Shower

Yesterday was one of the secretaries at school's bridal shower.  Well, I suppose it was more of a couple's shower, since both came and the guests were of all ages and both genders.  It was a lot of fun!  I'd never been to an Ecuadorian shower before, so I had no idea what to expect.

It all started Friday afternoon when a couple from church stopped by the school.  The husband is one of the pastors at church and his wife taught the 3yr old preschool class last year at school.  They're also in charge of the Sunday School program, which the couple getting married is involved in.  They came in to give me and a few others the invitation to Patricia and Christian's shower the next day.  That isn't too uncommon, to be invited to something a few days or less before the event so I wasn't too surprised, just happy that I was invited.  It's such a privilege to live here and be a part of people's lives, to see an Ecuador that most North Americans don't get to.  Anyway, on the invitation was a suggestion of something to get them, so there wouldn't be duplicates and mine said disinfectant.  So, on my way home from school I stopped and bought some good stuff that also is supposed to scare away cockroaches and bugs, too.

The shower was supposed to start at 5, but I didn't get there until 10 after, or so and they hadn't started yet, so I didn't feel too bad getting there late. :)  About 5 minutes or so after I got there, we started.  Patricia and Christian, the couple whose shower it was, were upstairs, in another apartment, with the little kids, while Lucia and Klever, the couple throwing the shower told us a couple things before they came down.  Lucia said that one of the activities would be for Patricia to make Christian a salad and a cup of coffee, to show that she can take care of him, but that they were going to make sure the coffee had no sugar, without either of them knowing it, and that Christian would have to eat and drink it all with a smile on his face, to show that he wouldn't hurt Patricia's feelings.  At least, that's how I understood it. :)

They came downstairs and Lucia and Klever's son had a game for us to play.  We all got into a circle and held hands, except for 2, leaving a hole in the circle.  The 2 on either side of the hole had to grab hands, leave the circle, find someone else to fill the hole and go back to their spot, leaving another hole.  Then he was going to randomly start counting down from 10 and when he got to 0, the 2 on either side of the hole would have to pay penance.  It was hilarious!!  People forgot what they were supposed to do, so everyone else was yelling at them to run and find someone and every once in awhile it was 2 guys who had to grab hands, which inspired whistling and catcalls.   We played a few times and then they decided that we  had enough people who would have to pay penance.  The first 2 had to stand and be puppets while half the group went up, 1 at a time, and positioned them however they wanted. :)  The second pair had to dance like ducks, per majority vote of the group while the last pair had to dance a really silly kids song which ended with them stomping their feet, flapping their arms like wings and wiggling their backside like a duck or chicken or something!

Then they had Christian tell the story of how he and Patricia got together, while one lady kept warning the dads in the room to pay attention for when their daughters grow up!  It was probably one of the most amazing stories I've heard, it sounds like it's straight from a fairy tale.  He would come in to town to see her when she got off work, to walk her to the bus, half a block away.  He'd wait with her for the bus and then go back to the country, walking at least a foot away from each other, but that 5 minutes was worth it, to him, to go into town to see her. :)  This was all before they ever dated, then when he actually asked her to date him it was over the phone!  They had everyone laughing so hard!

After that was the traditional dress the bride and groom.  We got toilet paper and tape for her dress, while the guys got newspaper and tape for his tux.  I was amazed at everyone's creativity!  Patricia's dress reminded me of something from the early 1800s, like Pride and Prejudice or something similar.  Then they put toilet paper sashes on a couple of the high school girls and made them the bridesmaids.  Christian's costume was even better, though!  He looked like a cross between an ancient knight and a robot. :)  They even gave him tails in the back, and a pocket in front with a little flower sticking out of it.  They made a hat for him, but I wasn't quite sure what kind it was supposed to be.  At first I thought it was a bandanna, but then it looked a little like a VERY short chef's hat!  Then I saw that they were giving him facial hair.  At first it was just a Hitler mustache, but then that got removed and made into sideburns with a handlebar mustache and then one of the sideburns fell off, so he looked lopsided. :)  After they were all dressed they had a mock wedding ceremony full of jokes and more puppetry.  During the ceremony, a person stood behind each Patricia and Christian, pretending to be their hands.  It reminded me of the skit we used to do at Sonshine about morning routines, or something, where the person behind has to do everything the person in front is supposed to do, without looking.

Later Klever read some comments about matrimony that were supposed to be funny.  Most of them were, but there were a few where everybody just kind of looked at him confused.  The one I remember the best was something like: archeologists make the best husbands because the older you get, the more beautiful you look to him! :)


All in all, it was hilarious and a great time!  I loved the mix of ages, everyone from an 70 something retired missionary to 2 year olds were there, although the kids were mainly playing outside and upstairs, but those of us who were actually attending the party were a mix of a few high schoolers, some of us in our 20s, a few in their 30s and 40s and a few that had to be at least 70 or more!  It was great! :)

Clothing

Walking down the street also is great for people watching!  Some look as if they just came from the jungle, with big rubber boots all muddy, old baggy jeans for the guys and skirts for the ladies, carrying their babies in bright slings, barely holding them on, just tension and a big diaper!  Then after them come people dressed no different than you’d see anywhere in the States, jeans, t-shirt, shorts, etc.  Next to them could be a woman dressed up so much that she looks like she’s going to a fancy restaurant, but is really just getting home from work, wearing her uniform.  And then after that could be someone dressed in their traditional clothing, that hasn’t, as far as I know, changed for centuries.

