I got on an airplane in Columbus, Ohio, on Wednesday, Dec. 22, and arrived in Quito in the wee hours of Thursday, Dec. 23, and plan to be in Ecuador until Feb. 19. I’ve gotten quite a few questions about it, so here goes.
Q. Did the Peace Corps send you?
No, I’m making this trip independently. The Peace Corps was planning to send me to The Gambia in western Africa to train elementary school teachers. I was scheduled to leave for that assignment on June 2, 2020. Then, in March of 2020, they recalled all their volunteers worldwide. They delayed my departure repeatedly and eventually asked me if I’d be willing to consider other assignments. I told them I would. It’s possible that while I’m in Ecuador (which is until Feb. 19), they’ll email me and tell me they want me to go to Country X and perform Assignment Y. If that happens, I’ll consider accepting, but I don’t want to wait around indefinitely for them to give me an assignment.
It’s unlikely that the Peace Corps would give me an assignment in any Spanish- or French-speaking country. The recruiter told me that they have enough applicants who are fluent in those languages that it’s unusual to send someone who isn’t already fluent in the language to any Spanish- or French-speaking country. It’s not impossible; they mostly do it if the person has some special skill that’s urgently needed in that country. Since my main selling points to the Peace Corps are demonstrated abilities to stick with a long-term project and to work independently, they’re not likely to send me to send me to a Spanish- or French-speaking country. Since Brazil isn’t a host country for Peace Corps volunteers, that pretty well rules out Latin America.
Q. Are you on assignment to report news from Ecuador?
No. At this point, I don’t speak Spanish well enough to conduct an interview. I have traveled independently through Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, and I’ve been able to get my needs met. Generally speaking, someone who wants to sell you a meal, a bus ticket, etc., will be patient with bad Spanish. But I don’t speak the language well enough to report news from here.
Q. Are you avoiding extradition?
OK, I’m pretty sure that was a joke, but no. If I were, I’d pick a country that has no extradition treaty with the United States. Every country in the Americas has such a treaty; the current extradition treaty between the United States and Ecuador has been in effect since 1941. (Russia and China do not, along with many other countries in Asia and Africa.)
Q. So what will you be doing?
I’ve enrolled in Spanish classes in Cuenca, a city in southern Ecuador, starting on Monday, Jan. 3. Most likely I’ll take classes for five weeks. I’ll also be staying with a host family while I take classes, which should also improve my Spanish quite a bit.
In addition to improving my Spanish, I’m going to learn more about whether a business idea I have here is viable. I don’t want to give the specifics of the idea to the world right now, but I know of a service that many of the 8,000 U.S. citizens (mostly retired folks) living in Cuenca really miss and can’t get now except at great expense. I have an idea for how to use economies of scale to make the service much more affordable.
Q. Why would you want to run a business in a developing country?
This business might be even more of a public service than being a Peace Corps volunteer. The thing with the Peace Corps is that they’re sending a certain number of volunteers into a country whether I participate or not. I think I’d be more effective than most PCVs (as Peace Corps volunteers are known), mostly because they’re typically in their early 20s with very little life experience. Many of them have never held down a job for a year, which is perfectly normal when you’re 22 years old. Some excel greatly and go far beyond what anybody could reasonably expect. Some flake out completely. A great many are somewhere between those extremes.
During the pre-pandemic times, the Peace Corps got about six times as many applications as it had positions available for PCVs. So they were turning away a lot of people who had the potential to do great things. If I don’t serve in the Peace Corps, that opens up a slot for a young person who needs this resume boost.
But if I don’t start this business, chances are that nobody else is going to do it. And if nobody starts this business, not only will the potential customer base not be served, but it means I won’t be spending money on renting a workspace, supplies and labor. The money I would spend in Ecuador to run this business wouldn’t be a huge boost to Ecuador’s economy, but every little bit helps.
Also, I like a challenge. There’s no doubt that this will be a challenge.
Q. Why specifically Ecuador? Why not some other country?
A big part of it is that it’s relatively easy to get a residency visa in Ecuador. Also, the fact that I have some knowledge of Spanish means I have something to build upon. Also, the particular business I’m looking into would require a large number of U.S. citizens in one place to make the economy of scale work, which I why I’m looking at Cuenca. It’s the third-largest city in Ecuador. (Guayaquil is the largest; Quito, the capital, is second largest.) And it has the biggest concentration of foreigners in the country.
Q. How are you doing with the high altitude?
I haven’t gotten sick from it. I do get tired more quickly, but I’ll probably have adjusted to it more after a few days. We’ll see how it goes after several weeks in the mountains. Quito’s elevation is 2,850 m (9,350 ft); Cuenca’s is 2,560 m (8,400 ft). I’ve been to higher places, such as La Paz, Bolivia, but the highest altitude where I’ve ever lived is Ely, Nevada, which is quite a bit lower at 1,962 m (6,437 ft).
On the plus side, high altitude means you don’t get ridiculously hot. Ecuador is on the equator (which is how it got its name), so heat is a real problem on the coast.