Burning

Someone once asked me if I would rather die of freezing to death or burning alive.  The answer that first came to my mind was, "freeze of course." You would probably go numb and not feel anything.  Much more comfortable.  His reponse to me was, "This is true, but wouldn't it mean you gave up in a way?? If you keep moving, you live! It's when you stop that you die.  If you burn to death, it's out of your control.  You  can at least feel it.  Sure it's painful, but it's something."

Righteous at Macchu Pichu!

What does this have to do with anything?  There is a song I have been listening to over and over (both physically and in my brain) and I wasn't quite sure why or what the song meant until I was riding the bus home from Quito on Thursday.   I have been having trouble thinking/writing lately and I am not sure why, but I think my brain has finally quit farting and the writers are no longer blocking.  Here is the song: Weird video I know. But it was the best audio version of the song I could find.

I was toying with the lyrics on my last entry, but couldn't quite put into words what they meant or why they were occupying my brain.  The message is that burning is a good thing.  When the flame inside us dies, so do we.  We all have times when the spark is gone from our lives.  How do we ignite it? The answer is completely personal, but it's important to be able to answer that question.  I am constantly being filled with energy here (FIRE). But leaving home and seeing different parts of the world has also shown me how much I love my home in Columbus, and how lucky I am to have the people in my life there.  My fires: seeing the kids at the orphanage, working with the univeristy students (go Canada!!), brainstorming with Jana, Paul, Ramiro, Larry, Gus, going for a run, sitting on a bus (seriously! you learn a lot about yourself when you have enormous chunks of time with nothing to do but sit and think), being at the coffee shop, going for breakfast with my co-workers after a loooong night at the mount, or laughing until it hurts and there are tears running down my face.  It's all Fire.  The idea that the orphanage can and will be a reality is an incredible Fire that keeps me going, burning, living. 


"As long as I`m burning,
I´ll keep on yearning,
to save the world,
Not sure how, but I`m learning."

Speaking of the orphanage.  We have some incredible news.  We have secured the house in Paracachi, but we still need $5,000 by the end of June to actually buy it.  (This is the house that is going to be used for the orphanage, teaching classes, and just plain living) When we were in Lima, SIA (Solidarity in Action, Larry, keep up) raised $400 for the house.  Also, the students are supposed to be trying to raise money from home (Canada) and whatever they raise, SIA said they would match it.  Amazing! So we are on our way.  These next few weeks are being dedicated to raising money.  We are making a presentation, scheduling appointments with various people from our home towns to meet with while we are home, and talking to as many people as we can about what we are doing.  Jana's wonderful sister Cammie is also working on a webpage for us.  I will have that link for you soon. 

Zip Line!!

We are finally back in Pimampiro by the way.  After a slight detour in Montanita for a few days, we arrived here early Tuesday morning.  We found the best bus from Guayquil to here.  What is usually at least a 14 hour bus ride took us less than 12.  AND there was a bathroom on the bus that was functional.  Incredible.  It has been Pimampiro week here (I KNOW! I'm bummed I missed most of it too).  I believe they are celebrating the founding of their town.  Don't quote that though please.  Last night we went to the stadium and watched some live music which included two solo acts and a large band performace that lasted forever, only to have another full band after that.  We were told that the music would last until 3 or 4 am.  We were in bed by midnight.  Pima really knows how to party I will tell you that.  There was also a firework display.  This included two guys running around manually lighting a large amount of "standard-size" fireworks from the top of a half-finished building.  Most of them went up.  Some went sideways or straight out, or some just exploded right there on the roof with them.  I thought for sure we were going to have to treat some serious burns or amputations.  Luckily they were pretty quick and it didn't appear to get hurt.  Side story- we saw a Pimampirian zip line a few days ago.  We thought they were doing constuction on something before we saw the 7-year-old wearing a helmet scaling the rickity ladder.  This "podium" looked to be being held up by a buldozer.  "Why is this huge, unstable tower moving so much everytime the wind blows?!" "I don't know.  Just get the buldozer.  It will be fine." The child was then shot down the cable and barely caught by the guy standing at the bottom, who was paying attention only half the time.  Tonight is the last night of the festivities, which includes a dance in the open statium area.  Should be interesting.  I'll let you know how it goes or how many old women offer to find me a husband.  Cuidensen!


