I, like many Americans, am solely a consumer. I don’t know how to hand craft…really anything. I’m used to walking into giant stores such as Target and browsing a plethora of things. Just an enormous amount of “stuff” everywhere. Some things I’d consider to be necessities, but others are wild variations of anything and everything you can imagine. I also take access to this mass amount of stuff for granted. And when I buy things at these stores, or any store, I pretty much never think about where they came from or how they were made. Honestly, I never felt the need to. Many of the things I buy are probably just made in a factory in China!

That is my reality, but it has been eye-opening to see first hand that this is definitely not the case for everyone. My impression is that in general, the economy is much more localized here in Ecuador. You don’t see large chain stores, instead you see street vendors who sell everything from four-for-a-dollar churros to alpaca wool sweaters, and just about anything else you could want. The grocery stores are usually small markets, in sharp contrast to my “local” massive chains- Safeway and Costco.

Beyond these things, however, what has been most astounding to me is seeing how certain crafts are made by hand. I’ve had the privilege of seeing several things made by hand while I’ve been here, most recently jewelry and guitars. Last weekend we took a trip to a few towns just outside Cuenca. One of our first stops was at the house of a father and son who hand make guitars. They gave us an overview of the lengthy and detailed process of making the guitars and showed us their selection of gorgeous guitars. Below is a few that weren’t yet completed.

Our next stop was in a town that had a mind-boggling number of jewelry stores. We spent a while browsing the stores, and I bought a super cute pair of llama earrings (shown below)! There was a seemingly endless supply of phenomenally intricate jewelry.

After that, we went to another family’s house, and we had the opportunity to learn how they make jewelry completely by hand. The man walked us through the whole process, from flattening out the silver into a thin wire-like thread (which looked quite tiring, and takes many hours) to creating the magnificent shapes that the jewelry is sold in. They showed us some of their completed work and it blew my mind that they were able to make such lovely jewelry.

The entire time I was listening to these people share with us how they make these beautiful items, I was in complete awe. Had I only seen the guitars or jewelry in stores or mercados, I never would have guessed that they were made completely by hand. Being from somewhere where it is unusual to come across many things that are hand-made, I would have completely underestimated the amount of hard work that went into making them. Seeing all of this has completely shifted the way I look at things I want to buy, and it has given me a great appreciation for every item that I see being sold here.