing a tremendous amount of trust and generosity; and with service project partners, who make time and space in their busy lives to offer guidance and structure in this time of learning and being for students. It was an honor for us as leaders to experience all of these connections.