The first time I saw an indigenous lady in traditional clothing I had the hardest time not staring.  Then the first time I saw an indigenous lady from a different village I again struggled with not staring.  The clothes seem so foreign and exotic at first.  But I soon realized that it's a normal every day thing for many to continue wearing traditional clothing all the time and not just at reenactments, like in the States.  Now, I've gotten used to it and can even tell, to some extent, what region the lady comes from, based on her clothes.  Most of the ladies in town, in traditional clothes, come from the areas around Riobamba and Ambato, in the highlands and wear long black or navy blue wraparound skirts with embroidery on the bottom.  The most amazing part of it though, is the belt they use.  It's a really long strip of brightly embroidered fabric that they just wrap around them a bunch of times, tuck in the end, and that holds up the skirt!  I was slightly shocked the first time I saw a younger lady, around my age, dressed in the traditional skirt with a t-shirt on top and zip-up sweatshirt!  The combination traditional and contemporary seemed odd at first, to me, but appears to be the way they've allowed themselves to "modernize" while still carrying on tradition.  But after seeing them, I was still taken aback when I saw a lady from Otavalo in town.  They're very easy to spot, since they always wear white, lacy embroidered shirts, with a double skirt underneath, at least that's what it appears. :)  It looks like it's a tan skirt underneath with a black one on top.

 I was beginning to think that all of the indigenous people from around Macas had completely assimilated, since the only ones I saw dressing traditionally were from the highlands, until I was getting ready to leave Macas the 2nd year I came down and was at the airport waiting for the plane to land.  The plane was hours late and I looked out the window at the airport, and saw a crowd gathering to meet the incoming plane.  That wasn’t the odd thing, though, but how some were dressed.  It was all men in suits, but over half had yellow and red feathered crowns on their head and were wearing long loops of what looked like beads, but I knew were seeds.  They were looped across their chest, crisscrossing their bodies.   Others just had the seeds.  My friend, who was with me, said that the feathered crowns were for the shamans or heads of the clan.  They were meeting some dignitary, which is why the plane was so late.

Walking

As I sat and looked out my window on a little corner of Paradise, I was trying to think of something to write, since it's been so long and I have so many stories, that at the time I want to share, but as the days go by and I have no time, I forget the details and they're not as interesting anymore.  And then along comes a guy pushing a cart and advertising his wares.  His voice is loud enough that it easily carries up to me, on the second floor, with my windows closed, but I can't understand what he  says.  I look at him and see that in his handcart are coconuts and that he's selling coconut juice.  And it reminds me of my walks home from school.  I don't usually see the handcarts near my house, since it's not a commercial area and they don't really do as good of a business here, but there's many downtown, on nearly every corner, actually.  It got me thinking, too, of the things here, that have become normal to me, but that are anything but in the States, or at least in Salem. :)  So I tried to think of all the things that I've seen here in the past week, when walking home, or taking the bus.

The cobblestone streets at first made me feel as if I were in Europe a hundred years ago, but then I looked up and saw the tangle of electrical wires and realized that I had to be at least in the 20th century. :)

Getting ready for a parade wouldn't be worth it if you couldn't string banners from the bucket of a front loader!

People are dressed in so many different ways, the styles are so much more varied than in the States!  But that's a whole 'nother blog post.

The next block I'll most likely see one or more of my students, yelling "Teacher!!!  Es mi profe!  Mire mami! (It's my teacher!  Look mom!)  Teacher, teacher, hola!!"  Sometimes they'll be walking along with their parents, other times hanging out on the front stoop of the store while waiting with their parents and other times with their head hanging out the car window as their family drives by.  But nearly every single time I'm outside, I see at least one student or parent of a student.

Then I see a flat bed truck with wooden sides and a wooden pole above, running down the middle, sometimes with a tarp over, sometimes not.  I never know what I'll see inside the trucks.  A cow or 2, a horse or 2, even a pig or goats.  But often the trucks will be full of people.  If a trucks empty, people will often pull it over and pay to take them somewhere, if they're going in the right direction.  I was surprised, last week, when I saw a particularly high truck with guys riding in it, well, not in, in, more straddling the sideboards, at least 2 stories off the ground, as if they were riding a giant horse!  Usually they're on the bed of the truck :) but this one must have been full, either that or they felt like being more adventurous than normal!

One day I was sitting on the bus when it pulled over to pick someone up, totally normal, but up walked a boy carrying a chicken.  Now this isn't really abnormal, but this chicken was alive and just tucked under the kid's arm like a football.  It was really hard not to laugh, what with everyone from the States asking me if the buses are anything like the infamous chicken buses of Mexico and Central America.  Up until then I'd seen many things get on the buses, both city and intracity buses, but never anything live, that wasn't human!  People often get on buses carrying huge buckets, sacks of grain, machetes, sugar cane, all sorts of things, but I'd not seen a live animal before!  Still haven't on the buses between cities, just the regular city buses, that really aren't all that different from Salem's city buses. :)




There are dogs all over the place, some confined behind fences, some allowed to roam free and some that are without owners.  A lot of times they band together, especially at night.  I'll often hear them after I'm in bed, all howling together.  So, at first I didn't think anything of the 2 dogs I saw on the sidewalk last Friday.  But then I looked closer.  There was a tan one and a black one, but the black one looked a little weird.  I'd already passed them, so I turned to look again.  No wonder he looked a little funny!  That was no fluffy tail, but a corkscrew pig's tail!  He was a little piglet about the size of a terrier and running around with the dog. :)  I guess he can eat the garbage from the garbage  pails as easily as the dogs do, but it still made me laugh to see.  Then of course, there's the millions of chickens, although not usually in the downtown area, but once you're not in the 3 or 4 blocks of  main downtown, most houses have them. Although, most families keep their chickens behind fences, every once in awhile, they'll be out on an insect hunt, in the streets or sidewalks.

On nearly every block you see someone with a little stand, either stationary or rolling, trying to sell something. Whether it's the man carrying 10 brooms all strapped onto his shoulder, the lady with balloons tied onto a really tall pole, a man with icecream on a platter with a cone stuck on top, the rolling carts selling orange juice, coconut juice or nuts, or the grills set up in front of a restaurant, doorway or just on a corner with fried plantains, grilled plantains, empanadas or meat on a stick, you can nearly find just about anything you want from these roving salesmen.  In fact, I think that might be the only way you can actually buy a book in Macas, aside from the school's bookstore and textbooks.

