Chao, Ecuador! Hello, U.S.!
It has been 2 months of hard work, experimentation, research, exploration, odd incidents, unique cuisine and gorgeous sights. This has been a wonderful and memorable experience for the both of us and we are going to miss the beautiful country of Ecuador and everyone in it so much. The reason that our work there was so enjoyable was because of the wonderful people who were there to help us along the way. We would like to thank Maria Alicia, first and foremost, for lending us her home, knowledge, time and money, and for also being our trusty chauffeur and tour guide when we would have been utterly lost otherwise. Thanks to Marisol, for being a great resource for us for our many projects, and to Martita for being our Mamita when we were so far from our own. Thank you to all the doctors and nurses at the clinic in Yatzaputzan who gave us such helpful feedback and ideas for the technologies. And a huge thank you to everyone in Planchaloma, including the doctors, promoters, nurses, volunteers, and even the patients and people of the town for making us feel at home, for complementing our elementary-Spanish, for letting us feel useful at the clinic, and for all the fun times and laughs we’ve had together. Last, but most certainly not least, thank you BTB, for allowing us to have such a life-altering, eye-opening, and enjoyable learning experience; without the time, money, hard work, planning, efforts, that everyone there has put into this program, this would not have been possible for us.
We hope that we have accomplished enough to make even the smallest difference. We have learned a great deal and will be sure to pass that knowledge on to BTB and to future interns in order so that the next technologies that go to Ecuador will be Ecuador-ready and able to help to many throughout the country. We hope that we have made an impact, however small, in the communities and have made BTB and Fundacion Futuro proud to have had us as interns.
Chao, Ecuador! Don’t forget us, because we will most certainly never forget you.
