Omokhodion Iyore
Contributing Writer
When Thomas Duening, the Assistant Dean of the College of Business Administration, embarked on his May 19 trip to Ecuador with 11 students and one adviser, he knew that his venture to this Latin American country would be an exciting opportunity to learn more about the area. The purpose of the trip was to learn about the economics of the region, but, according to the participants, they learned much more than that.
Eduardo Soriano, Pedro Zambrano, Jaqueline Luna and Hulio Zabala of Escuela Superior Politecnica El Litoral, (the Graduate School of Sciences and the Arts), guided the UH contingent throughout their 10-day tour. Everyone was full of praise for these remarkable people, who guided the UH group "every hour and every minute," according to Maria Caffesse, a UH International Business graduate student who was on the trip.
Like her companions, this was Caffesse's first visit to Ecuador. Maria says that the opportunity opened her eyes and broadened her horizons regarding the South American country. Duening said, "The most important thing is what you're left with as a human being. To know that life is different a four-hour airplane ride away makes you look at America differently."
During their stay, they were given lectures at ESPOL, taken on field trips to study the Ecuadorian stock and capital markets and taken to business establishments to observe how business is run in the country.
In Guayaquil, the city where the students stayed, they observed a level of poverty alien to them. Houses with no electricity and dirty, unmaintained roads, as well as people begging on the streets and poor drainage all testified to the severe economic challenges facing the country. Duening said that the problems in Ecuador range from corruption and political instability, to the effect of El Niño on the banana crop (Equador's major export) and cultural resistance to the petroleum mining industry.
On May 24, the Ecuadorian independence day, the crew took a ride to the capital city, Quito, were they witnessed the "stunning independence day celebrations," according to Tina Nguyen, a graduate student in Business Administration. Most of the students said that they preferred the beautiful Quito to Guayaquil.
Finally, beginning Monday, the group went on a four-day cruise and tour of the Galapagos Islands. "It was another world," one student said.