I Can't Believe It!

I just can't believe it! I'm going to be home a week from now. This semester has just flown by. The last 2 weeks have gone by even faster than most of the semester.

Tuesday night, November 17th, the power went out because of the energy crisis. We played games outside with the seminary students and had a lot of fun. The first game we played was Hide and Seek. Kevin decided to hide on the roof of the tallest building on campus. He told me this while we were waiting to start, so I had an idea where he was. The seminary is situated on a hill and the building is on the top of the hill. When everyone else had been found, I decided to tell the students that he was hiding up top so they had a general idea of where to look. After looking and yelling for another 10 minutes or so, they gave up and started to play a different game. Kristin, Manuel, and I decided to go up and look for him ourselves, but couldn't seem to find him. We tried calling his cell phone, but he wouldn't answer. We eventually got Dan and Kristina to help us look, while Caleb (their 3 year old son) started praying. About 30 minutes after the game had finished we saw what looked like a person laying down at the very top of the building. We shined flash lights at him and yelled his name, but still got no response. Kristina thought maybe he hurt himself or something and was worried. Finally, Kevin looked around, saw us, and came down really quickly. We were all slightly mad he was fine and had made us worry. He told us, "I'm sorry. I was praying. I couldn't hear anything with the cars and wind." Since then, any time we can't find Kevin, we've joked that he's up on the roof praying again. After this, we all went and continued playing games with the seminary students.

Wednesday night, one of the volunteer missionary couples invited us to dinner. We headed down to Carcelen to pick up some pizza, after searching for Kevin (again). We then enjoyed hanging out and eating Mariam's Pizza for the last time while we're here.

We finished up our Spanish classes on Thursday with our final presentations. We each had fun sharing about our experiences during the semester with everyone from NILI. Thursday night, we headed to another Liga soccer game! The game was moved from 7pm to 5pm because we had another power outage, making it difficult to get anything done (oh the joys of Eco-friendly power...). The game was really exciting. We went with a group of 11 people and had a great time jumping, yelling, and cheering Liga on to a 7-0 victory!

Friday, we traveled to Evelyn's house which is south of Quito. Her family owns a beautiful house with a really nice yard and garden. We cooked a nice "American" lunch consisting of Taco Salad and Apple Crisp for dessert. After lunch, we enjoyed climbing the many avocado trees in the yard and picking around 100 avocados bigger than your fist.

Saturday, it was a really nice day, so we all decided to walk to El Condado, the mall, for lunch, which is about a 2 and a half mile walk. Afterwards we took a taxi back and then watched the seminary soccer team play some soccer.

On Sunday, it was time for Kevin, Jen, and I to head to the airport to catch our flight to the Galapagos! We spent 5 great days on the Yolita II, out yacht. We were in a group of 16 passengers made up of some people from the UK, some Asian Americans from San Fransisco, and some people who live in Austin, TX from Italy and Bosnia. We also had a very good guide, Washington, on our boat with us who took us to the islands and told us all about the animals and plants. During our trip, we traveled to 3 or 4 of the main islands along with some of the smaller ones in between. We saw all of the animals that live on the islands including marine iguanas, land iguanas, tortoises (though only at the Charles Darwin Center), blue-footed boobies, masked boobies, tropic birds, flamingos, albatros, sea lions, seals, finches, mocking birds, canaries, lava lizards, crabs, frigit birds and many others I can't think of right now. We also snorkeled a lot and saw thousands of fish, white tipped sharks, rays, sea turtles, octopus, lobsters, star fish, sea lions, and seals. We went inside a cave like lava tunnel, visited the post office (a place to leave post cards, where other people will pick them up and mail them if they live where the post card is going), and jumped off the top deck of our boat. It was a great trip and I have tons of pictures to show (though I'm probably not going to have time to put them online 'til I get home).

