Hola Vida

At Hola Vida waterfall

My mom will vouch for that fact that I have always loved water.  I was the type of kid that had to be told to stay away from the Kiddie Pool or the hose if we were headed out somewhere so that my mom wouldn’t have to change me (again) before leaving, so it would only make sense that I loved the waterfalls we’ve gotten to experience here.

Friday, instead of working, we went with Alfredo and Alex, two of the full-time HCJB missionaries with Community Development in Shell and their adorable baby,Camila, on a hike up to Hola Vida, a waterfall about 40 minutes away from where we were staying in Shell.  It was the perfect day for a hike: not too hot, not too cold, not too buggy, and the hike was so cool.  After walking for about 20 minutes or so we rounded a corner, crossed yet another questionable looking walking bridge, and there it was: the waterfall. It was absolutely beautiful, cascading down from high above down into a pool at the bottom.

We had, wisely enough, worn bathing suits under our clothes that day, so I stripped down and waded in.  I wish I could have taken a camera in with me, because being under the waterfall was absolutely incredible.  Looking up and seeing the water falling down from high above, feeling the powering of the rushing water, seeing the way that the strength of the water moved the leaves on the trees even a few feet away left me in awe of the intense power of the God who had created that waterfall.

After swimming in the waterfall for a little while and hiking back, we stopped at a restaurant in Puyo and ate volqeteros, which basically means “trucker meal”.  This consisted of tostadas (roasted corn kernels), white beans, chifles (fried plantain chips), tomato, onion, and tuna all piled on top of each other.  It sounds pretty weird and unappealing, and looks like something that came back up, but it has been one of my favorite Ecuadorian things that I’ve tried so far.  It was really filling, which was good after hiking and swimming, but wasn’t bread or rice, which constitutes about 80% of what we eat here the rest of the time.

Here in Ecuador, they put a sauce called aji on everything and it’s served with most meals, especially at a restaurant.  It can range between pretty spicey to as mild as mild salsa.  Of course, they served it with our volqueteros, and Alfredo put 3/4 of a dish of it on his, which is quite a bit of sauce.  The rest of us opted for significantly less (partially because there wasn’t a whole ton left after Alfredo got through) and enjoyed  our meals a little more naturally.  So, if any of you reading this (assuming that anyone is indeed reading this, which is a toss up) are ever anywhere near Puyo, Ecuador make sure to try a volquetero, they are very weird looking but amazing.

 

Canyoning

On Saturday we stopping in Banos for a few hours on our way from Shell to Quito.  Banos is a more touristy town, that apparently has hot springs and other tourist attractions and is right in the mountains.  We had decided ahead of time that we wanted to go canyoing during our stop in Banos.  Canyoning is repelling down waterfalls.  Yeah, I know, it was even more amazing than it sounds.

We were put into a group with two Dutch tourists and were issued the clothing needed for canyoning: wet suit overalls, (huge) wetsuit jackets, really aweful already damp shoes, and helmets.  We rode for about 20 minutes to outside of Banos where we were herded into a semi-sketchy looking shelter where we changed with about 15 other girls into our oh-so-glamorous canyoning gear. After a pretty muddy 20 or so minute hike we arrived at the top of the first waterfall.

Then, we learned how to repel down waterfalls. It was amazing. There’s just no other way to describe it. It was so cool to be able to walk backwards down a huge rock while being hit by the water cascading from the waterfall.

 

