Asi Es La Vida...

The End... and the Beginning

2008-08-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

Friends and Family! I believe that this will be the last time that I use this forum to communicate. I have been inconsistent and lazy when it came to updating all of you, and for that I apologize.

I am currently in transition from one thing to another. My work in Ecuador has ended and I tearfully left my adopted family, some very good friends, my little town, and the amazing mountains behind. Currently I am visiting some friends who live in Guatemala as I gradually make my way back to Michigan. I will be here for another week before heading to New York City to see Marni. A week later, I will be in Terra Houte visiting Dan and Bethany, and finally I will make it back up to Mom, Dad, and Katie in the middle of September.

The journey only pauses there, however, since at the beginning of October I will be heading out to Seattle to take a job with the Phinney Neighborhood Association. I will be in charge of their tech center, as well as attempting to build relationships in the Spanish-speaking community in the neighborhood in order to assess its needs and connect it to the Association.

I am excited about the change, but also apprehensive about some "old" things. The opportunitiy to see a new city, the chance to start a new job with different challenges (a welcome change), meeting new people and making new friends, but also an "old" culture and way of life, which I am supposed to know and be accustomed to, although I am not so sure that I will adjust back to so readily.

Although nervous, I am eager to see family and friends in this next month and then get started with a new period in my life. Change always holds opportunity, so I am ready to adjust and learn and grow as I find myself in another situation under different circumstances.

2008-04-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

April

2008-04-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

I tried to put up a few pictures for the few of you who check up on me now and again. I have had little success with pictures, but every now and again I get motivated to try.

These pictures show a bit of what I have been up to regarding work. Organizing, training, and working alongside my friends and neighbors. I have focused on beekeeping for about the past year; forming, training, and strengthening three community beekeepers associations. In the past 6 months I have been actively helping a foundation-supported tree nursery get started. It has been a challenge to help 90 families scattered across a few different communities get organized and stay motivated; however, things are still going forward and I am just now starting to see a few positive results.

In other news, I am very close to finishing a whopping 650pg book on church history – sobering stuff. It is amazing that I have never heard most of this stuff before. I am also enjoying hanging out with my adopted Ecuadorian parents/grandparents (they call me their son and I call them “Grandpa” and “Grandma”). My self-declared caretakers are already mourning my imminent departure, which is planned for August of this year.

A funny story – the other weekend, along with some other American friends, I accompanied a large group of Ecuadorian women to plant trees about 13,000ft up on a local mountain. After the long climb up, we started to dig the holes in order to plant the trees. All of a sudden one of my (American) friends excitedly turned to me and said, “Look, a gringo!” I stared for a few moments at the older white man who had not come up the mountain with us but who was evidently hiking up the mountain to the peak. All of a sudden, we realized what we were doing… we broke down laughing at our typical Ecuadorian reaction to foreigners, realizing that only hours before the majority of the women with whom we had come had reacted to us in the same way that we had so quickly taken notice of the elderly hiker.

Family Fun!

2008-02-24T12:37:00.000-08:00

An update is way overdue (when is it not?), so after laboring all day, getting myself dusty and sweaty, and then walking the 30 minutes uphill back to my house, I am sitting down to let you all “in” on what´s been happening.

First, it has been a month since Mom, Dad, and Katie (little sis) were here for their two week visit! Neglectfully, I haven´t written anything about their amazing time here. For 10 days in January, I was able to introduce ¾ of my nuclear family to all of the strange things that have become customary to me, present them to my friends, show them the Andes Mountains, and try to poison them with local food.

The highlight for them (at least this is what they told me) and for me was to finally have them here in Santa Ana. Everyone wanted to meet them, chat with them (which meant a lot of smiles and nodded heads and confusion on both sides), and give them food – they really wanted to feed them, to the point that we had to eat 2 dinners one night because it was our last night and one family would NOT be denied! I was really impressed with Mom and Dad, and especially Katie´s adaptability to all of the situations that arose in their 4 days here in “my neck of the woods”!

We also had a chance to go spend some time in the jungle seeing all sorts of orchids, butterflies, hummingbirds and a few waterfalls. We even zoomed for a few hundred yards over a canopy-covered valley in a little cable-suspended “car” (I think Dad opened his eyes for a moment or two as we crossed – he loves heights). Afterwards, we downhill-biked down the largest active volcano in the world; starting somewhere around 15,000ft and rolling down to about 7-8,000, it was an adventure! Then, we finished out our time together crossing back and forth between the north and south hemisphere and learning why Ecuador deserves the title The Middle of the World.

It really was an awesome time, and I am so glad that they made all of the sacrifices they did in order to be able to come down!

Well… to bring everyone up to date to now:

The bees are going just fine. The production has been much lower than expected, but the Professionals say that this year has been a super bad honey year. Additionally, the goals that I have for the 3 Beekeepers´ Associations have more to do with learning, organization, initiative, and independence than they do with production. So I am content.

My main new project has been building and starting a tree nursery from scratch. It is just myself and a friend of mine doing this, so I have been involved in every aspect of everything. This was exactly the idea. I am learning a ton about how to produce trees (and why everything is done the way that it is). The work has been super physical and I have been falling into bed asleep for the past couple of weeks – partly because I came down with the flu last weekend and am only feeling 100% again since Thursday.

Oh yeah, I was the coach of the high school basketball team for about a month (it´s entire history), and they won all three games they played and finished the CHAMPIONS of the tournament in which they competed… fun stuff!

Fat Tuesday

2008-01-30T05:21:00.001-08:00

Family and Friends...

I am in the big city today looking for materials to make a small, low-technology greenhouse. Over the last few months I have been working with a few communities in producing fruit trees and it has been a relative success until know (the final product is ready in about 8-10 months). It has gone sufficiently well, that I am going to invest a bit of my own money and help a friend of mine begin his own tree nursery. We will be "partners" and he will continue to teach me the art of growing and taking care of young trees (a very useful and hugely environmentally beneficial skill to have) while I will put in the majority of the money (which won`t be more than a few weeks worth of gas money there in the States these days).

I am curious to see how it works out. At worst, I will learn a new skill and pay a "class fee", plus I will participate in producing and planting a few more trees. At best, I will help a friend begin a small business and I will be able to use the money that I "make" to help support youth in the area go to college.

Fat Tuesday is this upcoming week. Here in Ecuador (and I think in most of the Catholic World) that means that we are in the festivals of Carnaval). I will celebrate by throwing water on everyone and their mother (literally) this weekend, then watching the superbowl with other US friends, and on Monday going to a big outdoor concert-party where we will continue to get drenched and drench others and maybe participate in a white-water rafting competition.

It should be a blast!

I think that this is a great way to avoid the "after-christmas blues"... you just schedule more Holidays!

Carta Navideño

2007-12-29T07:35:00.000-08:00

In the past few weeks, I have gotten out of my normal routine a few times. Although, it is probably not what you imagine when you think of me in "Ecuador-South America", life is generally fairly predictable and normal; it is also interesting and enjoyable, so don`t think that this a negative thing.

My life continues to be dominated by work with four community groups, three of which are now in the production phase of beekeeping (Yeah! An exciting and successful stage!). The other group is attempting to maintain a small tree nursery and produce fruit trees. It has been moderately successful to this point, but I am a bit worried and have much work to do regarding that project.

I am TREMENDOUSLY excited that my parents and little sister will be arriving here in Ecuador for an (almost) two week stint one week from today!! I am disappointed and saddened by my inability to be with the Gisel and Picklo families for the second straight year. I grow more and more appreciative for family, and I have been given an amazing, supportive, fun, and loving family. That I have not been able to spend time with you all in such a long time is a terrible falla!

Despite being far from family, I had a wonderful Christmas. I spent Christmas eve with a great family who I consider good friends. It is the family that I stayed with upon arriving here for about 2 months, so I have known them for a year and half. We celebrated together with a midnight turkey dinner (which actually started a bit after 10pm on the 24th, but ended after midnight). It was delicious as well as fun.

The 25th, I met up with 2 friends and traveled most of the day down to a beautiful town a few hours south of the capital. We ended the day with a short hike to the top of a 11,000ft "hill". We spent the next two days hiking around the town. One day we hiked into a huge canyon and then wandered around all day, a bit lost, but enjoying a soaking rain and repeatedly trudging back and forth through a small river. The other day, we did a tiring hike up to a beautiful crater lake.

Then, yesterday, we finished off our Christmas Hiking Tour by summeting (climbing) a mountain called Iliniza Norte. I will hopefully be able to put up pictures relatively soon, but you know me. If you want to see a picture go to the following page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiniza . Iliniza Norte is the mountain on the right (the other one is Iliniza Sur... North and South). It is one the 10 tallest peak in Ecuador at 5,126m or 16,817ft!

It was an exciting, but nerve-racking climb!

I hope to hear from you. If you have a second, just add a comment and let me know what`s happening, or send me a real email.

The blog still lives...

2007-12-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

It has been quite some time since I have had a little free time to get free and use the computer. Yesterday, I took advantage of a slow week visited tht city with the sole purpose of writing emails. After almost 3 hours I had to leave, with only about half of the work done that I had wanted. Today, I find myself in an office waiting for a "meeting", so I asked a friend if I could use one of the unoccupied workstations (this is one of the only offices that I know of that has internet access... lucky for me).

I guess that it is fairly obvious that I have been busy. Bees, youth, trees, friends, and following leads on new ideas were my main activities in the month of November.

My birthday (#25) will be arriving for the second time since I have been here in Ecuador on Sunday. I am not sure what it is that I will be doing, but it will be fun since a friend is planning it as a "surprise". I am sure that for at least part of it, I will be outside enjoying the almost unbelievable beauty of the mountains.

I am growing more and more excited about the visit of my parents and little sister. They will be arriving one month from today!

