I wish I could tell you about my day each day. I wish you could know and hang out with my wonderful teammates. I wish you could meet my host family and visit our house. I wish you could see the views from the bus windows that I see everyday. I wish I could describe everything in detail so you felt like you were here with me. I have so many thoughts that I wish I could convey in a meaningful way, but truly I feel like my words do not give my experience so far in Ecuador justice. My pictures do not give the scenery justice. You will just have to come! Until then, this blog is a condensed version of the many blog “titles” that have run through my mind these last ten days.
South America by Bus
We left our ministry site in Trujillo, Peru around 9:30pm on a Friday night to go to the bus station for our 12:30am bus to Guayaquil, Ecuador. It is an 18- hour bus ride. Our bus was running late, actually really late, so we spent Friday night on the floor of the bus station. We boarded the bus at 5:30am and did not stop until we reached the Peru/Ecuador boarder around dinnertime. Thankfully we had packed bread, peanut butter and jelly! It took an hour on the Peru side of the border and an hour on the Ecuador side of the border. The Peru/Ecuador border is definitely not as cool as the Bolivia/Peru border. In Bolivia after you go through customs/immigration you walk across the river border and then get in line to go through customs/immigration in Peru. (It was a beautiful night when we walked across the border.)
Because of our 5- hour delay we missed our 10:30pm bus from Guayaquil to Quito, so we would have slept on the floor of this bus station if we were allowed to, but they would not let us sleep on the floor. We had to sit in the chairs. By the time we found the chairs that we could sleep in and get somewhat settled it was 1am. Our bus left at 6:30am. I tried so hard to stay awake for the drive to Quito because the scenery was so beautiful, but I just couldn’t. I slept the whole way and when I woke up in Quito I couldn’t believe the scenery change from Peru to Ecuador. We missed our bus to Huaticocha, so the four teams that are also working through Inca Link took us in for the night. We stayed in Inca Link’s beautiful guesthouse. We had showers, sheets on our beds, and food waiting for us. A wonderful way to end our travel weekend! My team left the next day for our 5-hour bus ride to Huaticocha, Ecuador in the Amazon basin.
Why yes, I have tried E-harmony.
On a weekly basis I am aware of the fact that I am 34 years old and single. The first night we had dinner with our host family we had to say our name, age and if we were single or not. Currently in the United States people are getting married older and starting their families later, but that is not the case in the rest of the world. The next day we had a tour of Ninawachi Bible Institute and were being introduced to the students. I forget the order of questions if I said my age first or that I was single first, but I do remember that one student laughed and said (in Spanish), “34 and single?” Then when my teammate Bethany said that she was 31 and single, she couldn’t believe that there were a couple of us in our 30s and single. I am not quite sure why we had to add our status to all of our introductions. You would think as a grown woman that being made fun of would not bother me at all, but it was more hurtful than I would like to admit.
This has been my biggest struggle this year. I want a husband and family of my own so bad, but it is out of my control. I have tried everything I know for it to be in my control. I go on blind dates, try on-line dating, make jokes about it, pray about it, talk to my girlfriends about it (a lot!), talk to anyone who will listen about it, read books about it, try new activities, wax my eye brows, and the list goes on and on. In the last few months I have realized the depth of God’s love for me, all the blessings He has given me, and what a wonderful single life I have. I have had such a peace with my status and the fact that I may never marry, I may never have children of my own but I have the love of a wonderful God and His love sustains me.
I have so many opportunities in my life because I am single. For example, I am currently sitting on the back porch of my Ecuadorian house and I can see the beautiful blue sky, fruit trees, different jungle vegetation, the neighbors working on their house, my teammates washing their clothes, chickens walking around… life is good in Ecuador. My teammates have become sisters and I am so thankful for their love and our little family.
Life on the Top Bunk
I always choose the top bunk if I get a choice. I like heights; I like being up as high as I can, so I can look out over the landscapes, even if the landscape is a bedroom. Our bunkroom this month is probably 6 feet by 10 feet. I have the top bunk, Haley is on the bottom and Bethany is on the floor. This space also houses are backpacks. We have mosquito-netting covering our beds and the slats underneath me like to move. Sometimes I wake up to find that a lot of my lower body has fallen down into Haley’s territory. There is no ladder, but I do have a plastic stool that I think may break at any given time. I have a nice bruise on my leg from my current way of getting up and down.
I love my view! If I lay on my stomach I can see out the “screened” window. Right outside my window is a little porch. We have two clotheslines on it and then there are really unreliable stairs down to the back yard. This staircase is more for the rooster and chickens. The rooster likes to sit on these stairs or come up and crow right by our room. It is not uncommon to hear, “Can you get the chicken out of the way so I can go the bathroom?” My favorite: “Can you get the chicken out of the dining room please?” The neighbor’s house is probably 6 feet away from the porch railing. I can see the backyard of the house on the other side. I can see the kids brushing their teeth on their back sink. I can see the sky and all the jungle trees. I can hear all the chickens, dogs, cats, and the highway noise. Our house is behind the family store. The store consists of three sections; food, clothing and school supplies. The store is right up against the major highway. So all semi-trucks and buses go through at all hours. The house is made out of boards and there is space between the boards, so I can see right out to the highway from my bed.
The other night is rained so hard. We have tin roofs, so it was lovely to lie in bed and listen to the rainfall. I wake up at least twice every night, usually because I have to go to the bathroom. I never want to get out of bed though because it is such a balancing act of getting out from under the netting and not falling trying to get to the stool. So if I can help it, I don’t get out, but enjoy all the sounds and view from my top bunk.
Ants are yummy!
So far I have eaten guinea pig (quite tasty but not a lot of meat), fried ants (tasted like the frying oil and pop corn) and liver. We get fresh juices often, and have a lot of bread, rice, and potatoes. We are very well fed.
Ants in my pants!
One morning our job was to clear brush, carry bamboo poles, and carry bags of rocks and other manual labor jobs. I was sweaty and as dirty as can be when I got on the bus to come back to the house for lunch. Haley and I were talking when all of a sudden I felt like a bee stung me on the back of my leg. Then it happened again and I could feel something in my pants. I quickly rolled up my pants but couldn’t get to it because it had crawled to the back of my thigh. I was scratching and working as fast as I could to get whatever it was out. Then Haley said there is an ant on your pants. Sure enough there was a black ant crawling out of my pants. This little ant (bigger than ants in the States, but not as big as the poisonous ants that are here) bit me several times. Now the back of my right thigh is all red and swollen and it itches like crazy! Who knew such a little thing could cause so much irritation. (My host told me to put limejuice on it and it helped so much! It is now three days later and it looks so much better.)
These are my thoughts.
I appreciate your dedication to the blog if you are still reading! Thanks for reading and thank you for being a part of my experience. I continue to grow in my faith daily and am so thankful for our God. I would like to leave you with two thoughts from Francis Chan and his book “Forgotten God.”
“We are most alive when we are loving and actively giving of ourselves because we were made to do these things.”
“If you are still alive on this planet, it’s because He has something for you to do. He placed us on this earth for purposes that He orchestrated long before we were born.”
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Ephesians 2:8-10