Painting in Shell

In Shell, Emily, Andra, and I  worked in HCJB’s hospital there doing laundry, cleaning, and painting.  It was not exactly the work we applied to the internship program for and it reminded each of us why we went to college and majored in other fields.  I’ll be honest, as much as I don’t mind painting, some of the cleaning was starting to get to me, and, even more than that, the disorganization that is the trademark of a lot of life in Latin America was really getting to me. I like to do things the right way the first time, and it was hard to feel like I was doing that when we were told to spackle the walls, prime them, and put two coats of paint on them, all in the span of about 6 hours in a very humid part of Ecuador.
One of the last days we were priming and cleaning I could feel myself getting a little grumpy about the way things were getting done and the general disorganization that there was.  I felt like I was over-qualified for the job I was doing and was wondering if this was really helping anyone.  After all, the hospital had several maintenance men, it was their job, why couldn’t they do it?
Then all of the sudden, God crashed my pity party with one of the heavenly spankings that I need all too often.  The conversation between me and God went something like this.
Hannah- “God, this is not what I came to Ecuador for, I came to work in the radio station. This is not something that I am enjoying.”
God- “Hannah, aren’t you here to serve Me?”
Hannah- “Well, yes God, I’m on a missions trip after all.”
God- “Then what’s the issue here?”
Hannah- “This is not what I had in mind, that’s all.”
God- “Now Hannah, if I was coming to visit this hospital, wouldn’t you be very careful to make sure that it was clean and freshly painted, despite whose job you think it is to do that?”
Hannah- “Well of course God. If I knew they were going to treat You here I would spare no time or energy to make it clean and perfect for You.”
God- “Hannah, my Son is here right now being treated, so why aren’t you working as if He’s here?”
Hannah- “God, I don’t see Him.”
God- “Open your eyes Hannah, who do you think that little girl crying is? Or the mother with her child? Or the man on the stretcher? Or the baby struggling for breath?”
Hannah- “They don’t look like Jesus to me.”
God- “Hannah, they are the least of these, and what you do for them, you do for Me.  What more do I need to say?”
Needless to say, after this conversation, I was sort of dumbfounded at my own stupidity. Here I had been, being grumpy about the work I needed to do while completely ignoring who I was working for.  I wasn’t working for HCJB, or the maintenance men, or people visiting the hospital, no I was working for God, but I had somehow completely missed that because I was too busy feeling bad for myself.

 

Papallacta and Shell

Papallacta is a small town a few hours away from Quito with lots of “aguas termales” or natural hot springs.  We  spent a weekend there, relaxing in the HCJB guest house there and enjoying the hot springs and beautiful scenerary. This little town is nestled in the middle of the mountains, so the view out the window of our living room was aboslutely incredible. It overlooked a small community just outside of Papallacta and had beautiful  mountains rising above the valley.  It was so nice to just relax that weekend, it was one of the only calm weekends the entire time we’ve been in Ecuador and it was amazing.

Shell is a small town of about 5000 people, southeast of Quito and nearly in the jungle.  We were told that Shell was part of the jungle, but, in my opinion, anywhere that you can get Chinese takeout and have internet (most of the time) is not the true jungle.  Shell is considered the gateway to the jungle because the only way to get to the jungle from Shell is by way of a small plane or by a canoe.

Unfortunately for us ladies, our jobs during our week in Shell did not include a trip into the real jungle, but (lucky) Michael got to take a trip into the jungle to meet the Suarez people, one of the different indigenous people groups that lives in Ecuador.

Besides painting, which is it’s own post, Andra, Emily, and I got the opportunity to watch a surgery some of the missionary doctors performed, which was so cool.

 

Beauty is Pain

Cute toes

So, a few weeks ago I got a pedicure.  It was adorable, red nails with little white flowers, even better, it was only $7.  However, a few days later, my toe started really hurting. At first I thought it was maybe just the aftermath from my semi-rough pedicure. Then my toe started swelling and really hurting, so I decided to give it a few days, and if I wasn’t better, I’d go see the doctor about it.

Sure enough, a few days later, it was feeling worse not better, and much to my dismay, I had to go to the doctor.  Pat, one of the American missionaries who works at the hospital here went with me, both to translate and for moral support, both of which I greatly appreciated.  The doctor took a look at my toe, and informed me that I had an ingrown toenal and he would need to cut my toe open to cut out the offending part of the toenail.  He had me schedule an appointment for a week later, so that the antibiotics he prescribed me would have a chance to (hopefully) help the toe heal a little and bring swelling down.  He also told me to soak my toe in chamomile tea with salt a few times a day.

Unfortunately, the antibiotic and toe soaking did not cause my toe to miraculously heal by itself, and I had to return to the clinic a week later for the dreaded toenail removal, this time occompanied by Pat, Laura, and Rachel (two of the other interns here); the latter two came both out of curiousity and to provide even more, much appreciated, moral support.

In order to cut out my toenail, doctor needed to first numb my toe with what looked to me like the biggest needle of novacaine in the world.  I don’t know how many of you have really looked at your big toe lately, but there really is nowhere for a needle that big to go except directly into the nerve.  Now I’m not usually a wimp with shots, usually I’m the person who just sort of looks away, tries to relax, and talks to the nurse until it’s over.  This time however, I’m only a little embarrassed to admit that I almost passed out and threw up… several times.  I was in very good hands though, and neither happened, fortunately for everyone in the room.

