Gee ain't it funny...

see the rainbow?!

...how time slips away.  April? When did that happen? Time is slip slip slippery.  I spent the morning sitting on the roof, staring at a rainbow.  I've been up since 5:30am, drinking way too much coffee and catching up on uploading photos while everyone is sleeping (the more people using the internet here, the slower it is).  Paulito had a layover here in Guayaquil last night, so we were all up until about 1:30, then I got up with him at 5:30 to make coffee/breakfast, and to make sure he made it out ok.  The elevator can be a little confusing if you're not used to it.  If you're going downstairs by yourself, it involves throwing the key sensor out of the elevator before the doors close.  It makes sense, trust me. I also, maybe (fingers crossed!), figured out how to track my location and post it to the blog, for viewers like you. It worked from here, but we'll see what happens when I change locations. Could get a little hairy. Could be kinda cool though.  Now, mom, you'll know exactly where I am at all times.  Just what you've always wanted.  It also will tell you how fast I am traveling, which could be fun.  I tried running around the hospital to test this out, but alas, I could not go fast enough for Sputnik to track me, and just ended up scaring away the one patient of the day.

There is not a whole lot going on here in Guayaquil.  BP is facing a lot of resistance from the hospital administration.  We are trying to get things together to give free surgeries to those who need them in the area.  This obviously involves a lot of planning and data collection, but the admins are making it very difficult.  They insist that everything we do, we do under their control.  For some reason (MONEY!), they are toying with out minds and emotions and making things very difficult.  We are promised vehicles and a driver, get everything ready for the day, then the vehicle/driver is all of the sudden unavailable.  Why? Control? They don't want us here?  Not really sure.  This hospital used to be a hoppin' place.  This catholic priest from Ireland ran programs here for 15 years, everyone loved him, the hospital was actually helping the poor people in the area (which is everyone. we are in the hood). Then, the priest got old, went back to the land of the green, and left the hospital under the control of the archdiocese of Guayaquil.  Now, the patients get the luxery of paying for every little part of their care.  For instance, say you had the poops for a few days, and need some IV rehydration.  Not only do you have to pay for the salt water they pump in your veins, you also have to pay for the IV catheter and the tubing.  When I say pay, I don't mean it goes on your tab.  You have to walk your poop covered, dry-veined self over to the hospital pharmacy, purchase said items, crawl back to the ED, where some kind doctor or nurse will then begin to treat you.  Meanwhile, you could have paid 25 cents to hop a bus, offended much more people in an eclosed space with your fecal aroma, and checked yourself into the government run hospital.  There you could kick back, relax, and enjoy some free care.  Why would anyone ever come to this hospital? Answer: they don't.  Yesterday, BP and I went down to the ER to shoot the poop (not literally this time), and the one doctor and one nurse informed us from their lounge chairs that there was not a single patient in the hospital.  Not in-patient. Not in the ER. Not in surgery. Nada. Moral of the story: not really sure.  It comes down to money and power.  The administration is resisting our efforts because they are afraid it will take away from their income. But maybe, having a patient or two in the hospital (even if they aren't paying), would be good for business. Word of mouth my friends.  Right? Maybe wrong. I really don't know anymore.

It all goes back to the concept of you can't give someone something they don't want.  People here have a lot of pride, and don't necessarily like foreigners ramblin' in telling them, "we can fix this miserable situation you have here." "It's our situation, and miserable is how we like it!" Something I have learned through other people's mistakes (isn't it great when you get lucky enough to learn that way!?), is that you can work and work and work and work some more, but unless it means something to the people you are helping, the second you leave, all is lost.  Look at our Irish preist friend. He were here 15 years working to make things better. Yet the second her left, BAM, back to crap.  Or Larry, the gent with the Canadian organization that works in Lima.  He built a place for kids to eat one free meal per day, but as soon as they left, the community turned it into something else. Storage? I don't remember. There are countless examples of this. So what's the answer? How does one actaully make a lasting impression?  I'm not really sure.  Find people who you can really trust to leave it with? Don't leave? Drink the immortal juice and live forever? Or maybe what you do doesn't really have to last forever. Do what you can while you're here, and if it makes one person smile for one moment in time, then it's worth it.  That seems like an easy answer to a difficult question.

