Perspective: Samborondón vs. Durán, by Ryan Truby

            Today after we hung out with the patients at Casa Damien and went to mass in their chapel, we all got in the Casa Damien van and drove to Samborondón. We could already tell that Samborondón was a unique and gorgeous place before we even entered the town.  Once in the town we saw gated communities lining the right side of the town, a mall that looked as if only the best could enter, fast food restaurants that were surprisingly fancy (it was weird to see a McDonalds that looked like a high-end restaurant), and parks and fields that were turfed and kept clean. As we drove in to Samborondón there were large water fountains with beautiful statues that were bright and glistening in the sun. We visited a school called Nuevo Mundo  that makes Woodside High school look as if it needs new classrooms and buildings. At the school we talked to the kids who attend Nuevo Mundo. The kids we talked to were in tenth grade and if they performed  exceptionally well on their exams they would move on to high school and into the morning classes. If a child does not place in the top portion of their class scoring wise, then they cannot move onto high school at Nuevo Mundo. The kids who cannot move on to high school have the option to attend high school at a public school. The primary classes (elementary and middle school) were held in the afternoon and obviously called the afternoon classes. We split off into groups with two people from our group and five kids from the classroom sitting in a circle and just talking. We all learned what they like to do, and they learned what we like and activities we enjoy doing.

            Samborondón was an absolute trip, I do not think anyone expected the town to look like that based on what we were told about Ecuadorian towns not being as modern or updated as towns or cities in the United States. Seeing Samborondón first made Durán a complete mind blower in how two towns so close to each can be so different. The people in Durán are not nearly as fortunate as people in Samborondón. There is no access to running water, buildings are broken down and old, there a stray dogs and cats running everywhere, tons of garbage in the canal, no fast food or any fancy restaurants. Some people cannot even afford a home in Durán, so they live in shacks made out of bamboo, and planks of wood. To get water, a water truck goes around delivering barrels of water to people who then put it on top of their roofs and attach it to a pipe where the water would flow through when needed. The parks were broken down, dirty, and there was hardly any plants or greens anywhere. Durán had the fields of rice plants, that were usually swamps during the rainy season, but there was garbage just lying on the side of the fields that would mix in with the fields come the rainy season. There was one school in Durán which is a preschool. That preschool holds about fifty children, and it feeds into Nuevo Mundo. We were told that the preschool was built because the parents could not afford to have child care so the toddlers and young children were home alone by themselves.

            As you can tell Samborondón and Durán are such different places even though they were only separated by a bridge. To me it made no sense in how Samborondón has water running through their fancy statues, and in Durán people don’t even have access to running water from pipes. This all reminded me of a book called The Hunger Games written by Suzanne Collins. In The Hunger Games there are two separate classes; the rich and the poor. The rich are separated from the poor with a wall around their city and they only live in luxury. The poor have to struggle to survive and make a living, while living in worse conditions and farming food for the rich. There are similarities between the book and the two towns and it blows my mind because The Hunger Games is supposed to be a dystopia, the worst case scenario where the world takes a turn for the worst. Seeing this confused me on why Samborondón just didn’t help out Durán, because they had much more and look as if they could give to Durán to improve people’s lives. Today really changed my and I think all of our perspectives on how good some people have it and how little others have and that we can all do something no matter how big or small to help out others who are not nearly as fortunate as us.