I am a list maker. When it came time to think about JYA, I made lists of countries, lists of programs, lists of pros and lists of cons. I collected brochures, searched Wikipedia and interviewed everyone I knew who had ever been abroad. After all of that work, I chose a program in Quito, Ecuador run by Duke University for a very short list of reasons: They speak Spanish, they have mountains, and I was tired of looking. 

It has been eight days since I arrived in Quito, and each day I have thanked fate, the stars and Lisa Paravasini for pointing me in this direction. When I arrived at the Quito International Airport, my program director greeted with me with not one, but two huge bear hugs and a kiss on the cheek. The next day, my host family gave me the same welcome, as did the other thirty or so people who had come to collect their own nervous American hijitos.  Everyone I met – neighbors, guides, cashiers, waiters – welcomed me warmly and declared their certainty that I would love their country, that it was the most linda, the most hermosa pais (NOTE TO EDITORS! I can´t figure out how to put an accent on the i in pais in the body of the email, but there should be one! Thanks, I´ll try to figure out accents for next time…) in the world. They have a right to be proud. I spent the ensuing days busing around Quito and the surrounding area with my fellow students, our program directors, and our bus driver, David, who looks like the Ecuadorian Harpo Marx. Natural beauty here is all-encompassing, and the big ciudades and little pueblos alike have grown up in its presence and taken on its magic. And the mountains are everywhere. 

This summer, I made a “to-do” list for my semester abroad. It included going bird-watching, making music, trying an Ecuadorian craft and learning to cook Ecuadorian food. Now that I´ve arrived, I´ve added a few things to my list, including summiting the volcano Cotopaxi and learning to use a Spanish computer keyboard. But my biggest goal for the semester is making this country a place I can come back to, whether in one year or ten, whether to visit or to stay. It´s turning out to be easier than I thought.