Day 7
6/14/13
Yesterday was a success on quite a few
levels. Andrea and Angelica left early to visit their mom in the
hospital (it was the day of her big surgery), while I stayed home to
take care of some business for the church mural. I called the church, and within
maybe two minutes, the other church worker from yesterday, the stocky
one with the big smiles, showed up in the van. Of course I wasn't
actually ready to go, so I tried to quickly gather my things and set
the alarm, but the alarm wasn't cooperating. I finally
grew anxious enough about keeping him waiting that I went to the van,
set my things down, and asked him for help. He came in and we somehow
got it to work. On the way to the church we talked about places we
traveled, and stopped by one of the little stores to get a water 'con
gas'. Later he explained that what I had assumed was carbonation was
all-natural gas infusion from a spring in Ecuador, and they actually
had to take out some of the natural gas to make it drinkable. That's
why when I tried some and expected it to have the unpleasant
bitterness of soda water, I was pleasantly surprised. It's almost
sweet in a minerally kind of way. At the church, I sat in the youth
room and began sketching out the mural in greater detail on pieces of
paper, eventually creating something I'm immensely happy with.
Upstairs, I could hear Santi rocking his pastor thing, first having a
long in-person conversation with an emotional woman who was grieving
for what she believed was becoming a loss of faith in her son. I was
glad to see that what in America would so often be written off as
teenagers being teenagers was still taken seriously-- When she began
to pray, the way she prayed for her sons was incredible, her love and
concern making her cry. I also caught the names “Josue y
Jonatan”, and seconded her prayer for God's guidance in their lives
on behalf of my own Josue and Jonatan (Santi later explained that those were the names of the church's newest troublemakers). I also, in
the midst of this, talked to Santi about what happened yesterday, and
he neither hates me nor thinks I'm an alien. He understands the
frustration of the language barrier, as he had a girlfriend (before
he met his wife) from Chicago who only spoke English, and making
himself understood was very difficult. After all the drawings were
done, we talked about supplies and timelines and decided I'd begin
drawing on the actual walls on Monday. He offered lunch at his house,
but at that time it was almost 3 and I was late for my English
lesson, so he took me to Magali's house instead.
There, when I
knocked on the door, Mateo stuck a sleepy head out the window to see who I was. He had fallen asleep after the
maid had left. Have I talked about the weirdness of Estelita's role for me? I have
no idea how to relate to 'the help' as an American. I'm trying to be friendly and hope someday to find a way to
tell her not to address me with 'usted', though I don't know if it'll
be possible to break that in a culturally acceptable way. Mateo had no
homework from school, so we had a light, easy day of practice and play. When Grandma got home, she said she'd been at the hospital
with Nataly (Natie, Andrea's mom), and that the surgery had been
successful, which I was very glad to hear. After we finished lessons,
I went upstairs to the computer and made a little English song book for Mateo that
we'll begin using next week. Soon,
Magali (Mateo's mom) got home, also having visited Nataly and also
having good things to report. I told her about Mateo's progress (we
have effectively completed my whole week's worth of planned lessons
in the last 2 days) and the new, arts, music, and
storytelling-focused plan. We then had dinner with Andrea and talked about the mural, and Magaly said that she
has access to a lot of supplies at her work. When we got home,
Andrea sat in my room with me and we talked about friends who are and
aren't Christians, the phenomenon of the crazy college students, and
both of our experiences with accidentally (or with someone else's
intention, rather) ingesting pot. Apparently the situation with marijuana is roughly
equivalent here-- a growing social acceptability for marijuana,
despite a law against it. It was a weird topic to end on, but we were
getting sleepy, so we slept. :)
Day 8
6/15/2013
The adventure continued yesterday as I
awoke and prepared to go to the orphanage. After a
breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and juice (the most American of
my dining experiences so far), Andrea dropped me at the orphanage, and I headed out to the yard where the youngest of the kids were playing.
