Taking Numbers

Well we finally did it.  After four trips to Quito, visiting over seven different offices, and taking somewhere around 500 different numbers, we have our year long Volunteer Visas.   I have never had to take so many numbers in my life.  It was like a complicated game of Bingo, that involves traveling to different parts of the city to obtain G63 or N32, only to have to wait two hours until it is called.  By the end of the adventure, we could have easily won a game of cover-all.  The visas themselves are nice; color pictures and printed stickers.  Jana's however said "ninguno" under the sex category.  This of course took another stamp and signiture to fix.  Ninguno (this means "none")?! Fernando in the Office of Strangers dropped the ball on that one.  He at least didn't put her name as "Ana Malbana," which has happened before.  As we were leaving Quito around 5:30pm (the office closes at 2:00pm, but we somehow got the privelidge of being there after-hours. This is after getting there at 9:00am and waiting all day), we got into a cab to take us to the bus terminal.  "Carcelin," we tell him (this is the name of the bus terminal). "Donde?" "Terminal Carcelin.  How much?" "I don't know," he says looking confused.  "Five dollars," we try to help him out.  Ok, deal.  We get in the cab, and he starts inching along.  We are on a busy street in traffic, inching along is not the correct pace.  "Where are you going?" he asks again.  Oh no.  Sir, we are going to the Northern bus terminal in Quito.  It is called Carcelin.  Have you been there? "Let me call my boss." What?? Is this your first day? There are big signs all over the city telling you how to get there.  Did you just move here? "My boss says it's $9." No, no.  We agreed on five.  We are picking up a little speed at this point, but he still looks nervous and can't quite do anything with confidence.  "Ok, $7," he says. Señor!! five dollars. No mas.  We come to a fork in the road.  He slows down, looks scared at this point, turns around, asks "Do I go up or down?" We don't know!!! He panics, pulls across three lanes of traffic to the curb.  "Just get out here." Done and done.  We jump out of the cab and he speeds off.  Poor guy.  But, he did however drop us right in front of “Kentucky” (KFC), which made us happy because we were pretty ravenous at that point.  Free ride to Kentucky! So we got some chicken, hopped into another cab, paid $5, and made it to Carcelin in 25 minutes.

In other news, we did an art project with the senior citizens and the daycare kids.  We brought sheets of paper with the word "gracias" on it to the place where senior citizens go to eat a free meal six days a week.  The idea was that they were supposed to draw something they were thankful for.  This proved to be more difficult than anticipated.  You would have thought we asked them to replicate the Mona Lisa.  "I can't draw," "I don't want to draw, I just want to color this same unicorn outline I've colored for the last two months because today I want to make the magic horn green instead of pink," and silence were our three most common responses to the task.  After some convincing, we were able to get most of them to participate.  We made the mistake of bringing crayons and colored pencils.  They all looked at the crayons as if they were the most unusual things they have ever seen in their lives.  Maybe they were.  Luis got the bright idea to sharpen it so it would look more like a pencil, but got in trouble and the sharpener revoked from his area.  I thought it was clever.  Once the crayons were removed from the situation, the anarchy subdued considerably.  We were able to get some pretty nice drawings from them.  The 99-year-old woman was a tough one to get started, but she ended up doing a fantastic job.  Stef ended up convincing her, I am still not sure how.  One man said he wouldn't do it because he didn't have anything to be thankful for.  I tried to help him come up with ideas.  Family? No family. Friends.  No friends.  I looked around at the other 40 people in the room. No one here? Nope.  Your house, your life, the weather??? No, no, and "it's raining." Are you thankful that I am here talking to you Mr. Stubburn Pants? He finally laughed, said yes, but he couldn't draw.  So I drew an outline of myself, and he colored it in.  He even got the color of my clothes right. They served us lunch and we went home full and happy.  The place is pretty amazing.  It gives people something to look forward to everyday, and for most of them that is all they have.  The government pays to feed anyone over the age of 65 one meal a day, although most of them walk miles and miles for the company.  They usually feed about 100 people every day. They also do other art projects with them and offer some classes.  They wanted us to do an exercise class with them, but we did not come prepared for that.  I can picture it though. Us getting really into it, then elderly folks needing resuscitated.  Not a pretty picture.