Alphabet! Photo courtesy of Debby

Meanwhile, we have been waiting around in our third floor suite (CAGE!), we having been making good use of our time. Yesterday, I taught a Spanish class to the members of our team who don't know the language. I had a white board and a ruler. I was in heaven. Hopefully the lessons will continue today. Ok, hungry, jittery (caffeine!), and now sleepy. If you need me, check my GPS coordinates.

Spanish lessons. Photo courtesy of Debby

I'm a new girl!

I just took a shower with water pressure. I can't really even relay in words how good it felt.  After having water trickle on you for almost three weeks, a shower with real pressure is magic.  We are now back in Guayaquil, Ecuador with the rest of the gang.  We have added a new member, Peter, from Holland.  He is helping with logistical things. Currently, Jana and I are in the kitchen, "baking cookies."  I had to research this one, seeing as we have no oven.  Guess what happens when you google, "How to bake without and oven?" You get an article that reads, "The key to baking without an oven is to use the dutch-oven technique." Of course!!! So we rigged up a dutch oven of our very own. It consists of a pot on the stove (nothing in it, which seems like a bad idea to me), a pan on top of the pot, and a lid. Simple enough.  So we "pre-heated" the oven, plopped our oatmeal cookies on (in?), and off we go.  First batch,  burned on the bottom.  Turned "oven" down. Second batch, put butter on pan. cookies spread into disaster. Third batch, no butter on pan, lower heat, perfection.  It really is the charm.

Our last few days in Pimampiro were great.  Didn't really do anything out of the ordinary.  Thursday night we hung out with Ricardo, the Ecuadorian who has lived in the states for 20 years.  We told him about the property we found, and he insisted we go check it out.  So we find this place (which is a little confusing, especially driving at night), and he just goes right up and knocks on the gate/wall.  The poor groundskeeper comes to the door, and lets us look around (again). Ricardo of course knows the owners (everyone knows everyone!!!!), and calls them to ask about a price. We tried to get an asking price earlier, but no one could seem to come up with one.  Ricardo had the same problem.  We just found out today that they are asking $250,000, ha!, and not really interested in selling.  I of course thought that's why we were looking at it in the first place, but who knows. But it was fun while it lasted. We spent all Saturday evening and late into the night with Paul, creating a business proposal for the property.  It was a good exercise, as Paul put it. We did not know the asking price at the time.  Oh well, there will be other opportunities.

Sunday we lazed around in the morning.  First time we actaully got to sleep until we wanted to in awhile. Felt great.  We were supposed to leave on a 7:30pm bus from Ibarra (over an hour away) for Guayaquil.  When our mom called to ask about tickets available, they were not.  So we quick gathered up all of our stuff, and headed to Ibarra to see if we could catch another bus.  We ended up getting what we were told was a direct bus from Ibarra to Guayaquil.  Getting a direct bus on long journey's is important.  Most buses stop to let people on and off wherever.  When I say "wherever," I am not joking.  Last night, we let someone off next to a gaurd rail on the Pan American highway, somewhere between Quito and Guayaquil.  No town, no other road, no nothing.  Classic.  People also seem to appear out of no where and jump on the bus.  When this happens, all I can think of is the driving lesson in Arrested Develpoment on "How to Avoid Hop-Ons" (this also applies when we are riding in the truck with Paul and all of the sudden there a 10 kids in the back...). There are certain rules when riding a bus in a foreign country.  These are a few I have learned, either the hard way or from Jana.

