Correa completed that Master’s in 1991 in Louvain before returning to Ecuador. Anny, a flamenca (Spanish for “Fleming”) now works in administration and finance for Belgian Technical Corporation (BTC), a Belgian agency for development cooperation. She has been living in Ecuador’s capital for 37 years – or 13 Ecuadorian presidents and three constitutions.

President Correa’s “Magna Carta” of 2008 is the most recent constitution and the most ambitious; it is the first in the world to guarantee rights for the environment. Still, protests – which often resemble parades – are nonetheless frequent. “Since before and after independence, it’s been one big identity crisis,” says Anny. “Not unlike Belgium.”

Apart from eccentric politics, Ecuador and Belgium don’t have much in common. “It took me two years to adjust to life here, and at times it’s still difficult,” says Anny, who went to the South American republic by boat after getting married to her Ecuadorian husband Eduardo in 1972. “You need a lot of patience, especially in the field of development. Paperwork, emails, even relationships are slower.”

Her first post was with the General Direction of Development Corporation as administrator of an irrigation project, followed by other positions in the same organisation and in the Belgian Embassy (since relocated to Peru). She then moved to the Flemish Association of Development Corporation, until settling with BTC in 2000, where she oversees healthcare and rural development projects in Ecuador.

Ecuador and Latin America as a whole have gone through phases of military juntas (1970s), crippling debt (1980s, the “Lost Decade”), huge growth and recessions (1990s and “The Washington Consensus”) and, in Ecuador, dollarization (2000s). Still, economists and politicians win and lose elections arguing which methods of development are best.

“It’s strange to think about developing a country when you realise how hard it is just to develop your own life,” Anny says. “There is always a conflict between desires for risk and for security, and the most confusing times are when you think you can have both. I grew up in Oosterzele, studied in Wetteren, and now I’m working in administration in Quito. You can make plans, but maybe it’s best to just follow surprises.”

Anny and Eduardo – a psychologist who wears a Panama hat and claims to be able to diagnosis patients just by looking at them – say that living in another country is like dating someone from another country. “You have to be willing to learn from one another without forgetting yourself,” Eduardo says from their home in north Quito, while listening to his favourite Flemish song, “El Bandido” by Will Tura. “When I’m in Spain, I joke with people by saying that I’m Belgian. But when I hear Ecuadorians speaking with Catalan or Andalucían accents, I wonder if they really believe that makes them Spanish.”

Anny nods in agreement. “Identity is something you discover, not something you make.”

Still, says Eduardo, “I know what I like and don’t like: Will Tura and steak saignant.”

And Anny? “Tea from the Andean flower pispura and steak presque bien cuit.”

Quito, a metropolis shaped like the banana that it exports, and Ecuador, one of the most bio-diverse countries in the world, still struggle to develop in one direction. But Anny and Eduardo’s home is less Sebastian de Benalcazar and more Michel de Montaigne, who once wrote: “The only things I find rewarding (if anything is) are variety and the enjoyment of diversity”.

In the couple’s salon, Will Tura sings alongside records of Eduardo’s uncle; in their garden, raspberries grow alongside native banana passion fruit; in their library, Ernest Hemingway leans against José Martí; and everywhere are photos of their children, Christían, Dominique and Sebastian. E pluribus Unum, as their dollar bill says – from many, one.

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