We did the same project except with "Happy Birthday" cards at the daycare in Paragachi.  This was just as chaotic.  We only brought colored pencils after we learned from the crayon incident, but I think they may have actually liked the crayons better.  We mostly ended up drawing pictures of cakes and such for them to color in.  They were a little too young for the project.  Some of them turned out nice though, and only one kid got hurt.  I told him not to stand on top of the desk, but he had recently seen "The Dead Poet's Society," and felt inspired by the "O Captain my Captain” scene. It didn't end well for him.

We recently discovered that we could use Paul's projector to watch movies at our house.  We don't even need a computer.  Insert disc right into projector! Amazing.  We watched the Hangover 2 (filmed in a movie theatre so it was more authentic) projected on to our new white board (white board!!!).  A week or so later I realized how out of touch I was with most technology.  We got the projector from Paul again to watch another movie. We were all excited for this, I hadn't seen a movie other than The Hangover and various Salvester Stallone movies (on the bus) since before I came here in February.  So Jana, Alex, Stef and I were eating dinner when somehow the topic of United States geography came up.  We started drawing various maps (on the white board!!!), of different renditions of what we thought the states looked like and what was where.  This somehow led into trying to name all of the states and their capitals.  I tried to find a map of the states in the house, but alas, it did not exist.  With no technology available (WiFi/3G, no way), we had to do it from memory.  After about an hour and a half, we were able to name all 50 states and all but two of their capitals (Bismark & Phoenix).  I didn´t realize this was perhaps not a normal pastime until I was excitedly describing what we did on Friday night to Paul. Getting crazy in Pimampiro. 

On Wednesday we went to Ibarra with Paul for a meeting of all of the support staff for the Tierra Viva Project (Biointensive organic agriculture). We got to see everyone we know from the foundation in the same room. It was a lively, encouraging event. On the way to Ibarra a first happened. Just when I thought I had seen it all on the bus. Oh no, there is always more. The bus stopped at the police control as usual, but instead of coasting on through, a police officer came on and asked everyone for their IDs. We are not in the habit of traveling with our passports for safety reasons, so we didn´t have any identification.  We were asked to get off the bus, and wait. We were officially detained. We had no proof that we were legal in the country. Illegal immigrants. Dang. The police officer said we had to wait until someone showed up with our proof, or they were going to take us somewhere else.  So we called Stef, and asked her to bring our passports all the way from Pimampiro. Meanwhile, we called Paul, who spoke at length with the police officer, and got us off the hook.  Being volunteer nurses always helps the cause. After the Tierra Viva meeting, we met up with our friend Gavi (pronounced Gabby). We went with her boyfriend and his friend to a dance competition at one of the universities in Ibarra (La U). Later, we met up with Sonia, and took her and three of her friends to the Inti Raymi festival near Otavalo. The Inti Raymi festival (Sun God Festival) is celebrated every year during the winter (or summer) solstice. They prepare all year for this festival, so everything is supposed to be free, which it was more or less.  You are supposed to bathe in the waterfall at midnight to cleanse and begin again. There were Shamens there to help with this process. We walked to the waterfall around 11pm, got wet enough from all the spraying water, opted not to bathe (it was freezing!!), and walked back. I did rinse my feet in the water, so I think that counts. People actually bathed though, naked or almost naked. The Shamens rubbed/beat their body with special herbs. It was interesting to say the least. We stayed at the festival, drank warm “wine” and danced until 3:30 in the morning. We then took a taxi back to Ibarra, slept on Sonia´s floor for an hour or so, and got on the first bus back to Pimampiro. 