Thanksgiving was a low key vegetarian affair on Friday (day after real Tday) with a few friends in the big city. Christmas is up in the air right now... but I am beginning to plan a bit of a vacation with some Peace Corps friends. It should be fun, although I wish that I could participate in the Gisel Gathering, and be at Grandma Picklo´s for Christmas Day.

More to come soon... I will not delay another month. Promise.

Simply an Update

2007-10-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

Life-
After (how much time? I normally say, ¨a little over a year¨) 15 months here in Ecuador I definitly feel "at home". When I go out and about, which I do quite a bit, since I am working in about 6 different communities, and I come back to my town, I feel like a load falls off my shoulders. There is something about how everyone greets me by name, and the little kids say Hola! to me repeatedly as I walk towards them and then Chau! as I walk away that makes me feel warm inside.

After cooking for myself for a year, I am now eating exclusively at my Grandma`s house. I decided that since I was only normally at my house for an average of one lunch OR dinner per day and that every other day my Grandma would force me to eat at her house or just drop food off at mine (so I was eating about 50% of my meals there anyway)... that I would just make arrangments to eat there all the time and that would give me permission to chip in for the cost of the food. While I was still a ´guest¨ she wouldn`t let me give her any money for things. But since now I am permanent fixture, she let me buy the 100lb bag of rice for this month.

I also have an awesome best friend who lives in the closest big town teaching English. She is from Long Island. One of the nicest, kindest people I have ever met... In addition to being my best friend, we are dating, which is fun. :) Her name is Marni.

Work-

I feel busy and satisfied with what I am doing... although I always want to do it better and with more love and attention to the relationships that I have, am making, or could make! I am doing a variety of things, which I love.

- Group of Youth - 10 teenagers meet at my house once a week, to plan activities, chill, and cook (generally). My purpose with them is to help them develop their leadership and planning skills, as well as to inject them with thoughts on gender equality and improve their self-esteem so that they will start to think and plan for what they want to do in the future. Right now they are getting started again teaching older women in my community how to read and write (they did it last school year, but stopped for the summer and we are just getting back into the swing of things again).

- Bee project - I am working with 30 people divided among three groups in different communities. I am training them how to take care of bees and produce honey (as I study and learn from others), and I am helping them form Associations in order to be able to grow and sell their product better.

- Tree Nursery - I am in charge of a project to produce 2,000 trees. Mainly this means coordinating between the agency, the forestry engineer, and the three towns-womens groups that are involved.

Other than that, I am trying to pursue a couple of ideas that I have for other things to start and working with a couple of individual families on special cases. It has been a long process but I am excited about stuff.

2007-08-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

First, I would just like to encourage you to read something that my friends wrote, and that is quite relevant to my life and thoughts and is a basis for how I am trying to form my style of life from here on out. It is at Aaron

Well... on to a bit of an update.

Currently, quite busy coordinating the different aspects of my ¨job¨. (If you haven`t caught on yet, what I do here can hardly be quantified as a single ¨job¨ since I work in totally unrelated things in distinct towns, etc.). For example, I am working with 3 communities helping them to learn how to take care of bees and produce honey, while at the same time trying to strengthen their organizational abilities in order to have a sustainable community Asociation that can maintain a small business in the future (which would be the sale of the produced bee products). Second, I am working with a group of high school students in a variety of things from literacy classes that they are giving to older women in the community, to leadership training for them that I am trying to weave into our weekly meetings, to a trip out to the beach in order to see a new place, meet some other similarly organized youth groups, and do some more leadership ¨training¨ (as well as covering other topics like sex, drugs, environmental issues, etc.). Additionally, I am working with 4 communities on reforestation issues and 2 communities on community savings and loans groups.... yikes. Oh yeah, trying to help another group make a web page.

haha... I guess that I shouldn`t be saying it like this becuase it sounds like I am bragging. Really, in all of these activities I am learning much more than I am teaching. My primary role is to motivate the participants and to provide organizational assistance (i.e. when and where are we meeting, what are the important issues, who is taking responsibility for this and that task, etc.). The people and groups with whom I am working do the majority of the work.

I must say: it is interesting.

If you read my previous entries, I just want to encourage you: Keep looking for the small miracles which surround us in every day, maintain diligence (and find joy in) being as kind as possible to as many people as possible (how can I be kind to him-her in this moment?), and look for opportunities to give people Home as well as recognizing those moments when you are at Home.

I say this to you, in order to remember to do it myself. Because I think that those things are just a re-frasing of ¨Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with Your God.¨ May the Divine Love shine through uslike rays of sunshine through dark clouds!

(man... what a corny poet I am... I`m glad that y`all know me and can imagine me waxing eloquent... haha)

Un Dicho

2007-08-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

A famous quote:

Al caminar se hace el camino.
Walking one makes the path.

Something to meditate on.

How I found Home... you have to read til the very end.

2007-08-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

Had a great time visiting family and friends in the States; a great vacation! I have been back for about 2 weeks now and am all settled in.

I could write a ton about my trip... bike riding with my parents, my little sister`s 21st birthday, chilling with my bro and Bethany, a road trip down south, an amazing time spent with great friends, sledding on ice blocks in TX, a beautiful wedding of a beautiful pair who have a beautiful relaionship and I`m sure will become even more beautiful together, and a great few days in Chicago where I saw some good friends, my godson and his precious big-sister, and was able to say good-bye to Mom, Dad, Katie, and chat wihth Aunt Brenda, Uncle Bob.

This has actually been a huge month for me… a visit to the States and then a week after getting back my town had its once annual Town Bash. Every year during the second weeked of August Santa Ana, my town, swells to at least double (probably triple) its normal size. Starting on Friday, everyone dances, drinks, and celebrates from mid-afternoon until the next morning. Saturday morning is for recuperation and then back at it until Sun morning… and then once more Sunday until Mon morn.

I really only participated Saturday, but it was awesome! I hung out all afternoon with friends chatting and I made my way to a few different houses. Then we danced a bit in the afternoon until evening and went to eat dinner. After dinner went back to dance and chat. At about 10:00 they lit the castillo (¨The Castle¨), which is a construction about 30 ft tall that is an interconnection of fireworks - think dominos. It is awesome... and kind of crazy because we were only standing about 20 ft away dodging some of the low-flying ones and the ones that fall from the sky still on fire.

Following that excitement, went back to take a bit of a nap and returned to the action around midnight... just in time to see my next-door-neighbor be crowned the Queen of Santa Ana. (She`s great, so I was glad to see her win.). Following that we danced and danced and danced and I finally crashed into my pillow around 4:00am.

I guess my final thought for you all is about Home. I had a great conversation at about 3-4 in the morning somewhere in the state of Illinois (and maybe into Missouri) with some good friends and we had some good thoughts I think. Worth sharing at least.

I do not believe that Home is a place. Maybe the place you call ¨home¨ is where one experiences Home most often... or frequently felt it in the past. However, I believe that Home is the ability that one has at certain moments or with certain people to feel completely Ones-Self... to be comfortable with whom and ¨where¨ (in all of the meanings of that word... not just location but your current spot in the journey of life) you are. The peace of knowing that ¨I am accepted just as I am without having to prove anything to anyone or be anything for anyone.¨

I experienced this Home in the house of my parents, in a car traveling 80mph down the interstate, on a small hill at the campus of UT and I also experienced Home drinking tea in Ibarra, on a dirt road between a river and a mountain, in a dirt house surrounded by sugar cane, and in the middle of a thousand black Ecuadorians dancing.

I thank God for the miracle of Home and I pray that each of you experience it... and recognize It for what It is wherever It may find you. Don´t limit it to a specific city or a specific house... find Home in the miracles that constantly surround you.

Big Long Ramble...

2007-07-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

I´m going to try and put down a few things ¨on paper¨ that I have been thinking a lot about and I wonder if I have ¨learned¨. However, that word itself makes me a little uncomfortable, because it implies that these thoughts and reflections are in some way Correct and Right, instead of simply observations or conclusions where I happen to find myself right now and which may be of use for other people in order to help them reflect. In any case…

The last book that I read (Mountains Beyond Mountains) really jumpstarted me to think about these things again and because my thoughts were a little jumbled I thought that I would write them down to see if I could get them organized appropriately (really, this is more for my benefit than for yours... sorry).

I think that what I have been thinking is really very simple, it’s focus is on three things: Kindness, Compassion, and Judgment. The first two are ways in which we can actualize LOVE, which I really think is the end goal or purpose of life. It is what God calls us all to do (¨Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself¨), it is what we universally acknowledge is the most fulfilling aspect of life: the basis for relationships and friendships. Love is something that is even scientifically recognized as necessary for survival of human being; although it is generally called attachment or affect in scientific lingo. The third, judgment, I include here because it seems to be directly opposed to the 1st two and is (in my opinion) the biggest criticism of Christianity in my generation (and I am struggling to find my personal philosophy of life, which includes almost an entire life immersed in traditional evangelical Christianity).

Therefore: 1) Kindness 2) Compassion 3) Judgment

Kindness
Well, I start here because it is perhaps the foundation of the other two and it is going to be by far the least controversial. By kindness, I do not mean ¨merely¨ a nice word, or a smile, or refraining from being ¨not-nice.¨ By kindness, I refer to the constant attempt to treat another person in the best way. I think that it is the simplest and perhaps the most effective way of beginning to love one another. In almost any circumstance, no matter how complicated, we can identify what would be a kind response or a kind way to deal with a person.

I guess I would say that kindness is simply love actualized in everyday life. Yet, I often go through entire days without intentionally being kind to anyone. This can include actively helping someone out, being encouraging, allowing someone to take my seat, or simply not saying the cleverly phrased negative statement that so quickly pops into my head in order to put my antagonist in his place. Kindness – seems so simple, but I think that it can (and probably should) be a life-long pursuit.

