El Comercio from July 20, 2005.A co-worker had asked if I would agree to being interviewed for a piece his cousin was doing for one of the national papers. The main theme is why foreigners come and stay in Ecuador.
What had not been expected was to see my face on the front page above the fold. The headline reads, "More foreigners make the country their second home."
The section where the story ran is called "Daily Life" and the heading of the article says, "Business and tourism are the magnets".
The tendency is that even though immigration doesn't count statistics from resident foreigners, in the previous five years the number of people entering the country is growing.Here is the translation of what they wrote for me.
The Canadian Barry Hamm (43 years) on the other hand, arrived in Ecuador in 1995 to visit some friends. "Really, I fell in love with the country, I liked the people, the views, here there is everything, desert, land and ocean." After this first view, he didn't give it another thought and has been living in Quito a little more than six years.
His career as a missionary brought him to work with HCJB Radio as Director of Information Systems. Here he married an Ecuadorian and today they have a baby 14 months old. His first visa was a missionary visa, renewable every two years and currently he says that he has a spousal visa. "I'll be here until God takes us to another home," he adds with enthusiasm.
