My time here in Ecuador is rapidly coming to a close, so rapidly that my mind is paralyzed when thinking about the next three weeks! I expect to be quite comatose by the day after graduation, even though things aren’t going to slow down then, either! But right now to the topic at hand: I need to tell you about my week and do a last bit of lesson planning before leaving for Cuenca for the weekend! Things have come together pretty slowly for my trip, but I know I would regret it if I didn’t take the opportunity to visit la ciudad muy bonita that so many of my Bible School friends come from. I plan to leave tomorrow morning, either with my friend Valentina or by myself—I’m waiting for her to call me right now!
Anyway, as for this past week, we had a short school day on Friday because of the votación, the Ecuadorian election, which was on Sunday. Colegio Americano was an election site, so we needed to get out before officials came in to set everything up. As soon as I got home, I left to walk to Iglesia Christiana Evangelica, where my friend Darwin is the janitor. I haven’t written about him at all, because we’ve only talked at random times when I’ve been walking by the church. The first time we talked, he told me that I should visit his church sometime, which is not actually the one that he works at. Last Wednesday I saw him again, and I told him that I would like to go to church with him, so he told me to come to the church Friday to tell him if I was planning to go to the service on Saturday. When I got to the church Friday, we decided to go to a movie at San Marino Mall, one in Spanish, of course, so I could practice and then summarize for Darwin at the end. We decided to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which in Spanish was called Policia del Centro. While we were in line, Daniela, one of my students, ran up to me to say hi and give me a kiss. Then she said “Bye!” and ran away, coming back a few minutes later with about eight of my students! Apparently they were all at a movie together, without any parents, but maybe I just didn’t see them… Kids these days. Ha, ha. They all kissed me and then ran inside, but we ended up in the same theatre and Darwin and I sat right behind them, which was fun. For me, anyway. I don’t think they’re at the age yet when they are embarrassed to see their teachers in public, because they all seemed excited to see me, too. After that we saw a few more of my students with their families while we were sitting and drinking coke, and then we headed back to my house, because I told Darwin that I really needed to do some work on my assignments for the University. It was great fun, though!
The next day I woke up kind of early and started frying plantains for breakfast, but I guess I wasn’t ready to cook without ecuatoriana supervision, because I burned my hand with hot oil, and it hurt for hours! I think I did the right things, because I ran water over it for a while and then wrapped my hand in ice for a few hours while I tried to type one-handed on my assignments for the University. Don’t look too closely if you’re especially squeamish. I don’t think it’s that bad. Renatta, one of my students in North Carolina, was whining to me about how she needed to go to the doctor for a paper cut, but then I showed her my burn, and she didn’t say another word. It was quite effective. I was very glad that my mom had insisted that I bring antibiotic ointment along!
After I had been working for a few hours, I went with Mariana and Maria downtown to stop at the Cathedral and do a bit of shopping. Mariana was looking for dresses for her granddaughter, and we went into the cutest shops! Mariana and Kiko have four kids: Mario Angel, Mario Antonio, Mari Ani, and Mario Andres, and Mario Angel is married to Lori and has three adorable kids. All of the kids and grandkids live in Florida right now. The Cathedral was very beautiful, and it is part of the Parque de las Iguanas, which I’ve been hoping to visit sometime before leaving. It was pretty ridiculous. I am still in awe of the iguanas, and I also enjoyed the turtles and other animals. Additionally, there was a magnificent statue of that prince among men, Simón Bolivar.
Then we returned to the house, and Amarilis, my amiga from English class, came to visit me. She is seventeen and she attends veintiocho de mayo, a private girls’ school. She wanted to practice her English, so she e-mailed me to find out if she could visit. We chatted for a bit more than an hour, and showed each other pictures and looked up words in the dictionary, and then parted ways so that she could go home and I could meet Darwin for church. My night with Darwin and his friends was interesting, just because we were going to a different church and none of us knew exactly how to get there, but once we got there it was great. Darwin has some very cool friends, and a few of them knew a little bit of English, but I think I did OK with my Spanish until 9:30 or so. Carolina asked if it was “demasiado tarde para mí” (too later for me), and I laughed, because I tend to stay up pretty late usually, but I admitted that it was probably “demasiado tarde para mi español.” The service was at a church called Resurrección, and there was a message based on II Timothy 4:12, a verse about setting an example for believers as a young person. We also sang a few songs, and Darwin played guitar, which he did very well at. Lastly, we ate fried rice with shrimp, which down here is considered to be traditional comida ecuatoriana. When I called it Chinese food the next day, the Camchongs looked at me strangely and said that it was not Chinese at all, but Ecuadorian. So funny! Then we rode a few buses to get home, and finally a taxi, but by that time it was raining, and when I leaned into the taxi to give the driver directions, water started pouring on my from the overhand above us! I got totally soaked, but water always feels good in this heat, so I didn’t complain. I did a little more work and then went to bed.
