2013-03-27
Three weeks. Three seven day spans before I leave Ibarra. Before I leave my siblings, my students, the Andes, everything that was once new but is now familiar. As this intense, raw, and wonderful experience wraps up I find myself spending a lot of time reflecting on the past eight months. In hindsight, I realize that my Global Citizen Year...
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2013-03-27
“People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” – Marilyn Monroe … Incidentally my favorite quote does a...
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2013-03-27
[This was originally a speech given at training seminar. I left it as it was to give the most organic experience.] I have always struggled with the idea of one. I was the kid who could never read one page, only watch one more hour or just eat one cookie. One just never seemed like enough,...
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2013-03-27
The summer before senior year I realized that after five years of French classes I could introduce myself and order a meal but that was about it. I attribute this sad fact to 70% my goofing off in class and 30% the weaknesses of the language program at my high school and junior high. I...
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2013-03-27
As I’m writing this, only two weeks remain until my departure from Pijal – my home for the past 6 months. I can’t help but feel nostalgic. I’d like to share some of the experiences that I will remember best from this place. To you they might just appear to be evidence that Ecuador is a very strange...
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2013-03-27
Time grows short here in Los Bancos. With two weeks left I start to think back: “How exactly have a spent these past seven months, that it all went by so quickly?” Well, my routine made weeks fly by. Teaching English classes, giving environmental and recycling presentations, painting, building, traveling to and from communities…that was...
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2013-03-26
What does a lady having a consultation at her plastic surgeon’s office in Beverly Hills have in common with a woman in Senegal religiously rubbing her body with skin bleaching cream? They are doing everything they can to make themselves more “beautiful”. Now, stop for a moment and picture the three most beautiful women you...
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