Great... Until it's not.

WorldTeach Ecuador was great for training. Orientation can be tedious but is very informative, it runs all day (8-6) five days a week. Afterwards, you return, exhausted, to your Quito homestay families. Or, on some days, go and get a Pilsner with some of the group. By the end of it, I felt over prepared. I felt like I knew how to teach, plan without a curriculum, and had a wonderful support group of friends. I think Worldteach Ecuador is a great organization until something goes wrong.

Less than three months into my year I was terminated. Not because of my actions, but because WT had problems within my school. My university is slightly corrupt, like most places in Ecuador, and I understood the decision until I wasn't given another placement.

Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador, was my only option. A person from my group terminated because the situation at the school was so terrible there, he was unable to teach. I was not willing to give up my dream of living in the Andes to move to the big and sweaty city (not to mention dangerous) and have to fight to be able to teach. When I said no to Guayaquil I was terminated.

I paid over $5,000 for those three months. I got to keep my return ticket back, and luckily, found a job on my own. I stayed in close contact with my WT friends and watched as they attended midservice and end of service. I have been in Ecuador for 1.5 years now, living and working at a school without the help from WorldTeach.

And I wish this was an isolated incidence. I have watched as this has happened multiple times in the new WT groups.

I would have never come to Ecuador without WorldTeach , and for those who didn't have problems, it was a great program. For those of us who did, however, it was $5,000 for a month long ESL course.