Happy Valentine´s Day! Here it is the ¨day of love and friendship¨, which I dig because of it´s inclusivity.
I celebrated Valentine´s Day with great people and vicious parasites. But, internal friends aside, my Rostro community and I commemorated the day with a Battle of the Sexes trivia game. Organized by our own Nate Radomski, each person recevied a questionnaire with three personalized inquiries. Complete with a Jeopardy-style game board, Nate set up the categories: Family; Ancient History; Pet Peeves; Recent Tid-Bits; and Things No One Should Know. As it turns out, Dre brought 11 pairs of shoes to Ecuador (and the boys somehow knew this) and Frank´s worst GI emergency took place in Bosnia (which we did not). A first-round tie brought us to the lightning round, in which the girls prevailed to take the game. Well fed, slightly wined, and victorious (the girls, at least), we headed to bed.
To celebrate the day in true RdC style (ie. no exclusive relationships), we picked names out of a hat to choose our valentines. I got our host, Nate, who I graced (cursed?) with a poem and a few coupons for simple, but valuable things. He, in turn, left me a dozen tomatoes in the form of a heart on my bed, as well as a fly swatter for easier mosquito killing. What a gentleman. My actual valentine also managed to surprise me via his Ecuadorian connection, who happens to be our director. It´s a bit strange to receive flowers from your boss, but I appreciated both counts of thoughtfulness.
My work here confuses me. I´ve written already about my lack of direction at work. Semillas continues to grow and change weekly, though always with big questions of structural change and best practices in the back of my mind. My morning work with Hogar bores and tires me, mostly because it isn´t work. Now I´m halfway through the year and trying to find my footing all over again. Even in the first half, Santi and I served as test dummies for a new work site, and our first experiment failed. I don´t want to throw in the towel. I don´t want to give up on them. Still, I see no place where a 4-hour-a-day volunteer fits into this organization, and Hogar supervisors refuse to give better instruction because they want their volunteers to choose their work so they´ll be happy. It´s an admirable mentality, and something I would appreciate if geography didn´t rule out most of the Hogar work options (their main office is an hour and a half from my house, so I´m confined to the tiny Durán office). They don´t need me. And maybe that´s good - they´re on their feet and don´t need my help. But then, why am I there? Why do I sit for four hours in an office, asking what needs to be done and how I can help, but always being told there´s nothing to do? It gave me plenty of time to compose last week´s pair of epic updates, but I didn´t come here to write in my journal. I could be in the neighborhood, or visiting families, or teaching a morning class at the local tech school, or offering a tutoring study hall when school starts again in April, or helping to cook at the soup kitchen - the list goes on. To be fair, these are fresh thoughts. I need to bring them to Kevin to get his thoughts because nothing can change until I open my mouth. He listens and he acts. We´ll talk.
I´m currently reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, which takes me to the Congo in 1959, just as the Congolese were acheiving independence from Belguim. The story follows a family of six from Georgia who travel to Africa to serve a year as missionaries. The absolute absence of openness to cultural and religious difference on the part of Southern Baptist, headstrong, and charismatic father Nathan Price gives me plenty to think about. I look at him and see the extreme of ethnocentrisim and bigotry, and it´s easy to criticize and even pity him. But narrowness of belief doesn´t come in black and white. ¨There are more words than yes or no¨, one of the characters, Anatole, reminds his young friend. There are shades of narrowness and prejudice, even shades of bigotry. I´m no Nathan Price, but there´s certainly a hair of him in me and in all of us. When do I close myself? When do I assume difference means the other is ignorant? How can I listen better? Good questions. I recommend the book.
Today´s prayer intentions: For Brian, Joanie, Matt, and Kat, and the whole Farrell clan, as they struggle with illness; and for Belén´s mom, that she finds the support she needs.
domingo, 17 de febrero de 2008
jueves, 7 de febrero de 2008
Catch Up, vol. II
On December 23, it rained for the second time since I arrived in July. I was elated. Smelling the damp ground and hearing drops pelt the roof felt like magic. In the weeks since, my wonder has converted into vexation, creativity, and general acceptance of something I can´t control. We still receive the occasional sunny day, but most are cloudy (a welcome respite from the scorching sun) and wet (NOT fun when living on dirt roads). In the house we´ve developed entering and exiting rituals to keep our house clean (relatively speaking) and our skin as clear and not-punctured-by-vicious-bugs as possible. Never before have I worn this much bug spray, and can´t help but wonder what unfriendly chemicals invade my bloodstream. Are they actually better than the dengue I´m trying to avoid?