Rachel did an amazing job of distracting me by asking me lots of questions about all sort of other things and holding my hand through it all, there is no doubt in my mind that she will be a really great nurse.  Pat held my leg still, patted my knee, reminded me to kept breathing, and occasionally assisted the doctor.  Laura was torn between comforting me by holding my other hand and listening to my answers to whatever questions Rachel was asking and her curiousity about what exactly the doctor was doing to my toe.

All told, it wasn’t a completely awful experience, and as much as I really appreciated having Rachel, Laura, and Pat there with me, it was the time since I’ve been here that I’ve been most willing to give anything to have my mom there with me.  In her absence, however, I am so thankful that I have the type of friends who will go with me to the doctors remind me over and over again to breathe and will risk having to put up with tears/puking/fainting/broken hands from squeezing. That is what a real friend does.

 

Painting con los Pequeños

Driving down the street in Quito you will see lots of people on the sides of the road, and sometimes in the road itself at a stoplight, trying to sell you anything from gum to flowers to chocolate. A lot of the time you’ll see children, either working by themselves or with their parents.  It’s not really healthy for the kids to be working on the streets at the age of 5 or 6, especially considering some of these people are out selling things from 7 in the morning until late at night.

So yesterday, after a normal day of work, we went with Gustavo and Stephanie to a daycare type place where kids can go while there parents work on the streets instead of having to work on the streets themselves.  Apparently this is a pretty novel idea in Ecuador for parents because their thought is that they will make more money if they have their cute child with them, which can be true. I have definitely bought gum I didn’t really need because of a cute baby offering it to me.

Anyway, the kids at this daycare were some of the happiest and most excited kids I’ve seen in a long time.We arrived to the noise of playing children and were led out into the backyard of the daycare.  We then stood in a circle with all the kids, introducing ourselves and sharing what we liked to do.  Then we were split up into three groups of kids and interns to play for awhile. My group played a few jumproping games.  After this game, we played a game all together in which each team had a sheet and had to toss a water balloon over a rope hanging in the air and get the other team to drop it.  This game was a blast. I don’t know if the kids or us interns had more fun, but it was sooo much fun!

Then we went inside to do the other half of our project: paint one of the rooms at the daycare.  When we heard that we were going to do this, it didn’t sound like a big deal. What we didn’t know, however, was that we were going to have “help” from the kids at the daycare.  Imagine 6 interns and three adults painting a medium sized room, no big deal right? Now make the room 3 different paint colors, a little more challenging, but still not really a big deal.  Now add about 15 kids all with paint brushes and very drippy paint and suddenly it becomes twice as challenging but six times the fun.

Each of us adults got two kids that were supposed to help us sand and paint and that we were supposed to keep track of.  I was assigned two very cute little girls, one of whom is determined to up the safety standards of workers in Ecuador.  Let me explain. When we were sanding all the kids put on masks so as to not breathe in too much dust, something that none of us adults bothered doing.  One of my little girls, however, determined that I needed a mask and that it should be her job to make sure I was wearing it the entire time we sanded.  So about every minute or so she would check to make sure that my mask was still firmly in place over my mouth and nose and if it wasn’t I would get yelled at in eight-year-old level Spanish.  After this had occurred several times, she determined enough was enough and the next time she caught me not wearing the mask correctly, she gave me a few solid spankings.  It was hard not to laugh seeing how seriously she was taking my safety.

I tried to ask her why Michael, who was working right next to us, didn’t need a mask too, but she didn’t really answer, so we determined that it must’ve been because I was the gringa that was her responsibility and she simply couldn’t keep track of everyone else’s gringos too.

The time we spent at the daycare yesterday was so much fun, between playing games with water balloons, getting scolded by an 8 year old for not wearing a dust mask, painting the brightly colored walls of the daycare, getting to be with my fellow interns whose company I have come to enjoy so much over the past few weeks, and trying to fix the yellow and teal paint that somehow got completely smeared together.  When I think of missions trips, that is what I visualize, probably because that is, strangely enough, my idea of a good time.

 

Cafe Mosaico

 

Quito during the day

Quito is made up of mountains and valleys, and because of this, it has some really beautiful views, especially at night. So, tonight we went to this really cool cafe at the top of Quito to watch all the lights turn on as we ate supper and it got dark. It was such a cool sight to see, both looking over beautiful colonial Quito before dark, then seeing it all lit up at night.  One especially beautiful part of it is there is a huge statue of Mary overlooking the city and it’s lit up at night. As usual, my pictures don’t do justice to the amazing beauty of Ecuador, but hopefully they’ll give you just a taste of the beauty that is Quito.