 Bus Rules:
1. Have amount needed for the bus ride in your pocket. No bills. Coins only. (Don't be the jackass that's fumbling through $20s and asking if they have change) You will get your money stolen. This one is common sense.
2. Keep all of your things as attatched to you as possible.  Purse over head/shoulder, backpack on belly (BELLY PACK!!), anything else wrapped around part of your body that's free. Learned from other's mistakes. It's amazing how quickly someone can swipe a purse from off your shoulder.
3. If you have put stuff to be stored under the bus, you have to stick your head out the window, yes even in the rain, everytime the bus stops, to make sure no one is running off with it
4. Stuff on floor must be either between feet or wrapped around legs/ankle. Those punks will pull something from under the seat so fast. Little shits.
5. If someone sketchy starts talking to you, pretend you don't speak Spanish. If they start talking to you in English, say, "Aleman," which means "German." I haven't met too many Latin Americans with German as a second language, so it's usually a same bet.

So we thought we had gotten a direct bus. Wrong.  This is a huge pain when you have all your stuff stored under the bus (see rule number 3).  We not only made many random stops (raining!), but we stopped at both bus terminals in Quito, adding an extra hour or so to our already 11 hour journey through the night. So we get on this bus, exausted, ready to crash out.  A guy then gets on, blasting his not-so-personal, portable electronic music playing device.  I almost donated my headphones to him. Luckily, he turned it down when Rocky IV came on.  Following him was a woman screaming and crying histerically. She was upset. No doubt.  Solid start to the next 11 hours of my life.  So most of the bus drivers are crazy, passing people on the two-lane highway while rounding the curves.  This fellow was exceptional.  After he stalled out twice in 3 miles, we began to have our doubts.  When he clipped the small truck on the highway, the deal was sealed.  Loony.  So I took my dramimine and tried to forget about it.  All was well until we stopped in Quito and the bus passengers starting rioting and demanding that the trip was supposed to be "directo!!!!" Insanity.  I jumped off the bus at thing point (dangerous move, they will leave your ass), and ran with the other random girl to the conveniently placed bathroom, a quarter of a mile away.  We luckily made it back in time, got back on the crazy train, and went directo to Guayaquil.  What a ride...

Sad News

I believe I have spoken about Luis before. He is president of his town of Paragachi, about 100 families. He is 29 years old, makes beautiful weavings, and so on.  This morning, Jana and I were at the clinic and see Luis walk into the clinic, limping.  He made eye contact with us, but kept walking on his way.  We knew something was wrong because he usually comes up and greets us.  When we finally got a good look at him, his face was all swollen, scratchd, and bruised. Last night, he found some kids spraying graffitii on one of the buildings in Paragachi. He told them to stop, and they beat the crap out of him.  Terrible. He is one of the nicest, most calm, humble person I have met. When we asked if he faught back, he said no, he couldn`t because he is the president of his town and has to set an example.  Heart breaking.  So Jana and I tended to him while he waited 2 hours for his paper work. The kids that did it, minors, are in a juvinille jail in Ibarra, about an hour from here.  So after being up all night, waiting over 2 hours at the clinic, Luis had to ride for over an hour to Ibarra to talk to a lawyer to press charges against the kids.  They have apparently been causing trouble in Paragachi for awhile. Sad news.

Better news.  Jana and I went with our mom yesterday to look at this piece of property that her friend is selling in Pimampiro.  This piece of property is amazing. Tons of rooms, POOL, huge orchard.  Perfect place for an orphanage. Long story, but our other friend of course knows the family selling it as well, so he called for us and asked how much they wanted. They don`t know right now, but this place would be perfecto!  Wish us luck.

bolsas

It has been an interesting week.  I can't believe it's actually been a week since I last wrote.  Where does the time go? Jana and I have been in Pimampiro for over two weeks now, that is  crazy in itself.  I am currently sitting in the "central park" of Pimampiro, using the free wifi (it works on the computer!!). There is so much to say, and so many thing I want to talk about, but haven't had the time or energy.

