Coming to RecrearMagnify for the second time you think you kind of know what to expect. But the first day of the conference proved this assumption to be wrong at least for me. Everything is new and exciting, but most importantly we are pushing to reflect on everything we’ve done as an organization and, furthermore, on such existential questions as “what does development mean?” The excitement of coming to a new country, in fact, to a completely unknown continent and re-uniting with the Recrear team is even stronger.
Here are just a few highlights I have of the past 2 days in Quito. My first impression of the city was at the airport, which was very much like the one in my home city Kazan, and bargaining with a taxi-driver (speaking English, thank God!). Well, my bargaining skills were obviously not that good, because eventually I had to pay 10 dollars. The empty streets of the late night Quito after days of travel made me wonder do I really want to be here? Sunny morning wandering around the city center gave me a simple answer: YES! I fell in love with Quito from the first sight!
After the first relaxing morning things went so fast that I just didn’t have time to realize all the emotions I was experiencing, not to mention all the thoughts running through my head. Great joy of meeting old and new Recrear members, delicious dinner and a whole day of working together – I’ve enjoyed all of that a lot.
The best thing I realized during the speakers’ sessions was that, despite the work I’ve done in the previous year, I have so much more to learn…and I love it. I have discovered so many similar patterns between Quito and Russia, which I would never have thought. I have challenged myself with questions I still don’t know the answers for, but I’m hoping to get my answers soon.
The conference has just started, but we are all in a working mood and that’s exciting because the next week we will be spending on the coast doing a team building training and running a workshop and I am really looking forward to that. RecrearMagnify welcome to Ecuador!
~Sasha
