Coming Full Circle- Sustaining Work, While Sustaining Myself

This summer, I find myself at age 23 with the opportunity to return to Ecuador- the place where my journey on this path got its abrupt and life changing start.   So, it is fitting to begin my blog about the successes and failures of sustaining meaningful work in areas I am passionate in while balancing my own needs with a quick look at how I got to where I am today…. wherever that may be.  Over the next several weeks, I will describe my own personal journey in order to place the work I do in the context of my life.  As a result of constant travel over the last two weeks and the general lack of internet access in my life, the next three parts will be posted over the next few days. And, so the story continues-

Part II: Becoming A Witness for Peace

… I left Ecuador with a new sense of purpose, as well as a burden that has rested on my shoulders ever since.   To begin, the transition back to life in America was far more difficult than I could have ever imagined.   I remember getting off the plane in Cleveland and the mass of parents, siblings and friends that engulfed our group as we made it to the baggage claim.  However, as has become a theme in my life, the Molina family is not to keen on getting to the airport on time when someone is returning from abroad, or ever for that matter.  I surveyed the multitudes of faces congratulating us as we were overwhelmed by hugs, kisses and pats on the back, and I failed to find anyone from my family.   When they finally did arrive I loaded my things into the car and the onslaught of questions began- “how was it,” “what did you see,” “where the other kids nice to you,” “did you have fun” and so on.   I remember my silence during that drive home and how I tuned out everyone around me.  When I finally got to the house a huge dinner was placed before me but no matter how famished I was and how much my body pained from hunger, I could not put a bite in my mouth.   After leaving Ecuador, food was never quite the same again.   The meal ended abruptly when my mom asked me to explain my experience at Ventiocho de Agosto.  After my attempt to convey the deplorable conditions I witnessed there, she responded that she could imagine how horrible it must have been.  I looked at her and broke down because she had no idea and never could- her empathy while pure could not begin to come close to understanding the things I had seen and I realized that there was no way I could ever make someone understand what I saw during those two weeks.  To me, words and images were useless because an experience as powerful as Venitocho de Agosto could never be shared in a way that someone could truly understand what it was like if they themselves had not been there to witness it first hand.

I quickly realized after that night, that coming home from my first experience seeing and living in poverty abroad left me detached from my life in Cleveland.  It would be over six months before I could bring myself to entering a mall, as the Christmas season is something no one can avoid.  I spent the remainder of that summer angry at the world.  When I was forced to watch my sister swim at country clubs, I made very audible and scathing comments about the excessive lifestyle of those around me.   My passion had no outlet, and I was soon overcome with a sense of guilt born out of my own privilege.   I remember one day in particular when I was driving to my best friends house to spend the afternoon with him.  I started playing the mixed CD I had made for the trip and before I had even gotten on the highway on my way to his house I had started sobbing uncontrollably.   I pulled over to the side of the road and turned up the volume, consumed by my emotions.  When I got to his house I was speechless and completely overwhelmed.  Soon after, I had distanced myself from friends and family and spoke long and forcefully about the responsibility we all have to change the things that I had seen, to make the world better by our lives.   And, with the thoughtful guidance of my family, I started planning a course of action to satisfying all the thoughts running in my head that demanded me to do something great everyday.  After many conversation, I eventually found direction and put all my energy and focus towards three goals- decide what ways I could best change the world, find something in the Cleveland that could fulfill my desire to do good and somehow return to Latin America as soon as possible.    And, like most times so far in my life, things just seemed to fall into place.

As I have found time and again, athletics have always been one of the best outlets I have to clear my mind.   After returning from Ecuador, I began running daily as the soundtrack I had made for the trip played on repeat while I tried to keep pace with the emotions the songs evoked.   To this day, there are still a few songs that when I hear I am overcome by the memories they bring to mind.    It was during one of the runs that I started thinking about my impending senior year and the college application process that lay before me.   With an older brother already a junior at Amherst College, I had seen my fair share of universities on more college tours than I could remember.   However, while I was trying to out run my thoughts, I kept thinking about the only college that had stood out during all my visits and the unique program that allowed a graduating senior have a place in medical school after the culmination of undergraduate studies.   As soon as I got home, still perspiring from the run, I sat at my computer and read everything I could about Brown University and the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME).   Deep inside I had always felt called to the world of medicine and health care, and I decided that the PLME would provide me with all the tools I would need to work towards change in Latin America.    Step one was complete, I had a goal and direction.