We got back from the Galapagos on Thursday, just in time for Thanksgiving dinner with the missionaries. We headed straight to dinner and enjoyed all the normal things you would expect to have on Thanksgiving. It was delicious! Thank you everyone who helped cook :)

Yesterday, since I didn't have classes, I had the opportunity to work alongside some of the students and some other people who live on campus with some construction. At the bottom of the seminary, they're working on building a new house for the rector of the seminary. Yesterday, it was time to start on the floor. I helped tie steel, which isn't hard, it just hurts your back. It took us 3 hours to do this for about 2/3 of the house. The we took about a half hour break and had a snack of rice and beans to tide us over until our very late lunch that took place at about 3 in the afternoon. Then, it was back to work. While most people were shoveling gravel to even everything out before pouring concrete, I helped mark the level of the concrete. Then, it was time to start mixing concrete. I helped shovel gravel into buckets and then move the buckets to the concrete mixer so they could be dumped in. This was very tiring work. After just a half hour I had a blister on my thumb that popped from shoveling and started to get some on fingers from carrying the buckets. Soon, I was too tired to shovel any more, but I kept helping move the buckets when it was time, which allowed me to take some breaks. Eventually, after lots of hard work, there was concrete covering about half of the area that we had prepared earlier in the morning and it was time to stop for the day. After cleaning everything up, we headed to lunch to get some leftover chicken and rabbit that had been cooked on the soccer field like earlier this semester. It felt great to sit down, relax, and eat after 7 hours of work.

Last night was graduation. Many students, including my roommate, Carla, graduated. It was fun to go to the ceremony and celebrate their accomplishments. I was also able to see my family, that I had stayed with, again since they were there.

Things at the Seminary are winding down. All of the students are going to be gone by Monday. We're leaving for the jungle tomorrow, so when we get back, the campus will be empty. We get back from the jungle on Thursday, and then I head to the airport on Friday night to catch my 12:20am flight out of Quito on Saturday. I'm going to be home sooner than I know. The next time I post, I'll be home. What a crazy thought! I have a lot of pictures to share, but I don't have time to put them online right now. I'll make sure to get them up when I get home so all of you can see them. Until then, "Dios te bendiga" or "God bless you."

Wow! It's November!

I can't believe it's already November! This semester is going by so fast. I have less than 2 weeks of classes left and then we go to the Galapagos and then the jungle and then we fly home December 5th.

Tuesday the 27th of October, I went to an orientation at a nearby orphanage so that I can help out there some. Since then, I've gone to the orphanage the past 2 Saturdays to help out. Both times I've helped out with the toddlers and have had a lot of fun. I basically get to play with the kids and since I'm there during dinner, I help feed them, too.

Thursday October 29th, the NILI professionals returned from the jungle. Kevin, John, and I went to the artisans market in Quito so John could buy some last minute things before returning to the states the next morning. While downtown, we stopped in a small shop to enjoy some colada morada and guaguas de pan (more explanation of these items to come). Thursday night, the Fischer's (the missionary family in charge of Work and Witness here in Ecuador) had a party at the Work and Witness Center for us. It was a combination get to know the Fischer's party, birthday party for Jael's first birthday, and a going away party for the Mappus' and John. We had a lot of fun eating, watching Jael, with the help of Caleb, open her gifts, playing with the balloons, and just hanging out.

Friday the Mappus' and John left for the airport and headed back to the states. This was kinda sad, because we all became kind of a little family while they were here. Also, the same day, though much later, my roommate, Carla left for Peru for a week with one of the other seminary students for a young adults event. She got back after a great trip, this past Sunday morning.

Also, on Friday, we went to the Teleferico (finally). We went up Pichincha, a volcano right next to Quito, in something like an enclosed ski lift. We were up about 5,000 ft higher than normally in Quito, so there were warning signs because of the thin air. The view of Quito and the surrounding mountains was great even though it was a little cloudy.