And that doesn't even take into consideration all of the little stores, each fairly specialized, that line the streets of Macas. :)

Fun and crazy times

It's been pretty busy these past few weeks, with summer school, then getting ready for the school year and now, the first week of classes, so I haven't had much time to do anything other than get home, eat and read a bit before going to sleep.  But here's a bit of what I've been up to. :)  The first one is my friend and I playing around with my hair, it's actually long enough to almost sit on, but we were goofing around and pretended it was short.  The 2nd is the adorable 5 day old son of one of the students at school.  She's made wonderful progress this year, in her attitude (so I hear, I didn't know her at the beginning) and is amazingly mature.  The last is one of my favorites, me riding!!!!  A friend of mine's brother-in-law owns this gorgeous horse and invited me to go riding last Sunday!!!!!  It's amazing how much I'd missed it. :)

Church

Today was quite the interesting day at church.  First of all, I left the house late and there wasn't any taxis for the first few blocks, but I finally saw one that was empty.  Normally it's not a big deal, but leaving the house late and then walking for 20-30 minutes tends to make one REALLY late for church. :)  When I got there there was a group from Canada, doing evangelism in Sucua, a town about 10-30 minutes from here (10 min if you drive your own car, 30 min by bus).  One of the men preached and it was as if I was back at Salem Alliance in my childhood.  We used to joke that the Canadians were taking over the church, since the head pastor, the worship pastor, their wives and all of the high school interns were from Canada. :)  Plus they're from 2 different Alliance churches in Canada, so it was cool to hear someone with a similar background, doesn't happen every day!  They even knew of Salem Alliance, I think, at least they appeared somewhat familiar with it when talking with them afterward.

At the end of  the service, the youth/worship pastor got up and made a few announcements, one of which to let everyone know that the Shuar Bible is now translated and at the end of the month there's going to be a big dedication service for it, in Macuma.  He invited everyone who wants to go to get together and form groups for traveling.  After the service was over, I was talking with a couple who are going with a group of Shuar to the dedication and invited me to go along.  I'd love to go!!!  The entertaining part is that there are only 2 ways to get to Macuma, the fast way and the slow way. :)  The fast way is by a 5 person plane.  The slow way is to take the bus for a couple hours and then walk 3 hours, they're no roads!  Lois, a retired missionary here, was telling us that part of the trail includes crossing rivers on logs and stuff like that.  I think it would be awesome!!  I just have to figure out if the timing will work out.  It's on a Saturday, but it's the Saturday in the middle of getting ready for the school year.  I think it would be absolutely amazing to be able to go! :)  To get to be at the ceremony dedicating the Bible in a new language.  I hope I can work it out.

Then after church, I went out to eat with a couple other "gringos" to a new restaurant.  It has the exact same name as another restaurant in town and serves the same type of foods, but the other place is still open, so I'm not sure what's up.  They're only a couple blocks apart, too, so I kinda doubt that it's a case of franchising or anything, but who knows.  What was really funny was when we got there it was semi full, mostly with Ecuadorians, but there was one table of what looked like gringo tourists.  That still throws me off, since I'm used to being the only blonde person around, it's almost as weird for me to see another blonde, as it is for the Ecuadorians!  I never did figure out if they were from the States or not, though, since I couldn't really hear them speaking, and when I did it was a Spanish with an accent, it wasn't Ecuadorian Spanish, but it didn't have the cadence of a native English speaker, either.  Then about 15 minutes later a group walked up, very obviously tourists, one girl even had an Ecuador guide book!  I'm not quite sure why she had the guide book, though, unless it was for useful phrases, because there's rarely anything on the Amazonian region in the guidebooks, and if there is, it's mostly full of things in the northern jungle, there'd be little to no information on Macas.  Hopefully she figured that out! :)  So, they walked in and were asking for chairs, so that they could all sit around the 1 table that was open.  Then the owner (I assume that's who it was, at least) walked out and had the other group of gringos move their table over (the 2 groups were next to each other).  I assumed they knew each other until I heard someone say, "but we don't know each other".  The guy told them that it didn't matter!  It was sooo hard not to laugh really loudly!! :)  The table next to us only had 1 guy and when he was done, the 2nd group moved over to his table, making me laugh even more.  Those poor people!  At least it provided  me with some amusement at lunch. :)  It was odd though, I think there were more gringos than Ecuadorians there, a first, I would imagine. :)  It's actually getting more common to see whiter people on the streets.  My first year down here, I don't think I saw anyone else, then the 2nd year I came, there were a few.  This year I've seen some, but not too many.  I don't usually see many gringos, unless I'm in Quito or Cuenca.  I probably would when I go to Guayaquil, but I don't hang out in the areas that they go to, so I don't think I have, other than the missionary family at the seminary.

I really need to do better at taking pictures, but I keep forgetting to pull out my camera in class, and I haven't done anything outside of class to take pictures of, maybe this week, I hope! :)

Church

Today was quite the interesting day at church.  First of all, I left the house late and there wasn't any taxis for the first few blocks, but I finally saw one that was empty.  Normally it's not a big deal, but leaving the house late and then walking for 20-30 minutes tends to make one REALLY late for church. :)  When I got there there was a group from Canada, doing evangelism in Sucua, a town about 10-30 minutes from here (10 min if you drive your own car, 30 min by bus).  One of the men preached and it was as if I was back at Salem Alliance in my childhood.  We used to joke that the Canadians were taking over the church, since the head pastor, the worship pastor, their wives and all of the high school interns were from Canada. :)  Plus they're from 2 different Alliance churches in Canada, so it was cool to hear someone with a similar background, doesn't happen every day!  They even knew of Salem Alliance, I think, at least they appeared somewhat familiar with it when talking with them afterward.

At the end of  the service, the youth/worship pastor got up and made a few announcements, one of which to let everyone know that the Shuar Bible is now translated and at the end of the month there's going to be a big dedication service for it, in Macuma.  He invited everyone who wants to go to get together and form groups for traveling.  After the service was over, I was talking with a couple who are going with a group of Shuar to the dedication and invited me to go along.  I'd love to go!!!  The entertaining part is that there are only 2 ways to get to Macuma, the fast way and the slow way. :)  The fast way is by a 5 person plane.  The slow way is to take the bus for a couple hours and then walk 3 hours, they're no roads!  Lois, a retired missionary here, was telling us that part of the trail includes crossing rivers on logs and stuff like that.  I think it would be awesome!!  I just have to figure out if the timing will work out.  It's on a Saturday, but it's the Saturday in the middle of getting ready for the school year.  I think it would be absolutely amazing to be able to go! :)  To get to be at the ceremony dedicating the Bible in a new language.  I hope I can work it out.

