Wow! Dear friends, I am almost home! This will be my last post from Ecuador, though I will write once more to tell you about the rest of my trip! I have no idea how many people have really been reading this, but it’s been fun to write, and it has made me journal. Without a blog this semester, who knows if I would have written much of anything, which would have been a pity. I love to write, but I also think I process experiences by writing a lot. That was why you were subjected to these long posts every week, though in all fairness, you did choose to read! I am actually writing this on Wednesday instead of Thursday, because my first two sections are turning in the final drafts of their short stories tomorrow, which is why I titled this entry “Before the flood.” Tomorrow Mr. Dixon and I will have about seventy short stories to read, and it’s a dilemma for me, because I really want to read all of them, but it would take forever, and Philip is just taking it for granted that he’s going to help. I probably won’t argue with him, I’ll just have to hope for highlights. The rough drafts were already pretty entertaining! I love reading student work and editing and commenting. That’s why I’m a teacher, I guess. And a nerd.
Now it is Friday, and yes, it was a flood and is. Both of short stories to read and grade and of emotions. What a day! My heart is too full to even write about much of that, though, so I’ll postpone that until later. This entry will just tell you about my trip to Cuenca, partly because I still have way too many things to do before I leave, and partly because I need to collect myself before I talk about my last day with my students and sum up my time.
Right after I finished my post last week, I went to bed, and then Kiko knocked on my door to say I had a phone call. It was Valentina calling to say that she and her parents were going to pick me up late the next morning. I was so relieved to not have to take a bus or worry about a place to stay, because they were staying with friends and they said there would be room for me. They ended up collecting me a bit after lunch, and then we went on the most incredibly beautiful drive I have ever experienced. No kidding, I almost cried just from beauty. Perhaps I’m a bit overdramatic, but it just made me think of what a great God I have! I did not take pictures, because I just wanted to relax and enjoy, and I was planning to take pictures on the way home. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way, which I’ll explain later, but I still have my memories, and wish I could give you my eyes for a bit!
“This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears, all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres. This is my Father’s world, I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas, His hand the wonders wrought.”
We arrived in the city at about 7:00 in the evening, I believe, after quite a circuitous route by the Calderóns’ farm and stopping at a restaurant for a late lunch. We stayed at the home of Humberto Pesántez, a rich old gentleman who has an auto empire and lives, among other places, in an apartment building with at least three or four of his children. His family takes up almost the whole building, and they also have a large hacienda about twenty minutes outside of town. We visited with the family for awhile, and I was again bombarded by new faces with no hope of learning all the names. Then we ate supper, and Valentina said she was really tired, since she’d had a very busy week. I thought that would mean we would have a relaxing night at home, but of course not! We took a driving tour of the whole city with our hosts, and it was very lovely. Then we stopped at Cacao and Canela (Chocolate and Cinnamon), a quite delightful little place that serves large quantities of some of my favorite foods! Most of my friends know that cheese and chocolate are really the ultimate for me, and this place had plenty of both! It was maravilloso! I also called Justo Pillman that night and told him that I had a place to stay and that Valentina and I would meet him Saturday morning to walk around the city for a while.
The next morning we got up very reluctantly, but we made it to the Parque del Centro less than fifteen minutes after we’d told Justo we’d be there, and we found him and Paula, one of the girls from the Paz de Dios youth group. Justo is the older brother of some of my classmates from Bible School, and he is a blond cuencano, having lived there for part of his childhood as a missionary kids. Now he is there working with the youth and working with a group of homeschoolers. There are eight kids from the church right now who are being homeschooled, and since it’s a pretty foreign idea here, they need a lot of support. Paula is seventeen, I believe, and very sweet! It was fun to meet her.
First we went to breakfast at a little café with yogur and pan de yucca, which was all very yummy. After that we went to the market and got to see many lovely parts of dead animals, and bought some fun fruit. I can’t remember the names, but I will add them when I find out. This one in the picture was the best. It was “on-a-stick,” a la Minnesota State Fair, because it still had its stem, and I just peeled the rind off to eat it. After that we went to the craft-sellers at La Casa de La Mujer (the house of the woman), so that I could buy presents for my family. I found everything I needed and probably more! Definitely more. My friends were very patient with me! We ended our morning at a museum of Panama hats, which was great fun. Panama hats are actually from Ecuador originally, but once they are sent to Panama that country exports to many more countries, hence the name. (I feel like I can’t speak proper English anymore, so please forgive my strange sentence structure tonight). We took a tour and learned about the making of the hats, and then we went into the store and took pictures, and Justo made the employees think he was going to buy a hat, and he got them down to five dollars, and then decided not to buy it. We ate lunch at small café and had almuerzos. Almuerzo just means “lunch,” but at least in Ecuador it also means the special, and these are marvelous things here, because they are very hearty meals and beverages for only a few dollars. At this café, I paid two-fifty for soup, a platter, dessert, and agua de sandia (watermelon juice). We parted ways soon after that, because it was raining and Justo and Paula had to get going to a youth gathering for the church.