We were pooped, but had a busy day planned. We showered, put ourselves together, and prepared to be in a ceremony that rendered us Godmothers of 65 children in a nearby community called El Tejar.  How we got this “honor” is a little confusing. I think we may have been tricked into it, but we did it just the same.  All we had to do was hold a baby Jesus and do some other things and TA DA, we have 65 God children. We then played some games (for two hours) and ate some yummy food. Jana and I had to dance together holding a tomato between our foreheads without dropping it. We didn´t last very long, but we weren´t the first of the pairs to drop it either.  Not too shabby.  One of the main reasons we agreed to go to El Tejar was to see two orphans we were told about. It turns out that they are not true orphans. Their mom is alive, but lives in Quito and hasn´t seen them in over three years.  Their 21-year-old sister has been taking care of them, along with her own four-year-old daughter for the past nine years.  The grandfather also lives with them, but is getting rather old. The issue is that of many families in this part of Ecuador. The sister has to leave to find work, which leaves the children home by themselves (or with the elderly grandfather). Sometimes the sister is gone for weeks at a time, with no one checking in on the kids.  We talked to the sister for awhile, she was crying, saying that her little brother and sister are like her kids now and that she would do anything for them.  We brought up food and other household items for them, but that´s all we could really do.  When we have our house, we will be able to help people like her more. Those that are really trying hard to do the right thing, but have no odds in their favor.  So for now, we do what we can, and know we are working towards a good goal.  

"I`d rahter be working for a paycheck...

kids in Paragachi daycare

...than waiting to win the lottery." This nice little song lyric has a few meanings in my life right now.  I feel as though I have repeated over and over again how lucky I am and how grateful I am for everyone I have met and everything that has happened to me during this journey.  What I have failed to mention is another way that I am fortunate.  It actually reminds me a line from the movie As Good as It Gets as well.  When Greg Kinnear says something to the effect of "you know where you`re lucky? You know what you want." I know what I want. I want the dream in Paragachi to come true. I want project Ser Viva to be a success.  In order for this to happen we need plata (around here that means money, dinero, moolah, coin, green, cash, you get the idea).  So this had led to the decision to return to the states for a few months to work as nurses (if I can remeber how) and earn some cha-ching.  Yes, this makes me sad in a lot of ways.  However, it will only be for a short time with a very direct purpose.  In the meantime, I need your help.  Yes, YOU!  Along with earning bread the good old fashion way, Jana and I will be working to raise plata as well through fundraisers, grants, donations, etc.  So, if you (YES, you) have any ideas or suggestions for me, please let me know. Muchas Gracias.

These last few weeks have been amazing.  After 15 million trips to Quito, 1,000 closed offices, 400 lies, and 25 different forms to fill out, I think we have our visas worked out.  We shall see this week when we hopefully return to Quito to pick them up. I hope my passport didn`t end up behind a trash can somewhere. I think it`s a definite possibility.  Larry came to see Pimampiro for a few days this past weekend. We showed him around to a few places.  We saw the place where the government gives lunch to the elderly five days per week. We went to Paragachi and saw the day care, Luis`s house, and our future home.  On Friday night we were invited to Sonia`s house in Paragachi for a double birthday/going away party celebration. It was amazing as usual. Sonia`s brother was in from Spain (he works as a chef there and brings some of that money home) and it was his last night in town. He made an excellent lasanga for dinner. Afterwards we danced to some wonderful music brought to us from a laptop rigged with a stage-sized speaker. Sonia`s godfather sang as well. It was a beautiful evening.  The next day we went to the community of San Francisco de Sigsipamba to see some gardens, the cheese factory, and to get a general feel for what the communities in the mountains are like. Sunday we spent most of the day relaxing and doing general living activities; laundry, cleaning, cooking... So that we could go back to, you guessed it, Quito, on Monday.  From here we went to see the Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world, equator monuments). We first went to the line that the indigenous "drew" and where their musuem was. They showed us how water goes directly down a sink when it is positioned directly on the equator, spirals counterclockwise north of the equator, and clockwise south of it.  It worked! Same sink, same everything. Pretty cool. All three of us also received diplomas for successfully balancing an egg on the head of a nail (this only works on the equator. do not try at home). We learned a lot on the hour or so long tour, including how to properly decapitate and shrink the head of your enemy or someone important.  I reccomend visiting here if you have a chance.  We then ran our happy selves over to the "official" equator marker made by the French. They had a big, cold, scary momument where they thought the middle of the world was. I checked the GPS on my phone and the indigenous marking was closer. Ha. And they didn`t have any cool ways to prove that their line was indeed the mitad. But we did wreak some havok by going to the top of the monument and staying until they were trying to close (lovely view by the way).  This led to us running down what seemed like never ending flights of stairs, in the pitch black darkness, Larry on the floor, me almost wetting myself, and Jana wondering where all the extra floors came from because when we went up the elevator, there seemed to be only two.

