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Marie Killian writes...

...about her experiences while volunteering in Ecuador.

I had a wonderful time at La Hesperia! My biggest problem was the very steep hill from the road to the reserve - I attempted to avoid it at all costs & was pretty successful for several weeks.

I´m sure that at first Juan Pablo & Alexandra were wondering what in the world an aging, arthritic, asthmatic individual was doing at their station, & what they were going to do with me. I was certainly nt the best choice for hard physical labor, although I did attempt it. They did put me to work in the orchid garden, vegetable garden, & plant nursery. I also became a pretty good cow milker; my grandson will be envious - he loves cows. All of these activities were easy to get to & did not require too much physical prowess, so we were all pretty happy. But then, Juan Pablo saw me drawing a picture of one of the plants & uttered the fatal words, "Do you think you can make us some signs?" Thus began the Big Sign Project. I made about 2 dozen signs for plants in 2 different gardens. These were painted (rather decoratively, I might add) on wood & later varnished. The signs needed to be put on tapered stakes, so I acquired quite a bit of expertise using a machete to shape the stakes as needed - this took a lot more skill (but less upper body strength) than hacking down sugar cane & everyone was quite impressed.

But the sign making did not stop there. Did I think I could make a BIG sign at the bottom of the hill? Just what I was dreading. Having avoided the Hill for many weeks, Alexandra & Juan Pablo found the only thing that would motivate me to go down (& up) the hill - the chance to paint a huge sign promoting La Hesperia. Well, this was such great fun you cannot begin to imagine. The entire town got involved. They treated me to lunch at their homes, I learned lots of Spanish words, and upon completion we had an official ribbon cutting ceremony in which I was asked to do a speech. Although Alexandra offered to translate my English, I insisted on butchering the Spanish language, much to the delight of the townspeople who all knew exactly what I was saying.

So that's pretty much how I spent my time. I loved it! I highly recommend La Hesperia & will certainly promote it as an excellent volunteer venue to the students at the university where I work. Many thanks for a wonderful adventure!

Marie