Come August, my senior soccer season consumed most of my time between daily practice and two games a week on top of my senior class schedule, I didn’t have much time for anything else.   However, as fate would have it, the morning after our team lost in shootouts during the regional final I walked onto the stage of the school wide mass for the returning mission trip students and gave a speech that would touch the lives of the student body for years to come.   My speech was about concupiscence and the sin of omission and it laid an ultimatum before everyone listening, make the choice to do good in the world or bow down to the sin of omission and a life that avoids the problems of the world surrounding everyone every day of their lives.   For me, the speech was a reawakening of the passion that had grown dormant over the last few months, as I still needed something to hold me over until I could return to Latin America.   I continued to give speeches and became involved in the Interreligious Task Force on Central America, as well as starting a Hunger Awareness Week at my high school, which culminated in a school wide fast to understand better the realities of hunger facing large parts of the world.     Finally, that winter, with the guidance of my younger brother Michael, I found the outlet I was looking for in the St. Benedict Joseph Labre Project.

A sophomore at the time, my brother had helped start an initiative that worked to reach out the homeless population in downtown Cleveland.  Beyond offering meals, clothes and other supplies to aid the lonely nights these men and women spent of Cleveland’s city streets, the real goal of the Labre Project was to provide friendship, kindness and companionship to individuals that were otherwise looked over by society and avoided.   Starting that winter, I joined my brother and a handful of students and faculty every Sunday night that I could to go out onto the streets of Cleveland to meet men and women who would otherwise be forgotten.   Nothing is more important that getting to know a cause personally, because when figures and statistics become faces and names and when over passes and alleyways become shelters and homes- you can never go back to a life of not knowing.   To personalize a cause is to give it power and priority.   There is a difference between spending the afternoon in a soup kitchen and avoiding eye contact as you give a spoonful of peas to one nameless person after another and spending the time to check in with a friend as he shows you how he has prepared his makeshift home for the impending winter storm.   The Labre Project wasn’t about the hotdogs and hot chocolates or the covers and old winter hats, it was about understanding poverty and deprivation through the eyes of a friend.   It was about names and faces and never being able to look at a city the same way again because you wondered how everyone was doing, how all your friends were holding up.

The Labre Project also taught me another instrumental lesson in my personal development.   No matter how much you might enjoy the work you are doing, sometimes it is necessary to let go and move on.  Throughout that spring, the new of the project spread throughout the Ignatius community.   I for one organized a night for my soccer team to take part and more and more people became attached to the work we were doing.   It went so far as the need for a sign-up sheet to be placed in the service office because too many individuals were showing up each week to spend the evening walking the streets of Cleveland to spend time with the growing community the project was amassing.    At first, I was angry because I had been on of the first individuals to really embrace the program that my brother had helped start and now we were getting left of evenings when the list filled up three weeks in advance.   I wanted ownership over the work and I didn’t want to be pushed out because I felt I deserved to be there more than other people.   And, that’s when I realized how wrong I was.   My decreased participation was necessary and good and once I could accept that I could see that every night that I didn’t go out with the project someone else had the opportunity to experience poverty in a way they never had.   I had to let go of my own selfish reasons for wanting to keep the project small and personal because the greater good was the growing body of students who now saw the city they lived in differently and who collectively could be the voice for change.