Then after church, I went out to eat with a couple other "gringos" to a new restaurant.  It has the exact same name as another restaurant in town and serves the same type of foods, but the other place is still open, so I'm not sure what's up.  They're only a couple blocks apart, too, so I kinda doubt that it's a case of franchising or anything, but who knows.  What was really funny was when we got there it was semi full, mostly with Ecuadorians, but there was one table of what looked like gringo tourists.  That still throws me off, since I'm used to being the only blonde person around, it's almost as weird for me to see another blonde, as it is for the Ecuadorians!  I never did figure out if they were from the States or not, though, since I couldn't really hear them speaking, and when I did it was a Spanish with an accent, it wasn't Ecuadorian Spanish, but it didn't have the cadence of a native English speaker, either.  Then about 15 minutes later a group walked up, very obviously tourists, one girl even had an Ecuador guide book!  I'm not quite sure why she had the guide book, though, unless it was for useful phrases, because there's rarely anything on the Amazonian region in the guidebooks, and if there is, it's mostly full of things in the northern jungle, there'd be little to no information on Macas.  Hopefully she figured that out! :)  So, they walked in and were asking for chairs, so that they could all sit around the 1 table that was open.  Then the owner (I assume that's who it was, at least) walked out and had the other group of gringos move their table over (the 2 groups were next to each other).  I assumed they knew each other until I heard someone say, "but we don't know each other".  The guy told them that it didn't matter!  It was sooo hard not to laugh really loudly!! :)  The table next to us only had 1 guy and when he was done, the 2nd group moved over to his table, making me laugh even more.  Those poor people!  At least it provided  me with some amusement at lunch. :)  It was odd though, I think there were more gringos than Ecuadorians there, a first, I would imagine. :)  It's actually getting more common to see whiter people on the streets.  My first year down here, I don't think I saw anyone else, then the 2nd year I came, there were a few.  This year I've seen some, but not too many.  I don't usually see many gringos, unless I'm in Quito or Cuenca.  I probably would when I go to Guayaquil, but I don't hang out in the areas that they go to, so I don't think I have, other than the missionary family at the seminary.

I really need to do better at taking pictures, but I keep forgetting to pull out my camera in class, and I haven't done anything outside of class to take pictures of, maybe this week, I hope! :)

Summer school

The first 2 times I came here, I taught the littlest kids' class and had a ton of fun with them, playing and teaching them English.  I loved it and it only helped to reinforce my love of teaching little kids.  So, then I move here and everything gets turned upside down! :)  I started out the year, like any other year, teaching the little kids, although older than I'd had in the States and really enjoyed it.  They were a ton of fun and apart from making me want to pull my hair out from their seeming lack of ability to sit still and listen :) they amazed  me with their ability to learn English from just 40 minutes 4 times a week.  Then, in the third trimester, the schedule changed and I added a class a week for the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th grades!!  It scared me, the idea of teaching junior high and high school, but it was surprisingly enjoyable.  I really appreciated being able to get to know the high schoolers better, they turned out to be really neat to hang out with. :)  Last spring when we were talking about this year's summer school plans, we realized that there weren't any groups coming down and that we wouldn't be able to do the normal Vacational Bible School/English classes like normal.  We were trying to figure out what we would do, if anything and decided to leveling classes to help the lower kids catch up.  Well, that wasn't really so necessary with the younger kids, so it turned out to only be the older kids, junior high and high school age.  Whenever I've been put with a class or group of kids, I've ALWAYS been assigned the youngest group.  Well, this year, I'm with the OLDEST kids, the teenagers who are sophomore/junior age. :)  Slight difference from years' past!!  I was looking forward to the class, only because I already knew who the students would be, having taught the majority during the last trimester of the school year.  I wasn't too sure, though, how well they'd do at learning English, since they're the ones during the school year to not try too hard in class, or do homework or really seem to care, for the most part.  They're sweet kids and fun to talk to, but never really seemed to take school all that seriously, so I had my doubts as to how they'd do with an accelerated English course.  In the 3 days that I've taught them, they've surpassed my expectations by far!!  The first day, at first, they didn't seem to know anything, or remember much from during the school year or the past, but after the first hour or 2, the light bulbs started clicking on and they were getting it! :)  It was an awesome feeling, to watch them figure out what I was teaching them.  One student even told the administrator that she finally understood English for the first time and today several of the girls were asking me why I couldn't teach them during the school year.  I told them that I was going to teach the little ones and so one girl asked me to treat her like I do the little kids, so I started goofing around with her, teasing her. :)  We all started laughing and thus ended recess.  I think what I enjoy the most about teaching them is that, we can joke around and have fun and they allow it, but are mature enough (for the most part!) to settle down when necessary and pay attention.  The younger kids aren't able to do that.  If I joke around with them, they take that as meaning that they don't have to take me seriously.  My goofing around with them comes in the form of coming up with educational games for them or doing things that throw them off, such as messing with the calendar and moving the dates around, that sort of thing.  I love doing it and it's a ton of fun, but I also really enjoy the way I'm able to relate to the teenagers.  It's been a lot of fun finding out about this other side of me! :)  Now, I just need to get pictures.
Here's some pictures I took while in Oregon. :)  Oregon visit and some that I took when I went to the jungle with the administrators of Emanuel trip to the selva

