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This blog captures the experiences of Goshen College students participating in Study-Service Term in Ecuador.
Over the course of the semester, students are living with host families, strengthening their Spanish, learning alongside Indigenous communities, and engaging in service that connects local realities with global questions. From the Andes to coastal regions, Ecuador offers a powerful setting for hands-on learning shaped by culture, community, and care. Through these reflections, readers are invited into the everyday moments, challenges, and discoveries that are shaping how students understand the world and their place within it.
I thought the initial bus ride from my study to service placement a few weeks ago was simultaneously the longest and shortest bus ride of my life. After finally getting comfortable with a schedule, host family, and fellow SSTers in...
The first words I heard used to describe my service town were hot and buggy. Upon hearing this I was a little apprehensive about what service would have in store for me and how my body would respond to the...
Most of SST is not glamorous. There are times of incredible joy and sadness, comedic moments, and discomfort certainly, but the majority of the time is very normal. For example: doing laundry. My host family doesn’t have a washing machine,...
Hello again Summer 2023 Ecuador SST blog readers. It’s been a couple of weeks since we checked in with you and my has it been busy. There is a myth that circulates about SST leadership regarding a time of relaxation...
As you may have noticed if you have been following along with this blog or if you have had the opportunity to experience SST firsthand yourself, you know that it is simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting, fulfilling and draining, beautiful and...
In the first of two multi-region treks, this week we headed up through a freezing cold mountain pass at nearly 14,000 feet east of Quito and descended quickly down the eastern flank of the Andes mountains into the beginning of…
Whew…….what a week in Ecuador. Typically, our more eventful moments together are interspersed with travel around the country during the study portion of SST. However, this week, although our activities were mostly in and around Quito, it was a time...
One of the many unique elements of Ecuador is the unusually diverse and high proportion of the population that is fully indigenous to this region. With as many as 16 distinct people groups and another 18 subsets of those groups,...
We ended the second full week of SST on an eventful note, spending a few days in the beautiful Ecuadorian cloud forest. The transition from the high-altitude valley in Quito, through a short stretch of dry dusty mountainsides, followed by...
As the first full week of classes wrapped up this past Friday, students headed home to spend the weekend with their families. They had the unique opportunity to celebrate Mother’s Day with their new host mothers, and the chance to...
A new group of students has landed in Ecuador, just south of the Equator. Students often debate amongst themselves just what it means to “go on SST”. In the lore of SST, there are stories of physical hardship, living far...
One of the sacred elements of the SST structure is the final retreat in which students regather from their service locations for a final time together of rest and reflection before returning home. In Ecuador, our retreat location has been...
Looking out from a small pueblo in Imbabura Province. I’ve been given the opportunity of using my real eye, my camera, for my service placement. There’s a quote I love (that I can’t remember who or how it is said...
As our second week of visits to service locations concluded, students and leaders came to the realization that this chapter of SST is quickly drawing to a close. The end of SST always brings a mixture of emotions; sadness, joy,...
This past week we set out on our cherished SST tradition of visits to students at their service locations. Our first stop was to visit our students in the cloud forest and Amazonian rainforest locations on the west and east...
I have to admit, I was nervous. As I stood by the medical center in the crisp morning air and watched students continue to file out of a charter bus, my pulse increased. I was tasked to act as a...
Blog: Week 1 of Service Isa H. On our way to our service town in the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest, Lisa and I weren’t quite sure what to expect. With nervous stomachs and bladders, we sat on the bus for about...
Our final week of the study portion of SST was an eventful one. It began with the widely celebrated Ecuadorian national holiday of Carnaval. This pre-lenten four-day party involves getting soaking wet and covered in foam in many parts of...
This past week we set out on a journey south through the Ecuadorian Andes to discover more of this stunning landscape and the people who inhabit it. As we wound our way around incomprehensibly deep gorges, steep mountain passes, and...
As the current SST’ers celebrated the one-month anniversary of their SST adventure, they experienced the unique sights, sounds, and smells of an open-air market, helped prepare a traditional Ecuadorian meal, learned some Latin dance, spent time with refugees hearing their...
As students continue their march through the SST experience, encounters with new landscapes, new cultures, and new sensory experiences pound out their steady drum beat each day….. One of the true challenges of SST is to fully absorb the daily...
As we reflect on this past week, it is hard to absorb all we saw and experienced in the last seven days. The SST experience continued its daily sensory buffet of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and the unique feel of...
The first week of the study portion of SST continued the daily immersion of new sights, sounds, and experiences that began in orientation last week. The contrast between SST and many other international exchange programs is that after each day...
SST in Ecuador is once again in full swing and for those who have experienced it firsthand, the first few days are a whirlwind of activity; a fire hydrant blast to the face of new sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and...
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