Early that December, in addition to getting involved with the Labre Project, I received the news that I had been waiting for since that run over the summer.    It was December 15, 2003 and I was at school for a leadership meeting for a retreat I was helping to lead.   I finished up the meeting and made my way to my car, knowing that some sort of decision would be waiting in my mailbox when I got home.    I remember the drive home like it was yesterday; I rolled down all the windows and let the cool air burn my lungs as my car speed down the highway.   When I got to my front door, I paused and took a breathe and when I opened the door my mom was sitting on the steps like a kid waiting to open their first Christmas present.  I could see the glimmer in her eyes and the smile across her face and saw the opened envelope in her hand.   The thing about my mom is that no matter how many times you tell her, so will always read any note, email, text message or letter she comes across.   I pulled the letter out with my mom giddy like a schoolgirl barely able to contain herself next to me, and all I could do was look at her and saw “oh my god, I’m going to be a doctor.”   And so, everything seemed to be falling into place and I was one step closer to a degree in Latin American Studies and a doctorate in medicine- one step closer to have the capability to make real change in the world.

That spring, my work with the Interreligious Task Force on Central America provided me the opportunity to achieve my third and final goal I had set for myself upon returning from Ecuador- finding a way back to Latin America.   Before I knew it, I had committed myself to going on a teen delegation to a country I knew nothing about to learn about things I had never heard of.   However, I would soon fall in love with Nicaragua and become consumed with the ideas of US foreign intervention in Latin America, the force of globalization in the world and the horrible effects of neoliberal economic policies on developing countries.

My trip to Nicaragua, like so many to follow, had a rather inauspicious beginning.    The entire group had gathered in North Carolina for two days of preparation before we headed to Managua, Nicaragua for two weeks of meetings and site visits.   We were given more background on the organization we were traveling with, Witness for Peace, and their history in Nicaragua and other Latin American countries.   Witness for Peace was formed to bring international presence to conflict areas in countries where the United States was interfering through covert (and sometimes overt) military action, beginning with Nicaragua during the Contra War in the 1980s under President Reagan.   The organization recruited brave men and women to enter high-risk areas to provide solidarity and support.   Basically, it is harder to massacre villages of innocent people if there is a chance you could potentially kill an American citizen and bring down the fury of the international community on your unethical tactics.   I will not spend more time discussing the organization but their work (www.witnessforpeace.org) is something that everyone should know about.

So, after a crash course in Nicaraguan history and US intervention during the Somoza rise to power and the Contra War we made our way to the airport- at least some of us did.  As a result of miscommunication and bad alarm clocks, I found myself at the Charlotte airport as the oldest delegate, no leaders and a plane that was boarding.   Everyone looked at me for the answers and I was thrust into a leadership position and forced to make decisions.  I made everyone wait until final boarding and then stood outside until they gave me an ultimatum to get on the plane or not.   So, I boarded and we started the trip to Nicaragua with a group of students who barely spoke Spanish and had no idea who we were meeting or where we were going.   In Miami, I calmed everyone down and just told them we would catch our connecting flight and wait in Nicaragua for the rest of the group.  Fortunately, our plane was delayed due to weather and at the last night the last of our group came running and made the flight.   I breathed a sigh of relief because I was not sure I was prepared yet to lead a group of my peers to Latin America, little did I know that would all change in a few years time.

In Nicaragua, I was overwhelmed by the amount of information I was taking in and the gap in historical memory that seemed to exist in the United States about this small Central American country.    We spent time talking to government officials, the US embassy office, sweatshop workers, unionists, doctors, lawyers and everyone who would tell us their story.    I could not believe how practically no one in the US realized what our country had done there and was still doing currently through the newest weapon of choice- economic warfare using neoliberal economic principles and the IMF and World Bank.   The corruption and greed of foreign interest even went as far to seek the privatization of water ways- rivers and streams- that communities and families had been using for generations.  However, we did visit glimmers of hope, one of which was the second example of social entrepreneurship I had ever witnessed in my life.  Of course, I would not come across that term until my senior year of college, but the idea that was planted in my head was one that helped define the way I wanted to seek poverty reduction abroad.    At the Nueva Vida cooperative www.NuevaVidaFairTradeZone.org), they turned the textile industry on its head and focused on “sweat-free” labor to carve out a life on their own terms.