Reentry

It was hard to come back to Ecuador, for the first time ever, I find myself missing family and friends in the States!  Not that I didn't actually miss people before, but it wasn't much different than when I lived in a different area of the country from them, now I'm much more aware of them not being close by.  It's an odd feeling, and I suppose I should figure out what it means! :)  Coming back wasn't all that hard, other than missing people (and NOT wanting to leave my nephew!!!), I slipped back into life here, as if I hadn't been gone.  In some ways it felt as if I had been gone a really long time and in other ways, as if I hadn't been gone at all.  Other than the fact that there's more humidity here, I wasn't noticing that much difference, I know a lot of people everywhere I go, both here, in Macas, and in Oregon (case in point, I went to the mall in Salem with my grandma and saw at least 10 people that I knew and/or was related to, without planning, I can do the same thing walking down the street here!).  I can cook at both places, talk with people, etc.  Then I got online this morning and was reading some friends and cousins' blogs and heard something out the window.  Reason number one why living in Ecuador is different than living in Oregon:  it's the annual festivities celebrating the anniversary of the virgin's appearance here (at least I'm pretty certain that's what's going on) and so they have a parade.  There's a parade for practically everything here, which is fun, since I love parades, although most are really little or the not so interesting civic parades when all the students and teachers dress up in their formal uniform and then the police and military parade behind the students.  The folkloric parades are MUCH more interesting!! :)  The parade going on right outside my window, right now, is made up of people from every single parish in the country!!!  At least that's what it appears to be. :)  I could be wrong, it's possible a few parrishes are missing, but the ones that ARE here, are certainly from all over, there's some from Quito (7-8 hrs by bus), Guayaquil (10-12 hrs by bus), Loja (10-12 hrs by bus, I think) and everywhere else, too.  Each group has a banner with a saying, either from a Catholic father, or a verse from the Bible, a picture of the virgin, and where they come from.  Each group also has it's own uniform, usually the same t-shirt and baseball cap (think youth group mission trips at the airport ready to leave) and singing a different song from the other groups.  It's amazing the devotion that people show towards the virgin here; it makes me wonder what they would be like if they turned that devotion towards Jesus!  People are incredibly devoted, but it makes me sad that they're putting their devotion into a person, granted a person who (if it really was a manifestation of the virgin Mary, they never actually say that it's Mary, just a virgin) helped change the world by giving birth to Jesus, but she's still human, not God.  Why worship the created, when we can worship the Creator?  He's more powerful!  The parade definitely reminds me why I'm here, to show people about Mary's Son, Jesus, she was His mom, but He's God! :)  Definitely different than in Oregon (of course, that might have something to do with the fact that it's one of the least churched states in the country, at least that's what I've heard), oh and it's really green here, too.  Maybe I should send some pictures of the green to my mom, she's been missing it. :)

Summer

It's been my plan these past couple months to write on here more often, however, as soon as I make that plan, I end up writing even less!!  It probably has nothing to do with the fact that the end of the year is super busy, I was testing kids for next year and teaching high school, along with elementary.  I'm sure it has to do with the fact that I decided to write more often. ;)  Oh, and while I was doing all of that, I was attempting to process the fact that I would fly back to Oregon for a couple weeks!!! :)  When I did think about it, I was excited to see my nephew and to get to warmer weather.  (You'd think, living on the equator, in the jungle that I'd have warm weather, but lately it's been in the 70s and rainy during the day and 60s or lower at night)  So, of course, as I was planning what to pack and where on the plane, I decided on a sleeveless shirt and jeans, along with a sweatshirt, thinking that would cover me for about any weather.  Well, imagine my surprise, as we get ready to land, the pilot comes on and says it's 55 and rainy in Portland!!!  What's up with that?!  I had just taken off my sweatshirt, since it'd gotten cold on the plane, so it goes back on and I get off, to be met by a hug from my grandma and my sister handing over my 5 month old nephew!!!!  He's absolutely adorable and there's only been 1 day so far that I haven't seen him and hung out with my sister.  We're taking him all sorts of places, today we headed out to Canyonview Camp, where we all went to day camp, through our church, and I also worked out at the horse camp.  Soooo many memories and places to take pictures and introduce him to. :)   All in all, I'd say he's pretty cute and we should probably keep him around!!! :)

Parades

I don't think I've ever been to as many parades in one year as this year!  Most of the parades here, in Macas, are civic parades, which means that all the students dress up in their nicest uniform and march down the streets, with the police marching behind them, similar to the old military parades that I remember seeing pictures of in my history book (yes mom, I'm making fun of how old you are ;) ).  However, these past couple weeks, there's been a number of parades to celebrate Macas Days (las fiestas de Macas) and they were much more interesting!!  Everyone kept asking me how I liked it and if there was something similar in the States and I said that there wasn't.  The first 2 parades were folkloric parades, and about the only place you can find people dressed up celebrating their culture or someone else's culture is at a Native American pow wow or at a festival specifically for people of that descent, it's rare to find it in any other place, so it fascinated me! :)

To open up the festivities we had the Pregón, which I think basically is the little kids' parade, since it was mostly little kids that don't participate in the others.  Emanuel decided to represent all cultures taking care of God's creation.  To do that all the kids were assigned a different culture to dress up as, both from Ecuador and around the world.  The teachers walked with the kids, keeping them in order, reminding them of the steps and making sure no one took off. :)  To have more fun, they also decided to dress up too!  A week or so before, one of the teachers asked me if I'd do her a favor.  I wanted to know what it was and she said that she wanted me to dress up as a Shuar, the local indigenous group, who used to be known for shrinking the heads of their enemies (nope, didn't tell you that before I came down here, mom :) hehe).  As you can see from the picture, I did.  It was hilarious!!!!!!  The kids and parents were all shocked when I walked out of my office, after changing.  You don't see too many pale, blond Shuars around Macas, so it was a bit of a shock to them. :)  Then the cameras started appearing out of nowhere!  Everyone wanted their kid's picture taken with the crazy English teacher dressed as a Shuar.  During the parade we all danced to different songs, with the same song between each culture's turn.  Every couple steps another camera was out and someone was taking a picture of me!  It was crazy!!!!  One of the teachers told me, the next day, that no matter what I did, they took pictures!  Definitely one of the more fun parades I've been in. :)  Not because of all of the pictures though!!  Although, the reactions were fun, I enjoyed it mostly because I wasn't just walking down the streets, those parades take forever!  I was in charge of a group of 5 yr olds and dancing with them, it went much faster! :)