Compassion
Compassion in my vernacular is recognizing and feeling someone else’s need or pain. Additionally, it is reacting and doing something in order to meet that need or offer comfort; however, it is not only those things. I believe that compassion is also a mindset that needs to be developed intentionally, as well as something that simply MOVES someone spontaneously.

First things first. I like the phrase: She was ¨moved by compassion.¨ Here the language is of action. Compassion has actually succeeded in MOVING her! The sight or thought of the pain or the hurt or whatever it was, evoked something so strong that movement, an action was required! I think that this type of compassion is something incredibly valuable and in some ways necessary. Let me continue… I´ll come back and explain.

Now, I want to add in the concept that Paul Farmer in ¨Mountains Beyond Mountains¨ calls the O for the P. He describes it quite differently, but I´m going to do it like this. What is it that causes someone to be moved by compassion? Pain, suffering, hurt, injustice, etc. O for the P is the idea that God (and therefore we should be as well) is intensely interested in the plight of those who are hurt and suffering – the orphans and widows (if you will), the little vulnerable children, the poor in Africa (and Ecuador) and the poor next door, the depressed, the abused, the homeless, and the lonely. Option for the Poor.

The idea goes like this: Jesus was most concerned for the ¨sick¨, not for the healthy, and paid much more attention to the outcasts and downcast of society (well, not exactly true, but almost all of the attention he gave to the rich and powerful… and religious was criticism and calls to repent and change!). I don´t ask you to believe me in this… check it out… see if this appears true after reading through the gospels looking for it. Therefore, we should not go through life waiting for pictures of kids dying in AIDS in Africa to move us with compassion, but rather we should take a couple steps toward pain and hurt wherever we may find that and then allow compassion to move us and shape our life!

I said that this is maybe necessary for ALL of us. What did I mean? I think (I don´t come up with all of these ideas myself… I think I get this one from Rob Bell) that it may be just as necessary for people to offer help to others and experience the reward of that giving as it is for someone who is struggling to receive the gift. ALSO, (and I feel very strongly about this) that one who believes that he-she is the one giving should also be very, very open to receive and to learn from those to whom he-she is ¨giving¨. In my experience, I have learned/received so much more than I have given, even as I have been the official ¨Giver/Helper¨ (not just in Ecuador, but in Chicago and Grand Rapids too).

One last thing. I think that often this O for the P is rejected for two reasons.
1) It sounds like a kid living in a South American country in a dirt house is heaping guilt on you because you have a dishwasher.
I don’t want you to feel guilty. I don´t think that you necessarily need to feel guilty. However, I do think that we need to stop and evaluate what we are doing, why we are doing and what we could and should be doing! I think that I am probably much LESS compassionate that I should be and much less compassionate and living a much weaker O for the P than many people with the dishwasher! Yet, let´s not forget how many billions of people are lonely, how many billions are hungry, and how many people down the road have a need that we have never seen, because we have never taken the time to look down that road!

Judgment
Hmmm… how to start this one. How about with an apology?

I`m sorry, I know that not everyone thinks about Christians this way. It is not a universal feeling and I want to recognize that. Also, I do not mean to say that Christians are not amazingly loving and kind as well. 90% of all the amazing people I know are Christians!

Anecdote:
I asked a good friend of mine (one of the kindest people I have ever met, who highly influenced the first part of this writing), who grew up in an entirely unreligious family and is still totally unconnected to any religion, what she thought of me… as someone who openly expressed faith in Christ Jesus. She delicately told me a story, but in the end she said this: “I thought that everyone [who was a Christian] would hate me.”

That is the most common opinion that I have heard from the non-Christian young adults that I have gotten to know over the past 2 years (in Chicago and the other people from the US that live here in Ecuador). Can you imagine that?
Christianity = Hate! (Do we realize that this image exists out there? And is fairly widespread!!)

Here is a passage from “Blue Like Jazz”, “The problem with Christian community was that we had ethics, we had rules and laws and principles to judge each other against. There was love in Christian community but it was conditional love. Sure we called it unconditional, but it wasn’t… Christianity was always right: we were always looking down on everybody else…. It felt, to me, as wrong as sin.” Later he writes, “I was tired of biblical ethic being used as a tool to judge people rather than heal them.”

I know this sounds quite harsh. Before rejecting it, before saying, “but we don’t judge people” … or “but it says that is wrong in the Bible.” Please, just read the rest of this with an OPEN mind. That means… stop right now and decide, “Am I reading the rest of this looking for reasons to reject it? or am I looking for how it might be true?”

Here is the thing. I grew up thinking that Christians were good people and non-Christians were not good people. I grew up believing that Christian values were good values and non-Christian values were bad values. I believed that Christians did good things, and… etc. The problem is not exactly in the first half, “ Christians – Good”. The problem is in the second half, “Non-Christian – Bad”. And I don’t think that statement was ever said, it was probably not even really intended, but it was communicated to me and it stuck.

I thought that everything good and perfect thing was found in the Bible. Great. But I also believed somewhere down deep, without even thinking about it, that nothing good existed outside of the Bible. I believed that my Christian friends and the families at my church were good people. Great. But I also thought that my friends who were not Christians could never really be that good of friends… I thought that I had to maintain a certain distance so that I wasn’t somehow “corrupted”… so that there poor values did not rub off on me.

However, I have discovered that Christians are not so wonderfully adept at doing this so that the other half doesn’t notice what we are doing! The so-called (and therefore excluded) group of non-Christians does notice that we as Christians tend to not include them in the important things or we tend to include them, but with a very poorly hidden ulterior motive of making them one of US. Have we ever stopped to consider how we like it when someone interacts with us with the almost singular purpose of changing us? Or hoping to convince us to join them in whatever it is they are doing? (even if it is “good”… think those people that try to get you to Sponsor a Child).

I do not want to accuse anyone. I simply observed in myself a few things that surprised me. One was that I was a little shocked to see people that did not have a “faith” who were extremely kind, who were extremely moral, and who were dedicating their lives to helping people. I saw all sorts of Christ-like actions being performed by people who did not believe in Christ… or God, or Allah, or any of those other big god ideas. The second thing that kind of shocked me was that as I started to get to know these people, as I started to allow them into my life on a deeper level, I found them to be very good friends. They cared about me, they supported me, they even challenged me (even in my faith that they did not share!). I was amazed that these non-christians, these people that I had kind of kept myself separate from had shown themselves to be everything that I had imagined only Christians to be.

Now… I am not saying that we throw Christianity out. I just know that personally… I am going to stop worrying so much whether other people are Christians or not. I am going to focus all my energy on actualizing love (starting by being kind and trying to live with an O for the P) and being ready to accept and learn from everyone… looking for truth and beauty wherever it is found…

Have not forgotten

2007-06-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

Dan got was interested in the pig feet at the market. A couple of days later we got invited to lunch and he got a chance to eat one. He only made it through one bite (but I was still proud of him, he ate the rest of the soup).

This is my ¨grandma¨. Her name is Marina and she is AMAZING!

This is from the backside of the mountain that is right behind my town.

I am not sure how many people still check in on my through this, since I have not had the chance to write anything down here in a long time. However, I have not forgotten, I have just been quite busy.

Work things- I am now in the middle of organizing a project (everything here is called a project, but for some reason I don`t feel like anything in the states is called a ¨project¨... someone can let me know how I should refer to this) to teach people from 3 small communities how to manage bee hives in order to produce honey and other derivative products. It has gone fantastically well so far (100% participation and lots of enthusiasm). The first phase will finish in two weeks on June 30, and the second starts on July 13th right before I take a trip back to the US.

I am also busy organizing a big meeting between about 5 or 6 local organizations and some local government representatives in order to talk about a regional literacy program. I am taking the iniciative after encouragement by a few friends to try and jumpstart some dialogue and see if we can get some interinstitutional cooperation and resolve to address illiteracy.

Like always, there are a few other smaller things on my plate right now, but I don`t feel the need to mention everything. Suffice it to say that I am keeping busy.

LIFE -
Dan (my bro) came and visited last month. It was AMAZING! We made it to the three major regions of the country (mountains, coastal... mainly the beach, and the Amazon jungle). I had a blast showing him my town, my friends, my mountains and a little bit of my day-to-day (he get tired out from the hours of walking and hiking). Then we went and hung out on the beach and relaxed before adventuring out to a part of Ecaudor I had yet to explore - the jungle. We went white water rafting on the Napo (the main tributary to the Amazon), we saw some crazy animals at a reserve-zoo thing, and learned how to tell male turtles from females ones. Then, we went back into the mountains and relaxed in some natural hot springs at about 12,000ft.

Just this weekend, I hung out with a bunch of friends here (some Ecuadorian and some people from the States... PC and non-PC) at a local community fiesta. We watched the fireworks (crazy and dangerous... but we were far enough away to avoid being hit by anything) and then danced until 5am. Ecuadorians know how to get down. Then I took my hour bus ride home and walked the hour down my driveway (although I get a lift for about 30min of the journey) and arrived home by 7;30am.

Hopefully this pictures download:

2007-05-12T15:45:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago after I tossed a cockroach that was as long as my hand is wide out my door... and then went outside myself to use the bathroom (because the water doesn´t run in my house after about 7:30pm), it occurred to me as I was listening to music on my computer and sipping gourmet tea (that someone gave to me) that my life is full of huge contrasts. A mouse had just about run over my foot earlier that day while I was cooking, but I barely flinched because he/she is a common appearance these days. I live next to people without bathrooms and who get super excited when they have chicken to eat with their rice and beans and yet I can afford to go (and have gone) to some of the nicest restaurants in Ecuador - (don´t worry, their entrees go for about the same as in a decent steakhouse in the States).

