And So, We All Fell in Love

Throughout a person´s lifetime there are always opportunities to travel, but there is something especially cool about traveling while in school, and that is: the treatment. Because I am a student here in Ecuador with a group from a University, my days are filled with unique opportunities. For example, yesterday my group and I got to go on a tour inside one of the newspaper businesses here, El Tiempo. They don´t normally do tours, so for a regular tourist this may be hard to come by. Today we did the same thing at a local television station, but we actually got to be on t.v.! It was a show somewhat like our morning shows and they briefly interrupted the dessert making lesson to give us a big hello.  Without traveling with a school, these things would either end up being much more expensive, or not even be available at all. But what I really want to talk about is that a few days ago we had another one of these very special opportunities to meet one very special man who I will call Pablo.

Pablo is a young man in his 20´s who was born, raised, and still lives in Cuenca (the city in Ecuador we are visiting). He came in one morning to our classroom to talk to our class about his life and ask us questions about ours. I know this doesn´t sound very special or unique but if it wasn´t for Pablo, there is a huge part of Ecuadorian culture I wouldn´t understand.

One of Ecuador´s biggest problems is how money is distributed. Take a minute and really look at this picture:

Poetic right? Well the truth is, this sight is more common than it should be. I understand people may not mind living like this, they may in fact enjoy it, but the point is that it shouldn´t be the norm. Even though this is a rural dwelling, I´m sure you can interpret from it how poverty looks like in a small city (sorry, but I don´t exactly want to walk up to a poor looking apartment complex in the city with people roaming around and take a nice photo for the internet), and poverty in the city is how our visitor Pablo lives, along with about half of the population in the city of Cuenca. But it is certainly not because he deserves it. Pablo works 12 hour days, 7 days a week with 2, yes, 2 days off per month. And with all this work, his salary totals about $200 a month. Now, granted, it is not as expensive in Ecuador as it is in the United States, but this would be equivalent to about $600 a month for us. Maybe this is nice for a college student whose parents pay their tuition, but for someone who is in charge of paying for rent and food for his family, this is not enough.

I´m sure you can imagine it...a class of about seven girls (plus one boy and our male professor) listening to this story come out of the mouth of a handsome, shy Latino in very broken English...we all wanted to marry him on the spot. But what made his story even more endearing was that, in spite of it all, he is happy. He has a cute little girlfriend and in his free time (though how exactly he finds this I´m not entirely sure) he is with her, his family, or playing soccer with his friends. After many kisses, thank yous, and goodbyes, Pablo left us with warmed hearts and a profound gratitude for how we all live in the United States.

Discussion of Pablo in class did end up rather controversial when different opinions of how people should live surfaced. Some say life in America is the best, but I would have to say to that person that the word "best" or even "better" is completely relative. Values and personality play a huge role in what makes life the "best" for each person, and this is evident with Pablo. People have varying ideas of what makes life worthwhile, and if that is, for you, a big nice car with a big nice home and a big nice salary, then whatever. But if that is, for you, a family to take care of, someone special to love, and pride for your work, no matter what it is...I applaud you and all that you do.