Homestays offer path out of poverty
The Province, Sun Aug 23 2009, Page: C4
Soledad Sanchez, 30, and many of her nieces wear traditional Otavaleño dress. KW photo.Bouncing through the backcountry of the Ecuadorian highlands in a pickup truck, I saw two small children merge onto the road, running to catch up.
It was late afternoon and I was being taken to my bed for the night — not a rural resort or a lodge but the homestead of an indigenous Quichua family.
The Quichua are a minority who make up about a quarter of the population in Ecuador. Like aboriginals in Canada, they have a long history of fighting for rights against the majority. In Ecuador, the majority are mestizos: people of mixed European and indigenous descent. There is a trend these days toward indigenous youths leaving their rural ancestral homes to find work in cities. Community tourism like the type I was about to experience is helping to counter this.
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Kate Webb
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