Clean air and fresh juicy fruit.

Step up your Spanish with courses available online and at the two Spanish-teaching threads on this Ecuador forum.

For most new arrivals in an obscure though enchanting province near the Peruvian border, the beauty of nature will charm for only so long before the need for good human communication starts to become paramount.

Diligence and patience:  even with daily practice, it took me two years here before I started to feel comfortable doing more than buying fruit at the mercados (which is easy because anybody can point to a tray of oranges and hold up three fingers ).

What town or canton are you near?

cccmedia in Quito

Heartwarming wrote:

Hola from Morona Santiago. I've discovered a new way of living since beginning my stay in Ecuador. I've been staying at a vegan community and learning about how to care for plants and fruit trees. We live near the jungle so it's beautiful and peaceful. The wild flowers smell amazing and the river which we have private access to caresses the body deeply. I've been eating and trying so many delicious fruits here like rolinia, soursop, oritos, maracuya and grenadilla. My body and mind is slowly but surely becoming healthier and I'm happier than I've been in a while. I'm slowly learning more Spanish. I can manage to buy fruits and vegetables at the market or take bus trips with little anxiety but conversations in Spanish are a bit repetitive and challenging to understand. I've found the local dialect is difficult to interpret at times. I've been teaching a self-care class using massage, Reiki and stretching. I appreciate help in being a better communicator of personal health. I look forward to connecting with people and welcome all.

This is one of the lovely things about Ecuador it can accommodate an array of lifestyles. Contrasting your lifestyle I live in the capital and enjoy my lifestyle very much thanks to this lovely country. As for Spanish, recently I watched a lecture by Professor Peter Vishton in which he stated that researchers gathered data from many experts in many fields and they more or less concluded that people achieved their expertise by accumulating around 10,000 practice hours.

We can definitely include Spanish as something that one can become an expert at. While this may seem impossible for many expats the point is always strive and accumulate practice hours as 100 is better than none and 1000 is better than 100. So really the sky is the limit for people who are motivated in learning Spanish. Lastly, understand that the learning curve for learning a language is not simply an upward trend as there are ups and downs, but as long as you continue to invest your time into improving the more proficient you'll be.

Indeed. I've learned a lot and strive to learn more. Thanks for the note.