Jesuits have been working in Quito, Ecuador, a city on the equator, for over 135 years. San Gabriel, their high school in this city ringed by the Andes Mountains (10,000 feet above sea level), has a reputation for excellence for a variety of reasons.

Some of the school's fame is due to famous alumni; several Ecuadorean presidents, including the current one, Fabián Alarcón, studied there. As far as academics are concerned, San Gabriel's alumni are routinely accepted at Ecuador's top colleges and universities, including the Jesuits' Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador and La Politécnica Nacional. The school's many clubs, such as photography, music, languages, and art, and its modern computer lab with its Internet connections are a great attraction for students, as is its success in sports such as soccer, mountain climbing, and ecuavolley (a version of volleyball with only three on a side).

But San Gabriel is known as well for its Christian commitment to the poor. Its juniors tutor children of imprisoned women; sophomores work with poor families in barrios or tutor indigenous children at grammar schools; seniors teach health education to campesinos in small rural communities. Some students go on extended misiones to villages in the country, while some of the faculty work with street kids.

Below six of the school's students, faculty, and staff explain what it means to be a Gabrielino, a member of the San Gabriel community.

CAMPUS MINISTER
Fr. Hernán Paredes, SJ

Three years ago I was appointed the director of campus ministry at San Gabriel. It was a big challenge; the declining number of Jesuits in Ecuador coupled with a new generation of students required a new vision and commitment.

I had the task of hiring faculty, and this included secular as well religious women for the first time in San Gabriel's history. Many of the male faculty were not all that happy when I hired Sr. Vicenta Zambrano, a member of the Divine Providence order, to teach religious education. Shortly after, other nuns were hired, including Dominicans and Marianitas, also to teach religious education. It was not long before one of those male faculty told me he didn't realize how wrong he had been and how wonderful it was to see students and even some of the male faculty sharing their lives with the sisters. Now, women constitute 30 percent of the faculty.

Because there are only two Jesuits on the faculty of 80 (just a few years ago there were more than ten Jesuits at the school), one aim I have for campus ministry is to teach the faculty the visión Ignaciana through workshops before the school year starts and three-day retreats at a villa about an hour from Quito.

But my biggest challenge is helping students become people for others. These primarily middle-class students sometimes forget that in this country there are over 2 million people their age who are not able to go to school, and that 70 percent of the population live under the poverty level.

This is the context in which the faculty -- Jesuit, other religious, and lay -- teach and develop social projects at our school. In a very real way San Gabriel has its center not in itself but in the reality of the poor.

AN ALUMNUS
Ramiro Novoa, math teacher

In Ecuador, obtaining a university diploma is the goal of every high school graduate. My alma mater, San Gabriel, gave me the skills to earn a BS in mechanical engineering at the Escuela Politécnica del Ejército, where I taught for a few years before joining San Gabriel's math faculty about six months ago.

But I am one who looks at a university education not as an ultimate goal but rather as a way of providing me with opportunities to serve my community.

My Jesuit education at San Gabriel did not end when I graduated in 1988. It had a double impact on me: in my heart, where I felt a love for God as my creator; and in my spirit, where I felt united with my fellow Ecuadoreans -- especially with those suffering poverty and pain. My motto for my life has been Ser más para servir mejor, Be the best in order to serve better, something I think is in keeping with the ideals of Ignatius.

In my work as a math teacher and with the Social Acción group at San Gabriel I want to be my best as a professional in order to serve the school that gave me such a good formation.

MISIÓN EXPERIENCE
Alberto Araujo, junior

San Gabriel High School's service program offers students a chance to go out to small villages in Ecuador in order to be with the farming people and share with them the good news of the Gospel. For me, this misión experience has been an opportunity to transform words into deeds; it is certainly not a time for rest and relaxation. Quite the opposite. My two-week misión experience took me and eighteen fellow students to Manabi, a rural community. The trip there took eight hours by bus, another two by truck, and an hour hiking after that.

Once there, we helped villagers with farming chores and shared the Gospel with them. We discovered a people, descendants of an indigenous group named Cojimies, with little in the way of material wealth but abounding in love and ambition.