The next parade was the folkloric parade where the older kids, from each school, and adults in various town governments dressed up as from different cultures and performed typical dances of the culture they were representing.  That one was really fun because I got to watch the whole thing instead of participate! :)

The last parade was a typical civic parade where all the teachers put on their new uniform, including heels (2nd or 3rd time in my life for me!!!!!!!!) and marched down the streets.  At least I had 1 entertaining parade! ;)  Here's a link for more pics on Facebook :) Pregón pics

Keys

I was talking with a friend of mine, who lives in the States, the other day and I realized how funny my key chain would have looked to me, when I got here the first time, several years ago.  I was trying to describe how many keys I had and it's a lot and I actually need to add at least one more!!  I open the door to my apartment and have to open a gate, kinda like a screen door, but without the screen.  So that's one door I need to lock and we need to get a padlock for the gate (the at least one more key that I need to add).  Then, because I live on the second floor, I go down the stairs and unlock the door at the bottom.  After that door is the gate in the wall around the house, which has a padlock.  Then I either walk or take a taxi to the preschool (depends on how tired I am and how early I leave the house!)  At the preschool, I have to unlock the padlock at the gate, then unlock the front door.  I also have the key to the back door, which leads out to the patio for recess time.  When I'm done at the preschool, I walk the few blocks over to the main building.  At the main building I have to unlock the gate and then the rest of the doors are unlocked by the time I get there, but I have the keys for them.  The front door to the school, the gate leading to the stairs, the door to the office floor (off the stairs) and the door to my office/teacher's room.  I also have the key to my bedroom door and the filing cabinet at school, on my key chain.  All in all, I have 13 keys (I think) on my key chain!!!  Actually, I also have another key, but nobody can figure out what it goes to, we've tried it in all the doors and cabinets that we can, both at the apartment and at school, but it doesn't fit anything.  Of course, that doesn't mean that it doesn't go to a door that we have somewhere, but it could be that it's just a really bad copy. :)  Oh, I also have the key to the library, but that's kept separate from the rest, although I'm not really sure why. :)  I really don't have all that many, compared to many people that I know, but it sure seems a lot compared to what I had in the States!!  There I had my apartment door key, my car key, the key to my classroom, the key to my parents' house and the key to my grandparents' house, nothing else!
Before I ever came down here, to Ecuador, I never really thought about something as simple as keys being a cultural difference, but it truly is, or at least appears that way to me.  Every single door has a separate key, and different kinds of doors use different kinds of keys.  Metal doors have a long key, with a rounded head, while wooden doors have a long key too, but the head is more like part of an octagon or some other multi-sided shape and the padlock keys have a rounded head, but are really short.  Apparently random little details fascinate me. :)  I'd be silly and take a picture to put up, but my memory card for my camera is being a stinker and not downloading to my computer so I can't transfer any pictures over, till I figure out what the problem is. :(

High School

Well, I've taught the high schoolers for about 3 weeks now and so far I really enjoy it!! :)  It was a shock to me how fun it actually is, because I always said that I like to teach the little ones because of how much love they give, all the hugs and being excited to see me.  The high schoolers don't usually come up to give me hugs, but they look for me when they're not in class to talk to and appear to enjoy having me in their class once a week.  I also discovered how much fun I have joking around with them.  It's made going to youth group a little more interesting/different, because much of the youth group is composed of Emanuel teens, so that puts me in sort of the same level as my students.  Youth group here includes anyone from 14 or so until you get married, but the church here has started to divide the group into 2 when we have the teaching time.  The singing and games are still all together, but during the teaching, the teens are in one group and the young adults in another.  That's been really nice, especially now that they're my actual students and not just older kids in the school I teach at!

I'm really enjoying getting to know some of the high schoolers better, several girls have been bugging me to teach them cookies, so I need to figure out a way to fairly do it, so the others don't get jealous of me spending time outside of school with some of the girls, maybe rotate or let anyone who wants to come.  I'm not sure yet, once I figure it out, I may be making more cookies than ever!  Either that or having willing "slaves" to help me mix the cookies for selling at the teachers' booth during the soccer games. :)

One thing I was worried about before I started, and it hasn't been that big of a deal yet, is the respect issue.  Never having taught older kids before, aside from camp counseling, I wasn't sure how it would be gaining their respect.  I get the younger kids' respect because I'm older than them (it's truly entertaining to ask little kids to guess my age, apparently I look anywhere from 10-65!), but the teens aren't THAT much younger than me, although I do forget sometimes that it really has been 10 years since I graduated from high school!  So far, though, I haven't had any trouble with it, aside from the kids in octavo (equivalent to young US 7th graders) and that grade is notorious for having issues, we think it has something to do with hormones or something. ;)  That class has about as many discipline issues as my younger kids, but without the excuse of still learning the school rules!  They've gotten better the past couple of weeks, though, so I do have hope! :)  All in all, I'm actually enjoying it, when I can take a moment to breath!!! :)

Trimester

Nope, this blog has absolutely nothing to do with being pregnant. :)  The school, here, is on a trimester schedule and we just started the 3rd.  This year is flying by!!!!  I can't believe it's almost over already!  I've really enjoyed my kids and classes this year, some being more difficult than others, but all enjoyable.  Funny thing, though, the most difficult class keeps changing, it never stays the same. :)  Now that it's a new trimester, though, I get to add a few new classes.  Actually, to be more accurate, I should say that I'm adding a few new grades, to the classes I'm teaching.  I'm going to be teaching 1 day a week high school, in addition to preschool and early elementary!! It'll be a "bit" different than what I've been used to, but I enjoy talking with the high schoolers and have been in and out of their class doing observations during English time, so we'll see what happens. :)  I never wanted to get bored! :)

The finca

Sunday the "youth" went to go pick guavas (at least that's how I think it's spelled!) at Tannya's parents' finca.  A finca is what they call any land you own outside of town that stuff is grown on. :)  Basically a farm, I guess, although most people don't live on theirs.  I'd gone with Tannya and her husband, Iván, the weekend before and we had fun walking all around, eating a bunch of different fruits; guavas, caimitas, lemons, and I think a few others, but I don't remember their names!  They were all yummy and pretty ripe, so they invited a bunch of friends from church to go Sunday and hang out, eating fruit.  Sounds pretty boring, but it was hilarious!!!! :)  We all crammed into the back of Tannya's dad's truck to for the 10 minute ride to the finca where the entertainment started.  Her dad has it fixed up amazingly, my reaction the first time I saw it, was that it looked like Paradise, or the Garden of Eden!