Friday we went to Chuga, one of the paroquias surrounding Pimampiro.  They say that Chuga is in "el cielo," which means the sky, or heaven, depending on the translation.  Either way, it was beautiful there.  You can see so much and so far, it was incredible.  We visited the clinic and a school there, but only for a brief time.  We then did the hour hike to the highest part of Chuga, where there is a cemetery.  We went with Fernando (works for Paulito) and his brother.  The entire hike was really steep up this mountain, on a very narrow path.  We asked, and the community carries the coffins all the way up this hill to bury the bodies.  I was a little scared walking this on my own, I can't imagine carrying a casket all the way up.  The cemetery itself was not what I was picturing.  It was not groomed and well defined like the ones we are used to seeing.  There were random plots everywhere, and they were all overgrown.  There were also still mounds of dirt where the coffins were, not buried too deep I guess. The ride there and back was definitely interesting.  I rode on a "moto" (dirtbike?) with Ramiro's friend, and Jana rode with Ramiro.  Looking back, the poor guy probably felt like I was assaulting him.  I had on scrub pants, which was a mistake because I was sliding all over the place.  I was literally hanging on for dear life both on the way up and on the way down (side note, he told me to hold onto his backpack straps aka waist on the way up the mountain, and to hold on to the handles next to my seat on the way down the mountain. just in case you find yourself in a similar situation, you will know what to do.).

Saturday we went to Paragachi, the little town next to Pimampiro (where we had played soccer).  Ramiro took us so we could get some of our surveys filled out because they were having a community event.  Jana got eaten alive by these little mosques (nociums?). Her ankles were swollen for days.  We finally got a hot tip from the peace corps worker to soak them in Mantico (an herb), and that finally helped.  This was after our mom had rubbed various home remedies on them, including a tequila/tobacco mixture that made Jana sick later on that night.  After that experience we backed a small bag and headed to Quito for a fiesta.  There were eight people from the peace corps, and a handful of them were finishing there assignments.  So we tagged along, and got a feel for the night life in Quito.   A cultural learning experience of course.

I have a lot more to write about, but for now I will move on to the random things.
1. Eating lunch the other day, there were many flies around.  Mom gets out the fly swatter and starts going to town.  What she doesn't see is that our friend Sonia (47%), has a fly swatter as well.  We are all watching here as she rears back, and has her aim dead set on a fly pirtched on the block of cheese.  It's slow motion at this point. None of us can move fast enough.  We are yelling "NOOOOOO" as she kills the fly directly on top of the block of cheese.  Solution. Rinse block of cheese and put it in fridge.  I couldn't stop laughing as I was eating my cheese and bread later that night. Yum yum.

2. We had a conversation with one of the peace corps workers about promises here in Ecuador. There is a certain hierarchy of what promises mean here. A pact, is something you can't break. For instance, Jana and I made a pact to stick together after our Haiti plans fell through.  A friendly agreement is something you agree to do, but have not really committed.  Like general future plans. An Ecuadorian promise is something that is mostly likely not to happen. If the phrase "ya mismo" is involved, it is almost certain not to happen.

3.  Bolsas.  So in Peru, the word for bag is bolsa.  So we assumed that it was the same here. Wrong. Yesterday we asked our mom my she used the word "funda" for bag, instead of "bolsa." She laughed and told us it was a bad word. She explained to us that bolsa was the word used for "sack," and I think you can figure the rest our from there.  We now understand why people laugh at us sometimes...

Sharing Cups

We are officially nurses now.  I know, I got my license about two years ago, but I have not truly been a nurse until today.  Today Jana and I received our Mandiles, which are white nursing shirts/jackets with our names and Paul’s logo embroidered on them.  Under our names, say “enfermera,” which makes it official.  We wore them to the clinic today, which was fun.  Working at the clinic is always interesting.  It is always full of people by the time we get there at 8am (or a little later).  We call people in to the first exam room and get their height, weight, BP, temp, head circumference if they are babies, and so on.  Now depending on what doctor they are seeing and why, we only collect certain information and it has to go in a certain place in the mass of papers stuffed in their charts.  Yolanda, the nurse or helper woman, that works with us sometimes,  runs around like a mad woman all day, telling us random things, bringing 5 patients back at a time, only half finishing their information, and confusing us all around.   She does however help us with calling out their names, which is a tricky situation.  The handwriting is difficult to read, they all have four or more names, and a large majority of them are in Quitchua, the native language.  It is a small victory when someone stands up after a fumble out a name.  After we see everyone, we sit and fold gauze.  We do this for about two hours, while intermittently giving injections or doing other random tasks.  These injections are ridiculous.  In the states, we give about 3mL maximum per Intramuscular injection.  Here, 3mL is the minimum.  We 5ml of milky nastiness IM in the rear all the time.  I usually try to reconstitute them using less water, but it’s still bad.  They usually don’t complain though.  Also, everything here comes in ampules, which means you have to break the glass to get to the serum.  In the states, we use a filter needle to draw it out of the glass shards, then use a different needle to administer it.  Here, it’s all the same process.  No filter, draw up the med plus some glass, and give it with the same needle. It’s painful for me, I can’t even imagine what they’re feeling.  So this has been our morning for the past few days. 

