Student work from George Heriot´s School, Edinburgh.

Following on from my attack, one of the positive benefits has been the opening of student eyes around the globe to the precautions we all have to take when venturing into new territory. Particularly important for those about to embark on a GAP year.

Some words of advice from Fraser Monteith, age 17 from his essay work on my travels.

The golden rule in any large city is beware in the evenings where pickpockets proliferate especially in shady, dark shadow areas including all major parks, in addition crowded market areas, as well as trolley stations are easy targets for pickpockets.

The main areas populated by tourists, local bars or restaurants and late at night. Call a taxi prior to departing.

Know where the Policia de Turismo are situated and what they can do to help you. Take a taxi!.


From a task set to produce an essay on Quito, giving a take on the city from a local's perspective; work by Calum Jones age 17.

Although Quito appears to be nice for tourists, it’s a very different story for many of us residents. When people visit our city, they see the designer shops and expensive hotels in the centre, but they don’t realise that these only exist for them. Tourism does provide us with some jobs and it helps our economy, but the companies push property prices up and force out local business.

Because we don’t always get paid fairly for our work, we are forced to live illegally on the outskirts of town; our choice is between better housing or healthcare and education for our children. We don’t get any money from the Government, because they don’t know we exist.

Four years ago, the Governments of our continent met in this city to discuss free trade. This has only happened on a small level, and the money that has been gained has gone to foreign companies and the Government; the foreign companies send their profits back to their shareholders, and our Government uses its funds for the army or to build airports to bring more tourists to the city.

Many of our employment problems are the Government’s fault. They have put a lot of money into colleges and universities to train people for better jobs, but they haven’t created enough jobs. This means that the jobs the poor communities need are taken by the middle classes, and we are forced to beg or steal to make a living. With so little money in our communities, families turn on each other, terrorising our neighbourhoods in masked gangs.

If our situation is to change, we need the world to stop looking at our city and start looking at our people. We have been ignored for too long.


The experience of living near a volcano by Louise Hoban, age 17.

I live 140 kilometres away from the Capital of Ecuador.

My family and I have been greatly affected by the recent eruption of the volcano Tungurahua, which started to erupt on Wednesday. Five people have been killed and lots more are missing. The roof of my home has collapsed, and there is no electricity, our water is now undrinkable, which has caused our community many complications as we are living in extremely bad conditions. Our crops are very damaged which could cause a lot of difficulties as we need them to live off, and there is a thick layer of ash which will make it very difficult to grow anymore potatoes, corn, vegetables and grain for a very long time.

Also the rivers Patate, Puela and Chambo have been blocked by the debris which adds to the problems of restoring our village. Quite a lot of animals are dying of diseases and starvation. I don’t know how we’re going to live if we do not have any access to food or are unable to produce any.

My brother was injured badly while trying to flee and was taken to the nearby city of Riobamba. This is very upsetting but he is strong and healthy so should pull through.

Our village was not the only village directly affected, ten other villages were hit by the volcanic eruption.

I don’t think that we are ever going to be able to live back in our village again because we now don’t have any resources to live off of and make money and also because the volcano may erupt again and I do not wish for this disaster to be repeated as it was extremely traumatic.

It has happened before but it has never affected our village in such a horrific way. I hope that help will be sent soon, relief supplies have been promised but none have arrived.

I love my village very much but if I could choose to live somewhere else, I would because it is difficult to live somewhere that is unsafe and unstable. I also do not like living in a place that is a danger to my friends and family as it is very upsetting to see someone who you care for very much get hurt, and living where I do poses this threat to those who live around me.



QUITO-ECUADOR by Ursula Braun, age 17.

My name is Maria and I live in Quito the capital of Ecuador. I have lived here all my life with my family. My country is very beautiful, and I am proud to live here, however we have been affected by many disasters.

Ecuador is a less economically developed country, my brothers and I find it very difficult to make money for our sick mother to get better. Often we try to make money by helping tourists; locals aren’t interested and ignore us. However unfortunately little money is made from this, so often we have to travel along the streets and beg any foreigners for money, so we can help our mother. We live in a shanty town in the outskirts of the city. We do not get much clean water or food, yet for my family it’s important to stick together.

The days are hot, and the sun can be quite irritating, and make us much thirstier. We have a local water supply near by the shanty town yet it is difficult collecting the water as it is not available all times of the day and many others want it too. It is difficult tolerating the sun all day, but you get used to it after a long time of working in the sun. Nights are very cold, the sun sets around 6-7 o’clock and as soon as it’s gone it quickly gets a lot colder, especially when it’s slightly windy. Therefore nights can be very cold where warm clothes can be needed.

As well as this it is very difficult to live here with the natural disasters. There are many active volcanoes and the last one has recently erupted on the 16th of August 2006 140km away from Quito. This, making it very difficult for people who live around that area as many have lost their family and homes. Due to this a lot of people have also moved to the city to find new shelters and like my family, have ended up in a shanty town. This is not the ideal life and my dream has been to get properly educated and live in a real house.

Therefore I find it very difficult to live my life here, in Quito, as there are no opportunities for me to change my life style. Also due to natural disaster there are many problems for us locals to find new shelters and jobs.