I joined my university’s MEDLIFE chapter for our first South American visit over my freshman spring break. Each day we set up a mobile clinic at different sites around the underprivileged local community. Together, our group benefitted 1,578 patients in one week. One of the coolest things was that the doctors were Ecuadorean, removing any culture gap and thus allowing patients to feel more comfortable, as well as ensuring that the professionals were familiar with common symptoms and disease. The patients were polite and timid as we interacted with them in broken Spanish and took their vitals.

 

 

Although the professionals all volunteered their own time to participate in clinical outreach with us, two members of the MEDLIFE team stood out to me. One was the dentist, running around playing soccer with the kids during breaks, passing the volleyball with us before we boarded the busses, and giving all his dental tools a nickname so it was easier for us to hand them to him. “Golfo” meant the one that looked like a golf club. Despite all the teeth he pulled, he was the happiest guy to be around. His rotation was my favorite.

 

 

 

Karen, and Afro-Ecuadorean herself, was the sweetest nurse who was laid-back and fun. She became close with R, so much so that they traded jewelry with each other on the last day. Definitely could count on her to make me smile. We salsa danced in the classrooms with both la dentista and Karen.

 

Above all else, the best day was project day. Being in such a tropical region, the land is often muddy, creating a dangerous hazard for villagers trying to access the river that ran downhill from their homes. According to MEDLIFE, if you go out and actually ask the locals what they need most, it’s not an expensive mansion-looking clinic that often is unsustainable and bound to be abandoned. The answer is stairs.

 

 

We wheeled loads of gravel under the sun to mix with cement powder and water (hauled up by us from the river where I first-hand experienced how a villager might find themself face-planting on a daily basis). It took forever, and the heavy mixing was still done by the Ecuadorean farmers working with us. I still have scars from the wet cement pieces scraping and drying against my legs all day, trying to pass those buckets and not drop them everywhere. I’m not the only one. Hours passed and only a few new steps got added; we worked so hard. These flies kept landing on me and drawing fresh blood. My shirt was illegible. But I had the time of my life.

 

 

I befriended some great people that week, and especially that day. Kevin turned out to be the most fun to talk to while we labored and he tried hard to keep his tank top clean. R almost passed out from laughing at me before the day’s work started: I jumped from a higher bank to a lower sand bank trying to explore, and immediately sunk to my knees. I basically had to dig out my shoes because they were stuck in the sludge and refused to stay on my feet, and then wade through village run-off that smelled suspiciously like sewage toward the main river. All the while our guides up above were shouting if we were okay, and we said of course we were, happy that the fronds of banana trees blocked their view.

 

 

The river itself is where we all headed after we finished. No one cared about parasites or E. coli anymore. We all jumped in and let ourselves fall backwards. Of course, I wasn’t swimming with mouth open and head underwater or anything insane like that. My favorite river moment was running after Kevin (which is very inelegant when waist-deep in water) as he ran after our guide to this tiny wooden raft, and other students pulling us back. Life didn’t feel real.

 

 

But really, I was high off happiness. The entire hour-long ride home, I smiled out the bus window. The corners of my mouth were not in my control, I didn’t care that the warm river water was squelching out of my wet clothes and trickling down my legs every time the bus came to a stop and the seats leaned forward because they weren’t nailed down that well. It didn’t bother me that hand-sanitizer we had on hand was stinging me in places that I was now missing skin. I trusted the breeze to dry me off, Ecuador out the window was nothing but green, and I was enjoying every bit of it.

**Note: I highly recommend volunteering with the nonprofit MEDLIFE, but it took a chunk out of my wallet. Their website has a 50/50 fundraising campaign and I did work a few football concessions with peers, but it’s all tedious and takes a tremendous amount of time if you want to reduce your costs by any significant amount. I’ve since found workaway.info and other sites that coordinate individual work exchanges, where hosts will often house and/or feed you in return for part-time labor. This is for the more adventurous and broke, being budget-friendly as it removes the services and fees that add up, it allows you to pick your own flights and itinerary, and truly connects you with a network of natives who will happily accompany you when you have time to explore the other parts of your destination.