We stayed in Quito a few more days, saw Larry of to Guayaquil, received Stef from Guayaquil, the old switch-a-roo (she was one of the student`s from the Lima trip that wasn`t ready to go home, so she is now here in Pima with us), and met up with Paulito! Took our time driving back from Quito, saw some sights along the way and ate at this wonderful authentic Ecuadorian restaurant.  I then got sick and proceeded to sleep for the next 24 hours (again!!). Feeling much better now, thank you for asking. From here, Jana and I are working on fundraising, showing Stef around, and the general tasks of daily living. This may be the last entry for awhile. Depends what is happening and how my brain feels. Thanks for reading and I will leave you with this little diddy:

ps. here is our new website!!
Ser Viva

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.

Easter Cuy

Happy Easter! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and were surrounded by loved ones. I had a wonderful day.  We slept in forever, woke up to a wonderful breakfast of müesli y cafe, went horseback riding, ate some more, and relaxed in a very beautiful place.  We finally made it to Ricardo`s farm (Ricardo is the Ecuadorian who has lived in the states for 10 years, so he speaks English pretty well). His farm is about 45 minutes away from Pimampiro, up in the mountains.  He (his parents) have a huge house, tons of rooms, several kitchens, huge piece of farm land, horses, guinea pigs, and cows. The whole shebang. The town itself is called El Tambo, and it consists of about 60 families, although when I did a vuelta today on Luna the horse, I only saw about 25 houses. Very small, peaceful, quiet.  Makes Pimampiro look like a metropolis  :) Yesterday we started the day in Otavalo, which is said to be the world`s largest open air market.  It was pretty big, lots of people came down from the mountains to sell their goods.  So we did some shopping, ate a $1.50 almuerzo, and went back to Ibarra. Ricardo picked us up from there and off we went to El Tambo.  We had a wonderful evening, drank good wine, cooked a nice dinner (I got to de-poop a lot of shrimp), and sat outside in the pitch blackness with only a candle burning because the electricity went out on the whole mountain side. Pretty crazy. I have always wanted to live like Laura Ingalls, and I finally got my chance. Riding the horse. Ricardo saddled up his two horses, I jumped on the first one, and Jana got on the second one.  Luna, my horse, turned out to be a little crazy. "You have to show her who`s in charge," Ricardo tells me as Luna is running into the crop field and refusing to move when I tell her to. It took me about 20 minutes of swearing and yelling (in English so Luna didn`t understand), before I felt like I had some sort of control.  The guy sitting on the corner in town told me to use my reign tail as a whip, which helped a little. I still couldn´t really get her to stop when I wanted to, and if she didn`t want to go where I wanted to go, we didn`t go that way. Oh well. We managed. Riding through the fields in the mountains was all very brokeback mountain feeling. It was beautiful.  She also had her 3 month old baby following her (us), which made the tight squeeze spaces even tighter. She was pretty cute though. Jana`s horse on the other hand refused to go any faster than a slow walk.  Which Ricardo told us after about 45 minutes of riding around the town that her horse was pregnant. It makes sense now. Jana was kicking her baby. She didn`t feel like running. Easter dinner.  We ate guinea pig (cuy).  Yum. Mariela, the woman that cooks and cleans for Ricardo on the weekends, prepared 6 or 7 cuys for us. Long process. She killed them in the morning, skinned them, gutted them, cleaned out their innards, boils them, then bakes them. Whew. They were really good, but it was little awkward eating an animal with it`s head and legs attached. I took one with a happy face though. Some of them looked really upset. It was a great easter dinner, but grandma, nothing can compare to your ham.

