Baños

I had the opportunity to go the city of Baños this weekend with a rather large group of people from Quito. There were people from Arizona, Florida, Sweden, Boston and Canada! The bus ride was a little longer than I was expecting - more than 3 hours, and longer for the way back, but it was worth it! We had delicious food - enchiladas, lasagne, and a to-die-for tomato, cheese and avacado sandwich. We also experienced the thermal baths which were a nice change from the chilly air. I was able to go zip-lining from a mountain down into a valley! It was so much fun! We also took a ride on the chivas, or tour buses to see more waterfalls, do some hiking, ride in a cable car and get a closer look at the countryside. Well worth the $4.00! Our hostel was extremely nice and the people there were so kind and overwhelmingly warm to us. I think a friend of mine and I might go back another weekend because there were so many things to do and see. I want to do the white-water rafting, and possibly the swing bungee jumping! I never thought I would be able to do it, but this kind is a lot safer and easier on your body than the basic bungee jump. On top of that, you can do it together with a friend, and the price is a very reasonable $10.00. We´ll see, but it would definately be worth another weekend trip. I also had the opportunity to talk to two girls on the bus, and really get to know them, and have a heart-felt talk about everything from politics, to poverty to religion. It was a very refreshing and uplifting time. I hope to get to know some of the girls a little bit better in the next few weeks.

Also, silly sidenote, but Ecuador can´t get over Micheal Jackson. I thought that it was ironic that I had mentioned how enamoured they were with him right before he passed away. Maria´s friend that lives with us was in hysterics and came running into my room to tell me the news.

A couple of other silly things of note: The fruits are crazy here! Today I ate a fruit that looked like (to-me-only) very tiny babies in sacs... and then you crunched through them. A little bit of a freaky experience, but very good tasting babies, for sure!
I got to go out to coffee with a friend, and had a wonderful tasting iced chocolate something or other. They love coffee here, though for the most part the unflavored gross kinds. Still wanting Starbucks, though...
When you blow your nose here, it is varying colors of black and gray because of the pollution. Certainly scared me quite a bit before I realized that´s what it was.

Well, I think the internet shop closed 11 minutes ago, so I think I´ll let them go home. Email me and let me know what is happening in your life!

Praising the Lord!

Praise the Lord and thank you all for your prayers! After three long weeks, I am finally feeling better!! The last medicine the doctor prescribed was strong enough to beat the cough. As I was praying on the bus today, I asked for the experiences on my trip to make me more ¨Christ-like¨and realized that Jesus suffered horribly without complaint... and I have never ceased to stop asking God to take this suffering away from me. Woah! It hit me hard. I pray that I will keep that with me throughout any other ¨sufferings¨I endure on this trip.

For those who want to send gifts for the orphanage... I have an address and a note. I have not heard of any other volunteers receiving things through mail. Thus, I have no idea how reliable or fast it would be. I would ask that if you want to send something that you do it in the next week so that it *hopefully* will get here before I leave. I will certainly let you know when it arrives!

Julie Rogers & Maria Eugenia Tera´n
Eloy Alfaro 32-220 y Alpallana
#02-2546495
Quito, Ecuador

(That is an accent on the ¨a¨ in Teran, and they don´t do zip codes here.)

I also realized that today is my 4 week mark. I can´t believe it! Honestly, the time has slipped by so quickly I am sad that it is halfway over.

Pictures of Mindo

Sooooo... for all of those who wanted pictures, (these are not mine either)... but here they are!

Patience Needed...

So...about that being sick for my entire trip! Please pray for patience and acceptance of my sickly fate. I have now been sick to one extent or another for over two weeks. The good and bad news: I finally made it to the doctor. He was a very knowledgable doctor who knew English. His verdict: an infection of the sinuses. Not sure if that is good or bad, but he prescribed three drugs. Two are pills and one is a nosespray. Ever since I have started taking the drugs I have felt worse than before, but I can only hope it is the pain before the relief. The doctor said that is has held on this long because of the weather here: it changes so quickly from morning to afternoon to evening, that it is keeping my body from fighting the infection off. Sad day! I don´t really care what it is at this point, I just want to be able to breath normally and do things without feeling like I need an eternal rest. So pray, pray, pray that these medicines work and are stronger than my body´s reaction to the new city.