I don´t know if the contrasts seems as obvious to you as they are in my eyes, I hope that you can start to imagine. However, it is also interesting to not just make comparisons between Me and Them, but also between my expectations and how things really are. These same kids that don´t have a bathroom, have cell phones. They rarely have money to talk on the phone but they play the games for hours on end and call free numbers to listen to music.

I apologize for these ramblings. I´m afraid that I didn´t have an overall direction in mind when I started, so I guess I will just leave you with my thoughts.

(My attempt to make the 5 minutes you spent reading this meaningful) -
A few things that I have learned from these contrasts is that I can never Become one of the people in my town. I will always have monetary advantages and my life will always be different. The relationships and the feeling of belonging that they feel in the community will always be something elusive to me as well... something that I can be a part of, but I can never possess in the same way. ... And that is ok. Are differences are beautiful... poverty is not good, it is not fun or desirable... but people who live in poverty are not all sad and depressed and worthy of pity. They also possess things that we never will have access to.

I have often felt the ¨poor one¨ since I have arrived in Santa Ana. I have no family here. I live alone (which is absolutely unheard of). People will give me food and invite me into their homes... while I have nothing to share with them.

Interesting how the tables turn in ways that would never be expected.

Dan (my big bro) arrives in 5 days. I can´t wait to share this world with him!

A month later...

2007-04-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

My Beekeeping project was just approved a few days ago! I will get about $6,000 in order to help between 25-35 people get started producing honey and other bee-made products. It is exciting, becuase this is an opportunity to help people see a real, concrete change. They will have a new skill, make some more money, have an improved diet, be organized into grassroots organizations (which I will hopefully be able to then encourage to fight for some other community improvements). -- That is my hope anyway for this project. Time will tell.

I am also really excited and encouraged by the teenagers that I am working with. In only a few months we have been able to do a lot and we have quite a few opportunities that are right on the horizon. My kids are now teaching about 10 women to read and write and they have formed a larger dance team (before it was about 6 girls... now it is those 6, plus 6 guys and 6 other guys that play the music to which they dance (Total 18 ... plus their 18 year-old coordinator and me). The 8 in my ¨leadership group¨ had the chance to give a presentation to a woman that is the equivalent of a Secretary of the national goverment (think - Secretary of State)and the dance group presented before the Ecuadorian President (Rafeal Correa).

Now I have the chance to teach them how to use the internet (we have been offered the use of 6 computers with internet access), but the problem is that we don`t have the ability to GET there. Bus transportation is very limited and it is expensive if you don`t take a bus. Therefore, I am about $30 a week short of offering my kids the opportunity to access all of the information in the entire world... I don`t think that any of my kids have ever accessed the internet before. Can you imagine that? How many of you are reading this from your house? Did you just get finished accessing the newspaper online or doing a websearch about some question that was bugging you... are you going to communicate with people all over the country by email when you get done reading this...?

Well... enough about work stuff.

Julia Johncock (a great friend from college) came down and visited me during Easter week. The contest for the first visitor has been won... it was super fun booking around the country with her. We stayed at tropical paradise beach and walked down the way a little to another beach with crazy fine, black sparkling sand! Then we came back and visited my town, just in time to dance until the morning (actually, we left at 4am, but the rest of town definitly dance until the sun came up). I guess that was their version of a Sunrise Service... it was Easter Sunday morning.

Ides of March

2007-03-10T06:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Mom!! (Don`t worry everyone else, I am going to tell her more personally with an email and phone call, but just in case those other things don`t work out... I want to put it here too.)

With march comes spring... at least that is what happens in the part of the world that tilts closer to the sun. Here, nothing. Still summer. But march seem to have brought work and I find myself more comfortable (in terms of feeling ¨at home¨) and satisfied with where I am. A good feeling.

Not everything in Ecuador is strange and ¨foreign¨ or ¨third world¨. I am going to start playing in a bball 3 on 3 tournment here in Ibarra this weekend. I think that it lasts for a month, so I am going to make an effort to get into the city each weekend this month. It is nice... it corresponds with March Madness (college basketball) that I actually forgot about until I read an email invitation that my bro sent me to an online bracket picker thingie about 15 minutes ago.

Yesterday was the Internation Day of Women, so Feliz Dia and you are appreciated and loved to all of the many important women in my life! Tomorrow, we are celebrating the Dia de la Mujer Negra in my town... it is a big deal- I saw them killing a pig for tomorrow`s lunch as I was leaving town this morning (haha, I wish I could see your reaction as you read that line!). But really, we are going to have a dance and a program, etc. Fun.

Then, next week I am working hard. I have 3 meetings with three entire communities (Mon, Wed., and Thur) where I am going to be presenting my Beekeeping Project and trying to get people interested and involved. (Uncle Bob, once again you are invited to come down :). Plus, I will be doing my normal work of teaching classes and chilling with youth. On saturday, I get to go to do a session on mental health and stress for the ¨new class¨ of volunteers. That should be fun, meeting and chatting with them. We are no longer the ¨freshies¨.

Well, as the flowers bloom and the grass turns green... enjoy the Creator`s creativeness!

Pictures

2007-02-22T07:21:00.000-08:00

There are not pictures here anymore... it has stopped letting me post them or I don´t know how to make it work. Anyway, I put up pictures on snapfish.com... if you didnt get an email about them... let me know and I will ¨invite you.¨

Also, there are pictures on Facebook. If you do that or want to see my pictures more easily and regularly than do a facebook page. Good luck.

Wet and Wild... with a sore butt

2007-02-19T18:21:00.000-08:00

You learn something new everyday, that´s what they say at least. On Saturday, I learned that although riding a horse bareback through the Andes sounds like an adventure, it really is just a way to bruise your tailbone while distracting yourself from the amazing beauty that is around you. If it doesn´t have a saddle, walk.

In other news, this weekend (really until Tuesday-tomorrow) is carnaval. It is the most fun holiday that I have yet experienced anywhere!! The basic idea is that during the day everyone (there are no exceptions) gets extremely wet. This happens by groups of people, sometimes kids and sometimes adults, banding together to chase people down or carry them out of their houses to dump water on them. If you are wearing dry clothes, you are fair game. So fun. Kids that leave near the highway just stand about by the road throwing buckets of water at open windows or people in the back of pickups (like me). Or if you happen to have water balloons (like me) then you pick off rowdy young people when the least expect it from your mobile base (again - the back of a pickup truck). Anyway, it is definitly a holiday that the US needs to catch on to!

Question for consideration today: How can I show someone that they are valuable? Would it take any effort or just a little intentionality to insure that someone (important to you... or just a casual acquaintance) feel appreciated? hmmm.

From Riobamba

2007-02-11T17:43:00.000-08:00

I am writing from a city about 8 hours from home. I just finished a bee keeping conference, which was Super interesting and will be headed back home on a bus that leaves here at 10pm (I should get into Ibarra (the big city a little more than an hour from where I live) at about 5 am tomorrow and then I have some meetings to go to in the morning, before heading back to my little town).

During the day, I could see the tallest peak in Ecuador, which at 6,300m puts it a little over 20,000ft. It also happens to be the farthest point in the world from the center of the earth and-or the closest point on the eart to the sun. (Interesting, huh? Anyone want to climb it with me?)

Thought I would put some more pictures here from your enjoyment since I finally brought some with me to the computer. Sorry, they are not of my current adventures (bulls or bees) because I haven´t been good about taking pictures lately.

The Bulls and Bees

2007-02-05T04:41:00.000-08:00

Fun story:
I went to the Fiestas at the bigger town that is about an hour a way (Mira - where I lived for about a month). The main attraction on this Saturday night, (the fiestas are all week, but the main events happen on Friday and Saturday) was something called El Novillo de Bomba. Apparently it is something that only happens in this one town and in a certain part of Spain (although the same thing without fire and in the daytime happens throughout Ecuador).

**I can see you stop and think, ¨Without fire... and in the day¨... that means that this incorporates fire and is the night? hmmm.

Yes. What happens is that around 5-6,000 people go to the local soccer field/ Bull fighting ring at about 9:00pm. They find a huge bull and rap oil-soaked rags around his horns and light them on fire. Then they light a huge bonfire somewhere on the field (I think mainly because it looks cool) and a couple hundred people enter into the ring to try and taunt the bull into chasing them.

It isn´t that dangerous if you are not drunk and maintain a small amount of inteligence. So that means that for many of the participants, it is very dangerous. I will say, it is a big adrenaline rush to come within a few inches of grabbing the bulls tail... at least... that is what they tell me. ;)

My schedule for this week:

I happen to still be in the big city on Monday morning, which very rarely happens, because of the Superbowl last night. (Was sad that my adopted city of Chicago came up short). Normally, I will just come in to Ibarra quickly on Saturday morning and go back home the same day - 3 to 4 hour round trip.

Monday:
- Visit an NGO (World Vision) and a micro-financing non-profit organization here in Ibarra to see if they can help out me of I can help them in a variety of projects.
- Take an hour bus to a bridge and then walk an hour into my town.
- Walk around town and try to arrange a meeting for later in the evening with a group of women for a foundation I work with.
- Do a little bit of cleaning and cooking (pretty much everything I cook is from scratch, becuase it is way cheaper... it also takes a while to make).
- Plan classes for the rest of the week. This week I only have three high school classes and a adult ed. class (teaching them to read).
- Work on writing out a few projects I have in mind. Need to finish the applications for funding.
- Do the meeting with the women.
- Hang out at the soccer field (really a basketball court), visit a couple of families, hang out with my neighbors and maybe play chess with my 16 year old buddy.