PS: Did you know that if you have a migraine due to bad spirits occupying your house you can first rub an egg on your head and all over your body (eggs absorb bad energy), then light candles to rid the house of the mal energy.  After you rub the egg on yourself for awhile, you crack it open into a cup of water and see what kind of strings the whites of the egg makes. That`s how you know you got rid of the bad things. Elena did this to Jana last night, and she felt better. So now you know.

"Stop, Drop, and Roll"

We have been so busy these last two weeks I hardly even know where to begin.  I am currently back in the convent in Lima, enjoying a few precious moments of free time. Since the students arrived last Thursday it has been a constant go go go. Students? Lima? What am I doing you may ask yourself. So remember in February when Larry was the only one to respond to the plethera of emails I sent out, and we were lucky enough to work with his contact here? Yes, no? Maybe? Well we have actually been working with Larry and the other wonderufl people involved in his organization Solidarity in Action. The organization takes 30 college students to Peru to do volunteer work. (They also are going to Ecuador this year). A totally new experience.  Jana and I are kind of in this limbo area. We are not really part of the students group, but we are not trip leaders either. Sometimes we take on leadership roles, but other times we go with the current of the students. It has been interesting.  It is a totally new dynamic being responsible for the experience that others are having. Trying to help them cope with what they are seeing, and give them the opportunity to thrive in an uncomfortable and new environment. Larry set up several different volunteer placement sites for the students, including Cerrito Azul (the school for mentally disabled children), Cristo Rey (teaching English), the orphanage where Jana and I spent most of our time in February, a clinic, a daycare, and a couple other projects including a day of a health campaign of which Jana and I did a lot of in February. I bounced around but was at the clinic for two of the four days with two students to my charge. These students had no medical training or even interest for that matter. The first day, student number one almost passed out when the nurse was trying to start an IV and later made a newborn almost aspirate while feeding her her second bottle of her life (the baby´s second bottle. this was the first time student number one had held a baby). Both of these events happened for the 5 seconds I was not in the room. Student number two we ended up giving IV meds for a really bad reaction to the sun and or sunscreen. Not really sure. Lesson on how to give IV meds in a clinic (nurses will appreciate this, the rest of you, try and keep up):  1. Break glass ampules  2. draw up meds without filter needle and undiluted 3. change to smaller needle (woo hoo!!!) 4. tie off arm like you are going to start an IV  5. place needle with meds attacthed directly into vein 6. undo turnakit 7. inject meds directly into vein.  For those of you who cannot picture this, it´s basically like shooting up (so I´ve heard). Something we would never do in the states, but a very effective and efficient process. All and all the clinic was a pretty good experience, but the students were unfortunately not able to do that much other than observe. 

I am having trouble organizing my thoughts at this point in time so I am going to refer to the bullet method of writing and hope I do not offend anyone by the sloppiness.  Two weeks is a long time, espeically when everyday feels like three.

- Saturday.  We did a dental hygeine campaign in the shantytown called Pacifico. We showed up all bright and ready at 9am and the building was closed where we were supposed work. So we move to the "soccer field," by which I mean flat dirt area, and no one was there, except for the people we brought (we brought a bus with 40 kids from Clara´s orphange and the surrounding community). We had told the town´s president several days (weeks?!) in advance that we were doing a campaign with FREE toothbrushes and toothpaste, but still nobody showed. So we waited around, played soccer, freeze tag, and so on, and somehow Larry rounded up some more people so we began. Sang a song, did some demonstrations, gave away some supplies, a dentist actually cleaned some teeth.  After all that, we took the 40 kids from the orphange and another 40 kids from the community (Pacifico) to a park.  There we were each given three kids to look after for the next four hours or so. My kids were older, 5,8 & 16. Piece of cake, self sufficeint. Others were not so lucky. Some of the students were running around frazzled, chasing toddlers, trying to mime actions at 6-year-olds who are yelling in Spanish, while holding five juice boxes and three backpacks.  Everyone kept in good spirits and the day was an overall success. Lots of happy, exhausted kids and adults. The best part of the day was seeing Clara sitting in the grass relaxing. She is always doing 1000 different things and has 10 kids hanging off her at all times.