One thing I thought I would do for you: post some interesting things I have noted about Quito, or Ecuador in general.
1. They love Micheal Jackson.
2. They wear their jackets and coats all day long, even though it gets warmer than 80 degrees in the afternoons.
3. Everyone sells something. Candy vendors on the busses, hot dog vendors on the streets, clothing vendors on the corners.
4. They love to run. Maybe because it is cheap, I don´t really know, but it is as common here as in college towns.
5. They love to sign karaoke to English songs. (haven´t experienced this yet)
6. Stereotypes are the same here as in America - coastal people are lazy, the natives hold lower jobs and scrape by, though they were here first...
7. Stores are tiny. The average shop is maybe 10´by 10´or smaller. They cram alot of things inside, though!
8. They don´t know how to eat healthy portions, either! Just like Americans, they load the plates up! Probably why the average person here is overweight...
9. Food is sold everywhere - no permits needed, just bring your cart of whatever and start cooking! In the park today, 4 or 5 vendors selling cups of fresh fruit like watermelon, and a couple ladies cooking up lunch... on a cart... rice and chicken and veggies, and I don´t know what, but alot of food! And smells awesome!
10. Women and children are helped out more here. On the busses, the assistant always makes sure to offer a hand to the ladies, and sometimes picks the kids up and puts them on the sidewalks (the busses don´t always stop all the way). They are always concerned for their well-being. It is very sweet.

Many of you are wondering what I do in the orphanage. Well, it really depends. Usually it is playing with the younger kids and helping out with lunch, feeding the babies, and making sure the older kids eat and don´t goof off. On days it isn´t raining, we usually go outside. (Those pictures, by the way, are my friend Gillian´s - but were taken of the same kids I work with. I still hate cameras.) They have a swingset, see-saws, play houses, monkey bars, and in the back, a blacktop with basketball hoops. For 40 kids, it really isn´t very adequate... Many of the kids simply stand around waiting... I also help kids with their homework...some as simple as drawing rectangles, but some need help with their English homework, which is great, because I can actually be of some help. There is a little, little baby, only 2 months old, and I helped out with her one day, holding, feeding, burping, rocking, that sort of thing - most of the time it is just trying to give the house moms a break. I help fix lunch some days, and I bought a couple of books, and am translating them into English, so they can have books in both languages. I am done with one so far, and the kids really seemed to like it. It is about a musical dwarf whose friends are able to fly on the magical notes he plays. It´s pretty funny... Their books are long, with terrible pictures, and in one language or another. They also don´t have paper and crayons, except for what is supplied for school. I am going to take my art supplies I brought to the orphanage this week.

Well, that is about it - nothing crazy this weekend, but hopefully I´ll get to travel again next weekend. A couple of girls from our group got robbed last weekend of everything they had with them - cameras, money, credit cards, clothes... not at gunpoint, but by trickery (they acted like they were bus employees). So needless to say, traveling this weekend was rather light. I still haven´t made it to the coast, though, and I also need to see the central district where all the pretty churches and museums are. I´ll let you know when I go.

Talk to you soon!

