people are just people

whenever I worked at PA, Terri and I would often sit at our desks and cut out laminating for teachers as a way to pass the time.  Contrary to popular belief, elementary school secretarys have a significant amount of downtime.  cutting out laminating is actually a nice way to fill the hours between breakfast and lunch, in between giving kids late passes and dealing with the morning discipline issues. 

last week I was waiting in the lobby of Nuevo Mundo, a school we partner with, and I watched the Nuevo Mundo secretary pass the time by cutting out things for teachers.  It reminded me of my time at PA with Terri, and it was one of those moments where I think really, people are the same everywhere.  it doesn´t matter if you´re in Ecuador or in the US, the fundamentals, like how being a school secretary gets boring or how kids like to make dumb jokes, are the same.

tell me why

we had a retreat group here last week from Villanova University, and normally I wouldn´t talk about the group specifically but this time I can because they were so awesome.  they really came ready to experience this place and open to learn and to see and listen and reflect and they did it so well. 

every group comes wih expectations.  it´s unavoidable.  but this group came expecting the type of retreat that we try to provide, and in that way we were successful.  I´m happy because through my work I was able to give them a meaningful and transformative experience.  I can do as much as possible to open their eyes, I can show them invasion communities and talk about the lack of services and inflation rates and living on $2 a day and introduce them to people but if retreatants don´t ask questions and listen to the answers and actually pay attention there´s not much more I can do for them.  I feel like the group and I and Andrew (their volunteer leader) really worked together well on this one.  congrats to all!

riobamba!

last weekend we went to riobamba and I just today am uploading my pictures.  you can see all of them on flickr woo.

people go to riobamba for a bunch of touristy reasons, to hike in the andes and stuff.  we went to ride the train.  the train in riobamba is the only surviving length of the transandean railway, and goes up and down a mountain called the Devil´s Nose using a series of switchbacks that are said to be an engineering marvel.  it was pretty cool, the train would back down one length of track and then go frontways down another and then backwards again.  but it wasn´t the coolest part of the trainride.  the best part was just riding the train through the countryside and seeing a completely different part of Ecuador.  it was cold.  it was GREEN.  there were farms and fields and animals. the farms are hand worked, which is amazing and awful.  we watched people hand planting their fields.  knowing that people from the sierra, with farms such as these are the people that bring food down to duran and sell it to us made it very impactful. they did some great terraced farming on the mountains though.  very cool.  I took a lot of pictures of farms.  and mountains.  there were mountains.  that was nice and different from duran as well.

we went to mass at a church in riobamba and accidentally crashed a wedding.  but no one kicked us out…so it must not have been invitation only.  we definitely stood out, as gringos dressed in jeans and tshirts and hoodies.  not wedding attire.  it was the same type of wedding ceremony though, minus the fact that after the people got married their children got baptised in the church.  it was a big day for sacraments.

we took hot showers and didn´t take military showers.  it was amazing.  first hot showers in ecuador and soooo good.  we also wasted water and flushed the toilet whenever we wanted.  freedom!

it was very touristy.  it was weird and kind of nice to not be seen as unusual anymore.  people were used to seeing gringos everywhere so we didn´t stand out.  here, we stand out.  sometimes it was annoying; we had our self-righteous moments (I´m better than you because I LIVE here and you´re just visiting) but we also had moments where we realised that we actually do think about things different than the usual tourists.  we would never never think of throwing candy off the train to the children as a good idea (welcome to the gringo parade).  we would never pull out our camera on the bus (asking to get robbed, yes.  pointing out that we have significantly more money than you, yes).  we would never do anything to distance ourselves from ecuadorians (like quickly recline your seat on the bus so that your friend wouldn´t have to sit next to the cute elderly woman from the campo, yeah we saw you irish guys).

que lindo

over the weekend, Lauren, Melissa and I took a short trip to Riobamba.  It was our first time by ourselves outside of Duran!  It´s up in the mountains! and awesome.  but really I want to post about the majority of the trip once I get pictures uploaded sometime this week so for now I´ll just excerpt. 

we were taking the bus home to guayaquil and it was packed full of people and so we were standing in the aisle, holding on to the luggage racks for like three hours, until the bus cleared out enough so we could sit.  the bus was driving back and forth down the side of the mountains, with a fabulous view out into the valleys and flat lands, and fog had settled but we were well above the fog, and the sun was setting off in the distance so the sky was all red and orange and it was the most beautiful sunset I´ve ever seen, the sun setting into the fog and illuminating the mountains.  we were shifting sides on the bus so we´d always be on the side with the sunset.  ecuadorians were taking pictures with their cell phones.  gringos were taking pictures with digital cameras (not us, we carefully hide our cameras on our persons and then pretend we don´t have them, so that no one is tempted to rob us). a kid asked me if we have places like that in the US. I´m at the same time bummed I don´t have a picture and fully aware that no picture would do it justice at all. 

I also had a completely successful conversation with the kid, Walter, whose chair I was leaning on the majority of the ride.  he had an english test today (good luck, walter!) and quizzed himself on english with my help.  he also quizzed me on my spanish words.  he tried to stump me with the hardest words he could think of, but was not always successful (photosynthesis, casi igual en español).  he asked who I was voting for in the presidential election and knew the candidates.  he´s middle school aged, if you´re wondering.  he told me all the places I should go in ecuador and guayaquil and asked all about rostro de cristo and I felt accomplished because we had a full on conversation and I only had to ask melissa for word help a couple of times. 

it was great to take a break and get out of duran and away from life as a volunteer for a bit and just travel.  I like travel.  it´s fun.  and it builds community!