Desert Time

Wow! so its been more than two weeks since i've blogged. Its not that i haven't done anything adventurous, like go to the premiere of Hunger Games and lose my wallet with my credit cards (thankfully i had an Ecuadorian who had international calling and canceled my cards before anything happened), or learn how to dance the salsa (don't even ask me to demonstrate. i'm awful at it!), or try to play soccer with your 6v6 team when we're down a man and the rest of the team is drunk (so it was really more like 2.63v6), or spend the weekend studying the development of pueblos due to the destruction of oil companies like Texaco (incredible trip, horrible stuff that happens! blog post to come on that), or eat dog food (sooooo not my fault. there was a pot of food on the stove and i was hungry so i decided to try it. i asked my brother what it was and all i heard was comida and some exotic name. when i asked if it was for us, he didn't answer, so i tried it. And it actually tasted really good because it consisted of our left over-food from last night and today. Then i found out that it wasn't dinner. it was food for the dogs. good times. never ever going to live that one down...).

But I have to admit, twas a longer two weeks than i expected. I'll be the first to admit i got hit with homesickness. I hadn't felt it at all really until then. My team back home had some spring games, i missed the soccer banquet, i was altogether ready for spring break (and am still waiting actually... :P ), i had a million things to do, and i just flat out missed home. But the greatest thing about it was that in the hardness of it all, i really found God. More than ever before. Through lots of prayers and great conversations with people back home, (and some tears of course), I came to realize a lot of things, though mainly that the best thing to do is when in doubt, take more time to be with God. My quiet times with God are the absolute richest that they have ever been in my life. It was just incredible.  The more time i spent with Him (whether in English or Spanish :P ) the more filled and loved i felt. I just learned so much, and i just understand more now.

I understand more about why we have the church, both as a center of worship and as a center of support. Since i've been here, i have almost always been gone on the weekends and because of that, i haven't really gone to church. And one of the things i miss most is the worship sessions we have. Oh i miss them terribly. But God, being the gracious God that He is, gave me an opportunity to go to church with one of my friends from the university and i was overjoyed worshiping with the college group, the majority of the songs i either knew in spanish or knew the same song in english. It was soooooo filling to be able to worship in the company of other believers!

 I understand why Jesus went to the desert to be with God.  There are times in our life to be in fellowship with others, like the times Jesus was with his disciples. But there are also other times in our life to be just with God. In my desert time, I came to understand the greatness of the desert, the time that you are drier than dry, without anyone else, but are closer than you ever have been to God. There's something about being broken that brings you so much closer to God, and i can tell you that in my worst days when i should have been depressed i felt happier than i ever have been.

I came to identify with a lot of metaphors, this being one of my favorites:
"The land is a land of hills and valleys. It is not all smooth nor all down hill. If life were all one dead level the dull sameness would oppress us; we want the hills and the valleys. The hills collect the rain for a hundred fruitful valleys. Ah, so it is with us! it is the hill difficulty that drives us to the throne of grace and brings down the shower of blessing; the hills, the bleak hills of life that we wonder at and perhaps grumble at, bring down the shower. How many have perished in the wilderness buried under its golden sands, who would have lived and thriven in the hill-country; how many would have been killed by the frost, blighted with the winds, swept desolate of the tree and fruit but for the hill-stern, hard, rugged, so steep to climb. God's hills are a gracious protection for His people against their foes!"
Ï just love the imagery. and everything it says...

Anyway, I'm doing great now! I mean i still miss home, who wouldn't with family and friends and a community like i have? :) But i've come to accept were i am, to cry when needed but to laugh more than i think is possible, to enjoy all the moments -even the ones that every ones says are "terrible" or your "hard days," to depend on your friends because they'll be there for you, to live every day like its an adventure- though here it actually is one so that isn't hard, to sleep a lot because you just feel better (not that i've ever had a problem with the sleeping part :), and to enjoy the little things in life- the flowers blooming, the bird that flies by with really pretty colors in its plumage, your crazy kitty falling asleep in your arms, watching the rain fall on the lake at your school, the days your mom makes you your favorite food (and also the days she remembers you don't like mayonnaise on your vegetables), the reaction your mom has when you scrape your knee playing soccer and she thinks the world is going to end, when you find a dime on the ground and realize you can get 1/5 of the way to school with it, the hugs you get at your internship from the kids, the packages that come in the mail, skype dates (you can sign up for yours today! :), the the roses and chocolate your boyfriend sends you (okay so that's a BIG thing, but i sure enjoyed it :);  AND.. to do the things on your to-do list but remember that God has a different schedule and His is always better, to run towards God, to enjoy His presence, to spend more time with Him than with anything else.