-Machu Picchu. We went with the group to Cusco, to see Machu Picchu and do some other things. We rode on an AIRPLANE! We got really cheap tickets and decided to take the opportunity. Jana has been to Machu Picchu before, but hiked the trail for four days so didn´t really get a chance to enjoy it. I obviously had not seen it before. So we woke up at 3am, got in a car, drove for an hour and a half, waited for the train, rode train for an hour and a half, arrived to Aguascalientes, got on a bus for 10 minutes and arrived! Machu Picchu was amazing. There are better words to describe the experience, but they are not coming to me at the moment. A few of us did the hour long hike to the sun gate, which is the last part of the Inca trail before you come into Machu Picchu. A few interesting things. One of the temples has two windows in it. In one window, the sun shines through it perfectly the dawn of the summer equinox. The other window, the same for the winter equinox. Pretty amazing. A theme for the Incas was three windows.  One window represents "heaven," or the Incan version of heaven. The other represents the earth, or present life. The last window represents the underworld.  Interesting. Seeing Machu Piccu was an incredible/spiritual experience and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to go there.  We bought our train tickets apart from the rest of the group, so Jana, Jenna, Javier (so many Js!! Just realized!), and I stayed in Aguascalientes until 9:45 and didn´t get back to the hostal until 12:30am. We were pooped. We luckily were able to sleep in a little bit the next day.

-I got a manicure, pedicure, and my hair straightened for $10

-This entry is kind of stinky. I´m not sure if it´s because I am tired, or I can´t put into words everything I have seen and experienced these last two weeks. Mybe it´s the dramimine. I suppose time will tell.

"That might save my skin, but it won´t save my soul."

"Just take off your trousers..."

says the little British lady.  When you make reservations to stay in a cloud forest and the directions to get there include, "a 2k hike up a mountain. You can pay $10 for a mule to carry your luggage, or you can carry it yourself," some people would say no thanks. When the day before you are supposed to go to said forest, you get an email that says "mudslides have destroyed a lot of the roads. You now have to walk an extra 4-5k with your belongings and probably cross a river," again, a lot of people would probably opt out. Not us. So we wake up to catch the 4am bus out of Pimampiro (after going to bed around 2am). Who knew buses ran that early? We made it to Quito in record time, hopped another bus to a small town, found a car who found our truck, who found the British lady in the Santa Lucia Office. "The roads are still bad," she says, "so we will have the truck take you as far as it can, but then you`re on your own. The signs may or may not be there, just go left at the first fork, right at the rest, except for the last one, take a left there. Now when you get to the river, just take your wellies (golashes), socks, and trousers off and wade accross." Ok. Sounds good. We can do this. We repack our backpacks so we don`t have to bring as much stuff, and head on our way.  (Jana and I decided to share a pack, so we wouldn`t have to have three and we could take turns carrying it.  This may have been a good plan, but the pack we took belongs to Paul, so it`s made for boys and super awkward to carry.  Also, we didn`t pack it right so not only was it heavy, about 35 pounds, but it was top heavy and throwing us off balance every chance it got).  All was well, a slight uphill walk, but nothing too bad. Everytime we got to a stream, we hoped it was the river. It wasn`t. We knew the river when we got to it. Not too wide, not too deep, but the water was moving a lot faster than I had inticipated. We deboot, desock, keep our trousers on, and creep across the rushing water. I for sure would have fallem if it weren`t for Katie and Jana. I would have barely made it without the pack exagerating my every shift in weight. My feet just aren`t made for rocks. But we all made it. No falls, thank goodness. You should have seen us trying to put our socks and boots back on. Quite the sight I`m sure. Those backpacks are heavy I tell you! The whole hike took us about three hours.  The last 2k was straight uphill and terrible.  I somehow got a crazy energy burst and was flying up for the last 30-45 minutes (did that cliff bar kick in? katie asked). Not sure, I was in the zone and it felt great. What an amazing feeling to finally get to the lodge, drop the pack, and sit down with a cold drink. bliss.  The experience in the cloud forest, or bosque nublado, was amazing. There is very little electricity. I only ever saw two very dim lights in the dining area. Our cabin had no electricity at all. There is no refridgerator either which is crazy, espeicially when it takes so long to get up there.  Talk about getting creative with the menu. We were fed three delicious meals a day courtesy of Marco the chef, and went on one hike every morning. We saw some waterfalls, looked at some nature, went on a giant swing, and saw where they make sugar cane.  They make sugar cane with no electricity mind you! They have a horse or mule walk in circles to turn the gears that crush the sugar cane (paña), to get the honey (miel) out of it. Long process. So green. In the afternoons we lounged on the porch in hammocks and read while the rain poured down around us. Beautiful.  I would like to go back to volunteer at this lodge someday.  It is all men that work up there full time, and do all of the work including the cooking and cleaning.  This is odd for the Ecuadorian culture.  Usually there is a woman involved somewhere in the picture.  At one point I felt like I was in the movie twilight living with the wolfpack. No more explination necessary. The last night we were there we stayed up late with Marco and a guide (the only two workers left on the mountain), drank aguardiente (firewater, tastes like moonshine), and listened to Marco play the guitar and sing. Perfect. Until the next morning when we had to wake up, make the descending hike, and catch a 10 hour bus to Cuenca.