Tuesday
- Hop the only bus the leaves my town (5:45am). Then switch buses after a 30 ride. Another 30 min and I arrive in Mira.
- Meet with my counterpart and work on grant applications (cool guy that requested a volunteer from the Peace Corps and who helps me out sometimes).
- Attend a meeting on a re-forestation project that I want to help out with. It is a ¨planning meeting¨ with the technical team. They invited me, but I don´t know what they have in mind.
- Hop on bus leaving Mira. Switch buses (which means that I wait on the side of the road for 15m to 30m waiting for a bus or a pickup truck to pass and give me a ride). Bridge. Hour walk - don´t worry, it is beautiful following a river and then through the mountains. I will get there right about at sunset too.
- Play chess and make dinner with Daniel (teenage friend).

Wednesday
- Walk 20m down the valley to the next town and teach 3 classes on ¨Good relationships¨ to High School kids. It is the opening class for a series that will involve safe sex, abstinence, and HIV-AIDS info.
- Go back home and beg lunch from my neighbor - Rice and beans with fresh fruit juice and maybe some chicken or vegetables.
- Walk the hour to another community and teach some kids in 6th grade their alphabet. We play lots of games too.
- Meet with a group of women in the community who are doing the ¨community bank¨ program that I helped them start 3 months ago.
- Walk the hour back home... chess or dinner with my neighbors.

Thursday

- Relax, read, and clean in the morning.
- Work on the grant proposals.
- Walk around the community and talk with a couple of people about various ¨work things¨, as well as just chatting.
- Adult class in the evening.
- Hang out with my neighbors and best friends.

Friday
- Leave with two community members to go to a Bee Keeping conference. The trip is an hour walk and three bus rides that total about 9 hours. We will come back on Sunday evening.
**Going to try and help 10 to 20 people from my community get started bee keeping. Honey is really expensive here and it would be a great money making option for some of these families. We´ll see how it goes.

After a months absence

2007-01-21T09:20:00.000-08:00

I have recieved a few emails about my lack of communication, so I have carved out some time to write a little bit. The lack of time that I have had over the past month has been a blessing, meaning that I am keeping busy and loving my current daily routine.

First, a couple of requests for anyone interested:

1) The lack of books here is astounding (and this time I mean books in Spanish that Ecuadorians have access to). If anyone would like to donate books in Spanish or money so that I could buy books, I would love to get a collection of books for the kids and youth. There is a cool book program that I could do, except for the lack of things to actually read.

2) If anyone comes across interesting international small grant offers, please let me know about them. I am entering the stage of my work where I need funds. I have lots of ideas (and know cool Ecuadorians who have even better ideas) but we don't have resources.
- If anyone is interested in making personal donations, I could give you options so that you could choose how your money is used and give you updates on exactly how the money is being spent (a project regarding micro-finance and lending, paint so that seventh grade kids can paint a mural, materials so people can start basic beekeeping and increase their income, funding for an amazingly motivated woman do health and nutrition trainings, notebooks and pencils for my adult students who are learning to read and write, among other things).

Sorry, that was mainly motivated by a variety of people lately who have offered me support in money or donations and I have not had time to think about it until recently.

Back to the Update
My life has settled into a "normal" with short interruptions of excitment. I am by far the most comfortable, content, and excited since I have arrived in Ecuador. I have a few close relationships in my community and a few good friends in Peace Corps volunteers. I have work that I enjoy and other work that is intimidating (but challenges are good). I mainly pass my days working in my community and walking to a couple of others that are close by to do some work and visit. However, I also leave once in a while to do things like - Hike a 15,000ft mountain (last Saturday) or attend a three day conference in the jungle (starting tomorrow).

This mix of mundane and predictable, along with flexible and different is perfect for me.

I was able to attend a church for the first time in the past seven months just this morning (I just left a few minutes ago). It was very nice to be able to sing a few songs and hear a messagewhich made me think. I do miss the community of believers that are often such an encouragement and support, but I still think of this experience as an "opportunity" for me.

I have the chance to interact with people from such very different perspectives (and many of these people are other volunteers from the states), who challenge me and my faith on my levels. I have the chance to see and be reminded of Creation through incredible mountains, lush jungles, the immense ocean, innumerable stars, delicate and vibrant flowers, and the daily masterpiece of painting that we call a sunset. I have almost unlimited time to pray and ponder and question and think.

My first conclusions are such:
1/ I know and am certain of almost nothing, so I need to remain open and listen.
2/ The creator is BIG... and we should think about how that affects us more.
3/ Love. Be amazed. Question.

Enough for now. I might actually be able to write more later today and more importantly put some pictures.

A(n amazing) Belated Birthday

2006-12-16T08:18:00.000-08:00

Something that I have been pondering since I arrived here in Ecuador is how to qualify ¨Quality of Life¨. Many times I read or hear that someone´s ¨quality of life¨ has been improved or that the ¨quality of life¨ of people in an entire country is better compared to a certain amount of years ago. Mainly these things are related to a higher income, more educational opportunities, or better access to healthcare.

As many of you are aware, I am a big critic of using one´s income to rate the quality of one´s life, while on the other hand, I am a huge proponent for more (and more equal) education and health services. Yet, I have observed here there is something to be said for simply having more money (these people make $7 a day on average... for their entire family). And education and healthcare are not the end-all goals of life, as I have met many super content illiterate people who live almost a lifetime away from a real medical facility.

The one barometer that I have found to be extremely constant related to people´s quality of life is the quality of their relationships with their family and their friends. In the end, we decide whether our life is ¨good¨ by (many times unconciously)evaluating the people who love us and who we love. Are we surrounded by people who love and support us? Who laugh with us and make us laugh? Do we have mothers, fathers (or their surrogates) who were always in front, behind, or beside us regardless of what happened? Do we have friends that we can count on to jump in front of that train when it bears down on us... will we do the same for them?

These, I believe, are the correct questions to ask ourselves when we rank the quality of our own lives (or think of others´). These are the thing in which we should think when we are unsatisfied with where we are at or what we are doing... when we say ¨there should be something MORE than this!?¨

Anyway... I was reminded of how much QUALITY my life possesses as my family and friends flooded me with letters and pictures and even a few packages for my birthday this year! Wow. Thanks.

Anyway, as I continue in my search for the Divine, the Creator, the Purpose of Life and the Original Love... I am determined to remember that end is not the goal in this life, but rather the journey itself is what is to be enjoyed. AND, although beautiful places and crazy experiences are great, the most valuable and joy-giving aspect of this journey are the companions with whom one shares those moments and places and belly-laughs and tears.

To my companions: I am forever grateful that our paths have crossed and our journeys are intertwined.

A long week

2006-12-12T15:36:00.000-08:00

I am ALMOST back home after more than a week of traveling-working. The domestic violence conference went fairly well, although I don`t know if it lived up to expectations.

I presented a talk on masculinity and violence for about 45 minutes (which I was not super comfortable with) and then participated in a round table talking about the circle of violence and answering questions (I thought that I did much better in that one... I had more experience on the topics and it was a more comfortable position for me).

Then, I co-facilitated two afternoons of workshops with high schools boys about how to discover what it means to be a man. Not having sex, beating people up, drinking and mistreating women... but a real man. It was interesting... sometimes fun and sometimes frustrating.

A few of the difficulties facing women here:
- One of the few men that the organization found to present during the conference showed his ignorance by saying, ¨women are practically equal to men.¨
- The group of 15 teenagers unanymously agreed that if a girl invites a guy into her room (especially if they are dating) then she is obligated to have sex with him. Sort of like an unwritten contract.
- The nun in charge of the Catholic school where most of the kids who participated in the conference attend, repeatedly made comments that undermined women´s rights in favor of antiquated and misinformed interpretations of the biblical roles of women (which are a huge part of the cause of interfamiliar violence here in Ecuador).

I also hung out with about 4 or 5 of my best Peace Corps friends who also came to the conference to watch-learn, but not present (one other volunteer presented). We had delicious Italian food and then went salsa dancing on my birthday.

The last few days have been interesting as I have tried to make it home. On Sunday night, I took a 10 hour bus ride into Quito, the capital, to find out that I couldn´t make it the rest of the way home (another 5 hours) because of a Paro. Paro´s are when communities or unions block the highway with fires and other roadblocks in order to force the authorities to talk and deal with them. Since there are so few alternate routes available in Ecuador due to the mountains, it is relatively easy for a small group of people to completely isolate a large area of the country. (A paro in a different part of the country elongated one section of my trip down to the conference from an 8 hour bus ride to a 12 hour one).

I was stuck in Quito for the day... then delayed an extra 2 hours this morning as I traveled to Ibarra (still 1.5 from my town). Then, after I did some shopping (I don`t have any food waiting for me in my house), I went to catch the last bus to my town. However, when I got to the bus station, I was informed that the bus simply wasn´t going today. No excuses or explanation. Just not going. Normally, I would catch another bus that goes close to my town and then walk another hour, but today I had too much food to carry and I wouldn´t have made it. So, I am here in Ibarra until tomorrow.

Anyway... lots of traveling, lots of mala suerte (bad luck), but also a lot of fun and I should be able to make it home tomorrow.

Cell phones, illiteracy, and battering

2006-12-02T06:31:00.000-08:00

First... I have a cell phone that the Peace Corps gave me for my ¨Safety and Security¨ but it also happens to be able to receive calls from the U.S. Who would have thought that I would have a cell phone here... not me.

Here is how you can call... 011-593-9-192-7680.

I am excited about my Christmas plans. I am going to visit a friend of mine that lives on an island off of the coast in the Pacific. It is only a short boat ride to it, but apparently there are 0 cars and the beach is amazing. It will definitly be a very different Christmas than the one that I am used to... but I am still going to get some chocolate covered peanuts to share with my friend on Christmas eve (like we do at my house). My strategy on holidays or other big days (like the Michigan-Ohio State game) is to get so excited about what I am doing that is hard for the feelings of sadness to break through... it is not a perfect strategy, but it´s what I´m working on.

What to tell all of you?