Unlike the massive Taiwanese and American owned textile factories in the free trade zones, this small community owned cooperative allowed individuals to dictate the course of their own lives.  No one was forced to take birth control pills or stand for 10 hours straight without the use of the bathroom.   No one was looking over their shoulders in fear of supervisors whose only goal was efficiency and volume.   The men and women that worked at Nueva Vida had made a good life for themselves, but focusing on quality and finding a niche in a market that is plagued by human rights abuses and subsistent wages.   Leveraging socially conscience institutions like universities, the cooperative was able to sell their t-shirts and other products at a premium and after years of hard work and determination, the cooperative has more orders than it can get out.   Also, with the success of the textile production, Nueva Vida was able to expand and begin a second venture that focused on producing cheap water filtration devices.  When I would return to Nicaragua three years later, the “filtrons” as they are called were what I drank from everyday as they provided an innovative and cheap solution to combating the water quality issues in Managua.

My trip to Nicaragua was monumental in my development because it placed the causes of poverty into a specific context with clear mechanisms and systems that perpetuated it.   I became obsessed with the failure of globalization and neoliberal economics in the country and began taking a more critical look at how US intervention and at times foreign aid and assistance helped create and sustain poverty in Nicaragua.  Nothing is more motivating to me than not knowing something, and entering into Brown that fall I knew what I had to learn about and synthesize in order to deal with the root causes of poverty.    I left Nicaragua with a new perspective and an even greater burden of knowledge.   I had seen the failures of development through the eyes of those living in extreme poverty, as well as glimmers of hope and the small successes in an otherwise marred history of exploitation and corruption.  I went back to US as a Witness for Peace, with a fresh perspective, new challenges and even greater motivation to seek change.

Coming Full Circle- Sustaining Work, While Sustaining Myself

Part I: A Calling

This summer, I find myself at age 23 with the opportunity to return to Ecuador- the place where my journey on this path got its abrupt and life changing start.   So, it is fitting to begin my blog about the successes and failures of sustaining meaningful work in areas I am passionate in while balancing my own needs with a quick look at how I got to where I am today…. wherever that may be.  Over the next several weeks, I will describe my own personal journey in order to place the work I do in the context of my life.

Almost six years ago, I landed in Ecuador with my crisp new passport, broken Spanish and an overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear of the unknown.   Leaving the plane, I was thrust into the rhythm and pace of the developing world and took a deep breath of the smell that never leaves you after your first trip to Latin America- burning garbage, human waste, sweaty bodies and a thickness from the humidity that is so heavy you could almost swim through the air.    The windows exiting the baggage claim where filled with the faces of family members waiting for loved ones to return with gifts, remittances, hope or dejection from another failed attempt to bring home the American dream.   A young man, no more than two years older than me, parted the sea of anxious faces with the nose of his government issued shotgun as we made our way outside of the baggage claim area.   I passed signs with my last name on it but felt so disconnected from the culture and history of my father’s birthplace, a country that had been ravaged by drugs, guerilla movements and years of exploitation by both sides of an unending war.    This trip would be the closest I would ever get to Colombia, as I still anxiously await the first time I can visit the family I have never known.

Our group of twelve high school students were quickly led to a bus and packed in with our bags filled to the brim with various comforts from home, bottles of Purell, DEET and SPF 500 and more clothes than most individuals we would meet on our two week stay would ever own at one point in their lives.  My senses where overwhelmed on the bus ride to Duran, a barrio of Guayaquil where we would be staying during our immersion trip.   As we speed away from the controlled chaos of the airport, my eyes tried to absorb all the buildings that passed by in a blur of color and decay.  Soon, we made our way to the outskirts of Duran and dusk began to envelope everything in darkness, as lights became fewer and fewer the farther we got from the city.  The silence in the bus was deafening as we all stared out the windows, mesmerized by the unknown.   The eerie calmness was broken only by bursts of music blaring from candle lit houses and the occasional pot holes, which kept making me fall into the young soldier next to me.  At one point, a sharp turn sent me completely across the seat and I grazed the barrel of his gun with my cheek, the first and only time I have felt the cold steel of a firearm.    With little warning, the bus came to a screeching halt, and we were quickly overwhelmed by the dark, thick haze of burning rubber.    I looked out of the right of the bus and could see droves of people who’s faces lit up with the occasional flicker of the bonfires and flaming barricades that blocked our path.    As we pulled off of the road and maneuvered through the field to the side of the road, I covered my face as I began choking from the billows of smoke entering through the windows.   I would later find out that the men and women who lined the roads and avoided the bus as it maneuvered around the burning roadblocks where protesting the illegal seizure of their land by the local government.  They would be homeless in a matter or days, unless someone listened to their plights, but far to often I would learn the plights of the marginalized too often fall on deaf ears.

