Sustainable roots is free to join and the housing and food costs are covered! Working in such a small town appealed to me because I knew I could create strong relationships and great friends. The town is located on the Andes Mountains between Quito and Tena which made travel very convenient.
Alumni Spotlight: Robert Porter
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Robert graduated from Sonoma State University with a degree in Creative Writing and he now lives in San Francisco, California. He enjoys reading Steinbeck because the descriptions of Monterey and the dusty Salinas Valley make him nostalgic about home.
Why did you pick this program?
What made this trip meaningful to you, or how did this trip change your perceptions or future path?
Being able to leave my comfort zone to experience a different part of the world impacted me deeply. It not only showed me that taking a risk, turning it into a challenge and molding it into an experience helps individual growth, but it allowed me to see how other people live and learn and what a cloud forest looks like just as the sun cuts beneath the ever present clouds.
What do you tell your friends who are thinking about going abroad?
It's an incredible experience that will live with you for the rest of your life. The only problem is you will wish you could go back. It sounds trite, but try and make the most of it.
What's your favorite story to tell about your time abroad?
I love talking about the times I went camping with some of the high school kids. They became my friends and every time we trekked into the cloud forest, we had a great amount of fun. Especially when the other volunteers arrived, we went camping several times and always had exceptionally memorable moments of stupidity and excitement.
Tell us about an experience you had that you could not have had at home.
Experiencing a culture that does not exist in the United States was my favorite part of being abroad. "Mi casa es su casa," (my house is your house) truly exists. If you put your head down and offer nothing more than silence as you pass someone on the street, it is considered rude. Being invited into homes where families don't have much to offer, but are willing to offer it all is very powerful and humbling.
How was the infrastructure (transportation, roads, plumbing, houses) in the country you resided?
The Ecuadorian government has a lot of money and they are just beginning to spend it for their people. Not many people have cars, so the most affordable and convenient mode of transportation is by bus. The roads where I lived (Cosanga) were half dirt and half paved which made a bumpy bus ride, but around the bigger cities, the roads are well managed.
The plumbing is not toilet paper friendly, like most south and central American countries. TP goes in the trash can, which is something that takes time to get used to. Most of the houses are made of cinderblocks and almost all look as though they are still under construction. Rebar sticks out of the cinderblocks like pieces of bamboo. I heard this is intentional because if a house is under construction, there are no taxes on the house, but if it is completed, the owner must pay taxes.
The government was difficult to deal with while I was there. The information they had on piece of paper didn't correlate with what was in their computer and what was in their computer was never correct according to the person behind it, so this proved to frustrating when acquiring a Visa.