I went to church at the Baptist church again on Sunday morning, and this time I said with a nice lady named Luz. We had a good little chat before the service, which was again good. After that I had to work a lot on my homework and my lesson plans, and I pushed through until I had to play with Waikeng for awhile when they came over for supper. I think he’s starting to take advantage of me a little bit, but it would be hard to be around adults so much. I’m glad I wasn’t an only child. We practiced writing the alphabet, which he is very good at, and I would say them in English only to have Waikeng glower at me, though he needs to practice his English, since he goes to Colegio Americano. I didn’t really do anything besides work on Monday, our election day off, but I did find out that Rafael Correa is still president of Ecuador, and Jaime Nebot is still alcalde (mayor) of Guayaquil. I also found out that Mariana was leaving on Wednesday for the States to work on her recertification for her directorship of the preschool, and that she would not be getting back until after I was already back in Minnesota!
Because of that, and because Elvia, Kiko’s sister, had just gotten home from Orlando, I decided I needed to cook some Minnesota food on Tuesday night, so I made Sharon’s “Wild Mexican Casserole,” which I really liked when I was living with them and which has wild rice in it, something that my family here has definitely never seen before. It was a huge hit, and I was very happy that they all liked it! I liked it, too. I missed wild rice. I am leaving the rest of the bag with them, so we’ll see what Maria will decide to do with it! Elvia and Belgica, Kiko’s two single sisters, came over, too, and we had a nice meal together. I made Mariana and Kiko get pictures with me!
That’s really all that has happened this week, besides many things in the classroom, but I will wait on that until next week, because this entry has gotten a bit unwieldy. The only other thing I’ll mention about school is that Philip got the bright idea, as you might remember, to start a little coffee shop in our classroom, and he had everything set up yesterday, and had even started to get students in on monitor the store during recess as a class job. Daniela had also made cookies to sell at the shop, and she and Philip were going to split the profits. Philip’s part of it was probably going to go toward class parties and celebrations, but then the rectora, Miss Patricia, heard about it, and she told us that we couldn’t sell anything in our classroom without official approval, so Philip needs to write a proposal and a rationale, which he is about done with.
Oh, and one more thing: at Brenda Fischer’s house at Christmastime this last year, we played a sentence game with the ladies from church, and I tried it out with my students and the two upper classes loved it, though it didn’t work very well for the ones with lower English proficiency. Thanks for the idea! It was really fun! I really am loving the days that things work together so well, though I know I learn a lot and probably do my best teaching when everything goes wrong! Either way, God is good, and I have enjoyed my time working in Colegio Americano immensely! Philip has been a great cooperating teacher, Mariana and Kiko have been great hosts, and I will miss this place and the people, though I’m almost ready to go home!
Please pray for Mariana as she is renewing her credentials. She is kind of worried about the red tape of transferring credits between universities here and there, though I’m sure she’ll get it figured out. She will be returning home on Monday the eleventh, the day after I return to Minnesota, as long as nothing funny happens due to swine flu outbreaks.
On that subject, Richard from the business department keeps teasing me about being stranded in Ecuador for another six months because of the flu, and though anything like that is hardly likely, I have been getting messages about it almost every day from the Consulate General here and from the University. Please pray that there are no problems, and obviously be praying for those who are being affected by the disease.
Pray for me as I plan this last week, that I would have wisdom to know how much my students can handle and how much I can squeeze into five days without going crazy! Also pray that I would be safe this weekend as I travel to Cuenca, which I am so excited about, but nervous because it’s a kind of big trip and some of the details are still kind of sketchy! We have school off for May Day tomorrow, so I'm leaving sometime in the late morning, probably.I’m still waiting for a call from Valentina, but I am going no matter what she decides!
God bless you all so much! Chao, Christina
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