THE FIRST SPANISH STUDENTS
It was the year 2000. On February 27th, indigenous people had overthrown the government of Jumil Mahuad, who had dollarized the country.
Dollarization came after devaluing the currency, which went from 5,000 sucres per dollar in October 1999 to 25,000 sucres per dollar.
This economic catastrophe produced a massive wave of migration and price gouging. People saw a 50-cent coin as worth 50 sucres and wanted to charge the same price in dollars for a carrot as they would in sucres.
At Mariscal Sucre Airport, crowds, thousands of people, waved goodbye to their relatives from behind the airport fences, with tears and anguish, as they didn't know what their parents would face, while the children were left in the care of relatives and especially grandparents. On Amazonas Avenue, in contrast, hundreds of American backpackers arrived, nearly 100 hostels sprang up, and the first internet cafes appeared, such as Papaya Net (which disappeared) and Ectotrackers, which was not only an internet cafe but also a one-on-one Spanish school that offered accommodation and Spanish practice through visits to tourist sites, restaurants, bus stations, etc. Students were accompanied by their teacher, who taught them not only how to use the language but also how to be polite, negotiate prices, and so on.
Students also had the opportunity to work in areas where the Foundation was developing community-based tourism. Their main task was to teach English to community members who were adapting their homes for tourists and to teach English to children and teenagers in schools.
At that time, Ecuador, along with Bolivia, was one of the cheapest countries in South America, and the one-on-one Spanish school, which was something new in the country, was located on Amazonas Avenue in a neighborhood called La Mariscal, also known as Greenland. The Spanish school started out as an internet café, since in those days the internet was just beginning in Ecuador. That internet café, one of the first in the city, initially had six computers, and the internet connection was via telephone.
When the internet began, Google didn't yet exist, and Microsoft had the most popular email service, but each country in the Eurozone had its own. The telephone connection was slow and preceded by a characteristic noise; then it could suddenly drop. When that happened, you had to wait several minutes to reconnect, and then users might leave, or you might have to charge them less because the connection time wasn't the 30 minutes they had paid for, but could be longer. And this was worse because when the connection was lost, everything they had written was lost.
The first Spanish teachers were the wife and daughters of the foundation's director. Later, students from the Central University were used, and a textbook was employed that facilitated learning in six weeks of classes across three levels: basic, intermediate, and advanced.
The first students were an Australian couple from Perth, at the far end of the country. He was a huge fan of boxing, and in those days, the Julio Cesar Hidalgo Coliseum hosted a Mexican-style wrestling show where the wrestlers wore masks. He was fascinated.
In this first group of students, there were also two Canadians who loved playing Frisbee and were extraordinary at the sport. It was amazing to see them throw the disc, and it circled the giant statue of the Virgin of Panecillo; it seemed like magic. Also participating in this group was a very tall and beautiful Australian woman who became the first volunteer. She began her work in the Amazon, where she went with one of the indigenous people from the Quichua communities of Pastaza, and visited some of the communities, such as Hola Vida. After spending a few days in Baños, she worked in the community for a week, then went to the coast to Cabo San Francisco, where Professor Jorge Santos gave her the opportunity to teach at the school he ran. Discovering the Amazon rainforest and the tropical rainforest along the Pacific coast changed her life. When she returned to Australia, she became interested in protecting nature and native cultures.
But the most famous of the first volunteers was a Finnish musician, who went to Octavalo and then by railcar to San Lorenzo on the Pacific coast. This railcar, which disappeared, was used for traveling on the roof of a car, along with others. Something about it fascinated him, as this is impossible in Europe. When he arrived at Cape San Francisco, he went to explore the interior of the rainforest until he reached a lighthouse that is still intact. It is the first lighthouse built by the Spanish in South America, and it is located in a place where it is possible to see whales when they migrate from June to October.