For the afternoon we spent more time in La Casa de La Mujer with our hosts, and then drove to Gualaceo, a smaller town in the mountains that is apparently famous for its leather shoes. Valentina and I had an impromptu dance party in the street, since neither of us was very interested in shoe-shopping. I finally know the difference between meringue and salsa, I think! After that we drove to the hacienda of the Pesántez family for supper, and while we were there, I figured out my Sunday morning: the Ulloas would pick me up for church at their church plant, Cristo Vive, and then I would have lunch with them and meet up with the Calderóns afterward. I went to Bible School with Ruth Ulloa, and I had hoped to meet with her sometime while I was in Ecuador. She also told me that the family of other Bible School friends, Darwin and Kirsten Paccha, would be at their church, which really excited me because I had a suitcase to deliver to them.
I was hoping to just relax that night, but of course, that’s not the way any woman with a life spends her Saturday night, so Valentina and I went to a discoteca and spent way too much money on a cover charge and on one glass of green apple cocktail. I finally met a nice shy boy, though. Juan started talking to me in the middle of the dance floor, but we just talked for about ten minutes before he even moved, and when we danced together he barely touched me. I definitely prefer shy guys on the dance floor, especially when I barely know them. It helps when they’re sober, and I’m pretty sure Juan was. He says he goes to discotecas a lot, but I can’t imagine why he would want to! I just couldn’t stop thinking about how empty that lifestyle looks to me. Maybe you work hard every day of the week, and even go to church on Sunday morning, but every Friday and Saturday you spend all your time dancing and drinking. You can look at one of my earlier posts to see what I think about both of these activities, but that’s not the point. The point is that if drinking and dancing is the highlight of your life… man, how empty! Anyway, I tore myself away from Juan and from… this other kid, I can’t remember his name, but he decided it was his job to make the gringa feel welcome since he had lived in Chicago for three years. Valentina and I crashed as soon as we got home.
The Ulloas picked me up for church at 9:15 the next morning, and I met many more very nice people and listened to a sermon from Darwin’s dad about how God wants us to use riches. It was a good reminder for me, because I am pretty concerned about money right now, as I don’t know yet where I will be working this fall. I know God has it all under control, and that he will show me how to pay off my school loans! After that, we went home to Ulloas house for chicken and rice. I met Ruth’s parents, her siblings, Lohita and Christian, and her cousin Adriana. They were very sweet! The only thing that I was sad about was missing out on lunch with the Pesántezes, who were eating cuy, the cuencano delicacy. Cuys are basically guinea pigs, and they’re kind of like lutefisk, just because everyone eats it in Cuenca, but ask a guayaquileno about it and he will shudder. Anyway, I thought I was sacrificing the cuy experience to eat with the Ulloas, but it was totally worth it to spend time with them.
When Pastor Ulloa dropped me off at the hacienda, I found out that I was totally on time, so I got to taste guinea pig. It was alright. I liked the flavor more than the texture. I was sitting and enjoying my last afternoon in Cuenca, wondering when we would go home, when I suddenly realized that the Calderóns were not planning on returning to Guayaquil until the next morning. They asked me if I couldn’t just be late for classes, at which I rolled my eyes and wished for a moment that I was self-employed or independently wealthy. But not for very long. Because of these developments, I ended up riding a bus, and it was very safe and very comfortable, actually. The only downside was that it was raining, so I was not able to take very good pictures of the magnificent beauty that I described earlier. I read a tiny bit, but mostly just napped, which meant that I had no energy for anything by the time I got home. I decided to go to bed earlier and get up and hour earlier than usual… and instead I slept in, because I had set my alarm correctly, but I had set the clock itself twelve hours off, because the power had gone out while I had been gone. It worked out, though, and Philip was cool about it. I had a readymade sub who actually had looked at my lesson plans for the first two hours, and I even made it in time for third hour, when the director general of the school was supposed to come in and observe me.
As I said, I’ll fill you in on the rest of the week and the rest of my time with my students later, because I have lots of work left to do and not enough emotional energy to unpack everything! Please pray for everyone I have met in Ecuador, that the conversations I have had, the smiles I have given, and the faith I have shown would not be in vain.
Pray especially for my students and Philip, that they would have a great remainder of the school year together. Many of them are whining about my leaving, because they think Mr. Dixon will be stricter with them when I am gone (even though he is actually really easygoing). I just answer that he is a better teacher than I am, because he makes them listen! I think they all have had a pretty good start.
Please pray for my trip home! I’m leaving at 6:50 in the morning on Sunday, getting home at 6:30 in the evening, and then leaving very early on Monday morning for Morris. I’ll be spending finals week sorting details out from student teaching, watching senior presentations, and hanging out with friends, and then I’ll be walking in graduation on Saturday, a week from tomorrow!
Also pray for my friends Elise and Jarrod, who just left this week to spend the month in Ukraine and Russia with East European Missions Network. I don’t know much about the details there yet, since I’ve only gotten one update so far to say that they made it safely “across the pond.” And pray for my friend Jessica as she raises money to go to Guatemala this summer! She has a lot of faith that God will work things out, but she is one thousand dollars short and is getting a little anxious.
So, love you all, see many of you soon! Expect at least one more entry wrapping up my time here, or maybe more. Blogging can be rather addicting! Chao, Christina
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