After the hour ride to Duran, we arrived at our home for the next two weeks- the Rostro de Cristo (“Face of Christ”) retreat center.   We were greeted by more armed guards and two large dogs that studied our every move as the large gates locked us in for the night.   After a quick introduction from the project staff, we gathered inside with our bags and discussed the itinerary for the week.  The focus of our trip was immersion- to spend our days visiting sites in Duran to arrive at some personal understanding of the effects poverty has in the developing world and to see first hand how the vast majority of the world lives.    Since this was a trip I was selected to go on through my Jesuit Catholic high school, St. Ignatius in Cleveland, there was large religious undertones.  Lost somewhere between agnosticism and atheism at the time, I found my religious connection while in Ecuador focused on Liberation Theology and the call for a “preferential option for the poor.”   It was a new concept to me and a view of the world that would define my own personal development for years to come.   Aside from readings by Paulo Freire and Jon Sobrino, I was making my way through Herman Hesse’s Siddartha, a gift from my older brother David who had been given the copy from my uncle with a simple inscription, “the key to an open door.”    Despite my indecisiveness of the role of God in my life, I picked up the habit of saying two prayers regularly both of which I continue to say in my head today when I have hit a set back, failed at something or have exhausted myself beyond my physical limits-

Prayer for Generosity

Lord Jesus, teach me to be generous; 
teach me to serve you as you deserve, 
to give and not to count the cost, 
to fight and not to heed the wounds, 
to toil and not to seek for rest, 
to labor and not to seek reward, 
except that of knowing that I do your will.
Amen.

- St. Ignatius Loyola

God grant me the serenity 
to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

- Reinhold Niebuhr

I was seventeen years old, still so young, and at the time conflicted as much with the trials and tribulations of adolescent romance as I was with the trouble I saw in the world around.  And alas, to this day my knowledge of development, public health and education reform is still far superior to my understanding of the women I have spent so many years falling in love with.

My time in Ecuador was nothing short of life changing.  In between charlas, excursions and surprising the locals that a gringo could handle a soccer ball better than them, I started feverishly writing and reflecting on everything around me- a habit I hope this blog will help me rekindle and maintain.   By the third day in Duran, I found myself waking up every morning two hours before my alarm and quietly sneaking out to sit on the cold tiles of the landing outside my room to watch the sunrise and just think.   Still to this day, I find the time of day I think clearest and write best are when I wake up early, during the hours leading up to dawn, and find myself absorbed by the silence and tranquility of morning.   Although my memories from the trip are bountiful, some have slipped away with the passing of time or become blurred and jumbled with my travels throughout Central America, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.   However, three events will never be erased from my memory, as they are a source of inspiration that I turn to each day.

One of the many gifts that my time in Ecuador gave me was incredible understanding and appreciation of the power of touch and human contact.  Half-way through our trip the group spent two days at a clinic for patients suffering from Hansen’s Disease, more commonly known as leprosy.   Since I was child, my head has been filled with images of the crippled and dying leper, a physical representation of disease, death and a cursed life.   Simple bacteria that preys on malnourished men, women and children living in poverty and whose immune system has grown weak over time, the disease if left untreated has devastating physical effects.   Despite popular belief though, it is completely treatable and the men and women we spent the day with were living out the last days of their lives in the clinic not because they were sick and contagious, but rather because they had been abandoned by their families, cast out and banished.    Leprosy is a perfect example of the social context of disease and the implications that certain illnesses have on the lives of those who are infected.     But, with all things, stigma can be overcome when illness is humanized, when it is met with compassion instead of fear.  I will never forget the smile on the tiny, feeble old woman who I approached when I came into the facility, bent down, hugged and gave a kiss on the cheek.    Her hands, like so many others at the clinic, where crippled and gnarled as a result of the infection but they were so eager to be touched and held.   For me, I was just celebrating a goal of a soccer team on the television I had never heard of, but so the old men who embraced me with boyish glee, it was a chance to feel whole, to feel normal again.   Ever since, I have never experienced human contact and touch quite the same.