That's all the thoughts i have. Probably way to many to read, so i don't blame you if you didn't read them all. Or if you didn't even make it to this line, though clearly you must have, because you're reading this... :)
TE ECHO DE MENOS!!!!!!!! :P

p.s. i'm going off to my family's farm til after easter so i won't have internet. if you were thinking of trying to contact me or something like that i probably wont get it til the 10th of April.

<3 aL

My Bucket List

I love those days when you get to check a bunch of things off your bucket list. I think I might just have to expand mine since I'm getting so much of it done here! Since yesterday, i got to cross off:

 1. driving in the back of a pick-up truck on the freeway. The picture: 3 people in the cab of the small truck, four in the truck bed on top of two beds, probably 10 full sized blankets, everyone's suitcases, pillows, the dishes/pots/pans/silverware for the new house. oh! and don't forget the stove we threw in at the last minute. heaven forbid we forget the stove! Then tie it all down with a black tarp so that the cops don't see you. Then add 2 hours. perfect! i think you've got the mental picture.

 2. sweeping the roof of a rather large chicken house/coup thing. We were cleaning it out to start fresh. Why do you sweep the roof? I still have yet to understand this.

3. climbing the equivalent of a cherry tree to pick/eat the fruit. Delicious! mmmmm capuli!

4. sleeping in a double bed with 3 other people. Not as fun as you would think. I might have taken 2 naps today to make up for it...

5. eating guinea pig. tastes like chicken. but doesn't every exotic animal taste that way? It was only slightly disturbing to think that I had one as a pet when i was a child. Though it could have been more economical to eat Snow White than to give her to the guinea pig rescue lady when i decided i didn't want one anymore...

The cuy cooking...

 Me with the head

head --> mouth

And a picture of the crab soup we made the other day just for kicks and giggles!

Yeah, i'd say my fin de semana was a diverse one! But i think all of them are for me. And about my bucket list... I actually don't have one. Generally I just do cool things and pretend that i'm crossing them off of a list. At least it gives me a sense of accomplishment, right?

That moment when...

Yes, apparently my life has enough funny moments to write this entry another time... :)

THAT MOMENT WHEN...

Your mom picks up the telephone downstairs to see if you brother is talking on the phone with his girlfriend and proceeds to listen to part of it. I thought listening in on conversations only happened in the movies...

Your cousin tells you that your brother is not actually in a rugby class at school. He just tells everyone that so he can spend more time with his girlfriend...

You have gotten so tan that your brother calls you negrita. On multiple occasions. (This by the way is completely politically correct here and a term of endearment, like gordita, or flacita which probably sound like insults as well to you. But just believe me on this one and be amazed that i'm getting tan here... hahaha :)

After telling you that your family is not going to eat meat for a week, your sister proceeds to serve tuna with the dinner. So maybe you misunderstood and she meant just not red meat. But then every day you eat some sort of meat like chicken or carne. I think she's confused on the concept...

As you walk between bus stops you see a fire on the lawn across the street. But nobody seems to notice or care. Interesting...

You see a taxi that is missing its front bumper and decide that there is no way you are going to get in that taxi. unless its a really really good deal.

You realize you always try to say hello and goodbye first because you only have a limited number of ways to greet people and if they steal yours accidentally you are screwed. And here it is always the case that someone will say hello/goodbye with 3 or more phrases, so there is a very good chance you will not have a response that's different than theirs

After 2 months here of riding the bus almost every single day you realize you are the only white person on the bus. 99% of the time. plus one for assertiveness.

You spend all of your Friday night out with friends and have a trip with your program on Sunday, so you plan on spending Saturday studying for mid-terms. But many things happen. First, at 8:30am (early because you were up way past 2am) your sister comes into your room to tell you they are going to the market to buy crab. She says "duerme no mas," which here means continue sleeping (i know right? seems like a contradiction, but "no mas" means continue, not stop). But because you are really tired, you misinterpret her words and think she is telling you to stop sleeping. So you get up, and you end up going to the market (only later do you realize your mistake and understand why she was surprised when you woke up to come). Well, you are told the trip will take 40 mins. 3 hours later you arrive back in your house, but with live crab! So you assume you now have time to study and later we'll have crab. perfect. Wrong again mate! It is time to kill and wash all the crabs (pictures soon to come). And then unbeknownst to you, all the family of your bro-in-law comes over for almuerzo. a few hours later you finish. bueno, its 4pm. you still have time to study. Wrong again my friend! after five minutes of studying, your family drags you (literally, physically) out of your room to play the Ecuadorian version of the board game Sorry!. And when you protest, they lock you out of your room. Yes, literally. Keys and everything. So you think, okay, i'll play one game for an hour, and then i'll work. Wrong once more! The Ecuadorian version of Sorry! also is on Ecuadorian time. After 4.5 hours, you quit because the game is nowhere near ending and are allowed back in your room only because your brother takes your place int he game. I don't think i have ever had anyone lock me out of my room to stop me from studying before. But then again, almost everything here is a first for me...