I am now starting to teach about 7 kids to read. The school system here is so inconsistent (and overall... poor) that it continually shocks me. I walk for an hour to a community called Cabuyal on Thursday morning to work in a school of 25 kids (1st through 7th grade). About half of the kids (7 of 15) in 4th,5th,6th, and 7th grade don´t even know their alphabet. So sad.

On the other hand, Daniel, a 16 year-old that comes over to my house almost every evening, now has beaten me in chess 2 nights in a row. I taught him how to play about a month and a half ago and now he is beating me. (Don´t worry, I am about to put all of my mental prowess to bear on this problem... but if anyone wants to find a book on chess strategy that is in Spanish and send it to me... I would love to give it to Daniel - after I read it myself!).

Hope to put up some more pictures the next time that I use a computer! Maybe later this week. I am going to be in a big city this next week helping to give a three day seminar on Domestic Violence. It is a big challenge for me, but I am excited. The sad thing is that this organization is 14 hours away from me and really can´t find many Ecuadorian men to support it. There is just very little cultural understanding that it is bad to mistreat women.

Past and Plans

2006-11-12T07:09:00.000-08:00

I went on a trip for about a week and visited a city in the southern half of Ecuador last week called Cuenca. It is beautiful. Had fun at a Halloween party with about 60 other PC volunteers. Went hiking at Cajas National Park - Beautiful. It was great to spend some time with friends and relax.

Finished up the week by going rafting in the Oriente (which is the beginning of the Amazon Jungle). Participated in an amatuer white-water rafting contest for $5... got to experience one of the best rafting rivers in the world. Apparently the rafting world championships were held there last year.

Now, I am enjoying a couple of (beginning to feel) normal weeks here at home. Next Saturday, I am going to go to the capital to watch U of M play footbal and meet up with my best friend here in Ecuador. Then, she is going to come back with me to visit my site for a few days.

That is pretty much the plan. My normal schedule is now to teach at elementary schools on Tuesday and Thursday, a high school on Wednesday. I work on projects with women´s groups on Wednesday and Sunday evening and with a group of 16-20 year olds on Friday night. Saturday and Monday are my free days and I spend them in the city or out exploring the mountains.

The rest of the time I spend with some friends in my town playing cards, hanging out with my neighbor Carlos, or reading... a lot.

That is the best summary I can do.

Hmmm...

2006-10-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

I am grateful to my Grandmother for keeping me accountable to this blog. I have started to write a few different times and have stopped short, but when Grandma asks to know what is going on... then it is time to start writing. I have had a difficult time writing, not because I lack fun stories or interesting developments, but rather because the most heavy things on my mind lately are darker. I really don´t think that they majority of people want to hear about them. But... this is my reality too. I am constantly pondering my place, my role, and how I am perceived by people here. I am the ¨Gringo¨: an outsider who is assumed to be rich and is a mysterious curiousity.

I´m reading a book called ¨Las Venas Abiertas de Latinoamerica¨, which is really interesting if quite political. There was a quote that caught me and reminded me of the reason why I chose to come here. The quote went something like this: ¨If you are doing nothing to change our current unjust system, then you are perpetuating the system.¨

I think that it is often difficult to see or understand ëxactly what is this so-called ¨system¨ and how it is so unjust as we look around our surroundings in the States. Yet, it seems that here the signs are a bit more clear. Thigngs are very far from the way that they should be. My neighbors make $150 a month or $5 a day. Which is probably extremely wealthy if I would go down to Bolivia or cross the ocean to some parts of Africa.

I spend the vast majority of my time convincing people that everything in the U.S. is so much more expensive than it is here... which technically is true. I also validate all of the cars that we have, because we don´t have adequate public transportation... also techinically true. I just fail to mention that very few in the States could ever imagine living in the conditions that these people take for granted.
A medical clinic that is open and has a doctor... sometimes (there is not any kind of fixed schedule). Schools that have teachers... most of the time (when they decide to come). Water that flows... half the time (and still you have to boil before you drink it). A telephone that works... but only ONE and it is by the church (although I think that two or three other families have a telephone directly to their house!). Kids have shoes... but that are only to be used for school or special events so that they don´t wear out too soon (old women don´t often wear shoes).

Interestingly, I don´t think that the problem is as easy as that these people are too poor. I think that it is equally problematic that other people are too rich. How did such a difference become acceptable to us?

My purpose with this writing isn´t to convict anyone or make us all feel guilty. My purpose is two-fold: As always, I write in the hopes that the people who love me and whom I love can get a glimpse into my mind and my life. This discrepency between what I have always had and could return to within days (I have a free plane ticket home if I choose to quit)and the reality of these people´s lives which have never known a luxury and without some amazing change, never will.

I must and I do constantly think and analyze and pray about what these things mean for my life, my job, my faith. How must I now live in order to live a life that makes sense? How must I change?

Oh... and the second reason that I write this particular ¨entry¨. It is to make you think. I always tell my students: I don´t care about the ¨right¨ answer, I want you to think!! I want you to consider if this crazy difference between the ¨top¨ and the ¨bottom¨ has anything to do with your life. And if so, what changes need to be made.

Hmmmmm...

(It would be interesting to get some comments on this one... then maybe you could help me process as well).

Miradita

2006-10-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Don´t have a lot more to say (that is a lie... I always have more to say), but I thought that I would just post a couple more pictures. One picture is just of my town... I don´t think I put it on the other post. There are no roads that are paved and really only one ¨road¨ which is suitable for a car. The other two entrances are pretty much only good for walking or a dirt-bike. Which is ok, because as far as I know there are only 1 or 2 trucks in my town and maybe 3 dirt- bikes.

Another picture is of my best friend in town and neighbor with his 3 year old son. His name is Carlos, but I call him Chuck Norris because he calls me Steven Seagal (Who is EXTREMELY popular here... as are all martial arts movie stars). He is a 7th grade teacher at the school and as far as I know their family (his wife is also a teacher at the school) are the only mestizos in town. (A mestizo is not black or white... what we normally think of as Latino or the stereotypical Mexican).

The two little boys are kids that live close by and come by to visit me, Ghandi (the son of my neighbor in the picture) or Carlos. Kevin is the smaller boy and I don´t think that I have ever seen him wear pants or shoes. I don´t know if he just prefers it that way or doesn´t have any.

The picture of the two girls was at a party in another community. Dancing here is crazy popular and there are dance presentations at every get together... they are awesome!

Cachos (Funny Stories)

2006-10-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

Well, this past week has been a week of "firsts". I have enjoyed them and I think that you may enjoy hearing about some of them.

I taught my first classes in the High School. I am going to spend 2 periods a week with 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. They were fun... we played lots of games and did lots of activities talking about Communication (how we communicate and how we can do it better).

Locked myself out of my house for the first time (I'm sure not the last) - Will tell story below.

Worked in the fields for the first time with some of the people... helped to irrigate. Hard work. Everything is done by hand. Amazing.

Drank warm milk straight from the cow for the first time. Good stuff.

Tryed to kill a chicken for the first time. I failed... that is why I write "Tryed"... but I am sure that I will get a second chance. Who knew that cutting a chickens head off required so much force? Anyway, I was just an accomplice in this particular animal euthinasia. I held the feet. Tasted good.

Locked out of house:
It was saturday night and I went to check out a "baile" (dance) that was going down in the park in my town... I knew that this baile was happening because the music was BUMPING (I found out later that the music could be heard two towns away). Actually when I arrived, I found out that it was the two biggest speakers in all of the town hooked up and playing music (they are this one guys business, since baile's are so popular)... but no one was actually dancing. Which is actually fairly strange, because everyone LOVES to dance. Instead, there were only males (no females to be found, hence no dancing) and they were sitting around the basketball court (which is really what the "park" that I mentioned earlier consists of). They were chatting and drinking, not at all uncommon.

I hung out for a while and then went back home about 11:30 to go to bed. When I got back, I realized that I had closed the masterlock on one door and shut the other door... which locks autmatically (because there is no handle on the outside). Yet, I had forgotten to bring a key. Whoops. I decided I would try a few windows to see if I could get in through there. I wasn't realy worried whether I could open them from the outside, because they all basically fall out with any kind of effort. The real problem was that they are very, very small.

I quickly took out one piece of glass and standing on a bucket I stuck my hands and arms through the window and started to squeeze my shoulders through. I got to my armpits and then realized that I didn't think that my waist with my belt was going to fit through. At this point, I am halfway wedged into a tiny window place about 6 feet off the ground with my legs sticking out in the air in the middle of the night. I started to panic... I wasn't sure that I could get out or make it in. Finally, with visions of teh whole town coming down to see the silly gringo stuck in his own window... I unstuck myself and escaped back outside. Wheww. How long would that story of lasted? (Correct answer: until the coming of Christ or the end of the world.)

I was still in the same dilemma of being outside of my house instead of inside where all of my keys were. But I was re-energized... I decided to investigate more windows. I decided that the kitchen window was a little larger and I could probably make it. I did. After much wiggling and arm crawling, I pulled myself in through the window, across the stove, and to success! VICTORY. Silent chants with armpumps at midnight in a dark kitchen.

I hoped you enjoyed my dramatization of the events of last Saturday night.

My new home

2006-09-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

I have been in my new place for about a week and a half now, and every day I feel more and more comfortable. Each day, more people say, ¨Buenas dias, Esteven¨... instead of greeting me with the unspoken question of ¨What are you doing here?¨

Although, that question, voiced or not, is quite valid in a community of about 50 Afro-Ecuatorian families living way off ¨the trail.¨ At the same time, everyone is super friendly and the majority are at least somewhat accustomed to a foreigner in their midst, as they have had 2 previous Peace Corps volunteers (one left about 4 years ago).