Ecuador, like most experiences I’ve had on projects dealing with the consequences of structural violence in the developing world, is marked by extreme highs and crashing lows.    Following my experience in the clinic for men and women suffering from Hansen’s Disease, I found myself in a place that will forever be etched in my memory like a painful scar left to remind me of the work that still needs to be done.  I wrote about that day in a speech I gave to my high school the fall after I returned from my trip-

Silence overtook those sitting around me as we made a right turn into the entrance of the town of Veintiocho de Agosto, a small invasion village located on the outskirts of a garbage dump.  The air was stagnant and the acrid stench of festering garbage burned our nostrils, and we quickly rolled up the windows in a vain attempt to escape the caustic smell.  The scent of rotting meat mixed with fecal matter and curdled milk created an aroma, pungent and upsetting.  On every side of the truck were mounds of decomposing trash, piled high and baking in the mid day sun.  These heaps of decaying food, excrement, and the unwanted remains of a capitalistic driven culture had been cast aside to be scavenged by cows, dogs, pigs, and men.  Children hand in hand with their parents were scouring the piles of decay, and over head in the overcast sky there were vultures awaiting their next meal.  My eyes met with the men and women along side the truck, faces covered with bits and pieces of the soiled remains of industry, each one desperately trying to find survival in the mounds of garbage tossed away by society and forgotten- just as they had been. I could not help but lower my head in shame.

Accompanying us on the visit were several locals from Duran who themselves did not believe that a town like this existed, a town were both man and animal rummaged through heaps of decaying garbage in order to stay alive.  Astonished, they were speechless at best.  Although the locals themselves knew only a life of the harshest poverty the conditions they witnessed were unfathomable.  I looked into the eyes of locals who joined us on the trip to Veintiocho de Agosto, and I saw how distraught they had become after the realization that right next to their homes were men and women of their city, battling to survive each day on a scorching compost pile of decaying garbage and scarring disease.  They were people, their brothers and sisters in Christ, living on their waste.

As we encountered the men and women of the town, the affects of continual exposure to trash, much of which had found its way there from the shores of our great country, were seen on the children’s scarred faces and the irreversible affects of skin disease, caused by exposure to the trash.  The young boy’s and girl’s malnutritioned arms clung to my body, desiring affection for their outcast lives, and I could see years of skin ailments run down their faces in a river of scars.  Open wounds carved deep into their faces and arms, masking the natural beauty of their skin.  Their innocence had been stolen from them and I felt an unbearable sadness as I surveyed the land that surrounded me.  It was extremely hard to separate from the joy the children had as we played on their rock covered soccer field.  Each child’s eyes were a glow with the sensation of physical contact, and they drained every ounce of energy the group had as we ran around giving piggy back rides, playing soccer, and letting them be children.  For a moment, they were given some relief from the horrendous world they knew, but unlike us, who would return to the safety of our compound and later the security of our homes; these children would wake up the next day and be faced with the daunting task of survival.  Amidst the cows and the pigs, the children would be forced to dig their hands into the piles of rotting food, shards of glass, and broken dreams to in order to stay alive and live another day, awaiting the next group of ignorant Americans to give them a few minutes of reprieve.

Ironically, most of the land occupied by the citizens of Veintiocho de Agosto was invasion property, and the mayor of Duran could at any point evict the citizens from the retched place that no man should call home.  The rows of cane houses lining the outskirts of the garbage dump offered little protection from the nauseating stench of their backyard.  These houses had no running water and bathing was an infrequent affair.  Within cane houses, a little smaller than the size of the stage I am standing on, entire families ranging from three to ten people lived crammed together, making their best effort to survive.  Also hidden within the cane houses, were the young unwed mothers, some of which were as young as thirteen, and the forgotten children, whose parents left them in the care of a relative, while they left in search of a better life.

