Ziling Liang - May 19th - Blog Fourteen

During the tour in the Mercado Artisinal, I saw a lot of products that are unique. In other words, the merchandises people sell on the market represent Ecuadorian culture. For example, the patterns of blankets are different than other countries', especially after I have been to Otavalo market last week, I really can tell the styles of these crafts are part of Ecuadorian culture. Therefore, selling local products play a big role in spreading out the culture.

From my visits in Neque, I have learned that these kids need people's love. They are lovely and friendly to all of us, which made our volunteer job ran smoothly. And because I only have two times of service experiences before, my working in Neque impressed me the most compared to the ones I had before. Typically, I knew I was not supposed to be talking with the kids in Spanish, I tried to observe more of their behaviors by their body languages or movements or facial expression. I realized that when the language does not work well for me, I will work harder and also learn more. I had close relationships with several kids in Neque, who have understood the difference among our languages and would like to use another way like gestures to communicate. They greatly changed my thought of service because this was the first time I feel like I am not volunteering but enjoying.


In the cooking activity with our professors, we learned the way in which native people cook, which is another experience of food. We ate native foods before, but cooking is another lesson that can increase the knowledge about food culture in Ecuador. Even though, to my surprise, people use knife to peel potatoes' skin, which I have never seen before, classmates in our group still kept trying. With the practice of peeling, we all kind of have learned peeling by knifes. This challenge might seem small, but in my opinion, being able to accept the way people live in in different culture help get into the intercultural communication.

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