Before Galapagos, There Was Guayaquil
Why do I keep coming back?
Before starting my adventure in Galapagos, I came back to Guayaquil to visit my second family and the school where I volunteered two years ago.
It was one intense week and right now I am leaving this poor and dirty neighbourhood in a car with some Christian music on. It’s a song about heaven opening up. I cannot help but think that everything I see around me looks much closer to hell.
Why do I keep coming back then?
There are so many things missing here but maybe they have something that we have lost in the abundance of things in the first world. Maybe the most important things are not things at all.
I have never missed food, nor clothes, nor basic school equipment. They do. But maybe they have something else.
At first glance, it’s a terrible place. It’s too hot, too dirty, there’s too much trash everywhere, too many lost dogs, too many lost kids, too many lost people.
There are mosquitoes and cockroaches and you sweat and the streets are a muddy mess, and the trash lies everywhere and it smells bad and the heat is unbearable, and it’s dangerous to walk around alone. What do I do here?
