Photo Story
An Ecuadorian Mother’s Slogan: Don’t Work, Don’t Eat
ID # 2888
Introduction
This photo story takes place across Ecuador, located on the west coast of South America. I spent last summer working with Social Entrepreneur Corp, a program that supports women who sell products and services that improve the quality of lives in rural areas. Over the course the summer I noticed a theme. Children, regardless of their age, were actively involved in home life. They took on roles that I never even knew existed as a youngster. This photo story focuses on the participation of children in the family workload in some households in Ecuador.
Objective: Students will be able to compare their roles at home to the roles of specific populations of children in rural Ecuador.
This photo story is geared toward students in Grade 5.
Photo One: Jorge’s 2nd Birthday Gift
Photo One: This is Jorge. I’m Jorge too, in Ecuador at least. Little Jorge is three years old and he is pretty shy, but he is always working. He helps his mom with what tasks she is working on. I met him as he was picking worms out of corn to prepare for lunch. His sisters told me that he’s been helping around the house since he was two. Because there was so much to get done at home everyone had to help. These jobs included cleaning, cooking, and feeding the animals. What chores are you in charge of at your house?
Photo Two: Capturing Clean Water
Photo Two: In this picture I’m with Jorge’s sisters. They help their mom with all kitchen-related duties. They prepare the food and make sure that there is enough “clean” water to cook and clean.
In the photo they’re helping me test water from a water filter that I sold in Ecuador. Our team conducted water quality surveys with adults; questions included “What are the benefits of purified water?”. Children often knew the answer better than their parents: to prevent sickness.
Not everyone in Ecuador has access to clean water. The government only builds pipes in places where there are a lot of people. In areas without many people, called rural areas, Ecuadorians have to find other ways to get clean water. Jorge’s sisters collect water from a stream and boil it so that the bad bacteria in the water dies. Do you do anything to make sure that your drinking water is clean?
Photo Three: Hard, Hard Workers
Photo Three: The field shown in the picture was filled with trash and old tires so thick the sand wasn’t visible. One Saturday, our team cleaned up the field. Within twenty minutes, four hardworking youngsters showed up to help us clean the field. It was hard to work because the temperate was 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We all picked up dead animals, rolled away car tires, and dug up weeds. The children worked harder than all our volunteers combined. Now the field is clean! Is you saw some people cleaning a field, would you offer to help them? Do you prefer to work inside or outside?
Photo Four: The Saturday Tradition
Photo Four: I stayed with a family in the mountains of Ecuador. Ecuador has three different geographical areas- coast, jungle, and mountains. There are many different types of people in Ecuador. Some live in a big cities with lots of cars, traffic, and Fast Food. Other people live in small villages without access to running water.
I lived with family who had a weekend family routine. Every Saturday they would all get up at 6am and walk several miles up the mountain to work their small plot of land. The field they owned was used to grow potatoes to feed the family. I helped plow the field one day. The mom, who was stronger than me, laughed as I had to stop for breaks while she kept swinging her farm tool without breaks. Has there been a time when you worked so hard that you had to take lots of breaks?
Photo Five: Don’t Work, Don’t Eat
Photo Five: The family in the mountains had a daughter named Michelle. I asked the mom if it was typical for children as young as Michelle to work in the fields. The mom answered in Spanish, “If they don’t work, they don’t eat.” And she meant it. Her children spent about three hours helping out at home every day. Michelle was in charge of cutting grass to feed the farm animals and skinning potatoes for soup.
This family grew most of the food that they ate. Because there was no grocery store nearby it was cheaper to grow vegetables and raise animals to eat. Many families in Ecuador have grocery stores very close to their homes, but this family had to do a lot to prepare their meals. What do you to do to help prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
Photo Six: Bean by Bean
Photo Six: The children from the family in mountains helped without complaining or needing to thanked. They understood that they played a very important role in their family’s health and well-being. If they didn’t help make dinner, who would help? Their parents were very busy with their jobs as nature guides and artisans.
Michelle had to walk two miles in order to get enough clean water to take her weekly bath. However, when she was clean she grinned for hours. Luis, Michelle’s little brother, would make peeling beans from their skin fun by singing while he did it. He would practice English by counting every bean. What is a difficult activity that you have to do, but you find a way to make it fun?
Photo Seven:
Photo Seven:
Luis, who I lived with in the mountains, loved to play cards at the end of the day. After washing the dishes from dinner with his family, they would gather around the small dining room table for two quick games of cards before bed time. Luis never forgot. He always reminded his parents that this was their way of rewarding their children for a hard day of work.
During the games, Luis and his sister, Michelle, giggled as they secretly traded cards under the table. Their parents were sometimes outsmarted by their children. The kids won almost every game. This was the family’s time favorite part of the day. At the end of the second game, the yawns got louder and everyone made their way to bed to get well rested for another day of school and work. What does your family do to celebrate after finishing a difficult task?
Conclusion
Each child taught me so much. They taught me how to be helpful and happy. Each child had a lot of talents from shucking and cleaning corn to cutting the right grass for the guinea pigs to eat, an Ecuadorean speciality. I was amazed at how fast my seven year old sister could slice potatoes without even looking! She would sit on a bucket with me as I peeled green beans and sing songs in Spanish as she prepped the ingredients for that meal’s soup. I used to complain when my mom asked me to take out the trash. The lively, contented spirit of each kid caused me question how I spent my time as a child. My parents expected very different things from me. I never helped prepare dinner until I was in high school. My afternoons were spent focusing on homework and going to swim practice. Growing up with a completely different set of expectations in rural Ecuador produced children who are incredibly mature and genuinely happy with whatever they have.
Photo Credits
All photos were taken by George Ramsay.