A Fulbright Introduction

On March 2016,  I received news that I was accepted into the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program for Ecuador.  This blog will cover the next nine months that I will spend teaching English here in Ecuador with a goal to apply principles of Soka Education into my teaching practice.  Soka Education For the Happiness of the Individual by Daisaku Ikeda is a tool that I aim to use over the next year in my teaching.

The blog will also look at attempts to equalize the education system here by including both Western and Ancestral worldviews in the teaching and curriculum.  Ishkay Yachay, a Quechua word, meaning "two worldviews" encompasses Ecuadorian indigenous efforts to create an inclusive, counterhegemonic education system.

My first day to Ecuador was filled with laughter and joy as I sat with two other Fulbright Ecuador grantees at Gate 8 for our flight from Dallas, Texas to Quito, Ecuador.

From Left: Kelly, Andy, Heather, Sarah, Myself, Elizabeth, Adison, and Haley 

Myself with the 60th Anniversary Cake of Fulbright in Ecuador

Outside our Papallacta Trip in the beautiful Andes Mountains

We sat chatting and sharing our experiences traveling to the country, where we had recently graduated from, and albeit our anticipation for what was to come.  For myself, I felt keenly aware that this would be a different journey that the others because of my Ecuadorian heritage; however I also knew that in many ways it would be quite similar: moving overseas away from that known to yourself.

Outside an exhibition on the Waorani from previous Fulbrighter,
Megan Westervelt

When we landed I felt an acute nostalgia of seeing my grandparents greet me at the terminal.  This time there was no such thing.  We were greeted by a transport company along with one other Fulbright grantee to our hotel.  As we drove through the streets I had just seen eight months ago both reassured and terrified me about the journey ahead.

The next five days the six of us, new Fulbright English Teaching Assistants, spent time conducting tramités with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the migration office, and so forth.  We met the director of the Fulbright program, Suzana Cabeza de Vaca, and our coordinator Karen who has helped us through many of the logistics. Before we headed off to our separate locations, Guayaquil (myself), Latacunga, Loja, La Mana, Quito, and Urcuqui,  I had this moment of terror and excitement of what was to come.