Here is a view of my little house from the front. I hang a hammock around the corner and mainly plan to use it during the night to look at the millions of stars that are visible here. During the day, I get a constant stream of kids that come asking to play in the hammock :)

Beautiful, huh? You all know how much I like sunsets, but this is actually a sunrise! I have to get up before six to catch the bus if I am going to go anywhere... and every Monday morning I get up at 5:00 to catch it at 5:20am. (This was a Monday morning). But don´t be decieved, today I got up at 9:30 because I didn´t have anything specific to do.

Now we go into the house. I really love it... it is nice and cozy and just the right size for me. Four small rooms: Bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom... it actually feels HUGE! This is my living room, which has a sofa, a chair, and a checker board all left behind by the family who moved to Quito!! I play (and beat) everyone at checkers who visits me. Normally I am the kernals of corn and they are the black beans.

My bedroom... it´s nice.

Well, I guess that I can´t put any more pictures up, so I will just make a couple more comments.

Bathroom... not as nice, but it works. The water in my town only runs about 1/3 of the day, so I use a big bucket to hold water in the bathroom and in the kitchen. It is not that big of an inconveniance. It is much more of a hastle that I don´t have a frig (but I´m going to share my neighbors´... they´re awesome!).

Starting to get my schedule straightened out, so things are starting to calm down and make some sense.

Love the emails and the notes. Oh, my address here is still the same.

Steve Gisel
Peace Corps
Casilla 10-03-10
Ibarra, Imbabura, Ecuador

Pensamientos after 1/4 Año

2006-09-20T06:22:00.000-07:00

Yes... I do read the very few comments that I get and I really enjoy them because they let me know that people use this to know what´s going on here.

I am officially settled into the little town where I am going to live. I am super excited! I have almost an entire house to myself because the owners live in another city and will just visit now and again (my rent is $15 a month). Plus, my neighbors are a couple with a 4 year-old that teach at the school. They are SUPER nice. I went bird hunting with Carlos (the husband) yesterday) and I got one with the slingshot (he and his cousin got like 10 more). I think that we are going to have them for dinner tonight.

Some thoughts:

I live in a town where all of the houses are made of concrete and a lot of people walk around on the dirt streets without shoes (becuase they don´t have any)... and that is becoming normal.

I drove by Mascarilla, a small Afro-Ecuatorian town, the other day and I realized that it doesn´t really look that poor to me anymore.

I wonder if I am starting to look with new eyes at these things, or if I am just getting used to poverty.

I constantly answer the question: How much does someone make in the U.S.? (Or alternatively the statement: People in the U.S. make a mountain of money.) I have found that I am constantly trying to convince people that life in the States is not better than here. I use cost of life comparisons that make life there approx. 10x more expensive than here. This makes the $150-$200 they make every month relatively equal to a $20,000 salary in the states... it changes their $5 a day to our $7 an hour.

I wonder if I really believe that the quality of their life here is just as good, or if I am just embarrassed by all of the luxuries that we consider necessities. Probably a bit of both.

I think that I am going to get really good at cooking rice, beans, potatoes, and yuca. We´ll see. Oh yeah... soup is not a seperate meal, it is just the first half of EVERY meal and it is NOT a meal if there is no rice.

Send me emails... my letters are trickling off.

Un Miercoles

2006-09-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

Thought you might enjoy a glimpse into one particular day, not especially different from any other day... but every day is different from the next.

Hit the ^snooze^ on my cell alarm twice, reset the alarm for a half hour later, and then hit the snooze again. Woke up to an urgent bodily call for the toilet. Busy. Went outside, crossed the street, jumped a dirt wall into an empty field... diarrhea.

No gasoline in town (interesting in a country that exports a HUGE amount of oil - injust international distribution?). Called a truck to take us ^adentro^ (^inside^... into the rural area). Introduced myself to the principal of the High School. Diarrhea.

Discussion on development, community ownership, and how long before frozen chicken goes bad, while eating a lunch of rice, beans, and chicken. Met my soon-to-be neighbors (maybe)... seem really nice. Excited! Did my first real charla... taller (oh yeah, English)... workshop with a group of 10 young, Afro-Ecuadorian women. Topic - Racism. Played the ¨Knot¨ game. They couldn´t get unraveled, but had fun.

Contemplated the mountains and thought about family, friends, God... a girlfriend (?). Wandered around the church and found a valley framed by mountains, mountains framed by a sky glowing red like the embers of a dying fire. Wow. Contemplated God some more. Diarrhea.

Listened (from the other room) to my 24 year-old friend practice the pronunciation of the song that I had just taught him: ¨I´m too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it... heerrt... heartt... huurtss!¨. Read a book that reminded me that everything in this world is ¨written by One Hand.¨ Diarrhea. Prayed. Slept.

Don´t go chasing waterfalls... (just kiddin´)

2006-08-16T15:46:00.000-07:00

The last week or so of ¨training¨ has been so laid-back that it is probably more accurate to just call it tourism. I have done 4 hikes and 1 mountain climb on horse back in the past 6 days.

I don´t mean to make everyone jealous... but you all should be. Here are some pictures.

These pictures cover three seperate trips. The first was a hike around a lake that is in the crater of a volcano. It is actually only an hour or so from where I am going to live (Mira, Carchi).

The second was a horse-back ride that we took up towards Cayambe, the 3rd highest peak in Ecuador. We didn´t get even close to the snow, but I did ride a horse for the second time ever. I was scared out of my mind, but loving it, as my horse galloped for about an hour on the way down the mountain! (The computer isn´t working really well, so I only could put this one picture... which is of Paul. He reminds me a of a Stanford-educated Scooter.)

The third was a ¨work trip¨ that we took to the transitional zone. We stayed in a nice open air cabin in the middle of the rainforest and then we went on hikes to waterfalls where we could swim. Yup... it really was that awesome, I´m not exaggerating. (I was actually leaving out parts, like the fact that we saw a Quetzal... a ridiculously rare bird, and that we had to cross a river on a mini-wooden gandala in order to get to our cabin.)

Look Mira!

2006-08-11T16:03:00.000-07:00

Bummer... I had just written something cool for all of you and the computer crashed causing me to lose all motivation to write it again. I will do my best.

I returned at the beginning of the week to my Training community and have just another 2 weeks before I head out to ¨swear in¨, become an official volunteer, and more out to my site and my work.

I am super excited and a little intimidated about the responsibilities and expectations that rest upon me as I head to work in the northern mounatins of this amazingly beautiful country. I will be working with mainly a mainly rural afro'ecuadorian population in the ¨canton¨ (or county) or Mira. In Ecuador, just like in the States and the rest of the world, people of African descent are the most oppressed and disadvantaged population. I am an exception in terms of the rest of the volunteers who will be working with youth, young adults, and their families, because I will be in a fairly rural area while my comrades work in urban areas(towns that range from 20,000 - to cities of 3 million... although those in the largest cities concentrate their activities in just one or two barrios). I will be based out of a town (also called Mira) which has a population of about 5-10,000 people, but will live in a community of 300-500, and then work in a few surrounding pueblitos that have similar populations.

Who knows how much of this work I will actually accomplish and what things I will do that I would never expect... but this is my general plan at this point:

The organization with which I am going to work is called The Youth Network. It is awesome becuase it was started three years ago by about 10 high school friends who decided that they wanted to change things, so they organized themselves and started to try and motivate other youth and young adults to do the same. They also got in contact with groups (soccer teams to knitting groups) that were already organized and encouraged them to work alongside them. Right now they get a little funding from the municipal government, have a little ¨office¨ where youth can come and hang out and where they can plan stuff, and about 15-20 groups affliated (these groups range in size from 5 people to 25).

I plan to work with some of the ¨youth groups¨ of rural communities where they haven´t had as much contact or interaction because it is difficult to travel between Mira and the surrounding little towns (only one bus in and one bus out every day and very few cars that travel the one mountainous dirt road). The opportunities seem endless but here are a few ideas that the people there want to see happen.

Capacitate the youth:
To look towards want they want to do and set goals in order to accomplish it.
Learn how to do basic business and come up with small business ideas (micro-business).
To start community banks (which are ways that they can save money and take out small loans to try out their business ideas).
Organize ways for the groups to get together and unify them so that they are a more powerful force and can work for more community change.
Leadership training.

Also I will be working in the schools (hopefully), teaching things like:

HIV-AIDS and sex education
Problem solving and conflict resolution
Helping with self'esteem
and all sorts of other random stuff.

Hopefully, I will also get the opportunity work with parents and facilitate groups on parenting, intrafamily violence (mainly domestic violence and child abuse), community banking, and nutricion (wow... me teaching nutrition... we will have to see!).

More than anything, my ¨job¨ is going to be meeting people, making friends, helping out with whatever I can, hanging out with kids, honing my soccer skills (and volleyball and basketball, because they like those sports too), learning how to fish and where all the good spots are, and just being the white guy that is always hanging out (when he isn´t meeting with people, working in the school, or traveling around).

I definitly don´t think that I will be bored. But I do know that know and again I will get frustrated, really lonely, confused, and overwhelmed.

Pray for me. Send me emails. Send me letters in the mail (or even packages!). Or... come and visit!!

My address from now on is:

PCV Steve Gisel
Casilla 10-03-10
Ibarra, Imbabura, Ecuador

Since you read this... you should now send me an email at stevegise@gmail.com and tell me what you think or just about what you´ve been thinking about lately. Maybe you could tell me a little story or just say, ¨whatup¨. I don´t care if it is 2 sentences long.

Up to this point

2006-07-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

I leave tomorrow for a week-long visit of my new hometown. I have never been there and only have a hazy visual picture of what it may (or may not) be like.

In case you are a little bit confused about what my life has been like for the last month, let me do my best to give you a a little bit of background... including a few names and pictures.

