Education and original thinking are the keys to success. A high school degree is the most important tool to achieving your goals. Imaginative ideas will get you noticed.
That's what I always thought.
But this is not true in Ecuador. There, imagination and formal schooling are luxuries.
For three months this summer, I lived in Chillanes, Ecuador, a very rural community in the Andes Mountains. The town is on a steep hill and only had one cobble-stone road. Cows and pigs walk the streets.
The town's economy is agricultural. Around the town and going up the sides of the two mountains are fields of wheat and corn.
A lot of small children live in the town, but few teenagers - everyone leaves as soon as possible to find work in the cities.
A week into my stay, SeA
