Niamh Manning from Dublin volunteered with for 3 months in a care centre for disadvantaged children in Quito.
I spent three months in Quito, Ecuador at the start of this year, as a volunteer of EIL. I found the first while to be very tough, being on my own without my friends and family around, in an unfamiliar place and submerged in an unfamiliar language. I had absolutely no Spanish before arriving in Ecuador but by the end, I was quite confident with the spoken language.
But despite the inevitable rocky start, I had an amazing experience. Once you apply yourself to the language classes and start to get a grasp of it and you start meeting other volunteers in similar situations as you, you'll be flying and having a ball! I worked in "Albergue la Dolorosa" with children whose parents couldn't look after them full time for various reasons (drugs, imprisonment, poverty, etc). I played with the kids and helped with their homework (English in particular) and just generally gave a hand to the ladies who worked there, whatever needed to be done. I worked there 4 days a week most of the time and kept my weekends for some traveling around the country and doing the "touristy" thing I suppose!
I lived with an upper class Ecuadorian family and was spoilt by them!! But I found the homestay a great insight into their way of life; the culture, the food, etc. and of course it was a huge help with the language (if not very frustrating in the beginning).
My time spent in Ecuador is a time I will never forget, although sometimes I have to remind myself it wasn't all a dream, as it's so immensely different to life at home in Dublin. It opened my eyes to the vast poverty of the country, I got the opportunity to meet so many different people, I learnt Spanish and I think I really matured as a person!
Niamh Manning
