Ecuador has been a life-changing experience that provided me with unique opportunities for personal growth and a better understanding of Latin American cultures and some of the challenges faced around the world. Although I have traveled internationally a number of times, this was my first time to a Latin American country. With every international experience, I gain a more inclusive and eclectic appreciation of the world as a whole.

This trip was laden with experiential learning, historical and contemporary culture, adventures, friendships, beautiful landscapes, and exotic wildlife. One of the most eye-opening aspects has come from witnessing the environmental injustice inflicted on a country’s natural beauty and rich culture. With an injustice so far reaching, I am appalled, even with my own ignorance, that such a crime has been so largely dismissed while I have indirectly contributed to it on a daily basis. Not that they are known to have a reputation boasting of a strong moral compass, but the travesty that oil companies have inflicted on the Ecuadorian lands and people is
heart-wrenching and unacceptable.

Ecuador’s ecosystems include cloud forests, the Amazon rainforest, Andes mountains, mangroves, and more. The people of Ecuador depend on these natural systems for food, water, and shelter. Yet, their lands have been spoiled and contaminated as the result of oil dredging. Patches of land have been filled with oil sludge which seeps into the water. During a toxic oil tour, we visited the privately owned land of a local family. As we climbed through tropical banana leaves and palm fronds larger than my car, we began to observe uplifted mounds of foliage black with sticky oil, and the very water in which the family drank shining with colors of oil slick, both reeking of the pungent odors of gaseous fumes.

After witnessing this hard truth, their community welcomed us with a traditional Ecuadorian lunch. This was followed by a momentous and endilable encounter that I have been fortunate enough to be part of. The young children, dressed in traditional clothing, performed a ceremonial dance that gives me goosebumps even now as I reflect on this moment. They grabbed our hands, and pulled us onto the dance floor. As they smiled and spun in circles, I couldn’t stop laughing while simultaneously feeling a depth of sadness for them. They were innocent and beautiful. Yet, parts of their culture have been stripped from them by the greed of others. How many of these children drink water smelling of oil? How many of them would end up like so many others from that area, sick or terminal with cancer from their contaminated lands, the lands they love?

Because of them, I have taken home with me a new idea of what is important in life.