Sunny smiles all round with the family and friends who have made Ellie’s stay in Ecuador an unforgettable one

BEFORE I arrived in Ecuador I was dubious about spending two months living among someone else’s family.

I have always needed my own space and the freedom to eat, sleep and come and go as I please.

I therefore presumed that it would be impossible to feel completely relaxed and at home in any house other than my own. However, living with Monika and her two energetic children for the past two months has forced me to re-consider.

Admittedly, I am a hundred times more helpful in my Ecuadorian home than I would ever be in my real home. I willingly wash up every night after dinner, offer to unpack the shopping and take Tabitha and Paul out for ice cream. In return, I have been completely embraced not just by the immediate family, but by the typically Ecuadorian network of aunties, uncles, cousins and grandparents.

I am invited to family bike rides, picnics and dinners, where I am hugged and kissed as if I have spent the past 19 years at the heart of this very affectionate family.

My 11-year-old host brother, Paul, a shameless showman who prances around the house singing and dancing, is currently reciting poetry in the fourth round of Ecuador’s version of Britain’s Got Talent.

Last Friday, surreally, I found myself in the dressing of one of Ecuador’s biggest television channels at seven o’clock in the morning applying make-up to Paul, who was dressed in a skimpy Tarzan outfit, preparing his poem about a child from the rainforest.

As Paul was called to the studio to perform, Monika and I, along with a tubby middle-aged man who Monika breathlessly informed me was a Latin American singing sensation, huddled around the doorway watching anxiously.

Paul effortlessly proceeded to the next round, and is currently subjecting us to hours of rehearsals for his indigenous child poem.

Strangely, I feel extremely proud of his achievements, as if it were my own brother on national television. This can only be testament to how Monika, Tabitha and Paul have wholeheartedly involved me in every aspect of their family life over the past two months.

As my time in Ecuador draws to a close, I am starting to realise the enormous impact that my trip has had on me. First and foremost, I have had the time of my life. Every weekend I have travelled around this vibrant country with a different group of volunteers, whether it be American university students, Norwegian post-graduates, a 23-year-old from Bedford who has had enough of her dead-end job, or a middle-aged French couple whom I met on a boat in the Galapagos Islands.

In the real world, our paths would never have crossed, and even if they had, we would have had little in common. Yet in Ecuador, we are immediately bonded by practicality. We are alone in a foreign country and we need friends.

We have chosen to embark on similar trips at the same time, albeit for different reasons. If the world wasn’t my oyster before I left for Ecuador, it certainly is now thanks to my international network of new friends.

The other people I will not forget in a hurry are the market children. Despite everything – their lack of education, the long hours they have to work for their parents, their impoverished home lives – they are still little balls of energy who collapse into hysterics whenever I mispronounce a Spanish word.

Their unfaltering optimism makes me realise how much time I waste worrying about writing essays or saving money or getting picked for teams when I should be enjoying the here and now.

I know that come next month I will return to Durham and my normal life and probably, to a certain extent, my old ways. However, I hope that among all the unnecessary panic and frivolity of my student lifestyle, the perspective that I have acquired during my trip will remind me to find the best in every situation, no matter how hard I may have to look.

Although I have grown to love Ecuador and my routine here, I would be lying if I said that I did not want to go home. Last week, for the second time in less than two months, I found myself at the police station reporting a theft. This time, my bag had been slashed with a knife on the bus. The crafty culprit then ran off with my money, credit card, house keys and driving licence.

While I find it exhausting to constantly have to consider my security, for the local people it is a way of life. Tabitha and Paul have spent their entire summer holiday cooped up in the house, not even being able to take their bikes out for fear that some drug addict lurking on a street corner might strike.

Yet they are unfazed by it and rolled their eyes at me when I returned home with my slashed bag, telling me that I should have known better than to take valuables on the bus. And they are right – I should have.

The Montes children are more worldly-wise than I will ever be because living in Quito has forced them to develop common sense well beyond their years.

In contrast, I have fleetingly experienced life in a potentially dangerous city, but can now return to the relative peace of Jersey. There is no doubt that I will appreciate it all the more after having seen where I could have grown up.

Despite my best attempts over the past few weeks, words simply cannot do justice to my trip. If I could rewind to July and start all over again, I would.

While my sun tan will fade and my mosquito bites will heal, the memories of my Ecuadorian summer will stay with me for the rest of
my life.