This is a picture of me with my family the first week that I was in Ecuador. Not all of the people in that picture live in my house, but not all of the people who live in my house are in that picture either. I love my family... they are funny, interesting, intelligent, and take super good care of me... there is never a dull moment!

This is a picture of the view that I have every morning when I leave my house (the blue one on the left). Often times, I go jogging at 5:30 or 6:00 with a friend, and the sun is just rising over the mountain as I step outside. ¨Oh Lord my God, in awesome wonder, I see the...¨

Here are a couple more scenery picture of what I see when I look around the valley from my town of Tabucundo (pop. 6-7,000). The sunsets (and sunrises) are consistenly amazing... and most mornings the clouds clear and we can see Cayambe (the almost 17-18,000 ft. mountain) watching over us.

Here are a couple of pictures of friends.

This is my Ecuadorian brother Jose. He just graduated from college with a degree in Psychology. He is 25 and we have a good time hanging out and discussing language, philosophy, and culture... he´s much smarter than I am.

Sarah from D.C. standing in front of a beautiful valley where we went as a group to have leadership training. There is a waterfall on the other side of the valley... that you can´t see in this picture.

These are a couple of pictures taken from the 5 hour hike that my brother and I took with another PC friend and his little brother. We hiked up the mountain directly behind our little town to see the lakes that lie in the crater. Jose told me that we go up to around 4,000m, which is between 12,000 and 13,000 feet. Looking down into the valley on the way up was indescribably gorgeous... as you can tell from the pictures! Sorry... I know you are jealous right now. Here is a picture of the Lakes in the crater.

Hope that you enjoyed my pics. I didn´t update so much about what I have been doing... so here is the short version:

About half of the time I meet with 4 other volunteers and an Ecuadorian Spanish teacher (who is super cool). We meet from around 8:00am until 1:00pm and then have lunch together. In the afternoon we have things to do, like hang out at the local youth center with kids, investigate certain organizations or schools, plan activities, or hang out with our families to complete spanish/culture assignments. The other half of the time (Monday through Saturday... Sunday is our only day off). We travel about 45 minutes to a smaller town called Ayora, where the 25 Youth and Family volunteers meet together for ¨Technical Training.¨ This training is everything from small group facilitation to sex/HIV-AIDS education, from how to run parenting classes to how to build an organic garden, from self-esteem workshops to how to make recycled paper and shampoo. Additionally, we have taken a 5 day trip, we are leaving for an 8 day trip, and we will have two more short trips in August before we finish training the 23rd or 25th of August (not sure). All in all... it is a crazy schedule, and it is a necessary break once or twice a week for a few of us to go into the town of Cayambe (around 50,000 people) and hang out for a few hours.

Thanks for following along with me. I look forward to seeing a little more of the Ecuadorian reality this week.

A new place called Home

2006-07-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

Today, I found out where I will be living for the next two years. Super exciting!

I can only give you a few bits of information about it, because I don´t have more myself... but here it is: I will be living in a small province (state) called Carchi that is in northern Ecuador bordering Columbia. The town where I will be living is called Mira and there are about 5,000 people there. It is not really in the mountains and not really in the temperate zone; kind of in-between. The majority of the people are Afro-Ecuadorian and it is an area famous for producing the best soccer players in the country (virtually all of the players on the World Cup team were from this area).

I will be hanging out with loosely organized groups of youth and trying to figure out what I can do to participate in what they are already doing and then figure out ways that I can enhance and capacitate them to do other things. It seems as though I will have a lot of freedom and a lot of flexibility in what I am doing, but there are already a lot of young adults interested and working hard, so I am excited about joining them.
I will be going to visit Mira all next week, so I will have a little better idea of what is going on and what it is like.

I tried to put on a couple of photos... Let´s hope it worked. A few are just vista´s, a couple others are really cool friends, and one has most of my Ecuadorian family along with some Peace Corps friends. I will put more up soon (as long as it worked this time).

2006-07-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

I run a risk by writing here about experiences that I have had here in Ecuador. The risk is to glorify myself and what I am doing and/or to make the people here appear to be in desperate need of my personal assistance. This is simply not true.

On the other hand, I want to give you a glimpse of the need of the people as well the strengths and the amazing perserverance that they display.

A balancing view: The family with whom I am living during this training period has a computer and four televisions. My brother who is 25 just graduated with a bachelor´s degree of Industrial Psychology and is super involved in a local Youth Development Organization. I love chatting with him about politics and philosophy and he ¨takes me¨in just about every discussion that we have. This family is not ¨rich¨or really even middle class, it is just that they have pooled the resources of 6 working adults in order to live comfortably all together at a level that would be more or less acceptable to the common American.

I just finished visiting a city in the south of Ecuador called Machala for 3 days on a ¨Tech Trip.¨ The purpose of this trip was to get a better idea of our upcoming daily life and work. We did a few different group exercises with mothers and we did a sexual education class for a group of 7th graders. Additionally, we played soccer with kids and hung out with local teens at the office of the local volunteer. These are all typical activities that could have happened in Midland or Chicago or any other place, but instead they happened on top of an old trash dump which is now a neighborhood for thousands of people who build their wood slat houses on stilts and get their water from barrels filled by a water truck now and again.

I don´t know how to normalize that picture for you, but it really is not a very uncommon type of thing. The extraordinary thing is that the children and the families are just like every other child and family. The are smart and fun and mischevious. They have problems and I´m sure that hope is sometimes difficult, but there is also love and trust and support.

My job is not to come in and save people. My job is much harder. It is to attempt to get to know these people and allow them to get to know me. Then, if I am worthy of their friendship perhaps they will teach me about life, while I try to help them find ways to navigate a broken system in order to allow them to use the many strengths they already possess in a way to escape from a life without options, without opportunity.

Intercultural Exchange

2006-07-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Tabacundo just in time for the ¨season of Fiestas.¨ There really is no seasons here- the ¨summer¨ is colder than the ¨winter¨and the only real difference is that right now it doesn´t rain. Instead, the had to make their own seasons (not really), so they decided that they would have half of the year for continous parties and then rest the other half of the year. :)

The Fiesta de San Pedro just finished. It was awesome. 4, 5, 6 hour long parades 4 days in a row, indigenous communities dancing in traditional clothes with traditional music, schools of kids dancing and singing and playing instruments, and even Steve - all dressed up in Zomarros, poncho, y gorra - dancing, singing, and stomping his way through the streets.

Since there are a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers living close by right now (we are training until the end of August), we decided that we would throw our families a 4th of July party. We bought hamburgers, hot dogs, and watermelon, and fixed up some potato salad and then invited everyone over. We ended by roasting marshmellows over a bonfire and setting off some fireworks. I think all 40 or so of the people who came had a great time.

It is cold here. Well... not cold, but chilly. I generally wear a long sleave shirt on and in the evening and morning I always wear a jacket. Tomorrow, I leave to visit Machala, which is on the coast only a few miles from the Ocean. I guess that things are a little different there... it never gets below 80.

Oh yeah... a few more interesting tidbits.

- My sister pointed out the Southern Cross to me the other night (constellation) and I can still see the big dipper. The stars here are incredible.

- I have jogged the last couple of mornings, and the sunrises are awesome... back-dropped by a 19,000 ft snow'capped mountain. The jog is pretty hard though, since we are at 2900 m ( I think that is just under 10,000 ft).

- I am officially living at 0 Latitude. I think that I am really 5-10 kilometers north of the middle of the middle... the ¨line¨.

Training

2006-06-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

It is difficult to know where to start or what to include in something like this. I guess I will just through some random observations and information together. Maybe it is most accurate that way, because I feel as though all that I have right now are bits and pieces of information.

I am now staying in a small town a few hours north of Quito. It gets pretty cold in the evening (mid 50s) and then during the day it will get up to 75-80... but only in the sun. The sun is so strong that you can get a sun burn first thing in the morning.

My family is composed of about 13 people. The kids are cute and super curious. The adults are crazy friendly and always like to chat. My Peace Corps friends are really cool... we share lots of interests and ideology... and we have lots of fun.

My purpose here gets less and less clear, although at the same time I am more sure why I am here. I am here to learn. I am here to share in people´s lives and to love them and to be loved in return. I am sure that somewhere in all of that I will find my official project. However, I think that my project will be less important than the relationships. Those will be what impact me... and how I impact anyone here.

Interesting spanish fact... the way to say Thank You in Ecuador is to say... God pays you. I like it.

Hotel Rwanda

2006-06-17T21:29:00.001-07:00

I just finished watching Hotel Rwanda. I watched it for the first time over a year ago. I remember watching the buses of foreigners leaving the hotel to go to safety and promising myself that I would not be one of those people - I will not use my privilege to protect myself while others suffer. I don't know if I will have the courage to follow through on that promise, but I pray that God will strengthen me.

If I could trace the reason why I am leaving tomorrow morning, it would go back to a single line in that movie. This one line cut to my heart and made me sob with it's truth. A reporter after hearing of a man's confidence that the world would respond and help them after seeing people being massacred replied that the response people would have after seeing the atrocities would be this: "They will look at their televisions and say, 'Oh my God, that is terrible!' Then they will finish their dinner."

I must try my best to react. I must try my best not to turn away from suffering and console myself with excuses of how I can do nothing. Maybe all I can do is love... but I will do that as long as God grants me grace and strength to do it.

La Primera

2006-06-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

I'm enjoying all of the time with family. It is good to be able to hang out with my Mom and Dad and little sister. I am trying to do everything that I can to prepare so that I am as ready as I can be, but I am also trying to not look past this time with people I love.

Don't worry about tomorrow, each day has enough worry of its own...

Matt, a friend from Costa Rica, and I are going to try and memorize the I John in the next week or so. The first chapter is awesome. I hope that I will see, hear, and touch God... now. Not when I get to Ecuador or when I've been there for a year or when I am 45. Now. Maybe I already am!?