No Shame: My Adventure in Ecuador: End of Service Conference and Beginning of the New Cycle

The past week has been really eventful and emotional. On Tuesday, classes started again. I teach 4 pm - 8 pm again, but with 2 Intermediate 2 classes (instead of one sub period and one class). I'm happy with this schedule for a couple reasons. 1) Next cycle, I will not be a WT volunteer and will (hopefully) have 3 classes. So I want to get back in the habit of teaching at least 2 classes. (Remember for the past 2 cycles I have had one sub period and one class.) 2) Even though it's last, I like getting out at 8 pm because so many of friends are there, including my former students. Two cycles ago when I had a different schedule and finished at 4 pm, I was frequently sad because it was harder to see my friends. Despite living in the city and having them a phone call away, it made me feel isolated. So I'm very happy with this schedule.

So far, my students seem cool. My first class I have about 12 - 14 high school students, ages 14 - 16. While I think monitoring Spanish use in the classroom will be an issue with this group, they also seem very lively and funny. All of them have been in classes with each other before too, which I think will be a good thing. I've found it's helpful when the students already know each other because they are more willing to get creative and show off their personalities. Although I also think it could be a potential classroom management issue - getting off task because they're talking about things besides class or what not - I think they'll be a fun class to teach. My second class I have 18 working adults and college students. While this class seems to have a lower energy level than my high schoolers (which is understandable since they come to my class right after work or classes), they love to talk in English. The speaking activities we've done so far have worked wonderfully with them because they have so much to say. They are also very easy to keep in line (pretty much no classroom management issues here), although cell phones may be an issue. Overall, I think both of my classes will be awesome and I'm excited for this cycle.

As I already said, this week has also been emotional. Thursday afternoon - Saturday morning was our end of service conference for WT. For those of you wondering, I have until the end of July as a WT volunteer, but some volunteers end in only a couple of weeks. Hence the conference this weekend. 29 people from a group of 42 survived. For the record, not everyone who quit early did so because they chose to. I'm not sure if I mentioned this when it happened, but earlier in the year, WT cancelled all volunteers placed at SECAP. So some of the volunteers finished their service early for reasons beyond their control. Some remained in the country - either at a new placement with a new school or on their own - some left early, and some left early but will return later - like Robert who will be coming to live at our apartment with his girlfriend at the beginning of August.

So as you may guess, the last few days have been crazy, emotional, and exhausting. We talked about "reverse" culture shock (although I agree with our director that that's kind of a weird term because culture shock is culture shock), what we learned during our time here, our plans for the future, etc. Having these discussions forced me to reflect on my time here and why I've decided to stay another year. One question I've been asked a lot since I made my decision to come a year ago is 'why Ecuador'?

The answer to this question was not initially some grand, noble answer. I initially decided to go because the job market for teachers in Texas was (and still is, I hear) terrible. Some people I know had gone abroad to teach English, so I thought I'd look into it. Honestly, I didn't do an extensive search. I googled teaching abroad opportunities and WorldTeach was one of the first to pop up. They were affiliated with Harvard University (they are not any longer), so I perused their website. But this point, most of the deadlines for the fall departure groups were past. Of those that were left - mostly Asian countries - I randomly picked Ecuador. I decided somewhere in Latin America interested me more and, as, my mom pointed out, I knew some Spanish. (Although, to be honest, my Spanish skills were pretty terrible still.) So, basically on a whim, I applied. At first, I was wait listed. While I was disappointed, part of me was relieved. The thought of moving to some strange country where I didn't speak the language terrified. I don't think I'd seriously considered the possibility before applying. All I wanted was a job. Of course, I then realized that it was June and I still didn't even have an interview for a teaching job.

I started to panic. Then, out of the blue, within a week of getting the wait list e-mail, I got another e-mail saying I was accepted. In crisis mode, I quickly accepted and called my parents to beg for help funding my trip. (WT asked for $5,000 before leaving. I believe the price has since gone up.) They - and many of you - agree to help me. Now, within a few days of accepting, I got yet another e-mail. This one was from my Coordinating Teacher - the teacher who supervised me during my student teaching. She's the head of the English department at her high school, and she wanted to let me know there would be some job openings in the fall so I should apply ASAP. For days I agonized over my decision. I hadn't paid any money to WT yet. Should I e-mail them back and say I'd changed my mind? I didn't have a guaranteed job in Texas. Just a slight advantage after student teaching with the head of an English department. But for all I knew, hundreds other teachers better than me would apply because everyone was scrambling for jobs. What if I didn't get the job? I would've lost a guaranteed "job". (Note: at this point, I just wanted to be able to support myself and not have to move back to Flower Mound. So while my WT position is a volunteer position, I'm calling it a job for all intents and purposes.) As you probably figured out, after freaking out for a couple days, I decided to come to Ecuador.

