Friends Made

I’ve learned how to be a true friend through experiencing true friendship. I’ve had unimaginable hardships throughout my time in Ecuador. Challenges in my first community, issues with my family, my apprenticeship wasn’t what I expected, language barriers, and money and even my passport where stolen. Although I had Global Citizen Year support, truthfully if it wasn’t for my fellow fellow here I wouldn’t have made it. I’ve also experienced an abundance of beauty, hours driving through the Amazon Rain Forrest then watching it turn into Mountain, dancing for hours on the beach, true and honestly expressing myself and being heard, having nonjudgmental intellectual conversations…all of this I’ve experienced with my friends and it wouldn’t have been the same without them. For some reason we all just mesh, we all come from different back ground and have different opinions but are all able to listen and everyone has a change to be heard. We have grown together and empower one another. We where here for each other through the lows the highs, the ugly and sick to the beautiful and surreal. We feed off of one another energy and help each other process every situation. We thrive of of each others successes and truly empathize when one of us experience a failure. Through them I have redefined my definition of friendship. It isn’t the person that is just there for the parties and shopping. It’s the person that is with you through everything, that is there for you even when your not there for yourself. When I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, and believed I had no meaning for being here, they were there for me. If I didn’t have a solution to a problem, we sat together and figured out a resolution. If I just needed to cry we cried. Friends show you who you are because you are a reflection of them. The friend that I have made through this experience make me proud to be me, and although I may have not known them since I was 10, but we have all grown up together throughout this experience.