Semana Santa (Holy week) was a great time to be in Pimampiro. There are a lot of traditions here that are unique to this town.  Thursday night there were three processions: 9pm, midnight, and 3am. Tons of people gather in the street and walk around the town singing a certain song, and carrying a huge cross. This cross is 2.5 kintales, which we decided is about 120 pounds, and is carried by one person at a time. So we walk slow. The song they sang was really beautiful, a cappella.  It reminded me of this time in Haiti when I was working a night shift and around 3am, a  group of people dressed in white came to the gates of the hospital and were singing and playing instruments. It was one of the moments you wish you could freeze and that would never end. You close your eyes, breathe, and try your hardest to remember the perfection of the moment.  We walked with both the 9pm and midnight processions, which end at the church.  The church was filled with incense, so much that the air was thick. Before the midnight procession, we were hanging out with Carmen Amelia (Elena`s daughter) and her friends.  Carmen Amelia informed us that we were waiting outside the church because some one was going to steal "Diosito," from the church and go running by.  This translation was a little confusing. "They`re going to steal Little God??" "Yes, God." "Where is God? What is it?" "God is in the church, and someone is going to steal Him." "On purpose?? Is this planned? Should we stop them? They`re stealing God? What does He look like?" "It`s planned. God is inside the church." Ok, sounds good. Let`s stick around and we`ll finally get to see what God looks like!  Who knew that God was in Pimampiro?? No I. Welllllllllllll, total bummer, we got there too late. God had already been stolen .A little disappointing. It turns out that Diosito is Jesus.  Not God. Why not Jesus (like hey-sus)?  When we went back in the church, the statue of Jesus was gone. Interesting. Never really got to the bottom of why he was stolen, where he went, and who took him.  I guess we`ll never know. The next day we went a little town called Urcuqui with Ricardo. He said that they make a big deal of Good Friday and there would be a lot going on. There wasn`t much going on. They carried a bunch of heavy things from the church (like the Jesus statue and Mary shrine) through the street, lots of death figures walking around, sickle and all. (We had seen "death" walking down the street of Pimampiro the morning before and were a little scared. There was a guy next to him carrying an offering tray. We didn`t pay him. Seemed like bad karma. But we luckily got to redeem ourselves. We paid a total of 55 cents to death in Urcuqui between the four of us. Seemed sufficient). By this time we were desensitized to the whole man of death thing.  They were just regular people walking around in all black ku-klux-klan looking outfits holding sharp objects. Just another good Friday right? We did however ride the ferris wheel in Urcuqui. Probably not the safest choice, but who could pass it up. The motor on it was started like a lawn mower and looked like the ever-lasting-gobstopper machine in Willy Wonka`s Chocolate Factory. Everything was rusty. We were on it for way too long. By the end I thought I was going to puke. I was wearing a skirt too, which made the escape route plan a little tricky. Luckily, we didn`t have to use it. We were ready though. Always good to plan for the worst. We also rode the "gusanito," which means little worm. It`s a car/train sort of device that is driven around the town, mostly at slow speeds (there are speed bumps), but occasionaly the driver threw in a loop or wiggle. I think it was more fun for us than the kids.  The kids ride in the back of trucks everyday, which feels sort of like riding in the gusanito. We made fools of ourselves, waving to everyone in the streets, holding up our arms like we were on a roller coaster. Later we ate some Fanesca (third time now!), and went back to Pimampiro where........there was another parade! More carrying heavy things from the church around the streets, singing, and whatnot.  