The truck couldn't make it all the way to the guava trees, so we walked for a bit and got to them.  A couple of the guys had found hooks attached to looooooooong poles and brought them with us.  They started trying to pull the guavas down, from the ground.  A couple others had a different technique.  They started climbing up into the tree.  The guava trees didn't have very large limbs and the guavas were all really high up in the air, but nobody fell out, so that's good, I suppose! :)  Meanwhile, most of us were just hanging out, on the ground, watching them and picking up the guavas that fell, to eat.  One of the guys, Petete, starting a running commentary similar to the commentaries on nature channels.  It was hilarious!!  Unfortunately we didn't start taking video until after he'd mostly stopped, and I don't know how to put video on here. :)  Oh well, I'll just have to show people when I visit. :)

We also went swimming and hung out some more, then went home and changed, because we were all full of bug bites (I stopped counting after 20 on 1 leg!!!!)

Carnaval

Nope, it doesn't mean one of those school carnivals that we used to have when we were little (or was my school the only one that did that?).  Carnaval is Ecuador's take on Mardi Gras, the party before Lent starts.  I'd never celebrated it before, since Oregon's not one of the major Catholic states!  All I knew was that it was the beginning of Lent, but I didn't know anything more.  I'd heard bits and pieces here and there, people saying, oh just wait until Carnaval or that's something we do at Carnaval, but I didn't know what it was really about.  Little by little I started to figure it out and by the time it came around, I knew that it involved tossing water on people and getting everyone wet.  It sounded like the perfect kids' holiday, especially in a tropical country, where it's warm-hot year round! :)

So Carnaval weekend was coming up and I still didn't know what it was about, other than lots of water.  It was one of our 4 day weekends so I was looking forward to being lazy at home and catching up on sleep. :)  Saturday I managed to do that, then Sunday came and about a block away from my apartment, the owners of the building saw me walking to church and offered me a ride.  I accepted, I didn't really feel like walking 14 blocks, since I knew that I'd end up walking home, too. :)  They invited me to eat iampacos with them after church, so afterwards I hung out at their apartment most of the afternoon, then headed downstairs to clean.  I didn't get a picture, but this is me eating an iampaco a couple years ago, along with a close up of one. :)

During church Mayra, a friend of mine and close neighbor, had asked what I was doing Monday and Tuesday.  I told her that I had no plans and she invited me to hang out with her family for Carnaval.  So Tuesday I hung out with her family most of the day.  The original plan was to go hang out at the river, I think, but since it was raining most of the day (I joked that God was playing Carnaval, too), we stayed at their house.  I really enjoyed getting to know my neighbors some more. :)  They only live a block away from me and both Mayra and her older brother Byron go to the same church that I do.

Impressions
So, going into Carnaval I thought it was a day or two where people played with water.  After Carnaval I realized that I was partially correct. :)  It's a weekend, but starts about a week or so before and lasts for a couple weeks.  In houses it meant that kids were constantly filling up squirt guns and water, but they weren't confined to use within the house or yard. :)  Since most of the houses here have a flat roof that's used like a patio, kids (and adults) would stand on the roof, or on the balcony of the house and launch balloons at pedestrians, cars, whatever happened to be under them!  But that wasn't the extent of it!  I was sitting in my living room when I heard a truck pass by along with a lot of laughter.  I looked out the window and saw a large truck filled with people in the back.  That's not that odd of a sight here, an empty truck will often stop and pick people up on the side of the road.  What struck me was that every single person in the back was soaking wet and had buckets of water and glasses that they were using to throw water on people as they drove the streets!  Definitely a fun holiday and I almost wish I were a kid here to have huge water fights!  It reminded me of a family get together about 10 years ago and nearly everyone from my generation running around.

Emanuel Anniversary

So, this week is Emanuel's 10th anniversary as a school and we're celebrating it!  Down here, it appears, that all the schools celebrate their anniversary of when they were founded or approved or something like that, I'm not quite sure.  But this year it's more of a big deal, since it's the 10th anniversary.  Yesterday started the festivities with a whole school chapel.  They even bussed the preschoolers and kindergarteners over from their building.  Chapel was awesome!!  It was hilarious to watch the little kids, who don't get chapel on a weekly basis, jumping up and down and singing the songs.  They even somehow managed to convince some older kids to come out and jump with them! :)  I got pictures and video (although I can't figure out how to put video on here, if anyone knows, let me know!), but unfortunately my asthma was acting up, so I wasn't able to participate and enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

Today was the open house at the preschool/kindergarten building and we had a lot of fun. :)  The preschoolers were in groups, rotating with their parents through different activities to show their parents the types of things they do at school, while the kindergarteners were all in their rooms, doing presentations.  English was out in the back patio and I had a cd player and some books.  I played songs and had them dance for their parents.  It was hilarious to watch how the different groups reacted to the songs! :)  Some groups were practically glued to their mom's legs and wouldn't move or do anything, while other groups were singing and dancing with no inhibitions!  When they got tired of that, I had them look for colors in the books, something that we've sort of done in class.  They were really cute, but unfortunately  my camera was in the other building so I didn't get any pictures!  With the kindergarteners, I had them sing a song and name animals, which they did quite well.  I was so proud of all of my kids today!!! :)

Now I have to focus on the older kids, who have their open house on Friday.  I'll be extremely surprised if I end up having a voice after Friday!  I just have 2 classes at the main building, 2nd and 3rd grade, but I'm also helping the chemistry/biology teacher with his presentation, since he wants to do it bilingually, but doesn't speak English. :)  He chose one of the high schoolers who's good at English and she's going to do all the English speaking, but I've had to help her translate and practice pronunciation.  It's been fun to work with her and get to know some of the high schoolers better.  It should be an interesting week, this week!! :)