In the afternoons we usually go to the office and work on everything else we are doing.  We are surveying the people in the area about general public health concerns, so there seems to be more and more to do each day.  We are also planning our return to Lima, and everything we are going to try to do there.  Plus all the daily things that come up.  It seems like there are always a million things to do.  Busy is good though.  I just can’t wait to sleep in this weekend. 

This is truly a small town.  Most things that are bad about small towns everywhere, apply here.   For instance, teen pregnancy is huge here.  We see kids at the clinic every day that are pregnant, as young as 14 years old.  This is also a very poor small town, so education is limited at best.  We do however give a lot of birth control injections, but we are giving them to 20 year olds with a two year old in tow.  It’s something I suppose.  When we were joy-riding with our “sister” and her friends last weekend, they told us that there was a huge stigma against young girls taking birth control.  Another problem: young kids getting drunk all the time.  Not sure what the age limit is for buying alcohol around here.  If there is one, I’m sure no one adheres to it.  So you see young boys walking around drunk on the weekends.  There doesn’t seem to be many drugs though which is surprising considering how close we are to Colombia. 

I am confused about a lot of things in this culture.  Let me begin, and please, correct me if I’m wrong, and help me out in any way you can.  Indigenous people lived here for a long time, then the almighty Europeans came took their land, gold, silver, possessions, everything they could (this is abbreviated).  The Spanish were here for a long time, so their culture grew and evolved with the indigenous people’s.  Eventually, the native people grew tired of being told what to do by the Spanish, and took their land and everything else back (I believe this took a while).   But, and here comes the part I’m a little confused about, after they were driven out, their culture was left as the dominating force.  Hence, Catholicism is the dominating religion, and so on.  So why didn’t the people want their roots back?  They drove the Spanish out, but kept all their ideals.  It must have been all about the Benjamins.  Here, it’s called plata.

I can’t think to write so much anymore.  We are in the office, which is a constant free-for-all.  People coming in and out, using this and that.  Carlota’s three year old wreaking havoc.  You name it.  Did I tell you about the guy we met in Pimampiro, Ecuador with Virginia plates? I may have.  Anyway, he is from a town near here, and drove the whole way from Virginia.  Took him three months.  Amazing.   He invited Jana and I to a wedding on Saturday, but I don’t think we’re going to go.  It’s in Quito and we have to do grunt work on Saturday.   But who knew you could just invite two people to a wedding?  It would be a fun thing to see though.  Tomorrow, we are going to work at a clinic about 30 minutes away up the mountain.  We are going on the back of two different “motos.” That means motorcycles.  Should be interesting.  Can’t wait to see the cliff’s of death up close.  Don’t worry mom, it’s safe.

47% incapacitated

So it`s hard to believe it`s been almost a week since I`ve written.  So much has happened in 6 short days. So on Thursday, Jana and I went to the clinic by ourselves because Paul was busy.  We got there at 8:30am, and went in to talk to the director, whom we had not met.  She barely gave us the time of day, spoke super fast, wouldn´t let us get a word in (we`re still a little slow but we can say what we need to say), and sent us to work with the nurses checking heights, weights, and blood pressures.  bleh.  It was frusterating, but we helped for about four hours, listened to a lecture on TB for two hours, then went home.  We also got the privlidge of folding gauze for about two of those four hours. The other nurses were making cotton balls during the TB lecture.  Thant`s right. Making cotton balls. So the next day, Paul went with us to talk to her and help us explain why we were here.  She at first tried to send us away and only talk to Paul, but Paulito did not let that happen.  So we talked to her about what our objectives are here, and all the ways we plan to and want to help the commmunity.  She started listening a little better when we told her all of the resoucres we could have for her.  She now understands that we will help in the clinic when we can, but we want to survey the general health needs in Pimampiro and its surrounding communities and help out with what we can. 

