A Message from the Rotarian: Part 2

Today is Saturday, 11-22-09. We just finished our second week visiting Ecuador. It has gone by so fast and has also been full of amazing activities.

In the past 2 weeks we have visited 11 Schools and medical facilites in Guayaquil, Cuenca, Loja and this week in Quito. All of the places we have visited, have been supported by the local Rotary Clubs. Each one has been unique and taught us so much about the teachers and students. In some we have been able to spend a lot of quality time with the students and teachers. In others, it has been listening to a presentation about the school´s mission and touring their facilities. That has been hard because we all would have enjoyed more quality time interacting with the teachers and students. Some of the locations are close to each other, while others require a lot of driving time. We usually travel in vans, with Rotarians as our guides. Like I mentioned earlier, the mandatory electric power outages statewide have affected some of our visits, both to schools and host families. You don’t realize how 4 hours of no electricity affects lives both professionally and personally. This has also affected our being able to update our blog for you. By the time we arrive home from our busy days, the power is usually out until 11 pm and then there is nothing to do other than sleep.

As the Rotarian in the group, it has been amazing to me to live the true meaning of Rotary. “Service above Self “is the credo here, as it is in our District in San Diego. As a Team, we have all been so fortunate to have met wonderful Rotarian families that have hosted us. They have taken care of us as if we were their family. Each one of us has been fortunate to stay in separate homes and had unique experiences with each of them.

This week was pretty full. Our days began at 8:30 AM, at the Hotel Sebastian, our meeting point. We would go out on our visits and return to the Hotel for a 1 to 2 hour rest then change into our blazer uniform and then be off to our night Club meetings. We visited the first 3 Quito Clubs´meetings 3 nights in a row. Their meetings start at 7:30 pm with fellowship, then the actual meeting starts at 8:00 pm, and dinner in served while the meeting progresses. Each night, we were all home at our host families no earlier than 10:30 pm. This made for long days. Thursday was special since we finished our vocational work early, were able to visit the ¨Medio de Mundo¨and then got home earily so that we could spend time with our families.

Today, Saturday, was a very special day. We were picked up at 8:30 AM, by the Rotary Club Quito Valle Interoceanico. We were joined by 6 Rotary Youth Exchange students from all over the world. I was surprised to find out that the District here has over 120 Youth Exchange students throughout Ecuador. So far we have met 8 of them. We drove about 1 hour up the mountains to the beautiful community of Nono. It is a small village of about 2000 people that is strongly supported by Rotary. We spent the whole day there which we started with a breakfast Rotary meeting. We gave our Power Point presentation which everyone enjoyed. We then toured their new cheese making factory, organic gardening project, community craft center that the local women are supporting by selling hand knit products and attended a presentation by the local High School. The Rotary Club helped build the school and has supported them since with equipment and sharing in the payment of the salaries of the teachers. One of the fun things the Club members and our GSE team did was plant some trees in the local park. Our Team got to plant an Oak tree and they made us promise to come and visit anytime we are in Ecuador. Rotary has had a huge impact on this farming community. The locals are very grateful for the help and are caring for everything that has been done here. They even have a local band that played for us today during the student presentation.

This week we were also interviewed by Rotarian Rosalia Arteaga for her TV show ¨Cara a Cara con Rosalia¨ which is set to air in a few weeks. We also did an interview for the countrywide newspaper ¨Hoy¨ which should be printing tomorrow. We are off tomorrow morning to Ambato. We will be greeted by District Governor Luis Villacres, as he will be making his official visit to both Ambato and Riobamba Rotary Clubs, where we will be visiting later this week.

By the way, the big hit has been our District pins and the District Calendars. I have been presenting one to each Club President and everyone really enjoys having a part of San Diego to look at every single month. Thank you again Escondido Club for this great project.