I spent the next few months panicking. I couldn't picture life in Ecuador at all, no matter how many pictures I googled, how many Ecuador fact sheets I looked at, or how many personal stories I read on the WT website. Every time I tried to imagine, I saw a black abyss. I was absolutely terrified. The day I had to leave, I seriously considered faking a horrible illness so I couldn't go. Instead, I made myself focus only on the task at hand every single second. "Now, I have to take my laptop out of my back pack to go through airport security. Now I need to order dinner in the hotel so I won't be starving. Now I need to make sure I have my passport ready." I simply didn't allow myself time for anything else. Meeting the other WT volunteers didn't really help. I honestly can't remember anything about that initial meeting at the hotel in the Miami airport. I don't remember who I talked to besides Chiara - who I remembered from an e-mail saying she would be living with my host family during orientation. I'm not sure if I talked to those volunteers who are my closest friends now. But somehow, we all made it into Ecuador.

I was still terrified. But the first morning we were there, something happened that challenged me to get over myself and stay - at least for a little while anyway. One volunteer decided to return to the U.S. after flying all the way to Ecuador and staying for less than 12 hours. Seeing peoples' reactions (mostly scorn) made me realize what a weak decision it would be to turn right back around. I mean, come on, so many people - mostly my parents - had helped me pay $5,000 to move to a new country, continent, and hemisphere to do something I may never get the chance to do again for the rest of my life. And so many people in my group had done it before. Surely if they had survived their experiences I could too. And those who hadn't provided a nice support system for me to vent my feelings. In short, I decided to at least give the country a chance.

This decision was by no means easy or final, though. Over the course of orientation and the first month after, I struggled. I had made some good friends amongst the volunteers, but they scattered to their respective cities after orientation. I missed my sister so much. (Yes, I missed you too, Mom and Dad, but you know how Ally and I are.) Many of my friends had managed to get jobs at the last minute, and they go do to it in a country where they spoke the language and weren't afraid of being robbed every minute they left the house. But I stuck to my decision. The reason is why is one of the inspirations for the name of this blog - "No Shame". I did not want to be ashamed of returning to the U.S. just because I was scared of doing something new and unknown. I did not want to come back and have everyone try to tell me it was okay while I felt like a failure. Obviously many people go live abroad for years and years, so it could be done.

Now I mentioned I felt this way for the first month after orientation. After that, things began to change. As I've said in some of my earliest postings, I got really lucky and had an amazing group of students during my first cycle. As I become friends with them, I started to feel more comfortable in Quito. While they probably don't know it, I owe this group of students so much. Many of them have given me lasting friendships and I consider them good friends. In addition, I built friendships with the volunteers placed in Quito and other CEC teachers. Once I built these, I began to feel more and more comfortable exploring the country and moving outside of my comfort zone - the other inspiration for the blog title, trying crazy new things without shame or hesitation. By February, I felt so comfortable and at home in Ecuador that I started to consider staying beyond a year. While some speculated that my decision was based on my boyfriend at the time (we've since broken up), this was not really a factor. At least, not in the typical sense. Having an Ecuadorian boyfriend made me feel like I was capable of living - really living, not simply passing through - in a foreign country. So in that way, he did contribute to my decision. But as you may have noticed, I did not reverse my decision after breaking up with him.

So by now, my answer to the question 'why Ecuador' has become this: I feel comfortable and happy in this country. While I may not like all aspects of living here, every country has a downside. And right now, for me, Ecuador brings more ups than downs. It offers more ups than the U.S. right now. And I've finally become something I never thought I'd be - genuinely interested in traveling the globe. Before, I may have said "travel" was an interest to me simply in terms of vacations. Visit Germany for a week, spend a month in Spain, etc. But now I want to spend longer in countries, because that is the best way to learn another culture. As I've discovered, learning and adapting to a new culture has helped me become a better version of myself. Now I feel more relaxed, more flexible. Ecuadorian culture has helped me learn to accept there are some things I cannot change and to just go with the flow. It has also helped me learn how to do what is best for me - not someone else. I'm curious to see what other cultures can help me learn.

But for now, I will stay in Ecuador for another year. My time here doesn't feel finished and I have a job that will allow me to live and travel within the country. Despite living here a year, I still haven't gotten to half of the places on my list. I also have many friends I'm not ready to leave yet. While many of them will be leaving within the next couple of months, there are many Ecuadorian friends who will obviously not be going anywhere - at least not that soon. So my plan is to stay, strengthen those friendships, and travel around the country learning more about the culture.

And now that this blog post has gotten very long and serious, here are some pictures to end on a lighter note. These are from end of service. I didn't get a group shot, but I'm hoping someone will post one on Facebook or e-mail one out soon so I can post it here. These shots are from the chiva (open air party bus, basically) that we had Saturday night.

Some of the girls from the February group.