Staff Retreat

So life has been a little crazy this past month, I had planned on blogging about the staff retreat, but haven't had time. :)  Oh well, it's never too late, I suppose! So, since my internet's r e a l l y   s l o w, I won't put more pictures on here, just links, otherwise I'd never get anything else done today!!  Oh, and the picture above is of the active volcano that wasn't too far away from us. :)  Close enough that we could see the lava spewing up, at night and hear the thunder of its rumblings, but far enough away that we couldn't get any pictures of the lava or actually feel the earthquakes, or probably get hit with the lava.  On the way home we saw how smart and prepared they were, they'd dug canyons out, for the lava to flow through, so that it wouldn't destroy everything.  There never was any lava in them, not enough came out of the volcano, so it never reached the roads, but still was an interesting thought. :)  (oh, and mom, I purposely didn't tell you, until after we got back, about the volcano) ;)

The speaker's topic was serving God, but I think I learned more about community and supporting others (which does fall under the topic of serving God, but usually is its own). :)  Right before the retreat had started, I found out that my sister, who was almost 9 months pregnant, had viral meningitis.  This was hard news for me to hear, for a number of reasons:  she's my baby sister, her baby is the first niece/nephew born in my family, and I was too far away to be able to call and find out what was going on.  The cafeteria had wireless and I'd brought my computer, intending to use it to download pictures and video, so that I didn't have to worry about filling up my memory card on the camera.  The first time I took my computer to the cafeteria during free time I got some weird looks, but when I explained what I was doing and why, everyone said that they'd pray.  That was the beginning of being able to live out what a church community should look like, when someone is hurting!  Throughout the day people who'd heard what was going on continued to ask me about my sister and nephew and say that they were praying.  Then the 3rd night we were there, I asked to share with everyone, since most people knew about it, I thought it would be easier than updating one person at a time.  After than, many continued to ask me how they were doing and to pray for them.  This has continued to this day (nearly 2 weeks after my nephew was born, yay!!!) and has been a tremendous support to me.  For the most part it's not THAT hard to be far away from my family, I talk to my mom most days and can talk to my brother-in-law and one of my sisters every day, as well, so I do have communication with people, but I realize, when stuff like this happens, that I REALLY am far away from my family.  But I wasn't far away from family, because I had my friends here, supporting me and praying for me and my family, acting as family. :)

Then of course, there were the pranks that we all pulled. :)  There were about 8 males and 20 some females on the trip. :)  Shoes were stolen from us, clothes taken from them, water tossed on numerous people, faces painted, nearly all happening late at night.  It was great!!  At first the guys were all united and winning, pulling better pranks, but then us females, at first in little groups scattered all over, but then working as one team, were able to overcome the initial advantage the guys had and recover our shoes, etc. :)  Unfortunately, we were all sworn to secrecy, so as not to reveal details of what happened, suffice it to say, we had fun!  And, if you choose to moralize it :) we because a community and worked as a team.

And for those who have gone on a retreat/road trip with me, I DID make cookies, a double batch, that barely made it to the campground. :)  I think there were 5 left or so, by the time we got there!!  Of course, the fact that the driver was driving slow enough that we wanted to get out and push, might have had something to do with it. :)

Anyways, here's some pictures from Facebook (I have tons more, but they're not for public consumption, just those who participated in the retreat! :) )  Staff Retreat album.  And here's the workshop pictures, from when I helped my roommate Diana :)  Theater (don't say I didn't warn you about me looking odd!)

And now, I'm off to color some more :)  I love teaching little kids!!!  (I'm actually working, I suppose, making Adjective Bingo cards)

Acting

Diana, my roommate, is the school psychologist and as such, in charge of leading a workshop for each class.  She knew that I liked to act, so she asked me to help her and act out telling a story.  She chose the book You Are Mine by Max Lucado.  I love his kids books, they have such an amazing message and gorgeous illustrations! :)  She wanted me to dress up like a life-size rag doll.  I was trying to come up with where on earth I'd find clothes that would work for that, as it's hard enough to find clothes that fit me (I'm a little taller than most Ecuadorian women), much less a style that would work for a doll.  So, I decided that I'd make it!  At first I was going to make a dress, but the fabric store didn't have enough fabric, so I thought a skirt might work, along with a t-shirt that I already had.  We figured I also needed a wig, so I bought bright pink yarn.  I thought that if I was going to dress up, I'd have fun with it!  I didn't get the fabric until a couple days before we were going to do the workshop, so I took the fabric to school and sewed the skirt by hand (nevermind the fact that this is the first article of clothing that I've ever made!).  It was hilarious to see people's reactions to me sewing!!!  Apparently, girls from the States aren't supposed to know how to sew or cook or anything like that, so for me to know how to sew and sew by hand was a shock to nearly everyone! 

Then came time for the performance.  The book is about a bunch of wooden puppets who get into a competition to collect the most boxes and balls.  It then escalates into seeing who can get the highest, with the most boxes and balls.  I told the kids that I was a puppet from the same village and had a story to tell them about a friend of mine, the main character in the book.  At the end, he accidentally ends up in the house of Eli, the carpenter, who created all of the puppets.  I love how it ends, with the words that Eli uses, being the same that God uses to remind us that our stuff isn't worth anything, without him. 

The kids' reactions were hilarious!  When the first came in, I was hidden, so they couldn't see me, and then, after Diana introduced me, I came out and started telling the story.  They all knew me as the English teacher, as we've only gone to 2 classes, so far, that aren't my students, so they knew who I was and all started laughing as soon as I walked into their sight!  I suppose I looked a little bit different than they normally see me! :) It was fun to watch their faces while listening to the story and hear their questions and responses afterward.  I had so much fun, it'd been waaaaaaaay too long since I'd done any acting! :) (I'll put pictures up when I get back to Macas, I'm in the mountains right now for a staff retreat and the internet isn't wanting to upload pictures, there's some great ones :) even some of me in makeup!)