Quito at Night

 

Hoy Celebramos!

So this post should’ve been written Sunday, but, for whatever reason it just didn’t happen, so I’m writing it now.  This Sunday we went to church at Dios es Fiel, which means “God is faithful” for those of you who don’t speak Spanish.  We’ve been to this church once before and chose to go back because we really liked it there.

Something I’ve noticed since I’ve been here, and noticed when I was in Cuenca a few years ago is that church is a lot different here than at my church at home.  While my church at home isn’t exactly an all hymns church or liturgical by any means, compared to the churches I’ve been to here it the worship seems pretty sleepy.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love First Baptist Church of Waldoboro, and love love love my brothers and sisters there, but we definitely don’t express our worship with quite the same gusto at home as the Latinos here do.

This Sunday it seemed as if every song got progressively faster and the people got more and more excited and started dancing more and more.  In fact, I think our row of gringas may have been one of the only rows not dancing.  One song that we sang said “Mi Cristo es vivo, hoy celebramos. Declaramos que el reina con poder” which means “my Christ is alive, today we celebrate. We declare that He reins with power.”  The thing that really struck me about the combination of the words to this song and the way that people were dancing and singing was that these brothers and sisters really were celebrating today that Christ is alive.  To them it wasn’t a thing  that they celebrated on Easter then forgot about the rest of the year, no their Christ is alive today and that is something they wanted to share with everyone.

It’s such a unique blessing to have the opportunity to worship with my brothers and sisters in Christ in the midst of a completely different culture. Although you definitely won’t see me dancing in church anytime soon, I think that getting to experience the worship of other Christians gives me a new perspective on my own Christian life and what really constitutes worship.  The song I mentioned earlier has been running through my head the last few days, and I love remembering throughout the day “Mi Cristo es vivo, hoy celebramos.”

 

El Refugio

Yesterday, the group of interns, plus George, Debbie, and Franklin went to El Refugio, which is this really cool outdoor adventure place way out in the country.  We did all sorts of cool team building activities, including playing lots of games, playing volleyball, and doing a high ropes course.  It has been one of my favorite things that we’ve done so far.  It was so nice to be back out in the country, away from the city and to be able to just have fun all together.  It has been so awesome to get to know all these people, and it’s so cool how well we all get along.  I think it’s because we’re all here with the same goal: to glorify God with our summers and to have a lot of fun in the process.

Today, after sleeping in and relaxing for the first time in weeks, Laura and I worked out with our beloved DVD personal trainer, Mr. Mitch Gaylord.  Afterward, Andra, Emily, Laura, and I went to help Sonia with a children’s group that she does once a month for the kids in her area.  I got to lead them in singing “Yo Tengo Gozo” which is “I Have the Joy” in Spanish.  Then we got to color with the 1-4 year old group for awhile, which was so much fun! They were such adorable kids.

This evening, Laura and I went shopping at this cool place that we noticed on the bus ride home yesterday.  Then, we decided to take the trolley to get back to the apartment.  Well, it was a unique ride to say the least.  Let me put it this way, I didn’t need to hold onto anything when the the trolley stopped quickly because there was nowhere to fall and Laura could pretty distinctly smell the deodorant of the man next to her. Fortunately it was a very short ride.  Just another Ecuadorian adventure.

 

Dancing in Church and Mitad del Mundo

Ladies dancing in church

Yesterday morning we went to one of the bigger churches in Quito Iglesia Evangelica de Inaquito.  After the worship music we got to experience something that my Baptist self has never before (and probably never again will experience): dancing in church. Shocking, I know.  But,  as far as I can tell, none of these ladies were struck by lightning or anything and the church walls didn’t fall down, and I am very confident that God was indeed glorified by these ladies’ and a few gentlemen’s dance.

Yesterday afternoon/evening, we went to Mitad del Mundo which means literally “middle of the world.”  The main attraction there is, obviously, the Equator.  We got a tour around the area and learned more about history of Ecuador.  We also got to straddle the Equator and learn cool facts about the Equator. I attempted (and failed) to balance an egg of the head of a nail, which is supposed to be easier at the Equator.

On both the trip there and the trip back we got to experience the joys of very cramped busrides which include getting to know strangers WAAAY too well.