Merry Christmas!!

Okay, I sincerely apologize for being such a procrastinator and not blogging in so long. In my defense, when I haven't been busy with procrastinating, I've been rather busy with other things.

A bit of backtracking: I've been home for almost two weeks now. Leaving Cuenca was really, really hard. I was okay until I got out of the car at Amauta and saw my friend Paul hugging his host mom and just bawling. Then I lost it too. The bus ride to Guayaquil was very long and rather subdued, but by dinner time we were all in better spirits because we were just excited to get home. Saturday's flights were fine, apart from a couple of people in our group being shouted at by TSA personnel for wearing Che Guevara T-shirts in the Miami airport. We spent the night in Chicago, and though our plane was a bit delayed, I still managed to make it to my sister's Nutcracker performance Sunday afternoon in Upper Arlington, and it was fabulous as always.

Since then, I've just been getting ready for Christmas. All my presents are now wrapped and under the tree, the house is all decorated, and I've made a ton of puppy chow both for my family here and to send to my family in Ecuador. I've cleaned my room and hung out with my parents, and I've gotten to see a lot of friends. I saw a good portion of my dance studio family at the Nutcracker, and I got to see everyone at church on Sunday. The other night a bunch "the old crowd," my friends from high school who are still like my brothers and sisters, came over to my house. We watched A Muppet Christmas Carol and Beauty and the Beast, which are the sort of sophisticated, grown-up movies we like to watch when we get together. I also got to meet Caleb, my friend Megan's two-month-old son. He is just adorable, and Mego is a fantastic mother, just like I knew she'd be.

Now it's Christmas Eve, and I have to start getting ready for church before too long. The two Christmas Eve services are one of my absolute favorite things about the whole holiday. The early one is the family service, with all the music and scripture readings provided by the kids, and while it's a little chaotic, I love it. I've already seen the bulletin for the later service, and the title of Pastor Phil's meditation (basically a really short sermon) is "Star Trek: The First Journey." My immediate thought was something like, "Star trekkin' across Galilee / On these stinky camels to find the newborn King." It should be pretty epic, because Pastor Phil is just awesome like that.

I wish you all a joyful and merry Christmas with lots of fun and food and family. Amid all the wrapping paper and tinsel and pecan pies, don't forget why we're celebrating: the birth of our Savior in a tiny stable thousands of years ago. As Linus said, "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown!" And now I leave you with more words of wisdom from another of my favorite characters, Kermit:

"There's somethin' in the wind today that's good for everyone
Yes, faith is in our hearts today, we're shinin' like the sun
And everyone can feel it, the feelin's runnin' deep
After all, there's only one more sleep till Christmas
After all, there's only one more sleep till Christmas Day!"

What I've learned in Ecuador

Less than 24 hours left in Cuenca. That's really weird, and I can't pin down how I feel about it, which is really frustrating. I think I'll be really happy and excited tomorrow afternoon once we're about an hour outside the city. Until then...blah.

I am finally finished with all of my work for the semester, which is a wonderful feeling. To celebrate that fact, I've created an account at the most recent new, awesome, procrastination-inducing website, formspring.me. So if you feel inclined, head over and ask me a question and I'll answer it! It's really ridiculous how entertaining this thing is.

There were so many times I felt like I'd never reach this point, but looking back, I can't believe how fast these ten weeks have gone! I only spent six weeks on campus, but I feel like I spent more time at B-W than in Ecuador, or at least equal amounts of time. This trip has definitely been a life-changing experience. I've learned so much, and it's definitely going to take some time to process it all once I get home. There are some things that really stand out, though:

*For the most part, food is food.
Most of the things I eat on a daily basis here are essentially the same foods I eat at home, they're just sometimes prepared in a different way. There's a lot of potatoes, rice, chicken, pork, fish, eggs, cheese, and bread. There's no point in going to a foreign country if you only want to eat the same things you eat in your own country, and you've got to have an open mind and be willing to at least try things. I had pig skin soup the other day, and though that sounds disgusting, it really wasn't that bad. Also, I feel like foreigners have no business whining when “their” foods aren't prepared exactly the way they're used to. My host mom sometimes gets food from the little grill down the street, and the hamburgers have all the usual things, like lettuce, tomato, ketchup, and mustard, but they also have ham, salami, fried egg, and diced-up fried potatoes. Yeah, that's a little odd for me, and I'll be glad to get back to the standard Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger, but I can deal with a different kind of hamburger for a little while.

