Two Airdrie students who recently returned from a ME to WE trip to Ecuador say the trip was life-changing.

Sarah Caroll and Grace Geatros were among 10 local students, along with some chaperones, who travelled to Quito, Ecuador last month on an immersive, 10-day trip.

After a long journey south, the trip started out with a tour around Quito and a visit to the Equator Museum. The group then took a 10-hour bus trip into the jungle, and caught a canoe up the Napo River to their job site where they worked half-days to help build the foundation of a two-storey school.

Sheri McAllister, Construction Superintendent with McKee Homes and Group Lead for the trip, says they worked with concrete and rebar to install columns for the school.

"We went down there as a group of 16 and the feedback we got from the foreman was that groups that are closer to 30 people in size would get one column erected and our group went down there and we put up four," says McAllister. "It shows how efficient they were and how committed they were to working when they were on site and I was just so proud of them."

Caroll says the experience has given her a new appreciation for the things we have here.

"When we were in Los Rios, we had to mix cement by hand," say Carroll. "I've never done that before and it was really exhausting. This is how they build and I just have a new appreciation for cement trucks and the technology that we have. We're really lucky."

Geatros echoed those sentiments.

"It gives you a different appreciation of what we have here versus what they have there. And just seeing how happy they are with what they have and knowing for them, it's not about stuff, it's just about living," she says.

As for their favourite part of the trip, Geatros has a hard time picking just one thing, but says she enjoyed meeting the locals and learning about their lifestyle. Caroll says she enjoyed the food.

"We ate an orange that they picked right off the tree and it was the most delicious thing ever," she say. "And the building and just meeting all the people there and how they were so friendly and so welcoming."

McAllister says she is proud of the Airdrie students for being welcoming themselves to staff at the lodge who would join the group to play games and sing.

"This was a group of kids who were incredibly inclusive and really looked out for each other in a way that they even attracted people who lived there to want to come out and hang out with them. I think that's also a nod to the type of kids that our Airdrie group brought down there," says McAllister. "They were really fantastic."

McAllister also credits the ME to WE organization for providing a safe, well-organized, and authentic experience.

"We didn't feel like we were on a holiday. We didn't feel like we had a tour guide. There were facilitators there who took us to the job site where we worked and we went to a farm and we got to experience a family on the farm explaining how their day to day life is. It wasn't like we were there on a tour, it was like we were part of what was going on," says McAllister. "We went to an agricultural learning centre but while we were there, we planted trees. All those things that really ground you into the experience of being in the jungle and living in the jungle. It was profound."

Carroll agrees.

"It went above and beyond my expectations. It was nothing I could have expected, truly life-changing," she says.

Geatros says she doesn't take the experience for granted and hopes it will inspire others.

"If you have the opportunity to do it, you should definitely do it. It's once in a lifetime," Geatros says.

 

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