Earlier this year, Ezim Ajufo from London spent six months on a Lattitude placement in Ecuador.  Ezim received a Go-Global bursary which paid for her Lattitude fee and some of her flight.  Without this help she would not have been able to go.  If you are considering applying to Latittude, and think you can't afford it, then read Ezim's report and think again!

Ezim's story has recently appeared in the Financial Times.  You can download the article at the bottom of this page.

“Hello”

“How can I help you?”

“Can I have a skirt, please?”

“Alright, what colour would you like?”

“Do you have pink?”

“Yes”

“Can I have a pink skirt please?”

“Yes, sure, what size would you like?”

“Can I have medium please?”

“Yes”

“How many would you like?”

“Can I have one?”

“Yes, of course”

“Anything else”

“No, thank you”

“Bye”

For us, the conversation above is nothing short of basic; the sort a five-year-old could knock out without giving much thought to it.  In fact, this is a conversation I had with nine-year-old Karla in one of our classes, after two months as her English teacher.  Two months back, she barely understood when asked her name in English.

For five months of my gap year, I chose to volunteer as an English teacher in the Ecuadorian village of Yunguilla.  Yunguilla is a small community of three hundred inhabitants based in the Ecuadorian cloud forest; it is about a thirty minutes drive from the capital, Quito and is accessible only by dirt road.  Most Yunguillans earn a subsistence living, however, within the community there is a business partnership amongst about a sixth of the population that is currently working on developing the fledgling Eco-tourism industry in Yunguilla.  At current, the majority of tourists to Yunguilla are volunteers.

The Yunguillan lifestyle is a very laid back one.  This came across in everything from village meetings to our meals with the local families.  Our first meeting in Yunguilla was on our first day there.  It was with the youth and was supposed to allow us draw up a timetable for the afternoon classes.  In this meeting, one of the young boys rode the length of the room back and forth on his bike throughout the meeting.  Most of the attendees remained standing and those that were seated were mostly engaged in some kind of conversation.  At the time, I was certain that this meant they just didn’t care about what we had come to do.  The dedication and respect they showed in their classes over the next five months, however, made me see that this wasn’t true.

Until I came to Yunguilla, I had never truly imagined what teaching would be like.  Having to explain things that I understood almost on a subconscious level was one of the hardest things I had to do as teacher.  The hardest was discipline.  I started teaching with the mindset of an 18 year old on a gap year.  The kids, more than the older members of the community, could see that and, as kids do, took advantage.  At the beginning, I had innumerable requests to go to the toilet, to sharpen pencils, to borrow equipment.  Thankfully, not too long into my placement, I realised that to change their attitudes I had to change mine.  For a start, this meant making lesson plans and coming to classes on time and prepared.  Most importantly, it also meant taking myself seriously.  When this was sorted, I found myself really wanting to make the kids understand as much as I possibly could.  I planned lessons and did photocopies in the weekends to bring to class.  I think my students could somehow see how much I cared for them and that made them respect me. I ended my placement like this -with the mindset of a teacher and the respect of most of my students.

A memory that will stay with me about Yunguilla was how willing people were, not only to give you a chance to try something new but, to be patient with you till you got it right.  I saw this most when I spoke Spanish with them and while they taught me to make jam and cheese.  While cutting the strawberries, I asked question upon question to make sure I did the right thing and even when I got it wrong, nothing was made of it; I was invited again to make more jam.  In my time in Yunguilla I worked in farms, milked cows, I did some guiding, and even rode horses, to name a few.  Being quite the city girl, I was terrible at most of these things, yet people, at their own personal cost, invited me again and again to come out with them and see what life in Yunguilla was really like.

I would like to thank GAP for the invaluable support they gave that allowed me to go to Yunguilla. For the Yunguillans, this support allows people like me to be a part of their community.  Being able to learn English  raises grades amongst the college kids and trains Yunguilla’s tourism personnel in English, enabling them to provide a better service for the large number of English speaking tourists that come to Yunguilla.  Without GAP volunteers, to learn English, these Yunguillans would have to go into the city and pay to take English classes. The cost of all this makes learning English in this way inaccessible to most Yunguillans.

For me, your support allowed me to experience Yunguilla.  This experience is something, I believe, will stay with me all my life. Finding my feet in Yunguilla and the other places I went to in my six months away has given me a new self-confidence and a passion for travelling and languages. Knowing that I can go to a country with a foreign language and a foreign culture and have such a good time has completely opened up the world for me.

The community of Yunguilla and I thank you very much. Muchas gracias.