I should mention that I draw the line at cuy. I might have been willing to try it back in July, but now there's no way I could possibly eat it and then go home and look my guinea pigs in the eye.

*Clean is a relative term, and clean clothes aren't as big a deal as you think.
When you've been living on a boat in the Galapagos or at a research station in the Amazon or in a legit log cabin in the mountains for several days, there's really no way to get around this. Everything you have with you is either wet, muddy, or both. Your things are also likely covered in insect repellent and sunscreen. It's okay that you've worn the same socks for four days in a row because you don't want to ruin more than one pair. Nobody's going to judge you if you take a shower and then go to bed in the same cami you were wearing earlier. In fact, you might have a few days where you only wear three sets of clothes: the “before shower” ones, the “after shower” ones, and your pajamas. You reach a point where you and everyone else are all so sweaty and gross that you stop thinking about it. If there's no alternative, you might as well make the best of it.

*Childhood is universal.
Children in Ecuador cry and whine and refuse to eat and frustrate their parents just as much as children in the United States. They also sing and dance and giggle and say the darndest things. They want to be big kids and do things for themselves, and they want to learn your games but they also want to teach you what they know. They all like Barney and Mickey Mouse. No matter the structure of the language, kids follow the same pattern when they learn to speak. Their parents and grandparents can understand what sounds like gibberish to you, but if you spend enough time with the little one, you start to be able to understand them too. My friend Aryn advised me that talking to the kids is one of the best ways to get more comfortable with a foreign language, and he was absolutely right.

*Being a teenager is also universal.
Where there's a mall, there will be prissy fourteen-year-old girls taking up the whole mirror in the bathroom so they can put on makeup and drool over Taylor Lautner. It's a fact of life.

*Lying to yourself can be a really effective motivator.
“I'm not going to see a big hairy spider in the shower today.” “Swimming with sharks is perfectly safe.” “If I can just get to sleep, the headache and the nausea will completely disappear.” “I'm the best bargainer in the world.” “I can totally find the post office without getting lost.” If you tell yourself these things, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish, and some of them even wind up coming true. Some of them only work to a point, however. Convincing yourself that the shower is actually really warm, for example.

*Don't judge a book by its cover or even the first couple of chapters.
I try really hard to keep an open mind when I meet people, and that attitude has brought me a lot of great friends over the years. This trip has taught me, though, that knowing someone inside the classroom, even when you see the same people every single day, is not the same thing as knowing them on a small boat and in a tour bus and at a nightclub. There were certain people in our group that I had written off before we left as annoying or just someone I wouldn't ever be very close to, and now I can't imagine how I ever made it through my days without them. On the other hand, there were people that I thought were really awesome and wonderful before Ecuador, and while I certainly don't dislike them now, their attitudes and actions on this trip have caused me to lose a lot of respect for them.

*You can't come away from this kind of thing without having formed a family.
This reminds me of two of my favorite quotations. The first is from the pen of J.K. Rowling, at the end of the tenth chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: “There are some things you just can't share without becoming friends, and knocking out a ten foot mountain troll is one of them.” The second was said by my incredible high school band director, Kent Eastham: “Band is like family. You love some, you hate some, and they're all crazy.” The Seminar in Ecuador has had a distinct lack of both mountain trolls and musical instruments, but the results have been the same.

We don't all get along all the time, and I probably won't keep in touch with everybody after we're done with all the Explorations promo stuff I think we're going to have to do next semester. There are a lot of strong personalities on this trip, and sometimes they clash, but I think this kind of adventure requires a strong personality. Despite our differences, however, we've all formed a really strong bond. We can tell our friends and family all about everything we've seen and done, but there are some things that no one outside of these twenty-four people will be able to understand because they weren't there. And really, once you've thrown up together over the side of a boat, sorted through each other's laundry, gotten lost together in the dark and pouring rain, chopped garlic together by candlelight because the power was out, and had conversations with each other in your sleep, there's really no way you can avoid being friends.