The trip here to Lima was quite the adventure, one I would not like to repeat nor fully disclose the details of. So I will paraphrase. We left Cuenca at noon. The first bus we rode broke down, so that added about an hour and a half to the journey, which wouldn´t have been a big deal except that it was dark. Crossed the border. Got the very last bus out of Tumbes (the border town on the Peru side) thank goodness, took three more connecting buses, most of which involved running and slinging of luggage, and finally arrived here in Lima last night. 32 hours from Cuenca to Lima. Ouch. Very little food. We got here and ate some nasty, greasy chicken and french fries, salad, and a piece of cake. Shower, bed. Crashed is more like it. We finally met Larry today. After talking and corresponding since January, we have met face to face. He does exist. They do exist.

I wish I could write on the bus. There is so much idle time to think and do nothing, I come up with some pretty good ideas and good stories.  But it´s all in my head. Writing is too difficult due to the bumpy bumpy, and it´s not good to be seen with a computer in public places, so that´s out of the question. Not that my $100 comupter from the Wal-Mart parking lot would hold a charge anyway. So I write myself little notes and hope I remember what I was thinking. Right now I am looking at a note that says "maintaining the balance between ingorance/youth and wisdom/maturity."  I feel lucky to have experienced so much at a "young" age. A lot of this journey has been about survival. This trip to Lima for instance.  Mentally you have to handle sitting still on a bus for hours on end, with the person infront of you crushing your legs while you try to sleep. You are clinging to your belongings, trying not to look at your watch because you know you will be disappointed at how much time hasn´t passed. You hope the bus doesn´t break down, or that it isn´t robbed. You pray there will another connecting bus waiting for you when you get to your destination, or at least one leaving sometime soon. If not, you at least pray for a safe place to sit and wait. Through all of this, you remain calm and positive, not always an easy task. Survival is also about living without, and coming out ok. You begin to truely understand what you need to survive and to be happy.  Some of my happiest moments and memories were due to such simple pleasures. Sitting in a candle lit room listening to Marco play the guitar and sing native songs. There was no electricity. No lights, no ipod to shuffle, no phones (ok, so actually the other guy busted out and ipod and some battery powered speakers later, but that´s not the point).  The five of us were living, experiencing life together like it has been experienced for centuries.  Paragachi, also for example. They have lived their whole lives with next to nothing. Usually in a one room house with their whole families. But they are happy and it radiates.  So what do you need to survive? To be surrounded by good people. They could be stragners, and I have found that often times they are, but human connectedness and unity is a very powerful thing. So I continue my journey, here in Lima, and wait to connect with the world.