Friday afternoon we went to Ibarra with Paul.  We took with us a truckfull of goods, a little girl and her grandmother.  They were moving from their home in Pimampiro, which Paul told us was in horrible shape, to a brand new house in Ibarra, the "big" town about an hour away.  Angie (the little girl) was very excited and happy.  Their new home was safe, clean, and beautiful.  It is actually directly behind a small clinic in Ibarra that their family is somehow connected to.  We got some decals put on Paul`s truck and bought some nice white nursing shirts for Jana and I.  Yes, I shall wear white again. Appearance is a big deal here, so we need to look a little more professional than we have been looking.  We are getting our names embroidered and Paul`s Mountains of Hope logo embroidered as well.  Pretty spiffy indeed.  We then went to a coffee shop in Ibarra and met up with a girl named Sonia. Sonia has known Paul for a long time, and Paul has helped support her through her schooling.  She was always the top of her class and an otherwise gifted student.  Someone from the states met her, and is supporting her through college.  She wants to be an English teacher.  She rents a room in Ibarra for $30 a month, but goes home to see her family every weekend in Paragachi, a little town just outside the main town of Pimampiro.  She showed us her room and all of her things.  She showed us a photo album with pictures of her friends and family.  In this she has a picture of her and Paul, from what looks like to be quite some time ago, maybe 5 or 6 years.  This to me speaks wonders.  It was a wonderful day.  Drank a realy latte, had apple pie right out of the oven, and I rode home in the back of the truck, which going 60-70mph along the Pan American highway was quite an intense feeling.

Friday evening we went out with our new mom on a walk and went to her friend`s store and hung out and talked.  Saturday we finally slept in, it was marvelous.  We came to the office, which was blissfully empty, and worked all day.  We prepared a written letter to the director of the clinic, made documents to evaluate health conditions, and so on. Elena`s daughter came into to town from Quito and stayed the weeked with Elena.  We hung out with her and her friends for a typical Saturday night in Pimampiro.  Drove around the town about 30 times, finally stopped at the central plaza where there were several other pods of people hanging out, and drank beer out of one cup.  people share cups all day everyday.  for us to get our own cup (except at home with elena), is a speical occasion.  even the kids at the beach, we had two large bottles of water with two cups to share amongst the 14 of us. so the 8 of us sat in the park listening to music, sharing plastic cups of beer, watching others do the same thing all over the park.  it was fabulous. 

Sunday, big day.  We got up, scarfed a little breakfast, went immediately to Sue and Paul`s to help prepare for the large dinner event that night.  The man who has givin Paul and Sue money in the past was coming to visit Pimampiro for the first time, and they planned a dinner for 50 plus people in his honor. live music and all.  We stayed at Sue`s all day, chopping, cleaning, chopping, mashing, i made a slide show for the event, and trying to get everything ready.  Showered finally! and went to the dinner.  It was a very nice dinner, people from many different towns, some pretty far away in the mountains, came to welcome Ken, the guest of honor and his daughter Daphne.  Many people spoke and gave thanks to Ken, there was some dancing (yes i danced), and lots of food. We were all exhausted, but it was a good day. 