This is most likely my last blog from Ecuador. Chronicling this journey was the main reason I started this blog in the first place, but I'm definitely going to keep blogging, and I hope you'll keep reading. I've always got plenty of stuff to run my mouth about (so to speak), and I think it's high time I started chronicling the adventures I somehow wind up having on a daily basis. As I've said before, no one would believe the life I live...

Hours till I'm back in Ohio: 66

Things I'll miss; things I won't

Wow. It's really crunch time. In 48 hours, I'll be almost to Guayaquil, where we're spending our last night in Ecuador. The last couple of days have been really productive, thank God, so now only one 8-10 page paper on the dollarization of Ecuador stands between me and freedom.

Everyone is having a really hard time processing the fact that this trip is almost over. We've all started listing things at random that we'll miss or that we won't miss, so I thought I'd come up with a comprehensive collection.

First and foremost, I'm going to miss my host family. I really feel like a part of the Quijano-Ochoa family. I'm not going to say anything else about this or I'll cry.

A lot of the things I'll miss have to do with food. I'm going to miss all the fresh fruit we get here. The peel just falls right off the bananas, and the strawberries, pineapple, mangoes, and cantaloupe are all so fresh. I've even discovered I like peaches here, and I've never liked them at home. I'll also miss all the fruits that we never get at home, like papayas, reina Claudias (which are basically very small plums), babacos, naranjillas, and tree tomatoes. I'll miss the really tasty Ecuadorian cheese and also having hot chocolate every day for breakfast and dinner. I'll miss my housekeeper Veronica's incredible cooking and the amazing smell of all the little bakeries I pass on the street. There's one just down the street from the school, called Maria's Alemania ("Maria's Germany") that has amazing pastries and pretzels. I'm really going to miss the ridiculously low prices on most things here. I now consider a lunch that costs $6 to be really expensive. I'm going to miss Mayra and Narcisa, who run the school, Julia, my Spanish teacher, and Angel, our guide on many of our excursions. I'm going to miss the beautiful mountains that surround Cuenca, and I'll miss the warm, mild climate of the sierra. At the same time, though, I'm so excited to go home and see snow!!

I won't miss the crazy imbalance between veggies and starches and meat at meals. It's not uncommon to have rice, two kinds of potatoes, and a big hunk of meat for lunch. Sometimes there will be lentils or beans in the soup (because there's always soup!) or a little salad of tomatoes and lettuce doused in dressing. As much as I love the city of Cuenca, I won't miss walking around it. I won't miss the half-hour trek to the school or the abundance of litter and air pollution or the many stray dogs. The dogs don't ever bother us, but they make us sad. I won't miss the never ending hills. Lauren, Sara, and I decided a couple of weeks ago that the phrase "What goes up must come down" doesn't apply to Ecuador. It's possible for things to just go up and up, forever and ever. I won't miss constantly being on my guard when I walk around, especially because December is the most dangerous time of year in the city. I won't miss traffic, whether I'm in a car or walking. You couldn't pay me enough to get a driver's license here. The speed limits, stop signs, lanes, and traffic signals are all fairly optional, at least in the drivers' opinions, and everyone honks their horn constantly. Also, there are so many roundabouts and one-way streets, and many of the streets, at least in the center of the city, are paved in bricks or cobblestones, which makes for a very bumpy ride. I won't miss the disgusting men who feel it necessary to honk or whistle or say "Hola," "Hello, beautiful," and "I love you" when a foreign girl walks by. Sometimes they try to grab your arm or pull your hair. The policemen and soldiers are the worst, which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the local authorities. I won't miss things we never think about in the States, like whether tap water is safe to drink, whether the electricity will go out for three hours today because there's not enough water in the river, and whether my shower will be freezing or just cold. I won't miss having to wash my underwear by hand in the sink, because that's what women are expected to do here, and I will be so glad to be away from the stupid rooster that lives somewhere near me and crows from 5:30 AM to 5:30 PM.

I can't believe I only have a day and a half left in Cuenca...Three and a half days till I'm back in Ohio!!

Church in Spanish!!

