Mompiche, Ecuador is a small fishing town known for its surf and worry-free mentality. I came for the beach but what keeps me here is the sense that I have leaped back in time. The beauty of a place where kids are not given their first iPhone at six is that play still exists. Since my childhood bordered the invention of the smartphone, my imagination was allowed the space it needed to grow. However, my siblings are significantly younger than I and I've witnessed a childhood seriously lacking in make-believe.
Mompiche is still full of the magic I recall from being a kid. Children play cops and robbers and make toys from sticks. In Mompiche the kids run free and seemingly own the streets. My series, Kid Kingdom, studies the lives of the youth and what it is like growing up in a small beach town in Ecuador.
