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Tag: Ecuador

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What Does Risk Have To Do With It Anyway?

Are you a “risk manager?” We don’t often hear that question bandied around at family reunions or pizza parties. But that doesn’t mean that we adults are not aware of the risks involved in our lives–in fact, risk is one of the driving concerns in our daily choices. We may not realize or acknowledge our attempts to manage risk, but we do it all the time. In this blog, I will examine how risk management can affect our choices and practices, especially in family vacations.

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When Fear Calls Your Name

“Phil, I have to turn around.” At 19,000 feet on Cotopaxi in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador, we could see the summit and smell its volcanic sulfur. Physically, I was strong, but emotionally, I was drained and frightened. After rounding a 60-foot ice column, a nightmarish fear came from out of nowhere, and its shock overtook me, shattering the thin veneer of swagger I had been carefully building since our first day in country. 

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What $20 Means Among the Poorest of Us

We are just past the halfway point of our 6 weeks in Ecuador and it has been remarkably good. I wish I could say I was now fluent in Spanish but I am still regularly making the most ridiculous comments. Yesterday I was trying to encourage an Ecuadorian pastor and his wife to eat the healthier brown rice instead of the Ecuadorian standard white by saying “mucho gusto.” I was trying to say that I really liked the brown, but ended up saying that I was “pleased to meet them.” So they remained unconvinced, but laughed a lot at least.