Mindo Weekend 3

... Oh, and a good sidenote.. one of the girls I went with just arrived to Quito this week, but is staying until August. Her name is Stephanie and she is super-sweet, a strong Christian, and basically bilingual. It will be nice to have someone here to travel with. The other two girls from the Mindo trip were leaving this weekend to go to their placements in other cities. The other girl I have traveled with also left this weekend. So Stephanie is a Godsend! The orphanage has been good as well. I helped one of the moms make juice, with something like 15 of some sort of fruit... (looked like oranges, but I´m not sure). The kids now know who I am, and are glad to see me in the morning. Little by little I am learning how to say things like ¨push me¨ for the swings. Oh how I wish I had a better memory so that I could learn faster! With time, I suppose. Oh, another note.. there is a second new girl named Brittany who will be working with me at the orphanage for three weeks. I think she has a smidge more Spanish than I do. It´ll be nice because we will ride the bus together, and if I really need to understand something, maybe she could help me out. I am going to work with House 5 tomorrow - the last house and then I have done one day at each. I will be glad when I know the kids better, and learn some more names. Right now I know maybe 5 names, but recognize 25ish of the kids if I see them. Only 35 names more! I had the most wonderful lunch today... tomato, avacado and onion salad, potato soup, and rice with fried fish. It was muy rico! I also had another Spanish lesson today.. I´m attempting to memorize past tense. Wouldn´t be so hard if there weren´t so many exceptions. I guess English is no better. ;) The boys left the house on Friday, and I haven´t heard of anymore volunteers coming to stay with Maria. We´ll see... Well, I suppose that is it for now.. I´ll keep you updated. Please let everyone know about the blog, as I don´t remember who I told. Love you all!

Mindo Weekend 2

... The following morning, we went downstairs for breakfast. The owner told us we could have breakfast for an extra $2.00 apiece. We had coffee, which with sugar and chocolate in it, was actually very good.. and scrambled eggs, cheese, and bread. Oh, and fresh juice, of course! It was delicious. We walked the block back to the main street, harassing the roosters that had woken us up so rudely the night before. A sweet man in town who sold us the tickets for the waterfall hike offered to buy our bus tickets while we were gone, so we killed two birds with one stone. The price was only $10 for the admission to the park and the cable car ride. We rode in the back of a pickup (which was an adventure in itself) about 6 kilometers to the cable car. Of course, this is after it has rained, down dirt roads with huge holes everywhere! My bottom will never quite be the same... The cable car was craziness! One cable, one rectangular ¨car¨with poles put together, riding thousands of feet over the jungle. It was so fun, though! (The other girls had nicer cameras, so they have tons of pictures I will get to you eventually) We then attempted to find the 7 waterfalls, or cascadas. We found 4 I think. The trails were not really marked very well. We think because it is rainy season the others were roped off for safety. It was hard work! I am SO sore from that hike. I have no idea how many miles it was, but I think it was about 2 and a half hours of climbing up and down mountains. The last one we saw was so beautiful and we waded in to the crisply cold water! It felt heavenly compared to the extremely humid air that made you feel as though your clothes were permanently stuck to your body. I loved the hiking! It was great to be out in the wilderness with nothing but us. We finally made it back to town (oh - and there was the absolute CUTEST puppy you have ever seen that followed us the entire way to the cable car from town! Marathon runner puppy! Something like 4 miles of straight running! I wanted to take him home so badly.) Anyways... back to lunch. We ate at a ¨nice¨restaurant which meant our meals were between 3 and 5 dollars.. I had veggie pizza and it was excellent. Then it was time to head back on the bus again... this time I forgot to drug up until we left, so the ride back was not as happy. As soon as we got off the bus, it was freezing! Mindo was so warm... a nice change, and it must have been in the 40s when we returned to Quito. It has been cold since.

To be continued... (Again, I know!)

Mindo Weekend 1

Sooooo.... the weekend trip this time was SO much better!!! I went with three girls to Mindo, a small ¨pueblo¨ town in the mountains. It was so cute! Pretty much there was a main street. And that was it. The people there were so sweet and catered to tourists. We took a bus - about two hours, but my Dramamine worked this time, so I finally understood what normal people feel like on a long car-ride. I could look out the window as long as I wanted and never once felt slightly sick! It was heaven. When we arrived at Mindo, there was a woman who was looking for Julie - at first I didn´t respond, although it was too much of a coincidence, but finally we realized she was with the hostel. It was called Hostel Sandy and it was like a wooden cabin in the woods. Wooden everything with a living room and bedrooms with a bathroom in each. My favorite part - the only thing you could hear was the sound of water. There was a pretty big creek right outside our window. It was extremely peaceful, especially compared to Quito. We checked in and went to dinner. I had enchiladas, which were delicious. We were served by a boy about 12 years old. He was adorable, and very attentive. We stopped by a store to buy chocolate and wine. Within a few minutes we realized we had neither cups nor a wine opener. We figured the hostel would have cups, but we asked the store owner if she had a bottle opener. She said yes, but we realized several minutes later that she had sent her daughter home to get one. So sweet! (And how often, in a town of maybe a couple hundred, do you sell a $9.00 bottle of wine?) We opened it, stuck the cork back in a ways and went back to our hostel. Unfortunately, when we got there we realized we had stuck the cork in too far! We had to use pens and bobby pins to get it back out! Hilarious! One of the girls had her laptop and the movie Up, so we snuggled up and drank wine, ate our chocolate bars, and watched a very strange movie. My cough has been fairly okay during the day, but fairly miserable during the nights, so I headed to bed early, so by the time my cough died down, the others would be able to sleep.

