Growing up

A blog post by Adam. 16 years ago I went to Ecuador to learn Spanish. I had not returned since. Well, believe it or not, Ecuador has changed.

As one might expect, the country seems far more developed than it did in the late 90s. There are more big buildings, and many more cars, which has resulted in a 3,564,348% increase in traffic. There is a new airport which is very nice but unfortunately is located 30km from the city (and due to current traffic patterns it takes about 1.5 hours or more to get into the city from the airport). There are now tons of bike lanes throughout the city and free bikes that anyone can use to get around town. The historic center of the city, with some buildings dating back nearly 500 years, seems far cleaner and more beautiful than it did when I last visited it. And the highways that connect Quito with other major cities are newly expanded and more comfortable than in the past. Yes, Ecuador has grown up.

Yet, far more than any of these changes, the change that most impacted me was the growth in my host family. My host parents actually seemed comfortingly familiar - my host father Renato retained his talkative and joking personality, full of wonderful stories and intelligent insights on Ecuador and life in general, whereas my host mom Dayana was still the incredibly attentive, loving, thoughtful, and helpful mother everyone deserves. The difference was the new additions and absences.

Carolina, my three year old host sister, was now 19 and she also had a 15 year old brother, Renato Sebastian, and an 11 year old sister, Maria Paz. Meanwhile, Dayana's father, who lived next door when I shared the house with Renato, Dayana, and Carolina, had since passed away, leaving Dayana's mother alone with her new dog Nico in the adjoining house. It was strange to experience so many changes all at once, to feel the passing of 16 years of life in an instant.
 

With Carolina during my first visit to Ecuador (on the day of her baptism).

For me the most impressive transformation was that of Carolina. When I last saw her, she had been an energetic, intelligent and mischievous only child. She continued to emanate positive energy and her intelligence hadn't faded, but she certainly was no longer a mischevious toddler. From the moment she first came up to our room on the first day we arrived, she was warm and interested in learning about Melissa and reconnecting with me. She was a university student, passionate about running a fashion business after graduating. She was an older sister, who passed time joking with her sister in the car and her brother in his bedroom. She was a highly fashionable young woman with a driver's license. Ultimately, she wasn't exactly the person I remembered, even if her face held hints of her preciously tiny and cute former self.



With Carolina on our recent visit to Lake Cuicocha, high in the Ecuadorian Andes.

While her seemingly dramatic transformation from 3 years old to 19 made me feel old, it also made me happy to see such wonderful growth. Her loving parents and grandparents had clearly contributed to her progress. They talked so proudly about all of their children and I could see their impact both in Carolina and her intelligent, fun, and kind younger siblings. Still, she too had worked hard (and apparently overcome the usual adolescents challenges) to become a young adult that would make any parent proud. It was a rare opportunity to see how small children turn into adults, how people change, and how with support we all have the potential to become our best selves. In such a supportive family, Carolina was becoming her best self, and also proving to me that although seeing a city and country grow up is terrific, nothing is more remarkable than witnessing a child grow up into an adult.