Opposite Ends of the Spectrum

I am a nerdfighter, which for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, means that I'm an avid follower of Hank and John Green and their YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers. They make videos about all sorts of different topics, create events to raise money for charity, and have started various educational YouTube channels that have saved my grades on several different occasions. I could write about all of the cool things Nerdfighteria does, but that's not the object of this post. If you want to know more, check out the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel, or click here. The point I'm trying to get to is that today the Vlogbrothers posted a new video titled "Will Life Get Better for the Poor?". In it, John Green describes the "empathy gap" that exists between many of the people like "us" who live in developed countries, and the millions of people in developing countries who live in poverty. He quotes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Annual Letter:

"There is overwhelming evidence that people care about others who are suffering—when they can see the suffering."

Green goes on to describe how hard it can be for us to be truly empathetic towards extremely impoverished people, because it's as if we live in a separate world from them. Those people aren't our family friends, our neighbors, they don't even live in our cities. It's hard to empathize with people you've never seen or interacted with.

I was like that too. I've always had a good life. All of my basic needs have always been met, I've had a great education, a supporting community, the opportunity to travel internationally. How many people get the chance, and have the economic resources, to be an exchange student for ten months? I've always been in environments that have made me aware of how lucky I am to be born into this life, but despite that awareness, I still didn't really understand poverty until now. Sure, I'd had brushes with poverty in Mexico and Peru, but you gain a completely different perspective on the topic when people living in various stages of poverty become your family members, friends, and classmates. In his video, Green says that its easier to empathize with people who feel like "us", who we can see and interact with. If you've never spent time in impoverished places, it's hard to feel connected to the people there, which isn't any fault of our own, it's just how we humans work. But I have that experience right now, I get to live and connect with people here and what I'm most grateful for is that living here has made me think of Ecuadorians not at "poor people" or "rich people", but just as people. These people and their situations have become part of my "us", they are part of my world, which means I can empathize with them far more than I ever could in the past.

I'm more than halfway through my year now, I've officially spent more time in Ecuador than I have left, so I've been thinking a lot about what my favorite parts have been. What I realized is that the most exciting parts of exchange have been while I've been doing touristy things, but the most meaningful parts have always been during "normal life", while connecting with people. Realizing that makes me happy that I get to be both a tourist and just a person here. I get to travel to the tourist traps, take a million pictures, and get 'jump up and down' excited about things like zip lining, all while also being a student, a friend and a daughter. It's pretty amazing to have both, because one without the other isn't as interesting. If I was just a tourist, I wouldn't get the same cultural insights, and if I never did the touristy stuff, I'd get bored with normal life. It's a good balance to have. 

So in celebration of being past the half way point, let me share one of my highlights with you all! A few weekends ago, I got to travel to Baños, which is one of the big tourist attractions in Ecuador. I went with my family and some of the AFSers in Guaranda. We went biking, zip lining, hiking, swimming, saw a magnificent waterfall, and just all around had a good time!

This is at the "Casa del Arbol" or the tree house at the end of the world.

Zip Lining!!!

We biked all over the place, mostly in the rain, but it was fun anyway

This is the entrance to the "Pailon del Diablo" which is a huge waterfall. The entrance has 'welcome' written in 30 different languages. You'd be surprised how similar some of them are.

Me and my friend Bram at the bottom of the "Pailon del Diablo". I had my dad take the picture from up above since there was absolutely no way to go down without getting COMPLETELY soaked, and I didn't want to damage my camera.

A very wet group picture on the way back down.

This is the waterfall, from the other side of the mountain, but it's too long to get the whole thing into the picture.

More pictures from the "Casa del Arbol"

A map of all of the volcanoes in Ecuador. The red ones are active, the blue are dormant, and the green-ish are potentially active. Chimborazo (the volcano near Guaranda) is potentially active.

Check my Facebook for more photos :)

Hasta Luego,

Elisa