However like a beacon of hope, hidden within the rows of cane houses- there was a school.  Named after the director of our Rosto de Cristo program, John Lynch, a sign of hope had emerged from the rubble and the trash.  Each and every citizen had put his or her blood, sweat, and tears into the construction of the meager stone building that would be their school.  To the men and women of Veintiocho de Agosto, this was their chance to educate their children, and to begin a process to relieve their current situation and make a better life for themselves.  As we approached the small structure, the joy of accomplishment shined bright in the faces of the men and boys working on the walls they had pieced together.  The building was a result of months and months of construction one brick at a time.  Weeks would go by until the town had gathered enough funds to purchase the next brick to continue the construction of their dream.  As we left the village that day, the school was still trying to gather enough funds to build a roof in order to protect the school from the rainy season, which should be about to begin any day now.

The citizens of Veintiocho de Agosto were not ashamed of their living conditions; but rather they wanted the world to know that people, men and women like you and I, lived in these appalling conditions.  A past missionary a few summers ago took a wrong turn on his way to another site and discovered the atrocity that was the “city on a garbage dump.”  Had he not taken a wrong turn, we still would have no knowledge of the people in this town and the conditions in which they live.  But, we do know, and now I will never be able to forget.  And with this knowledge comes the burden of the sin of omission, failing to do what is good and necessary.

The passage from my speech can only offer a glimpse of the reality I was exposed to so briefly.  Veintiocho de Agosto and places like it need to be experienced first hand, as words fail to express the impact such an experience can have on your life.

That night, after visiting the “city on a garbage dump,” I tossed and turned.  Around five in the morning I climbed down from my bed and went out the landing where I spent the previous week and half watching the sun rise and clear the hazy mist of morning.    Alone in the silence of dawn, I broke down and cried.   The weight of my experiences in Ecuador was too much for me to bear and I broke down, as the tears mixed with the beads of sweet littering my face.    It was at that moment that I truly realized the heart of the message we had received during a talk a few days before- “Ecuador ruins you.”   Ecuador ruins your life in the sense that upon your return home you are left completely confused and overwhelmed by the poverty and injustice you have witnessed, and you are left with a choice.  You must choose to change your life and actively strive for the betterment of those on the margins of society, or you can chose to carry on your existence just as you had before, and submit to what I called in my speech, the sin of omission- failing to do what is good and necessary.   It was in this moment that I made a promise to myself that I have been struggling to live up to ever since- I promised I would one day become an agent of change, that some how I would find a way to make things better.  It is a promise I am still looking to find the answer for, but have taken small steps to understanding along the way.

The first of those revelations was during one of our final excursions in Ecuador.  Leaving Duran behind, we ventured back in Guayaquil to visit what would be the first example of social entrepreneurism I would ever experience in my life.   The Nuevo Mundo (“New World”) school is a beacon of hope for the poorest of the poor in Ecuador’s second largest city.   Founded by a former nun, the school was founded on the principle that if it could provide the best education possible for the wealthiest citizens of Guayaquil, then it could subsidize the education of the brightest and most in need from the surrounding barrios like Duran.   Walking on the school’s campus, I was overwhelmed by how amazing the facilities were as children in uniforms run by making faces and giggling.     As we toured the grounds, we found out that in the morning the children of elite pay an incredible amount of money to receive one of the best educations available in the country, and in the afternoon the same teachers with the same curriculum teach children who have been determined to be from the poorest families in the area.   In order to qualify for afternoon school, Nuevo Mundo must assess that the family cannot afford to send their child to public school because of uniform and school supply costs.   Aside from subsidizing the education of the afternoon school, the morning school fees also subsidize clinics, trade schools and after school programs in the barrios where the afternoon students travel to the city from each day.    My time at the Nuevo Mundo school revolutionized how I saw the ways in which the world could be changed.   It was not about charity or donations, instead it was about producing something so good that the rich want it and will pay enough for it that the poor can have it for free.   The lessons I learned from Nuevo Mundo would become some of the founding principles that I would pick up along my journey.  A journey that had just begun.

John Molina ’08, ’13