Monday we went with Paul, Sue, Ken, Daphne, Sue`s friends, Catherine, Carlota (the secretary), Blanca (the gardener, cook, everythinger), Fernando, Ramiro, up into the mountains to see some of the projects Paul and the others have been working on.  We packed a number of us in the back of the truck and headed up (arriba).  The drive up was amazing. Some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever witnessed.  The projects Paul and his team are working on are amazing.  They started bio-intensive organic beds on school property in very small remote communities.  The students have done a lot of the work under the guide of Paul`s team members, and are learning a lot in the process.  They have taken ideas they learned and started the same technique of gardening in their homes. It`s pretty incredible.  People are also learning how to eat and cook from Sue.  The area is so rich with an incredible amount of fruits and vegetables, but a lot of the people don`t know how to prepare them so they sell the good stuff and eat rice and potatoes.  Sue has lead several cooking classes to teach people how to use everything they are growing.  We went to several different communities during the day, then ended up in Paragachi in the late afternoon.  Here we saw several more gardens, and also a project in the soccer field.  They planted 1000 trees around the local soccer field to block the wind, keep the ball in (it`s kinda on a cliff), and for general prettiness.  We ended up playing the local kids in a friendly game of fútbol, the old people versus the young healthy, inshape, athletic kids.  We had numbers but they have skill and youth.  These kids I sweat could run faster than I could kick a ball accross a hard dirt ground. We did however have the old man from Colombia, who walked with a walking stick all day, but turned out to be a very energetic and mobile soccer playing.  We played for about an hour, maybe more.  Not really sure who won.  After Paul anounced for the 5th time, that the next goal wins, it began to get dark and we stopped. It was some good exercise and a lot of fun.

So much more to say, but it`s getting late. So a few random things.

This girl who works for Elena showed us her pictures in her wallet one day.  One was a regular ID card, but below it there was a card that declared her 47% incapacited by the country of Ecuador. She is clearly slow, and has some issues, but a percent!? I would hate to see mine. We asked later and they said that she gets discounts and other perks. At least there is something.

There are termites in Elena`s house. Every morning Jana wakes up with a pile of wood shaving on her legs. There are also three or so piles that show up in the bathroom. I chose the good bed apparently.  Last night we ate pizza with either spam-stuffed or hot-dog stuffed crust. delish

North we go

Where in the world am I?  Pimampiro, Ecuador.  Pimampiro is a small town, population about 5,000 in the northern part of Ecuador (about an hour and a half south of the Colombian boarder, 4 hours north of Quito, maybe somewhere in the Andes mountains?).  We got here around 7pm last night, after beginning our travels early Monday morning from Guayaquil.  I am convinced that very little in the country/continant is consistant.  For instance, evertime I go into a new bathroom I wonder which part about it will confuse me.  The shower in Lima, we had to set up the hot water heater to be on during certain times of the day, but the times were never right on the machine, nor did an hour really mean an hour.  Guayaquil; must flip switch above shower to make coils heat up to get hot water.  But you can barely have any water pressure because the more you turn the water on, the colder it gets.  Quito; electrical outlet in shower. WHY? Pimampiro; super crazy shower contraption that our hostess had to turn on from outside.  The shower head consists of a huge blue device with several hoses attatched to it and various exposed wires wrapped around it.  Then there are three knobs, the two that say hot/cold apparently do nothing, but when I touched the third, the lights got brigher in the bathroom and the shower went off.  I stand there frozen, not sure if I´ve blown all a fuse somewhere or if I was about to be electricuted when I hear "Elizabeth, do you have water?" (in spanish from the hostess). I of course don´t, so she had to come into the bathroom (mid-shower) and fix it for me.  By fix it I mean, return it to it´s state of dribble.  Jana and I are going to have shampoo in hour hair for a month.  But at least we´re clean.

So the time we spent in Guayaquil was very nice.  The hostel where we stayed is amazing.  We had everything we needed and then some.  While we were there we met with people from the Archdiasis who we were connected with through Javier (our Peruvian contact). They took us to several clinics around Guayaquil and one hospital in a poor area.  The hospital consisted of 20 beds, an ER, a birthing ward, a chlidrens ward, and on OR.  The OR was pretty nice; 4 surgical suites, it´s own autoclave type machine and so on.  They said they do about 25 planned surguries per month.  They have 4 nurses and 4 doctors on staff for the whole hospital.  Total. One nurse and one doctor on at a time.  But there was only one in-patient while we were there so I guess that´s not too bad.  Hopefully they don´t get too many influxes.  So the plan is to eventully get surgical teams in from the states and do a bunch of surgeries for something in particualar (such as cleft lip) over the span of a week or two. Also, there are living quaters on the top floor of the hospital, so we will eventually be living there.  Fun stuff.