You go with your brother to the pharmacy because your brother-in-law has the flu. The first thing that happens is that you are walking down the street and your brother tells you to walk slower, and you are like why? oh, there's just three (armed according to your brother) robbers on the same street up a bit in the shadows walking as well. Great! Good thing you are smart and go a different route. The story continues...You go to 2 different pharmacies and they won't sell you the drug your bro wants because you need a prescription (which means it must be really strong if you have to have a prescription here in Ecuador because nearly everything is over the counter and self prescribed). So he calls his friend who's a doctor and asks for the name of the drug. Sure enough, the name of the drug is enough, and although your brother tells you its illegal to get it without a prescription, the next pharmacy sells it to you telling you they don't administer the shots here; you have to do it on your own. What medicine is it you might ask? Oh it was just penicillin. nbd. With the needle and the the little bottle thing of medicine just like the doctors procure in the doctors office. (All you doctors out there are probably falling out of your chairs right about now.) So with medicine in hand you walk home, without any robbers this time thankfully. And your brother administers the shot in the butt.  Good thing your brother is in med school. I'm pretty sure you can die if you administer a shot wrong with an air bubble or something. Oh and if it wasn't enough to do it once, you buy more the next night and repeat. wow. yeah...


This is probably my favorite because it came after a long, arduous day and made me chuckle: you jump on a bus and after standing there for a minute, realize that yes, the man 3 feet away from you is actually holding a live chicken in his arms; it is not his bag. nobody else thinks anything of it.

Well, that is all for today folks! Hope you at least smiled a bit. Have a blessed day!!! :))))

Galapagos Part 2!

Clearly i failed at the "i´ll blog a little every day" thing. I mean i tried, really i did. One day i uploaded a bunch of pictures so that should count for something right? hahaha. anyway... here´s some more of my fabulous adventures!

A hatchery for the galapagos...

With even the little babies!!!

And we got to hold an egg. The markings on it indicate the position it was sitting when they removed it from the nest. The x has to stay on top for it to survive. Cool fact: the sex of baby turtles is determined by the temperature during the time they hatch. More guys are born at 28.5 degrees celcius and more girls at 29.5 degrees celcius.

Sadly i had to resort to posting the picture of the galapagos sex instead of the video. it still wont load :(.

At one point, the island isabella was where they sent prisoners from the mainland. To keep them occupied they had them build this huge wall (now called muro de lágrimas "wall of tears") which was an incredible amount of labor. It was supposed to be a foursided containment area, but they never finished. After a year the guy in charge died and it all went down hill from there and eventually the island ceased being a prison. Today there´s only one guy alive who was a prisoner and he still lives on the island.

A view from the top of the wall...

And believe it or not, i fell for the ole "do you want to go on a walk for a better view" trick again. What did we do? hike up the side of the mountain. In rainbows (good thing those flip flops were built to last!). I swore i never would fall for it, but i did. i only have myself to blame. However, the view was totally worth it!

Some shots of the playa... gorgeous sunsets here! Radiant colors! We just sat and watched one night for like an hour. It was like a movie...

One of my favorite parts was the coconuts! SOOOOOO GOOOOD! And you get to eat them after... :)

We went and hiked a volcano on the isabella, a six hour extravaganza. The top pic is me overlooking the lava flow area. The volcano is still active and about 30 years ago was the most recent lava flow.  The bottom picture is of a vein of lava that partially collapsed. It still amazes me that lava flows in veins... not sure why, but i think its really cool.

Well, you wouldn´t believe it by the first two picks, but about 4 miles into the hike we got some tropical weather. Usually the storm passes after dumping for about 5 minutes. Well, it didn´t. It continued for the rest of the trip, all 6 miles of it. And it dumped sooooooo much water. Lets just say that the trail had about a foot of water on it the majority of the time... On the bus ride back i snapped this photo of the road. We pretty much drove through a river the whole way. Our driver rocked!

When we were out snorkeling, i got to drive the boat. Sweet deal. And there weren´t any casualties. Plus one for me!

The beautiful sunrise the day we left the island... you only have to get up at 4:45 to see it. NBD.