When I saw that they were filling an above-ground pool for the kids,
I tried to chat with a woman I hadn't seen before about the poor
timing of this decision, as it was a cloudy, nippy day. She responded with a
“No hablo espaniol,” so I asked her if she was from the states,
and soon learned that she was visiting for two weeks with a friend who
came every summer-- she now pointed to a blonde woman who was chatting with another man on the other
side of the yard. I soon confirmed that this was the faithfully-annually-visiting school teacher I
had heard about my first time here, and the other man, the standing
medic of the kids. Conversations with the two of them quickly
educated me on the kids' terrible histories-- everything from being
abandoned in favor of a party life, to being left behind when parents
went to prison, to the Child-Called-It kind of horrors that
we'd all like to think don't actually happen. The girl who was now
serving as the bully of the toddler group, along with her severely retarded and very, very affectionate five year old brother, were apparently in that last bracket. The woman also explained that 3 and 4 year olds who were out of diapers now went to
day care, where they could learn to have a normal social experience
outside of the strange microcosm of the orphanage. This was one of
many positive changes that's taken place, including much better
accommodations-- all new beds and equipment, and a seperate room for
the older boys and older girls, which is important considering abuse
histories and other sociological sadness-- and most importantly,
better staffing. Last time I had come, there was one woman with the
babies, one with the toddlers, and one with the older kids (when they
got home from school) during the day, but on the night shift, there
was only one woman left to try to get 27 kids to bed and keep them
there all night. It was a bit of a disaster. Now with the older
toddlers at day care, the babies and other diaper-bound got the
attention they needed, from one or two women who are in charge, from the very
involved male nurse, and from another floating male helper who comes
in the afternoons. (I'm so glad to see that there are healthy 'father
figures', as it's important for both genders of kids to have a good
experience of men for different reasons.) There are also two workers
with the kids at night, which, though still scant for 27 kids,
changes everything. As the school-age kids came home and sat down to eat, I recognized one girl
who had been in the toddler bracket last time I was here, and though
I didn't work with the toddlers much, it was nice to see a familiar
face. She recognized me too, which was encouraging. Apparently
several of my babies are still here too, now in the toddler group who
were at day care. As with any group of kids, there are some
slow/obstinant eaters, and by the time I helped the older kids
finished their lunch, it was time to go.
My first Ecuadorian taxi experience probably couldn't have gone much better. The driver was really
friendly young guy with a big smile, maybe slightly flirtatious but
in a benign Latin way that didn't make me feel uncomfortable, and by
the time we arrived at the church we had chatted about my purpose in
Ecuador, his (lack of) travel history, etc. At the church, Santi soon
arrived with his nephew (young uncle?), and explained to us that we'd be with the
younger kids, teaching a lesson based on the verse about the
kingdom being like a little yeast that leavens a whole batch of
dough. When the kids came, I was happy to see many of those I had
met in the car the other day, all affectionate little cherubs for
my first visit-- of course I know they have other sides, but I don't
care. I love them anyway. Especially the ones with social/emotional
problems. Probably because I identify. The lesson was pretty
straightforward; though I doubted my ability to explain in Spanish, I
explained the concept well enough. When the older kids came back in for a group activity--
decorating goofy paper glasses that we'd cut out for them, they loved
it, especially when I started taking pictures. :) After that, we
crammed the entire batch of kids (probably almost 20) and two
bicycles in the van and went to leave the kids at their houses.
Though I was
wiped, I decided I'd
like to go to the cedula (small group bible study) too, so we picked up a couple more people, including his wife and
year-and-a-half-ish old baby, Sofie. When we arrived at the church
member Ricki's house, the latter was spoiled rotten by the matron of the house to a ridiculous and (in American eyes) almost
disrepectful extent. For example, when Santi was trying to take off
her sweater, she started crying, and the woman put out her arms and
practically insisted that he handed her the child, who she
baby-talked to until she stopped crying before taking off the
sweater. Later, kneeling with Sofie right next to the mother, she
told the child, “Someone put your diaper on wrong! Who? Oh, Mommy
put your diaper on wrong!” before fixing it, which I'm sure even in
this culture is not a nice thing to emphasize right in front of
someone. We played a modified Pictionary in which the word guesser
got the points (and therefore, I failed, only getting one word the
whole time, haha) before beginning the study. We were learning about
purifying our lives and other Baptist-flavored themes (I'm not
un-baptist, just un-denominational). When they started talking about
not hanging around sinful people, I had to speak up-- yes, it's absolutely a biblical
principle, but one side of the coin that must be declared a
counterfeit if not complete on both sides. Of course, I didn't state
it like a disagreement cause it's not, I just said (in pretty decent
Spanish, I think, hooray) that Christ set the perfect example for
interaction with non-believers, never closed or cold, in fact, quite
the opposite, but never compromising or joining the sinner in their
sin. He offered them something better, and he did it by coming close
to them. I was neither shunned nor praised for pointing this out; I
think everyone believes it, but they may also believe it's a
dangerous thing to teach to our vulnerable young kids. However, I
firmly believe that the Christian life is and should be dangerous in
some ways, and this is one of them. I have to ponder my relationship
to the doctrine of this church, figure out how to positively
contribute as a good guest.
On the way home, I laughed with Santi's
wife about how ridiculous this woman was; If she had been feeling
self-conscious about her parenting skills, I hope it made her feel
better, as she has absolutely no reason to. When I was dropped off, I
learned that the father had come and gone, so I may not meet him
during this trip at all, but I've met more new people than I can keep
straight over the past week, so I think I'll recover. I was also feeling nauseous and headachy last night, but am feeling much better this morning.
Today's plans involve visiting Nataly
('mom') in the hospital and going to Petato's
sister's quinceanyera (15th birthday, for you gringos).
Stay tuned, I'm sure it'll be interesting. :)
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