An eye-opener in Ecuador

Lynbrook High School student Kayla Vasilakis, 17, helped send care packages containing school supplies to 28 children in Cajabamba, Ecuador.

Courtesy Lisa Vasilaksi

Running water was at least two days away from the small, impoverished village deep in the Amazon jungle highlands, said 17-year-old Lynbrook High School Kayla Vasilakis, who will be a senior this fall.

There were no nearby resources for the 130 people living in Cajabamba, part of the Chimborazo Province in Ecuador. Vasilakis witnessed the hardships and underdevelopment there. “It was totally eye-opening, seeing the poverty so close to us,” she said. “I always think of poverty being far [away, like] in Africa.”

Vasilakis joined three adults and 19 northeastern U.S. students as part of the People to People ambassador program last July. She had traveled to Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand in 2009, she said, and Ecuador had been her next trip of choice. Though the self-described avid traveler stayed for two weeks, it was a life-changing experience, she added.

The group teamed up with Vitalideas, an Ecuadorian organization focused on rural community development and the conservation of natural resources, to plant Balsa trees every morning during the first week. The purpose was two fold: to restart the rainforest and create revenue (fully-grown balsa trees are cut down after five years to get wood for commercially used materials such as model airplanes and surfboards.)

The afternoons, however, were a different story. Kayla would help cook lunch, and eat with the village mothers, while the fathers were out harvesting food. And she would play soccer, run on the playground and talk with the out-of-school children.

But at first, there was an obstacle standing in the way. “We had a few language barriers at first because my Spanish is not that great,” she said. “But after the first hour, I saw they were normal kids.”

The children’s educational system was, however, bleak. Their school had no roof or floors, and lacked teachers, Vasilakis said. That is why the group, along with Vitalideas, brought in four instructors to teach 28 children every weekday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. once school began again. “The school was a big project,” she said. “We taught the kids also how to brush their teeth, and about basic hygiene.”

Continuing to contribute