On the Loose

On the loose to climb a mountain

On the loose where I am free

On the loose to live my life

The way I think my life should be

For I only have a moment and the whole world left to see

I’ll be looking for tomorrow on the loose

(This is my song for Ecuador, keeps me going. Gotta love camp songs.)

As I sit here, next to my sister, sipping passion fruit juice that we just made from fresh passion fruit down, I realize that I am living the life of the rich people.

As I grew up whenever my family has having a particularly good connection or just a really good time one of my parents would always quote one of the families favorite childhood books and say, “This is the table where the rich people eat.” Not meaning literately rich, but life is rich, full of excitement, love, and happiness. It soon evolved into “this is the mountain where the rich people climb” or “this is the lake that the rich people paddle.” I now see it as a family saying that we have the fortune of being able to use quite often. And right now I realize that I am walking a path where the rich people walk. Now this doesn’t mean that every minuet here is easy. In fact I have quite a few minuets that are super hard. For example, this thanksgiving will officially be the longest time that I have not seen my sister. That is a daunting and hard thought, but I know it will be ok. I have a very supportive and caring family here that is doing everything possible to make this year amazing. And they are. The roller coaster ride will continue and I will love and take in every minuet of it. 

So everyday little life events.

Last Thursday was a huge celebration at my school for the incoming kids to the college (high school). It was very elaborate and exciting. It started with a marching of all the little kids into the middle of the basketball courts by all the 6 years, equivalent of high schools seniors. All of the 6^th years (including me and the other exchange students, Alicia and Giulia) we dressed up as characters. I got the pleasure of being a witch while Alicia was the queen of hearts from Alice in Wonderland and Giuila was an angel. We marched them around for a little bit. Then another large group of 6^th years came on carrying a person dressed up as a corpse. They did this long elaborate ceremony and brought the corpse back to life. Then the corpse proceeded to run around yelling and scaring all the little new comers. After this there we are variety of other aspects to the play-like-thing, like a church service for the corpse and lots of random dancing when the DJ felt it was right. Proceeding this 45-minute corpse show there were many groups of people who put on little skits or danced. They would get all dressed up, give the DJ there music and there was their little moment of fame to perform in front of 1000+ people. Well of course you couldn’t have a show with out embarrassing the gringas (white girls) at least once. So we were informed that we were going to sing a song in English. We spend the 2-day we had been given attempting to make three peoples, who don’t sing in front of people or really very much at all, mesh together. This turned out to be more of a challenge than expected. But we did it. We entered the stage, as the closing act, and sang Katy Perry’s song Hot N Cold for the whole school and many people from our town. It was an experience that is for sure. And if you ask me, we did a pretty good job at it. J

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed to start running again. I had stopped running because it is such a different sport here. Nobody runs here, and of the few nobodies that do run, they are all middle-aged Ecuadorian males. A tall, white, female runner… funny joke. So it wasn’t ending up being the same experience running as in the USA. I will get cat called at and honked at and just generally stared at. Its not the mental break that I am used to. But it needed to happen. When was now the question, in the afternoons I often have other stuff and am just generally lazy. Nights, well that is when I sleep. So it was looking like the morning was my best option. I have been getting up 2 hours before school starts to run. That puts my typical run at about 5am. It’s brutal but so worth I for my mental and physical health. This week I get to run at 6am because we have finals and school starts later then normal. I really like this because I get to see the city wake up. I often do this 15-minuet loop about 3 times. This really is an awesome way to watch the day starting. This morning on my first loop I watch a woman walking pushing her packed up vender stand with her school aged child. The second loop they were setting up the candy stand out side of a local school and by the third loop they were selling to the younger children who started school earlier because they didn’t have finals. It was very cool to watch the city come to life and get my exercise at the same time. J

Life is going. Life is good

Livin’ life on the loose.

It’s all a cross-country race

Those pre-race jitters are the worst you have ever had. You worry. Did I train correctly? Am I hydrated? Was my preparation good? Why am I doing this? But yet, you are more excited than you have ever been. Then that gun goes off and with roar your engines kick in. No more time to prepare… you are thrown head first into a mud, hill, and victory filled adventure. You are off and flying. That first stretch to that first red flag is exciting, exhilarating, and filled with excitement. Then you turn left… after that it’s a mystery, you are running in to a world unknown. There will surely be roots to trip you up; will it be in just a stumble or a full-face plant? You are going strong. Everything is new. The feeling that you are running and will never stop pulses through your body. You see things from a new perspective; everything in beautiful, but then it sneaks up from out of nowhere… a wall. You hit it, hard. Now you wonder if you will ever be able to break threw it, to finish the race strong. But you run on, you have no other choice, quitting is not an option. Run through injury and pain and they don’t make you drop out but more determined to make this the best race ever. You round the corner and the sight of those girls streaming in front of you and the sound of spikes behind you urge you on. You are again off and running. Feeling wonderful, the thought flits across your mind, “how does it go from wonderful to bad to wonderful in such a short amount of time?!?” Then you remind your self that it has ups and downs, but the ups so out weigh the downs that it is ALWAYS worth it. You pass a sign a road marker… mile one, it reads. The middle of the race, you settle in for the long haul. Content and happy but with a flitting feeling of worry and exhaustion, what will come next… a root, a hill, a surge of energy or just flat coasting. Into to he darkness you charge… ready for next adventure.   

Livin' life on the loose. 

Wondrous stories

Hearing hearing your wonderous stories

Hearing your wonderous stories

It is no lie I see deeply into the future

Imagine everything

You're close

And were you there

To stand so cautiously at first

And then so high

As he spoke my spirit climbed into the sky

I bid it to return

To hear your wonderous stories

It has been a while since I have updated you. So this blog post is going to be about a lot of little stories from my life in the past week.

