Ecuadorian in The Netherlands

[erikafrom]

Hello dear all,

I just signed in ecuador.com and would like to introduce myself. I'm from Guayaquil, Ecuador, actually living in Rotterdam, The Netherlands for about 2 years.

I have travelled now and then in Europe and in the USA and I think I have seen beautiful places, but let me tell you this: Ecuador is such a beautiful country, I really have not felt impressed for any place I have seen because nothing can compare with the wild nature of my beautiful country.

Sorry if I sound arrogant when I talk about my country but I'm very proud of it

If you have questions or comments about my country, my people etc, please do not hesitate in telling it, after 2 years living here and hearing all kind of complains from foreigners -me included- about The Netherlands, I'm really curious to know how does other people see us.

Ok, hope this message finds everybody happy.

Chao!

[LaZeRiS]

If ur some dam proud of Ecuador why's ur ugly ass sitting in the netherlands. U must be an ugly biatch and and dam hamper on the Netherlands.

[meistersinger]

Hi Erika...from Guayaquil. I can imagine that spending time abroad makes anyone apreciate much more the native country. I live in Guayaquil and have traveled to many places of Ecuador, so I'm aware of the what amazing things nature gave us. Unfortunately powerful human actions have pushed many ecuadorians to move abroad, I hope you were not one of them but living in Netherlands on your own will. By the way I was wondering what does an ecuadorian have to say about living in Europe, a wider vision of the world will always be useful.

Best regards.

[erika]

Hello meistersinger.
You are totally right, you can say Ecuador is a very beautiful country, but as all the rest of the so called “undeveloped” we are the victims of all kind of enemies: corruption, depredation, poverty, ignorancy, globalization and of course victims of the "“elpful hands"”of other countries.
Ok but I don’t want to fall in political discussions, I guess this is not the right forum for that and to be honest, politics are not really my favorite.
Anyway, I moved here because I married with a dutch man in Ecuador (by the way, we tried to marry four times and every time we got another different “problem” about his papers, finally we got the point, thanks God for the corruption of the ecuadorian legal system  I was able to marry in the “Registro Civil” in Guayaquil). Then we confronted the two only options we had: to stay in Ecuador, enjoying the wonderful weather, beautiful nature and warm and kind people and search for a job for him, no good social security, health care system etc or to come to Holland to have bad weather the half of the years for the rest of our lives but to have all the benefits that this almost perfect social and economic system can bring.
If you ask me to compare both situations, I can say that the beauty in Ecuador is in its nature and the richness is in his natural resources, here the beauty is arquitectonic and the richness comes from the hard work of its inhabitants, the transportation, trading etc
I suppose that, as usual, some persons can think that I marry because of the visa (the typical clishe for the latins), my first husband was from USA and I never wanted to live there, I preferred to stay in Ecuador, because of a long list of reasons that it’s not relevant to mention.
I think it was a good step to come to live here, I have a great job (we pay lot of taxes but we receive lot of benefits) I was lucky to start with the “blessing of the inmigration police here, but that is not the situation of most of the rest of the “aliens” here –not mentioning the universal discrimination of course- it can be very difficult here when the person doesn’t have a visa, permission to work and a person that will assist you until you stablish and find a good job etc
Emotionally, it was a big culture shock for me and I’m still on my “adaptation process” (with very bad results hehe) because I miss my country, my family, my people, here people are very cold and too organized for my taste, they live with the agenda in the hands (and I mean even for the most private situations , that contrast can make the things for me very difficult sometimes. In the other hand, dutch men are very nice, funny and polite; duthc women, I find them very cold and with not many emotions (very beautiful for our latin parameters even they find to us, the latins, very beautiful also). Actually, I have a couple of female friends, one is from Italy and the other from Spain, our cultures are very similar and besides that, we have lot of other common situations in our lifes, of course also the dutch male friends of my husband, that are all very nice.
OMG, meistersinger, I really apologize for the long post, I promise I will try to write lesser as possible, I don’t want to be the “pain in the a..” of this forum… I see you already have one here LOL

Hoep my message find everybody happy!
Erika.

[meistersinger]

Hi Erika!

Thanks for the overview of your european experience, I think, as any other big change, it takes some time to accustom to new conditions. Even when this is not the right place to talk about wrong issues in Ecuador, experiences you mentioned, show that there are many things that must be changed and we cannot ignore them. They must be addressed to improve living conditions of ecuadorians here, and to avoid many be forced to go abroad, as we all know. It'd be fine if tech tools like this, let ecuadorians all around the world to identify best things found in the places they are in, and then they (I should say "we") start building a strong development proposal.

Well, those are some ideas...just thinking loudly!

Hope you to be fine and greetings to every ecuadorian there.