All of our Au Pairs from Ecuador have experience with children 2-5 years old and the majority of Au Pairs are qualified to work with infants. Ecuadorian Au Pairs tend to gain their child care experience from working in daycares or as nannies.
Lori's first Au Pair through Go Au Pair was Alexandra who was from Ecuador. Alexandra stayed with Lori's family for two years.
"Alexandra was an awesome Au Pair! She fit right in with the family from day one when we picked her up at the airport, bonding immediately with our daughter. She was even joking around with me and my husband by the second night."
"As far as cultural differences, the only things that I can think of may be that they eat their large meal at lunchtime and we do at dinner, and some food differences, but she seemed to like just about every food we ate - except blue cheese. And she loved mayonnaise like a true southern girl! They even put it on corn. They also tend to take the bus everywhere where Americans tend to drive. Her English was pretty good when she arrived, but she seemed to improve almost overnight (she said watching TV at first was a big help in picking up the American "slang" and everyday language)."
"I would ABSOLUTELY pick another girl from Ecuador, I even tired to bribe her into getting her sister over here in the program but she was in college. In the end, Alexandra had a friend through the church she is involved in that she introduced us to (Maria) who lived in Guatemala, who ended up being our next Au Pair."