So why am I in this small town in northern Ecuador? Well that´s a whole new story.  Thurday night at the hostel, we started talking to this guy who is from the states, but lives here is Pimampiro.  He described the town and the people, so Jana and I decided to come and check it out and live here for awhile.  The fellow´s name is Paul (of course!) (New Paul? NP?).  So here we are.  Our journey started on Monday morning, with a 10 hour bus ride from Guayaquil to Quito.  The bus was a new and interesting adventure.  It was a free-for-all of people constantly jumping on and off at seemingly random places along the Pan American highway.  The bus helper man was very efficient.  You had about 3 seconds to get yourself either on or off the bus before it took off again.  At times it seemed like it barely even stopped.  More like a run and jump to/from a moving vehicle type scenario.  So we got dropped in a ghetto in Quito, which is not at all where we wanted to be for obvious reasons.  We were trying to meet up with NP, who had flown in.  After several phone calls and us passing our phone to strangers trying to give/get directions for NP, he just got a cab and came to get us.  Our night in Quito was nice.  Had some lovely, delicious Indian food and got some much needed rest. I was unable to sleep at all on the bus, but stayed awake and enjoyed the incredible scenery. Jana on the other hand nods out at the drop of a pin anywhere she is, so she slept most of the way. That morning we went with NP to the historic disctrict so he could buy some fabric and thread and whatnot.  Quito is at a much higher elevation than we were used to, so by the time we left the city we were exhausted and sick.  We both slept on the way from Quito to Otavalo, which is about a 2 hour ride.  Otavalo has the largest outdoor market in the world every Saturday.  We saw the mini version of this on Tuesday and I bargined a few items.  We met up with NP´s friend Segundo, who is an indiginous man that lives near there and does verious organic agricultural projects in his community.  We then learned that NP´s name here is "Paulito," so no more NP.

Paulito and his friend Sue have several projects here in Pimampiro.  Sue is a teacher, and works with kids at an all girls school on various art projects. We visited her at the school today and everything is very beautiful that they create.  Paulito is working with the community here, and various communities up in the mountains on organic agriculture projects.  This town has recently been introducted to pesticides and farming chemicals that are ruining their soil and ability to produce crops in the future.  So he is working on educating the community on the reprocutions of using such products.

Today Jana and I went to the local clinic.  It consists of 5 or 6 doctors, and one nurse.  We will be volunteering there tomorrow, but hope to do more work in the more rural communities up in the mountains in the future.  We shall see.  The town is quite nice. Very small, quiet.  There is free wifi in the center park, but it doesn´t seem to work. No funciona. Very glad I bought that iPhone.  So we are using the internet cafe next to Paulito´s office, which costs 80 cents an hour.  We are staying with the woman named Elena.  She is 50 years old and has 3 kids.  Two of her kids live in the states, and one in Quito. Her mother died 8 months ago, and a few weeks after that her husband left her for another woman, so she gets lonely.  We found out today that we are going to be working with her ex-husband, who is a doctor at the clinic.  Gotta love small towns. Should be sufficiently awkward... The house is small, and in an L-shape.  She has to go through our room to get to her room, or go outside.  Our room is her kid´s old room and there is still all of their old stuff in it. We are constantly being stared at by dolls, and afriad to move suddenly for fear of upsetting one of the thousand trinkets in the room, but it is homey.  She is very nice and feeds us three meals a day.  All for $10 per day.  This may sound cheap, but it adds up pretty quickly.  We need to find a place of our own that is cheaper.  Paulito pays $70 per month for a nice, 2 bedroom apartment.  It would be ideal to find something like that.  Ok, my mind is getting fuzzy and we need to go rejoin the rest of the world.  More updates to come. Miss you all.