November 1st and 2nd are a very important holiday in Ecuador and most of Latin America, Dia de los Defunctos, or Day of the Dead. It is kind of like our Memorial Day, where people remember their deceased relatives. There are also many traditions that go with this holiday, which we were able to see and participate in. On Monday, we went to 2 cemeteries. The first was a cemetery of mostly indigenous people. Outside the cemetery there was a carnival like atmosphere with people selling flowers and decorations at increased prices along with homemade rides for kids. The cemetery was very crowded with people visiting graves. The graves were very unorganized, so that you couldn't always tell where one started and one ended. These people were cleaning and decorating the graves along with eating. It is traditionally thought that on this day, the dead can return and eat with their families. The second cemetery we went to was for mostly people of mestizo heritage or mixed Spanish and Indigenous. These people tend to be higher in social class and more educated. This cemetery was huge and much more organized. It was still very crowded, but people were only cleaning and decorating graves. No eating here. Then we went and got ingredients to make coloda morada and guaguas de pan, our project for the next day.

Tuesday was a day full of cooking. First we made colada morada and guaguas de pan. These are both foods traditionally made during the holiday. Colada morada is a drink that is made with all kinds of yummy things and is purple in color, giving it its name. Guaguas de pan are bread babies. Guagua is the word for baby or child in the indigenous language. The bread is made into the shape of babies and then decorated in a way similar to our ginger bread men. If you want to see some of the ingredients, cooking process, and finished products check out my pictures by clicking on the title of this post, "Wow! It's Novemeber!" After finishing our making (and sampling) our food, we took some to all the missionary families. During the holiday the students cook the meals at the seminary. Tuesday night, it was NILI's turn to cook. We cooked spaghetti with meat sauce, made a salad, and shared the colada morada and quaquas de pan we had made earlier.

Thursday night, we went to a soccer game! La Casa Blanca, or the White House, is near the seminary. This is the stadium of one of the countries teams, called Liga. The game was against a team from Argentina for the quarterfinals of the Latin American Cup, so it was a pretty important game. The security to get in was pretty impressive (3 checkpoints) along with a lot of police in full uniform and crowd control gear inside the stadium and on the field. At the start of the game, there were rolls of paper thrown onto the field from the stands, sparklers that flashed really brightly held by fans (just another example of lesser safety laws), and songs sung. It was really exciting! The entire game was a lot of fun with the fans singing and chanting the whole time. Argentina scored first in the 1st half. But Liga came back and won with 2 goal in the 2nd half. Great game! Though the traffic afterwards was horrible.

Friday was a slightly interesting and frustrating day. First, the power went out, though this was expected, and it was only out for an hour when we thought it would be for 4. Ecuador is in the middle of a power shortage. They use hydroelectricity to power everything. Right now, we are in the rainy season and the reservoir should be getting refilled after the dry season. But instead, it has barely rained. Not only did the season start later than it normally does, it seems to have ended, hopefully only temporarily. To deal with the power shortage they are turning power off to certain areas of the city at a time. This, of course, causes many problems, especially with traffic, since the police often aren't informed of where the power is going to be out. So, if you are wanting something to pray for, pray for rain. Ecuador desperately needs it. The second reason it was a frustrating day was that the power cord to my computer decided to die. Thankfully, I have some good friends here who are willing to let me borrow theirs to get homework done and to keep in touch with people.

The tickets we bought to the soccer game on Thursday came with tickets for the game on Sunday, too. Since the game was at 11:30, we went to an early church service and then headed to the game. This game didn't end up being nearly as exciting. It was just a normal game against another team in Ecuador and they ended up tying 0-0. But we still had fun.

Monday, we started our last week of normal Spanish classes. Next week we just have group presentations followed by our final projects which are also presentations. I only have 1 day of my New Testament class left, followed by a test. I also registered for classes for next semester on Monday. I'm working on making plans for when I'm home over break. It all seems crazy! I'm going to be home before I know it. I'm looking forward to being home and seeing everyone I miss, especially Dallas, and eating things that I miss. But I'm also really going to miss Ecuador.