Lets start out with now, as some of you may know I am helping this really cool American in Guaranda help teach English some afternoons. I am really enjoying it and end up doing it most days that there is class. Hannah (the other American) is headed back to the states for a few weeks so there will not be class, but she needed to give one last test. So I am covering for her and am the teacher in charge today. I am currently writing this while the 3 kids that showed up for advanced class today take the test. Its pretty fun if you ask me, I mean today is not the most climatic day because I am just chilling while they take there test, but that’s ok. Ecuadorians have a special skill… cheating… you can put them in different rooms and they can still get answers off each other (ok maybe not quite, but it seems like that). This blog post might be a tad choppy because I have to interrupt it with glanced up and possible warnings. Anyway… being a teacher has been something that I have wanted to do since about 4^th grade, and this is just solidifying my desire. Who knows where life will take me, but it would not be a surprise if it took me, as least for a while, to do ESL (English as a second language).

Last week was Ferrio, basically just holiday. The main event in Guaranda was Day of the Dead, but Cuenca (a huge near by city) had its large yearly festival and Latacunga (another city) did as well. It was a 5 day, much appreciated weekend. My family seemed to do a different thing every day. On Wednesday we headed out to a near by town and ate Cuy. Cuy is a traditional dish of Ecuador that is, to put it bluntly, skewered roasted guinea pig. It was ok, but as I am not a huge fan of meat and I thought that Cuy had a sort of fishy taste it wasn’t my favorite part. But it was a must have Ecuadorian experience. After that we headed out to a near by church that is located on top of a mountain. It was amazingly beautiful and a great walk. The day was very relaxed and wonderful. The next day we got up at 5:30 to head to a town about an hour and a half away and we went to a local water park. Although it wasn’t large compared to the dells it was a fun morning with the family bobbing up and down in a wave pool and making chains going down the waterslides. I was a little (ok a lot) terrified the whole time that I was going to have to pull out my life guarding skills and save somebody. Most Ecuadorians have very poor swimming ability and the lifeguards supplied by the water park all were wearing life vests, not a boost to my confidence. But we made it through the day with only sunburn. Whew. The rest of the weekend was spent doing different activities closer to home in Guaranda. The most memorable would be what I would call, the Jamaican go cart races in cool running equivalent of boat races. People showed up with boats in various states of disrepair and revved their engines around a small lake for about 3 hours. Then there was a race, but I didn’t know when the race started so it was very anticlimactic. I only figured out that it started when it was over… and everybody started clapping as one boat took a victory lap. Jaja.

The last Ecuadorian adventure that I have time to tell you about today is my next medical saga. As many of you know, I got bit by a dog, while running, on Sunday. I was just jogging along and bam… it was attached to my rear end. What is up with that? It took enough motivation to get my self out anyway that getting bit by a dog on top of that… lets just say I wasn’t happy. I am now 4/7 done with my shot series for rabies. Yep… they are in my stomach. Not fun, but better than rabies… and a good story later. J

Livin’ on the loose. 

Everything’s Just Wonderful

Everything's just wonderful,

I'm having the time of my life.

10 Things I have learned in Ecuador:

1) How to be flexible. This is truly one of the most important things for Americans to learn and realize when they step into the world of Ecuas. We are used to always moving always doing stuff and never having time to just drop life and do what needs to be done. Here… you run into your grandma in the street, well that meeting can wait. It’s times to talk, catch up, and share a moment together.  It was hard at first, but I find that I really enjoy the fact that people and connections often come above all other.

2) How to eat rice like its nobodies business. My US family knows that the meals with a base of rice aren’t my favorite. Well here that is not an option. If I didn’t eat rice I would literately not be eating anything. Rice is the starch of choice for lunch, dinner, snacks, sometimes breakfast, and any time you’re hungry. Just put that spoon in the rice pot and you have a snack. I now love rice and know how to cook it so its fully and yummy. New diet staple for me.

3) How to daydream. Ok I don’t know if this is good or bad, but it’s something I have become an expert at. Because of the mentioned above #1 you often finding your self waiting… what better way to pass the time than daydreaming?!? Popular topics include: camp, FGC Gathering, food, the next day, my family… pretty much anything works.

4) How to eat meat. Ok so maybe I knew how to do it, but I have never eaten meat like this before. Two times a day… at least. Changing from a vegetarian to this… quite the new thing for this girl. True life.

5) How to take a bucket bath. I guess I am relearning this on because it was a specialty of mine when we lived in Tanzania, but it takes some talent and planning (not using all the hot water) to get all the conditioner out of you hair… and believe me… you regret it if you don’t.

6) I am now a master at Skype. As it is my only means of verbal communication with the States it has become a good friend of mine. I can fix most problems (not all) and went from having now idea how to navigate it to being a beast at it.

7) Sleeping through anything… dogs barking, music playing, drunk people yelling, your sisters boyfriend spreading “te amo” in wood chips out side of your window and lighting them on fire (I didn’t sleep through Vicky barging into my room telling me too look out the window though. J), just about anything… if you want sleep here this is a much needed skill.

8) I have gotten some pretty crazy clauses from writing everything in school. While we have books these are not used very much at all and everything has to be written down. When you have homework you must write the question (in red) and the answer (in blue). We take a ton and a half of notes and short cuts are just not appreciated here.

9) Make empanadas. That’s right… I can now make the amazing little fried pockets of queso. And dang are they good. I may be a little slower at making them than the average Ecuadorian, but I am getting there. J

10) Spanish… sorta. Ok so much Spanish is so much better than it was when I came here. I can have conversations and get understand most of what people say. I am still learning and it’s hard to incorporate all the different tenses, but if I think about it I can do it. Its’ coming along.