Update: I'm no longer in Ecuador, but married and homeschooling our boys. Still teaching, but my classroom is now my living room, and my class size is down to 3.
I'm currently living and working in Macas, Ecuador, on the edge of the Ecuadorian jungle. I teach English to elementary, junior high and high schoolers at the only Evangelical Christian school in the province.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The other day I was walking out of one of my classes trying to figure out why I was sweating so much. It wasn't that hot outside, so that couldn't be it. It didn't make any sense to me that every day after I'm at the preschool building I'm really warm and sweaty. Then it hit me. I'd found a far more intense exercise program than I could get at a gym. It goes as follows...
1. Walk 8 blocks.
2. Sing movement/marching songs with 2 classes of 5 year olds for half hour each, then 2 classes of 4 year olds for half hour each and then play "Ring Around the Rosie with a class of 3 year olds for half hour.
3. Walk another 5 blocks to the other building.
4. Teach a class of 6 year olds for 45 minutes, singing movement songs and moving around the classroom, catching kids who are talking.
5. Teach a class of 7 year olds for 45 minutes, singing movement songs and moving around the classroom, catching kids who are talking.
6. Walk 14 blocks home for lunch.
7. Walk 14 blocks back to the school for the afternoon.
8. Walk 14 blocks home.
(steps 9 and 10 happen a couple times a week)
9. Walk 14 blocks to the school/church for church service.
10. Walk 14 blocks back home to go to bed.
Preschoolers singing/marching "The Ants Go Marching". :)
I have all sorts of stories saved up in my head, but haven't been able to write any of them down because I've been so busy living them! :) We're in the middle of our 2nd week with kids and I'm slowly getting the routine down of my schedule and how each class's dynamics differ from the other classes and what works best with the kids. That's my day and in the evenings and on the weekends I hang out with friends, either at church, their house or around town. I've actually managed to make it to the river twice!!! In the 3 years I've been coming here, I'd never made it to the river. I'd seen pictures of it and heard all about it and even been invited once, but wasn't able to go. A week and a half ago, Ivonne and Fernando invited me to go with them after church. It was a really hot day (just walking a couple blocks, I broke out into a sweat), so I was really excited to be able to go. We went to a portion of the river that formed a slightly moving pond and swam around for probably a couple of hours and then went to the actual river and ate sugar cane. It was so nice to be able to float around in a lake on such a hot day! Then this last Sunday (a week later), the some of the youth group decided to go swimming, so I went again. :) For those who might be a little confused as to why a 27 year old is considered a part of the youth group, the youth group here is for people anywhere from about 15 or 16 up to whenever they get married!! The group that went to the river was at least half my age or more. :) I took a ton of pictures, but am not in any of them, my poor parents, they don't get to see me. :)
I haven't really had any time to write, when I've been anywhere near a computer with internet access, but I have been able to take some pictures! Here's a few from this past month. The second link is of pictures from my last 2 summer in Macas. :)
We're slowly, but surely getting our apartment fixed up!!! Our new stove (see previous post for why it was necessary) and fridge came on Friday and the washing machine came on Monday. Our kitchen is fully usable at last! I celebrated this weekend by baking a lot. :) I'd been wanting to make chocolate chip cookies for awhile now, but hadn't either had time or a working stove for the past couple months, but I was finally able to on Sunday. When I started out grocery shopping on Saturday, I wasn't exactly sure what kind of cookies I'd end up making, sense I'm still learning what kinds of foods are available here. I know that people have told me that chocolate is hard to find, which was hard for me to believe since I've seen cacao trees here! But I knew what ingredients were necessary for a few different kinds of cookies and what I would make would depend on the ingredients I found. I ended up walking halfway to the school from our apartment (7 blocks didn't seem like much going there, but coming home, it was a lot longer!). There's a large grocery store there that carries many different kinds of foods that you can't get in other places, plus the closest open paper store was on that block so I had to be there anyway. I started wandering around the aisles and found chocolate bars!! No chocolate chips, but that's ok, the bar works. :) The picture above is of me making my own chocolate chips. So, Sunday after church I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Yumm!! I even found whole wheat flour, so my mom will be happy. :) Cookies are a bit of a novelty here, so people who have been over to the apartment are pretty impressed, which is very nice for me! :)
I also thought I'd share a little bit of my view from my bedroom window. The first is looking south, the second to the west (at Quilamo, the local hill) and the third is looking north. :)
I always had an idea that it would be a bit of an adventure cooking for myself, here in Ecuador. In the past I've helped Wendy make things, but never had to do everything myself. It doesn't sound like it should be that big of a deal, but since I've never really cooked on a gas stove before, or had to buy all my groceries in a foreign country, I wasn't sure how difficult it might be. All this to say, it's been more of an adventure than I bargained for! :) Part of the adventure comes from not having a stove or refrigerator for the first week. The stove was delivered the first Saturday after I got here, but the electric burner starter didn't work and we thought it was because there was no gas in the tank. Monday my roommate and I bought 2 tanks of gas and connected the first one. That's when we found out the electric starter didn't work! Thankfully there were some matches in the apartment, so we were able to try it out. Most food items here are prepared on the stove top, so we didn't think about trying out the oven. We still didn't have a fridge, either, other than a little tiny one, Diana, my roommate had brought, so we couldn't do much, but it was better than before!