Last night I went to church with María Fernanda, Pichi, Antonella, and Rita. It's the first time I've been to church while I've been in Ecuador, and María Fernanda said she was sorry they hadn't invited me earlier because they (she, Pichi, and Anto) go almost every Sunday night.

It was a big, beautiful church up on a hill, with a large, auditorium-like sanctuary. The church was called Verbo, which means “Verb.” There was a beautiful painting of three crosses on the front wall, with projection screens on either side for the words of the songs and the PowerPoint slides that the leader flipped through during the sermon. The service was very contemporary, with praise music and guitars and a drum set. Communion was super-informal; you just went up to the table whenever you felt like it during the appointed song and took a piece of bread and a cup of juice and went back to your seat. That's so different from my church, where our music comes from the organ and the choir and handbells. We sing from hymnals and the elders serve Communion with well-practiced choreography. However, thanks to my experiences at summer camp at Geneva Hills and the Presbyterian Youth Triennium, I can appreciate both contemporary and traditional worship services. I think I'll always want to attend the traditional services with which I've grown up on a regular basis, but sometimes I really enjoy the less formal contemporary worship like last night's.

The first part of the service was all music, and the guy playing the piano and leading the band looked almost exactly like one of my dad's best friends, who is definitely not Ecuadorian, but I think he does go to a church very much like Verbo. It was really bizarre. Then another guy came out and led a prayer. He gave some announcements and talked about a project the youth group is doing and then he asked if there were any people in the congregation who were there for the first time. Pichi made me raise my hand, and a girl came over and kissed me on the cheek (which is the standard greeting here, like a handshake at home) and gave me a very pretty rose and some pamphlets about the church and its ministries. We had Communion, and then there was kind of a break in the service. People just got up and socialized, and they asked anyone who was there for the first time to go to the back corner. I was going to go anyways, but this lady who was also carrying a flower came over to me and latched onto my arm and half-dragged me to the back of the room. That was a bit awkward. We got crackers and really tasty juice, and then church members talked to each of the newbies individually. I talked to a very nice young woman who asked if I'd come with Pichi, and I said yes, I'm a student staying with María Fernanda's parents, and she asked if I was going to be in Ecuador for a while. I explained that I've been here for nine weeks and I'm leaving on Friday. She asked if I go to a church at home, and I said yes, a Presbyterian one, and she surprisingly knew what that meant. Rita and María Fernanda didn't really understand the concepts of Protestant or Presbyterian when I tried to explain them. It seems that in Ecuador, you're either “Catholic,” which means “Catholic,” or “Christian,” which means “I believe in Jesus but not the Pope.”

After the break we sang another song and then a guy gave the sermon. I don't think he was really the pastor, because in the car on the way home Pichi referred to him as “the man who gave the message tonight.” The sermon was about plans, how we make all these plans for ourselves (and then likely don't follow through on them!), but God has His own plans for us, and they're “good and accepted and perfect.” (I forget what verse that's from, maybe something from Nehemiah. There were a lot of books quoted last night.) God definitely brought me to Verbo last night to hear that message, because as a junior in college with three humanities concentrations, I'm constantly trying to figure out what my plan is for the next phase of my life. I went through a not-so-minor freak-out a few weeks ago, because I realized I was really sick of Spanish (obviously an issue when you're in Ecuador). I was tired of speaking it, tired of writing it, and when I was listening to a lecture or a tour or a video in Spanish, I just couldn't make myself concentrate on what was being said. As we near the end of this trip, though, the Spanish has been getting easier and more enjoyable again, and last night I was able to focus on and understand everything in the service. I was really struck by the fact that I was worshiping in Spanish, and I was reminded of how prayer and worship and Christian fellowship aren't restricted by something as trivial as language.

Over the last month or so I've been praying a lot about what I'm supposed to do with my life, and I think I have a general idea of where God is leading me. I don't want to talk about it yet, but I'm pretty excited and I'm seeing some possibilities for building a really cool ministry. I'm pretty sure I don't want Spanish to be the primary focus of my career, but there's no doubt that speaking a second language can be a huge asset in a number of ways. I still think it's a beautiful and interesting language, and I know I'll need it when I travel, and if I can use it to somehow do God's work, then it's definitely something I want to keep studying.

