Before I go.

One day, I was in an 8th grade Spanish class, and the idea of studying in some Latin American country crept into my consciousness. Over the course of six or seven years, the idea grew and grew and grew and never went away.

Now, I'm leaving for Ecuador for 3 1/2 months on Monday morning.

Simply stated, there just aren't proper words to articulate my feelings.

I'm excited beyond reason.

The basics:

-I'll be in Quito, Ecuador, apart from a few trips within the country/region.

-I'll receive a semester worth's of credit, and taking one "traditional" course entitled Community Participation and Social Change. Awesome.

-I'll have an internship (for credit.) At this time, I'm still unsure what organization I'll be working for. Once I'm in-country, there will be some interviews to find something tuned to my interests and experiences. At this time, it sounds like two options are working with Colombian refugees displaced as a result of Plan Colombia OR an perhaps advocating for indigenous communties affected by oil extraction in the Amazon basin. Awesome.

-Additional credits will come from a Seminar and Field study which will involve further reseach in areas of interest and several field trips to Afro Ecuadorian and Indigenous communties within Ecuador. Awesome.

-There will be 10 other students, all from the U.S., some from Minnesota, and 2 others from St. Thomas. Awesome.

-I will be speaking Spanish, and only Spanish. Awesome.

-My host family consists of a mother and a father, 3 sons, aged 25, 17, and 15, and a 20 year old daughter who will be in Costa Rica. They all practice yoga and are vegetarian. Awesome.

Regarding updates of this little blog, I will post as often as I can, as access to the good ol' www should be pretty easy. The goals of these posting are to update friends and family on my general going-ons, and it will also serve as an archive for this little trip. So bookmark this link, and check it often!

As always, I am at kaerickson@stthomas.edu. There's nothing I'd love more than email from you!

Much, much more to come.

I'll leave you with links to a video which goes into detail on how sweet the program I'm going with is, and also another video which going into detail on how sweet Ecuador is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TfqwwRgcMQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM-o1eesn4M