I swear we`re doing work too.  We went to the daycare in Paragachi to look around and see if there was anything we could do for them.  The building itself is pretty nice.  Clean and organized. They have 30 kids registered there, and they get $1.20 per kid per day from the government to feed them.  Most of the kids are there at 7am, and some of them stay as late as 6pm.  They all get fed two meals and two snacks per day.  Sometime more than 30 kids show up, and they have to take care of them and feed them as well.  When we walked in there was a little girl, looked about 8 months old, laying on a mat, not moving.  I eventually went over to her and picked her up. She was a limp wet noodle. No energy, little muscle tone, very little reaction to anything.  I asked the teachers about her and they said she was malnourished, like many of the children there. She is 14 months old. One teacher told me that they don`t have the money to buy a variety of food for the kids. The parents don`t have the means to feed their kids properly either. In Paragachi, there is not water for irrigation, and it is illegal to use water from the faucet to water your garden, so growing your own food is very difficult there. Paul is working on a project to get the town irrigation water.  They should have some by the end of the year. YAY! Although by Ecuadorian standards it will probably be longer. So we are going back to the daycare tomorrow to do a real check up on all the kids, and hopefully distribute some clothes and other things they need.



kids at daycare



Speaking of Paragachi, Paul bought a house! Kind of. We are trying to raise $5,000 for a house in Paragachi. I use the word house loosely.  It is a structure, walls, broken windows, dirt floors, beams where a ceiling/floor should be.  A fixer-upper with a lot of potential. It is on a piece of land that is large enough to do a nice size demonstration garden for the bio-intensive organic agriculture. It could also be a starting place for the orphanage Jana and I are dreaming of. Like I said, a lot of potential.  It would probably take another $3,000 to get everything livable and running properly. Why Paragachi? It is said to the armpit of Pimampiro. It`s small, only 150 families. There are very little resources there. Lots of mosquitoes. It`s hot and dry. It is known for it`s roughness. But there is something amazing going on there. The kids that come out of Paragachi are incredible.  Tough and talented.  There is a feeling of comradary in the community that is palpable.  When you have nothing, you get creative and close.  Connected.

Agua. I would just like to take a moment to talk about water. It`s been raining like crazy here, more rain than they have seen in a lone time. Good right? Poop no. All of the rain is causing a lot of landslides, which are breaking the pipes that carry water. For over two weeks now there has been very little water available in Pimampiro. We rejoice when we turn on the faucet and water comes out. Showering is tricky. When there is water, it`s freezing. Not like lukewarm cold, but ice. Terrible. I have not been showering much. Yum. We have also been filling up trashcans and buckets whenever there is water, so we can use it when we need it. Let me tell you how fun it is to wash the dishes by dunking a cup into a bucket of water every time you need a rinse. Or throwing water down the toilet instead of flushing. What we didn`t know was the when there is water now, it is not drinkable. Oops. Found that one out a little late. Elena told us it was "black water." It looked fine to me until I really paid attention to it. It`s not the clearest water I`ve ever seen, that`s for sure. You don`t want to know how my stomach feels about it. Got a little sick for a day or two, but nothing too bad. So now we have to buy bottled water, which is no fun either. I miss the days of the delicious Pimampiro tap water. So simple. So next time you feel like complaining about doing the dishes, cleaning, or that your hot shower got slightly less hot near the end, be thankful for what you do have.









death







cuy!