My Cuencan family

It occurs to me that I haven't written a whole lot about my host family, which is ridiculous because my family has been my favorite thing about being here in Ecuador. I'm really excited to go home next weekend (in case you hadn't noticed), but I wish so badly that I could bring my whole host family with me!!

My host parents, Jaime and Rita, are amazing. Jaime is a retired civil engineer, and he's in his 60s. Rita will be 60 this month. They've both been so patient with my Spanish speaking, and they're the ones that usually have to deal with me speaking late at night when my brain is really tired. Rita speaks really fast, because she's originally from the coast (the city of Manabí, I think), and Jaime grew up in Cuenca so he has a very pronounced rhythm to his speech (they say people from Cuenca "sing" when they talk), but we manage to understand each other.

Rita and Jaime have three children, and their daughter, María Fernanda is the oldest. She spent a year studying in Germany when she was in high school, so she can really sympathize with the foreign students that stay with her parents. She loves to travel, and she loves Christmas. She had her Christmas decorations up in October! María Fernanda's husband's name is José, but they call him Pichi. I'm not sure what he does for a living, but I know it sometimes requires trips to Europe. He knows a fair amount of English. They have a four-year-old daughter named Antonella, who is hilarious. I really hope she gets involved in the arts as she gets older. She's always moving, and she skips and dances more than she walks. She's very dramatic sometimes, and she likes to sing and she loves to draw. María Fernanda told me she sometimes goes through a sketchbook a week. Anto goes to preschool, and they apparently learn a lot of English there. She can count to ten, sing "Happy Birthday" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," and she knows a lot of basic nouns and phrases like "thank you" and "you're welcome."

Jaime and Rita's oldest son is Jaime Felipe. He rides his motorcycle to work, and he sometimes drops by for lunch. He's learning English, and sometimes he'll be talking to me in Spanish and pause mid-sentence to ask how to say a particular word he just used in English. He has absolutely no desire to travel, though. He understands why I want to see the world, but he sees no reason for him to leave Ecuador. However, I know he's been to the U.S. and to the Dominican Republic with his family. Jaime Felipe's wife is Soledad, and I love her. She's very bubbly and friendly and interested in what I have to say. The family joke is that she's la loca tía Sole ("crazy Aunt Sole"). She studied in Oklahoma when she was seventeen. Jaime Felipe and Soledad have two children, Mateo and Valentina. Mateo is eleven, and he's your typical middle school boy. He loves food, football (aka soccer) and American football, snakes, spiders, cars, and telling animated, dramatic stories. He's read a couple of Harry Potter books, although not in order. Valentina is ten and she's such a sweetheart. She likes taking care of her younger cousins, and she's trying really hard to memorize "Trot, Trot to Boston" in both English and my roughly translated Spanish so she can play it with them. Mateo and Valentina and I bonded when we were in the backseat of their grandparents' car on the way to a family event. They told me about their trips to Disney World and Virginia and asked me what New York City and snow are like.

Jaime and Rita's younger son is Javier. He's a fireman, and his schedule is such that he comes over for lunch most days. He was very helpful my first couple of days here, explaining things about the city and the food. Javier's wife is María del Mar (which literally means "María of the Sea"...I think that's so beautiful!). I think she works in a bank. She's fairly quiet and reserved, but still very friendly. She just had laser surgery on her eyes last week, and unfortunately she's still not feeling very well and still has to wear sunglasses most of the time. Javier and María del Mar's daughter is María Gracia, who is two and completely adorable. She's kind of a child of extremes...she's either incredibly happy and giggly or she's crying very vocally, and she can change from one to the other like a light switch. She took a while to warm up to me, but now we're very good friends. María Gracia comes to her grandparents' house after preschool, so she's always there for lunch, and she and her parents are often still over for merienda, the light evening meal. She's a very picky eater and often doesn't want to eat even the foods she really likes, so sometimes we do fun things like eat bites of rice or soup together. She's been a bit better about eating this week because she's constantly being reminded that Papá Noel (Santa Claus) and el Niño Jesús (Baby Jesus) only bring toys to people who eat really well.