To be continued...

Continued...

Turning to more upbeat news, I had a really good day at the orphanage on Friday. I was with house 2, and there were less kids, and some of them were older. This meant I could play with 3 or even 6 kids instead of trying to watch 20 at one time. There was one little boy I played with most of the day. He is probably around 4 or 5 and really took to me. We played soccer and ¨monster¨ which consisted of taking turns chasing each other with my jacket pulled down over our faces. He really seemed to like it. I also braided a doll´s hair with a 7ish year old girl who then took to braiding my hair as well. I also spent most of the day with a 2 year old named Sarah. She is so cute and once we got back inside I understood why she liked me so much. Her older ¨brothers and sisters¨hit her and would pick on her for no reason, and she would come running back to me. It seems there is alot of that. As soon as the Madre would turn her head to cook or clean, the older ones would take to hitting the younger ones. I assume it is a part of what they grew up in. I also taught two little kids the ¨slap¨game and the thumb war game. They really enjoyed them. I am happy to say that the altitude hasn´t been too much of a problem. I am able to run and jump with the kids just fine. I have a harder time walking to the bus in the morning than keeping up with the kids. I am getting a good workout, too, because they have see-saws, and two kids never want to play at the same time, so I end up playing with them, which really consists of a thigh workout pushing myself up. I´m going to be so buff. :)

I also started taking Spanish lessons. I think Maria is pretty surprised and dismayed that my Spanish is so poor. I told her I didn´t sign up for the classes because they were so expensive. She has a friend that is a professor, though, and told her about me. So far I have met with her once and will meet with her again on Thursday. She is very nice and patient. She also doesn´t have a thick accent like Maria and speaks slower. She only charges $6 an hour, and the sessions are for 4 hours, so it is fairly cheap. I am learning new things all the time, but I go back and forth between thinking I know so much, and thinking I know nothing. We´ll see. I have two new roommates - boys from Wisconsin. They are cute and nice, but only staying for about a week. I can´t remember when they leave. I was so excited to speak English with them, but it is one of the rules of their program that they cannot speak English while they are here, not even with each other. Which really is good for me. They do help me to learn because I can ask how to say something in Spanish and they know what I am saying. They also said that Maria speaks with a very thick accent and is very hard to understand, which makes me feel a little bit better.

I guess that is enough for now. Pray for my health!