We lived with different families in humble conditions during our stay. My own hosts were Carlos and Estela Pinargotes and their children, Carlitos, Jorge, Abel, and Azucena. We had electricity, but only for a few hours a day. Water we drew from a well. (It was privately owned, and the owner charges the villagers too much. There is hope that the government will buy the well and provide its water free to the villagers.)

Up at 6:00, my fellow Gabrielinos and I headed to a community house for breakfast. The choices for breakfast (and lunch and dinner) were easy: fish, rice, and juice are the staples of this poor community.

Early mornings we were busy helping villagers with their crops. Planting watermelons, bananas, and pumpkins was rough work for those of us not used to this life. And El Niño had recently been the cause of enough rain to destroy some of the harvest.

There was also time for teaching catechism to a class of about 30 children. And later in the day we would visit homes to sit and chat with the people about their happy and sad moments, their problems and troubles, their joys and delights. In the afternoons and evenings we would gather with the Catholics and share with them Bible readings and the teaching of the Church. I consider the misión a positive experience that helps us to mature and to become better Christians.

A JESUIT WOMAN
Dr. Margarita Arauz, campus ministry adviser

Dr. Margarita Arauz, here with visiting Colombian Jesuit Fr. Leonardo Rincón, works in campus ministry and serves the Jesuits' Ecuador Province as provincial assistant for secondary education.

I first encountered the pedagogical world of the Society of Jesus in 1987, when I wrote a research paper about Jesuit high school administration in the past century. My findings interested me so much that I started reading whatever I could get my hands on about Jesuit schools. I discovered that Jesuit involvement in school administration had been so intense and original that it led to their prominence as the leading educators in Ecuador.

Since then, as a lay teacher I have found myself working with Jesuits and in some way being a Jesuit woman. What a privilege! Currently, I work as campus ministry adviser at San Gabriel and assistant to the provincial on behalf of the schools for the Jesuits' Ecuador province. I do my work as any lay woman around the world would do and think that it is related to the events of the Jesuits' last general congregation. The joys and the sorrows of the Jesuits are my own. The Jesuits at San Gabriel and those at the province office enable me to discover the glory of God as well as academic excellence, just as Jesuits do around the world.

AN IMPORTANT COMPLEMENT
Patricia Erazo, Spanish literature teacher

Working at San Gabriel at the task of education has indeed been a gratifying experience for me in my profession. I graduated from Catholic University in Quito and have been teaching at San Gabriel for six years now: Spanish grammar to eighth graders and Spanish literature, including the works of Pablo Palacios, María Granata, and Gabriel García Marquez, to seniors. My work allows me to teach students who really want to learn about our stories and customs.

At this school the principles of solidarity and social service have top priority. As educators, we are searching for an integral formation for the students. The goal is challenging: we want to stay in the forefront in our field of education. So many primary and secondary schools around us place too much emphasis on learning facts, data, and empirical information. We so need to focus on the human being not simply as a number or a statistic but as a real person with transcendent value.

Often, after classes finish on a school day, a considerable number of the students stay at school and get involved in some social work at a home for the elderly or an orphanage or the children's hospital, for instance. Their impulse for this service doesn't come from pressure to get a good grade but from the honest enthusiasm they feel when they bring joy to the lives of fellow human beings.

San Gabriel is a place where academic achievement and the quest for human values are kept in balance.

A GABRIELINO
Christian Díaz, junior

A Gabrielino is a person who is concerned about people and committed to being the best in order to serve better. We students at San Gabriel are privileged. The school offers such a fine education and we sense the patronage and protection of the school's patron, La Virgen Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows.

But then, being a student at San Gabriel is not a breeze. We have to maintain a decent grade point average. Such a competitive struggle in academics has the benefit of preparing us for the "real" world when we leave our Jesuit alma mater.

There's one decisive factor in our formation that will make a difference: Gabrielinos are taught to care about people in need. In the future, we will be ready and available to sacrifice our time to help the underprivileged. Being a student at San Gabriel is a superb experience for a teenager who is ambitious and desires to set and achieve goals.

Page maintained by Richard VandeVelde, vande@math.luc.edu. Copyright(c) Company Magazine, 1998. Updated:9/6/98