“I’m passionate about justice,” Ellie said laughing a bit, the way one does when they know they’re sharing a deep part of themselves with the world. And as I heard her say that, I realized that the word itself, passionate, describes Ellie fully.
Take, for example, her passion for travel. It’s in her bones. At the age of three months, she was adopted from Guatemala. Adopted by her moms, she has lived in Olympia ever since, attending elementary school at Olympia Community located right next to Capitol Lake.
She fondly recalls her childhood memories from there. Growing up there, the school left her with positive influences, impacting her love for the outdoors. She laughed saying, “Even at that age, I knew I was in a hippy environment.” I found that perspective endearing, as well as interesting. At her age, I was more worried about what I was going to have for lunch.
Around the age of ten, she traveled from the United States to Belize, “This is the first time where I traveled outside the United States. I was exposed to a different community with such unique experiences. After this trip, I knew I was interested in traveling.”
Living in Olympia for the majority of one’s life but being born in Guatemala, would make anyone curious what one’s life may have been like. In summer of 2017, Ellie traveled to Guatemala on a service trip with the group “Little Visionaries.”
While she was there, she stayed with a host family in which she said was one of the most realistic experiences she has had traveling. Being born in Guatemala, she has never known the identity of her biological father but while staying with her host family, her host “father” of the household told her a sentence that would stick with her forever. “We began talking and I told him about how I was adopted and knew the identity of my biological mother but never my father.
He told me while I was there, I could consider him to be my father.” That sentence was extremely sentimental. I couldn’t imagine receiving such an open invitation from someone I didn’t know and made me pause as I tried to imagine how touching this experience must have been for her. Because of that experience, Ellie says that trip was, so far, one of her favorites.
Luckily, Ellie hasn’t encountered any bad experiences in her traveling career. The worst being when she was younger and first started on her adventures she found herself in the Mayan Ruins where it can be extremely hot and humid, especially in the summer. “As a young child and never experiencing that type of climate before, I remember just thinking about wanting to go home.”
Although we chose Ellie for her traveling experiences and passions I came to find there was a lot more to her. Such as her passions including writing and reading, she participates in Capital’s debate and rotating clubs. Outside of high school, she plans to attend Mills College an all women’s college in Oakland California. Before she travels to California this fall she will be traveling back to Central America. We will miss her here at Capital but we wish all the best in her travel and non-travel experiences.