Enferma in Ecuador

I went on my first trip last weekend. It was pretty much a bust. I went with a fellow volunteer to Oltavio - I think that is how it is spelled. We took a two hour bus ride. I was sick. Of course. Didn´t really think about it before I was 5 minutes into the ride. We went there because they have a big market. We met up with two other volunteers and shopped awhile. Unfortunately, after maybe 30 minutes, the girl I was with walked off and I didn´t find her again for two or three hours. I found out later the three of them had gone to lunch because they couldn´t find me. It was crazy how much stuff they had packed into the streets. I ended up getting two small paintings of children and a small wallet-sized bag. I am glad that the style of the local culture isn´t my style otherwise I would have had trouble saying no. I also took cash and not my card, so there was no way I could spend too much. There were tons of ¨indigenous¨ people on the bus and in the market - the kind you see on TV programs. They had rough, dark skin and the women had many gold necklaces around their necks. They all carried their babies on their backs. I did love going through the countryside. There was more of what I had expected of Ecuador - hut houses and random animals roaming about. The roads weren´t paved, and we were driving through the mountains. The plants were similar to those in Texas, though some looked like they were from Africa - trees that grew more horizontal than vertical, very rough looking. I saw huge rivers and children playing in the streets. On the way back to Quito we had a nicer bus which had a TV. Because we couldn´t get reception for the TV channels, they turned on a movie - an American movie (in Spanish) about some scarecrow monster trying to kill all the kids on a school trip. Let me know if you have seen it in English. It was very slasherish with people getting stabbed, and their heads getting ripped off, all this with 1/3 of the people on the bus being kids. Very interesting choice. By the time we got back about dinnertime on Saturday, I realized I must have picked up a bug because my throat was starting to hurt. During that night, I came down with a fever and chills. Maria found me in the morning because it was time for my Spanish lesson and realized I was pretty sick. She has nursed me back to health. She called the pharmacy and the delivery man came to the door with the medicines in hand. It was great because I really didn´t feel like going to the doctor. Today I tried to go back to the orphanage, but the cold air hurt too much and I came back home. Maria made a call to Patricia, who is in charge of the program, and she called a doctor to get a stronger medicine for my throat. I have taken it once today, and it working pretty well. I should be able to go back to the orphanage tomorrow.

Because the Internet service could end at any time, I am going to write more in a second post so that this one is saved.

First Post From Ecuador

Hola! I am in Ecuador! I am here, and in one piece, more or less. I was feeling terribly sick the day of my flight (probably because of a medicine I was taking for the altitude) and so the flight was miserable. I ended up throwing up when we landed - luckily into a paper bag that I was able to throw away, but still terrible. We had to wear masks over our noses and mouths because of the swine flu - it looked like a scene from the news. Apparently they are very afraid of outsiders bringing the flu in and some volunteers were told they couldn´t come because they might be sick.

I am in the smack dab center of the city - the traffic is terrible like Austin and the drivers honk ENDLESSLY! I am living on the 4th floor of an apartment and it is SO noisy! It sounds like you are living in the middle of IH35. Apparently they do not have double paned glass or any other barrier to keep the sound out. I went to the store today and bought some more ear plugs (sorry Sarah - yours weren´t super strength). I live with an older woman - maybe early 60s who lives by herself. She has kids, but they live far away. There is another volunteer living with her now whose name is Sam, but he is leaving tomorrow. Maria is trying to help me learn Spanish but I realize now that I basically know NOTHING!! It is terrible trying to communicate and I have never felt so stupid or helpless in my life. I am trying to learn as fast as possible, and hopefully I will feel more confident soon.

I start at the orphanage tomorrow. Hakan (a coordinator) and I went today to introduce myself. We were on the bus for an hour! He said that isn´t normal - usually at most it will take 50 minutes. It cost 25 cents a ride, no matter how far you go. I will leave my house at 7:55 to get to the bus stop at 8:10 to get to the orphanage at 9:00. I will stay all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but if I want, I can stay half a day on Thursday and Friday so I can travel or see other volunteers.

There is hot water, though no water pressure, so it is basically a trickle. I am glad, though, because Sam says on the coast they don´t have any hot water. Maria has a TV, which she watches endlessly. I have a room to myself, though there is another bed, and I am hoping another volunteer will come soon. The food is interesting. Some is good, some is bad. It is very repetitive for sure. For breakfast, there is egg (sort of scrambled-ish), plain bread (like a tiny french loaf shape, but plain tasting and hard), freshly squeezed juice of some sort (some are very tasty, some need some sugar ;) ), and something similar to chocolate milk. I am trying to tell Maria I don´t eat that much. She is used to Sam. For lunch and dinner, there have been assorted things. We had pan-fried fish which was good and usually plain rice. Sometimes there is salad, which is good. Everything is very fresh and Maria buys food at least twice or three times a week.

Well, I am paying to use the computer, so I guess I´ll stop writing for now. Excuse any mistakes as I am trying to type quickly and the keyboards here are different.

Hasta luego!