Speaking of Papá Noel, María Gracia really put me in my place the other day. I thought I knew how Santa functions, but I was apparently way wrong. We were coloring and talking about Christmas because the house is all decorated now, and I asked María Gracia who comes to visit on Christmas Eve. She said "¡Papá Noel!" and I said (in Spanish, of course), "Yeah, and you know what, he'll come visit me too in the United States." She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No," and I said, "Yes, because Papá Noel visits everyone all over the world!" And she very forcefully said, "¡No!" So I said, "Okay, he only comes to Ecuador?" and she assured me, "¡Sí!"

I do know something about Papá Noel that María Gracia doesn't, however. Rita was telling me the other day that last year on Christmas Eve, Pichi dressed up as Santa Claus and came down stairs to surprise the kids. María Gracia, who was only one at the time, freaked out and cried and cried, and Anto kept trying to calm her down and promise her it was okay because it was the real Papá Noel. She had no idea it was her dad! María Fernanda, Pichi, and Anto were over last Saturday, the first day the Christmas decorations were up, and Pichi said, "Anto, tell Madeline who came last year for Christmas!" And Anto launched into this excited, animated explanation of how Papá Noel came down the stairs and María Gracia was scared but she knew it was okay and she thinks he's going to come again this year. Pichi was just sitting there, looking all pleased with himself and egging her on in her story. It was hilarious.

So there's a little bit about my family here. I'm so sad to have to leave them, and I really, truly hope I can come back and see them again someday!

Days till I come home: 10

A little nostalgic, a little numb

"you know it's always weird when someone you haven't seen in years dies. what do you say? what do you do? I guess nothing, but that feels wrong too."

My sister posted this on Facebook the other day, and I can't come up with a better way to describe how I feel right now. A boy we both used to know was killed in a car crash late Saturday night. He lived two houses down from us when we lived in Dublin, and we were all part of the big group of kids who ran down the sidewalks and through the backyards (before everyone put up fences) every evening during the spring, summer, and fall. I never knew Kyle very well, because he was three years younger than me and that made a big difference at the time, but he sometimes played with the boys who were my age. My sister and his sister were very close in age, and they knew each other better.

I haven't seen or heard from Kyle and his family in the eight years since we moved from that neighborhood, but I still feel really affected by this news. I'm sure part of it is being down here in Ecuador and already really wanting to come home, but I think the other part is shock. A very dear lady from my church passed away in October, and I was very sad, but her death wasn't unexpected. She was 90-something and had been ill for a while. Kyle was a senior in high school. He was apparently a varsity football player on a date with his cheerleader girlfriend, and neither of them were wearing seat belts. That's something I'll never, ever understand. Buckling your seat belt takes less than a second, and it can save your life.

Other than the pure tragedy of the situation, I think the thing that makes me the saddest is that I'll never think of Gnarled Pine Drive and my old neighborhood the same way again. That world was sort of perfectly sealed in a vacuum in my memory when I left the neighborhood public school in sixth grade, even before we moved. We were young; we were invincible beyond broken hands and scraped chins; and everything was sandboxes, fireflies, ice cream trucks, and Power Rangers. Sometimes it's easy to convince myself that none of my first friends ever grew up, changed, got girlfriends and drivers' licenses, made mistakes. I guess it's a loss-of-innocence thing.

I can't imagine what Kyle's family must be going through. I can't imagine what Christmas will be like for them this year. I wonder if they'll still wrap lights around the small lamppost in their front yard. I remember the stir it caused in the neighborhood when they painted their front door and mailbox magenta, and though I'll always associate them with the pink and blue house, the picture in my mind is now sad and dreary. The one comfort is that Kyle and his girlfriend apparently were Christians, so they've gone home to be with Jesus and their families will see them again someday.

I suppose all of this is a wake up call. You never think anything will happen to anyone you know, and then something happens. So think about what you do. Think about the people you love. Hug your family and friends every day, and buckle your seat belt!! If you won't do it for yourself, do it for your mom or your sister or your roommate or your best friend.

Now more than ever, I can't wait to get home and celebrate Christmas with my family and friends.

Days till I come home: 12