Never Trust a Bus with Flare

Home. We spent all day yesterday back in Ibarra, buying stuff for the apartment. Paul dropped us at this cheap, mishmash store to buy stuff for the kitchen and whatever else. Not really sure what to compare it to. Imagine a really messy person´s desk. Now that desk explodes into a store. We managed to buy everything we needed for the aparment for pretty cheap. A lot of it is plastic, but it works. The gas tank was as much as the stove we bought. Dang. About $65 for each. But it´s only $3 to refill the tank, and they last awhile, so that´s good news. It´s Holy week here in South America, which means a lot of festivities. Last night we attended the annual "trueque" in Pimampiro. People from all around gather in Pimampiro to trade things. No exchange of money permitted. The goal is to obtain everything needed to make fanesca, the traditional soup eaten during holy week. Fanesca includes, many beans (cho-chos, lima beans), grains (rice, flour, quinua), peanuts, fish (bacalhao-what is it?!?!?!?), squash, eggs, plantains, bolitos (fried bread), cheese, milk, butter, and a partridge in a pear tree. It was basically a big party. Live music, tons of people everywhere. Traditionally it lasts from 6pm until 6am, but we left around midnight so I´m not sure if the tradition prevails. We were given many things (mostly shots of various alcohol, one felt like moonshine) and traded with panela (bricks of pure sugar cane).  It was a truly beafutiful experience. Paul played guitar and sang with some folks, kids stayed up too late, the drunks were thriving. Who could ask for more? I feel very privlidged to have been a part of it.

I am finally home. It took a long time to get here, but I have arrived. Jana, Kaite, and I are now living in an apartment in Pimampiro.  Paul found it and signed on it for us a few days ago.  We arrived to Pimampiro on Wednesday, threw some matresses into the apartment, and here we are. Muchas gracias a Paul for everything. It is truely amazing how things work out. Let me start from the second beginning. Katie (Jana´s friend from Haiti) arrived in Guayaquil last Thursday night. As it turns out, Paul had an overnight layover in Guayaquil that night, so we scooped him up from the airport and took him to the "house." After many hours of conversation, we decided to take Katie and come back to Pimampiro, instead of going to Lima as we had planned. This was not without heartbreak. I am hesitant to write about this, as it is public, but a blog is journal, and I will treat it as such. Katie, Jana, and I left MMRC sooner than we had promised. Jana and I were in Guayaquil for five days instead of the promised two weeks. The environment in the house was less than ideal. Everyone was tense all of the time. Every conversation turned into an argument, and rarely was anything productive accomplished. So we left. I am sorry for those that were hurt in the process, but I know the decision was right for me.

So we went to Montañita, a small beach town about 2.5 hours away from Guayaquil. It was a much needed break. This town is a surfer´s dream and a partier´s paradise. Needless to say we had a lot of fun. The three of us actually took surf lessons (awesome!). Never in my life did I think I was going to try to surf, especially from someone teaching me in Spanish. We had to practice in the surf school before we went in the ocean. Basically, you lay flat on your stomach on the board, when you "feel the waves at your feet" you begin to paddle (rema!) you pretend like your freestyling (the swim stroke not the dance move), then when "you feel the wave at your waist you arch your back and pop yourself onto your feet in one suave move. And you must land with your feet apart and knees bent (echos from my childhood of tennis playing), in the center of the board. Easy right? Sure, not so bad inside the surf school. Out in the water it was a different story. When they yell "¡posición!" ("but the wave is so close! let´s wait for the next one. no? right now? okokokok!") you belly flop onto the surf board, fix your bathing suit bottoms, move mas adelante or mas atras, depending on where you flopped, and REMA REMA REMA. Paddle or the wave will eat you. When the wave starts taking you, ARRIBA! You lift yourself up and surf into the sunset. Very easy. Or not. I maybe actaully stood up about 4 times. My knees were super bruised. Jana ran into my bottom with her surfboard at full speed, my ribs hurt from all the flopping, and I had so much water up my nose and down my throat it was hard to breath, and I think I snotted more than I ever have in my life. Cleansed.  But, it was a lot of fun. We practiced for about two hours. Side note, they scare you by telling you if you get too close to the shore, you will ruin the fins on the bottom of your surf board and you have to pay for it. So the few times I did stand up, I jumped off for fear of ruining the surfboard.  Another things we learned in Montañita.  Everyone has their own unique whistle. So, if you´re in a group of people, you whistle, your friend hears your unique whistle, and responds with his own personal whistle. Then you find each other and all is well. Interesting. It took us about two days to figure out what was going on. I am personally working on a whistle of my own. I am looking for something catchy but simple. Suggestions are welcome.  Montañita was fun, but I was done after a few days. The mountains were calling me.

