How Others See Us

For this blog, I decided to interview two Ecuadorian friends that I met climbing Volcan Pichincha a few weeks back. My original plan was to talk to my host parents, but I realized that they've been hosting American students for years, so their views are a little skewed.

I wasn't too surprised about their impressions of people from the US and I appreciated their honesty. They explained to me that their first assumption is that we are spoiled. Their second related assumption was that our parents pay for everything.

They were also surprised when I explained to them that my school has only about 2,000 students. Their image of college students in the US are huge schools and lots of partying.

They also view young adults from the US as more independent than the young adults in Ecuador. It's more common for ecuadorians to stay at home while they attend college and not move out of their parents home until they get married.

Our discussion ended with us agreeing happily that we're a lot more similar than we are different. We are all college students with similar interests and hobbies despite the fact that we live so far away.