Acerca de mi

About me:

My name is María Gabriela Romero, but people call me Gaby. Although it's not easy to define oneself, I’ll share the path I’ve walked on this Earth since finishing university. I studied Tourism and briefly worked with Galapagos Boats. I felt I’d spend much of my life on land and in the mountains, so I also wanted to experience life at sea—and I wasn’t far off.

When I was offered to manage a well-known restaurant in the countryside—my dream—I faced a dilemma: accepting meant working for someone else and committing to a capitalist system. Though I enjoyed service, I felt it would drain my energy. I felt a calling to go to Germany, where part of my ancestry comes from. I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to go.

A great-aunt, Minita, who shared my birthday and was very dear to me, told me about a distant relative named Temme who was in Quito. When I met her, I learned that my grandparents had once hosted her when she came from Germany. Out of reciprocity, she told me about the Fridjof Nansen School Ship, captained by her brother. She said I could live and learn aboard. The idea of living on a sailboat for three months resonated deeply with me.

That experience gave me direction. I didn’t want to create soulless projects in Ecuador—I wanted something different. The lessons on that ship were countless. Resilience was the first: imagine living with 47 bunks, two bathrooms, and limited resources. It was like a miniature planet. I faced my fear of heights climbing masts, experienced xenophobia from neo-Nazis, and unconditional love from children with special needs.

The ship hosted Waldorf school children, who later returned as volunteers. The captain was 60, I was 25, and the ship was run by teenagers—like a 16-year-old chief engineer. Comparing that to Ecuadorian youth, I realized how far behind we were.

After three months, I knew I had to create a foundation. With my family’s patience and perseverance, we founded Ugshapamba Hacienda Escuela. I had never worked for an NGO, so it was a humbling experience. After two years of legal hurdles, I was invited to MSU for a sustainable agriculture course and earned a scholarship for a Master’s in Agroecotourism. We began protecting the last remnants of high Andean forest in Corazón’s eastern flank, cleaning ravines and empowering landowners to preserve sacred spaces. One spring there provides drinking water to western Aloasí.

The bees had already arrived before 2005. There’s a whole book about it—The Call of the Bees. I felt them every time I planted a tree, creating small habitats they seemed to need. They called to me—not just me, but many women. I share more in my books and trainings.

The bees became my guides. As a solitary woman, I connected with their sisterhood and began to listen. Though it was hard to admit I heard them, I started sharing their teachings online. They came not only to heal physically but to give greater purpose to what became Bee Farm Ecuador in 2008. “Bee Education for Bee Conservation” became our motto—you can’t love what you don’t know.

The bees told me to dedicate myself to learning from them. Despite my dreams of a self-sustaining community, they said their presence was enough. They warned it would be hard—people would reject the idea of bees—but that one day, their importance would be remembered. They told me to stay strong and keep listening.

At the time, I suffered unbearable leg pain, supposedly hereditary varicose veins. I rejected that belief. I’d heard bee venom helped with circulation and pain, so I trained in apitherapy. Then I discovered honey therapy, which resonated deeply with me, especially its sacredness, revered in Egypt. I trained in it, but neither my instructor nor I fully understood its energetic delicacy. I had to live it firsthand—pause, accept my limitations, and wait to learn. Eventually, it became my own medicine. I always knew I’d return to it and teach it one day. But first, I had to do deep inner and outer work.

Being a mother of two, an entrepreneur, and a dreamer wasn’t easy. But the time came to reap the rewards. Many people came to Bee Farm to learn and support us—university groups, professors, teens, and volunteers. The details are in our two e-books: The Blooming of Bee Farm and The Break That Healed Me. Life has been intense, as it is for everyone.

wo years after the pandemic, my daughters wanted to return to school in the city. I was blessed to specialize in Human Development, which was perfect because it required deep personal work. It was a time of many tears, old wounds reopened, and I had to cleanse and heal, forgive myself, recognize my worth, and return to therapy—this time with new tools. Honey and bees are catalysts for profound processes, and now I have the tools of humanism to guide and facilitate trainings and certifications in this magical and powerful modality: Honey Therapy.

I’m the author of two books and a speaker. But beyond professional titles, if I had to define myself in three words, I’d say I’m highly sensitive, intuitive, and completely transparent.