I thought I had had interesting bus trips in the past, but trying to get from Montañita to Pimampiro topped them all. All started out fine. We took three buses until we got to what we thought was going to be the ultimate bus from Puertoviejo to Quito. About 8 hours. The plan was to stay the night in Quito, then head up to Pimampiro the next day. So we´re in Puertoviejo, expecting to have to wait 3 or 4 hours to catch a bus to Quito (that´s what everyone had told us), when a nice young gentleman comes up to us, asks us where we are going, and says "vamos, this bus is going to Quito right now." What luck! We thought we had just cut 4 hours off of our trip. The bus itself was fantastic. The front was all tricked out with tweety bird and winnie the poo stickers. Lots of Fun. The bus helper man was super nice, I asked a million questions. I even asked if the bus was going to the Northern terminal in Quito (it´s about an hour past the Southern terminal, and we were coming in from the south). He said, sure, of course we can go to the Northern terminal if that´s where you need to go. Awsome, by about 9pm there were only 5 people on the bus, the three of us, and one other couple. It was like being in a movie theater all by yourself. It was great. We told the bus helper man we were hungry, and we stopped at a "rest stop" for about 30 minutes to eat. Our own private Limosine. It was all too good to be true. Around 1130pm, the bus stops at some random corner and the bus helper man (we now know his name is Fabiano), says, "ok, get out here." When I say random corner, I mean we are on the Panamerican highway in the middle of nowhere, about an hour outside of Quito. What?! "You said we were going to Quito!!" "No, we have to wait for another bus to take you to Quito." We fight for a little, but they insist they are going south from here and if we want to go to Quito we had better get out of the bus now. EFF. So we lug our obscene amount of luggage off the bus, and wait. I insist that they wait with us since they got us into this predicament. They wait, try to flag down passing busses, no one will take our sorry souls. We have turned into hop ons. Or wannabe hops ons. We were PRAYING for a hop on. It was freezing mind you, raining, we had nothing warm. Miserable. So we waited outside for an hour. No one would take us. The passing buses rarely even stopped. Crap. The bus we were on was going to Ambato, which was two hours away from Quito. We asked how long it would take to get to Ibarra (where we were meeting Paul the next day) from Ambato. "Oh, about two hours." Perfect, we´ll just get back onto your lying bus, and sleep in Ambato for the night. Ambato turned out to be another 7 hours from Ibarra. We completely back-tracked for over two hours. ANGRY! So I told Fabiano that I was mad at him and that he was a liar (¡Mentiroso!), but all turned out ok. I ended up sitting in the front of the bus with the bus driver for the last 2 hours (great view and much warmer). We were freezing. Got to the hotel, took a cold shower, and froze the night away. Katie was bitten by bed bugs, all was swell. We Finally made it to Ibarra (and Paul was luckily still there!!!!), around 630pm the next day. Long journey, but we made it.


Today we ate our first meal in our new home. Luis (president of Paragachi), Sonia (university student, not 47%), and Paul joined us for breakfast. Stove (hooked up with help from Elena) worked! Fresh bread, coffee, fresh Jam, perfection. Side note again, the Jam is made from Ovos, which is a fruit that is only grown in one part of the world, the valley next to Pimampiro.  In this valley, it is said that people live the longest in the whole world. Eat more ovos! They look like cherry tomatoes, but taste sour and sweet and delicious. Until we meet again
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