The true adventure came Friday night when I decided to invite my really good friend, Ivonne, over for pizza. I had been wanting to make pizza for a couple months, but when I was in my apartment in Oregon, I was trying to use up what food I had, not buy new stuff, and then I was with my Grandma, and I was so busy finishing my packing that there wasn't time. But now I had the time and finally an oven to cook it in!! Or so I thought. :) Everything went really well mixing up the dough and sauce, I was able to find everything that I wanted and it smelled really good! We decided to light the oven early, to see if it worked, since not all of the stove burners did. We lit the oven and walked into the dining room to wait for the dough to rise. Just after we got into the dining room, we heard a really loud BOOM coming from the kitchen. Ivonne was closer to the door and looked into the kitchen. She started yelling that there was fire!! Somehow, I'm not sure how she was brave enough to do this, she turned off the oven, so that there was no more gas to feed the fire. When she came back into the dining room, she told me that there were flames coming out of the back of the oven!! We decided that it would be a really good idea to take the dough and sauce and toppings over to her house to finish up the pizzas! The only problem with that is that she lives on the other side of town, about a 20-30 minute walk. The dough really didn't need to rise that much, so we called for a taxi and drove everything over. :) I'm sure we must have provided much amusement for the driver!! So, we (Diana and I) are still without a real fridge, or an oven. We tried the stove top again today, and it works fine, with no problems, aside from not all of the burners working, but the oven I haven't dared try again. :) Thus ends one of my first adventures in cooking in Ecuador. :)
So my mom told me that my grandma is tired of the cats and wants me to write something else. :) I did make it to Macas a week ago yesterday and have been really busy ever since! The flight down was an adventure in and of itself, with an 11 1/2 hour layover in Houston!!! Thankfully I have a friend who graciously offered to come hang out with me for part of that, otherwise I probably would have gone a little bit more crazy than I already am! :) The flight from Houston to Quito was probably one of the most fun flights I've ever been on. I was sitting next to a young couple from Britain who were going to do mission work for a week, in Ecuador. We had fun talking during the flight down, about different cultures and languages and our experiences in Ecuador. Then the pilot made an anouncement about possible turbulence coming up, because we were flying by a storm. I was expecting it to be pretty bad, since the flight to Houston was a big rollercoasterish at times and nothing was said, so for something to be said about it, I expected a lot worse. A couple minutes later I noticed a different kind of flash out the window (MOM, DON'T READ FURTHER :)). I realized that the storm we were going by was a thunder storm and got excited because I hadn't seen one for quite awhile. It was amazing to watch the clouds light up below us, turning purple and going dark again. I love watching thunderstorms because it always reminds me of the enormity of God's power. We probably watched the storm for about 20 minutes or so, until we passed it by, with never a bump that we could feel. :) (IT'S SAFE FOR YOU TO READ AGAIN, MOM) And then a couple hours later I landed in Quito and made it through immigration with no troubles at all!!
I was able to fly to Macas a day early, because we finished up my orientation faster than was originally thought, so I landed in Macas Monday morning. Tuesday I started working at the school and had so much fun surprising people! Most people weren't expecting me until later that week, or didn't even know that I was coming so the looks on their faces was priceless. :) Overall it's been an adventure adjusting to actually living down here. I've only rarely cooked on a gas stove and here that's nearly all that there is, however, I only got my stove on Saturday, so I haven't even been able to do much of that! Slowly I'm starting to figure things out, like when to take out the trash, how to buy gas, things that I never had to think about before when I was staying with friends! :)
The teachers all started yesterday, so I'm getting to know everyone, not just those that hang around Macas during their vacations. I've heard about so many of them, but not had a chance to meet them or get to know them, but I've really enjoyed these past couple of days. I think the thing I've loved the most, though, is the way staff meetings are run. We have a devotional. That's amazing to me, having only worked in public schools in the past. What a privilege it is to be a part of a Christian school now! I'll try to write more often, but they keep us pretty busy here, so I don't know how often I'll be able to. :)
Aside from packing, I've been entertaining myself with my parents' new kittens. They were dropped off at church and April conned mom and dad into taking 2 of them home. They get into all sorts of trouble in the laundry room at my parents' house. Their favorite spot is under the pipes, between the sink and washing machine!
