The Middle of Happiness // by Grace Bourassa #objectsfromhome

For 3 weeks my mom, brother, and I traveled to Ecuador. We rode on boats, buses, planes, the back of trucks, and foot not knowing what to expect. During this time we learned how to ask for directions, live in a shelter with barely any windows, and turn on the water heater for a shower.

We went to teach English to kids and grown ups in Ecuador. My most memorable time with the kids was when I met a little girl. She soon attached herself to me and followed me everywhere. The little boys in the group would tease me to get me to chase them. Her being protective, would shout words I couldn’t understand but realized that it kept them away. One night after school hours, she took me by the arm and led me into the classroom. Pulling out a notebook she had made herself she began to draw a fruit. I then responded with “an apple?” and she nodded. This continued for a couple minutes and began to write the fruits in english. Then she stopped and handed me the marker. “You”, she said, wanting me to do it in Spanish. She would spell out the words for me helping both of us learn. It was at that moment I realized how lucky I was to be there.

The biggest struggle my family had was breaking the language barrier. We found a way to use games and hand gestures to make learning more exciting and easy. They also taught us games like using cards or a really rough way of tag. This game ended up changing my view on gender. The point of the game was to push the person really hard into a big dirt ditch, about the size of an unfilled pool. Back in LA there was no way we would play this, and if we did it would be like football, all boys. I was surprised when the boys started pushing me and wrestling with me. They didn’t “go easy” or let me win because I was “a girl”, that didn’t matter to them. The feeling of equality rushed through my blood and since that day, I never felt like I couldn’t do “mans work”.

These games also taught me that you don’t need a phone or physical objects in life to be happy. The kids I worked with barley had hot running water, wore the same clothes for a week, and lived in one of the poorest places. I went there imagining them to be depressed or hopeless. To my surprise they were some of the happiest people I had ever met. Their smiling faces helped me continue to push through the hard moments of such a big change in my living conditions. The dinners we ate on cracked old dishes didn’t even matter because we were too busy laughing and talking. It was freeing to be able to live life without the weight of social media or people competing with what they had on my shoulders.

By the end of this life changing trip, I felt like I had a new perspective on the world. While waiting for our flight home I realized that I didn’t have a souvenir with a meaning behind it. I looked around the airport and saw a seal sculpture. For some reason I was drawn to it and felt like I needed it. Now, 3 years later, whenever I see it on my desk I think back to the little girl, all her friends, the people who helped us on the journey and how I changed their lives while they changed mine.