Blog Post #16 - The Good and the Bad

Although there are many different examples of great intercultural communication from our adventures in Ecuador, but one of my favorite examples comes from Thea’s blog post about Neque y mas Neque. She discusses connecting “with the children through play,” which is a language that everyone, young and old, understands. We didn’t need to know Spanish in order to be able to communicate effectively in an intercultural manner. We just played games, helped with homework, and just spent time creating relationships through the language of play.

Another example of great intercultural communication I draw from Zane’s post about BellaVista. “Millipedes, frogs, and hummingbirds drove the point home that this area was alive with a rich profusion of life,” he says. Similar to how play is a universal language, I believe that nature is a universal language as well. Sharing the hike together with our tour guide was a language all its own. Even though our tour guide spoke English, the silences were shared interculturally. As Zane said, the millipedes and frogs were of Ecuadorian culture and they shared their own language with all of us.


One not so great example of intercultural communication was visible in multiple blog posts from Mitad del Mundo. I found that between the fast-paced tour and the unclear or false explanations for happenstances at the equator, the intercultural communication between ourselves and the tour guide was distinctly lacking. Elizabeth’s blog post about Mitad del Mundo tackled the awkwardness surrounding the practice of shrinking heads, while my own post discussed how the speed at which our tour guide was taking us through the museum really prohibited us from fully comprehending the significance of the location we were at. 

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