Ecuador, Spring, 2007

As a college junior, I spent three months in Guayaquil, Ecuador, participating in the International Partnership for Service Learning. Instead of many traditional study abroad programs that award college credit for taking classes at a local university, IPSL granted credit for working in a non profit foundation and living with a host family. I was placed in Fundacion Crecer, a program for children who live/and or work on the street.

Iguanas in the park

Cooking on the street

Children at Fundacion Crevcer, where I volunteered for my placement with the study abroad program IPSL (International Partnership for Service Learning)

Kitchen in the mountains

Fishing at dusk

Meat market

Guayasamin Museum

Wondering

Leaving

Delivering milk via horseback at a coworker’s childhood home in the mountains

One of many families I visited volunteering for Hogar de Cristo, documenting families applying for new housing

“I cried because I didn’t have shoes until I saw a boy that didn’t have feet”- Guayasamin Museum

Waiting in line at the bank once a month for subsidy

Sharks for sale

Fish market

One of many shops specializing in the popular Bowler hat

Collecting taro roots up in the mountains with a coworker’s young niece

We’re not so different