The bugs. First, grillos. Grillos, to quote one insightful ex-vol, are ¨dive-bombing crickets.¨ For two weeks we found them everywhere. In our rooms. In our beds. In our refrigerator. And this is to say nothing of the swarms that encircled the streetlamps. For a few frightful days, we were killing 50 a day. Each. All in the house. Not exactly fun, but an interesting adventure. It reminds me of my folks´ stories about killing cockroaches in Florida. I guess I´ve been spoiled up North, though you folks back home probably read my words enviously from beneath a foot of snow.
Mosquitoes. They´re everywhere, and we have the bumpy, splotchy, astonishingly itchy skin to prove it. Roberto, my favorite guard at the local clinic, gave me his view on their recent invasion: ¨These mosquitos set up a pact with the blood bank. They´re making a fortune.¨ Sleeping under my mosquito net made me feel exotic and special at first, but has become a nuisance, especially when I trap one of my flying foes in with me and I wake up scratching a dozen new bites. Foot bites are the worst, especially the soles. Lately, though, I´ve been less bothered by the mosquitos. Sure, I hate the itchiness, but it´s hard to get that upset about a being as stupid as a mosquito. I used to loathe them. As I´ve paid more attention to them (ie. savagely hunted them nightly before bed), I´ve come to realize that they fly around mindlessly and only bite when they happen to run headfirst into something with skin. They don´t choose to be a pain. They´re just hungry. And dumb. So they bother me, but I no longer actively hate them because it just doesn´t seem fair.
Another big piece of news (right on par with mosquito intelligence) is the recent departure of another volunteer. In late January Santi left Ecuador to return to the States. Santi and I worked together at both our morning and afternoon jobs, so my life has changed dramatically. On a personal level, I´m sad and I miss him. He drove me crazy, but he was a good friend and an endearingly and infectiously goofy force in my life. On a professional level, I´m frustrated because my life has been uprooted, though also grateful because his departure has given me the chance to start some things fresh - a rare opportunity. On both levels, I´m also happy he left because he wasn´t fulfilled here, and that energy also infected me. I have high hopes for his own fresh start, and for the mix CDs he´s going to send me :)
I feel similarly about our community, which is down to 5 from our original 7. The house feels enormous, and will feel even bigger when Andrea leaves in April to start her job. With Santi´s departure, we stopped holding our breath and are now looking and living forward. Dre will leave, but at least we know well in advance. I´m proud of all of us for our recent honesty, communication, and simple goodness since Santi left. Yes, I have high hopes.
Recently all ten of the remaining volunteers went on our second quarterly retreat to a beach town called Ballenita (¨little whale¨). Many thanks to Kevin for his Ecua-side organizing, Rostro USA for sending us a retreat leader, and John Ropar for coming down to guide us. I drew a lot of personal questions and growth from the weekend, but I´m left thinking more about conversations concerning Rostro´s mission here in Ecuador. From the beginning, I´ve been restless about Rostro´s mission statement, which clearly states that it functions to serve North Americans as they experience Ecuador rather than serving Ecuadorians. A year ago, this nearly kept me out of the program, though one tiny clause about helping Ecuas find long-term solutions gave me hope. Now that I´m knee-deep in Rostro, I feel kind of lost. We´re here to be with people, so spending time in the community is the most important things. But we also benefit from knowing how Ecuadorian organizations confront problems, so our morning jobs are the most important. But our after-school programs are consistent from year to year and we started them ourselves, they are the most important. But retreat groups are part of our mission and expose people to Durán, so they are the most important. In summary, I´m doing so many, varied things that I´m not doing any of them well. I have my own thoughts on what´s most important and effective, but I´m not an island - here or anywhere. Got any advice?
Despite my confusion amidst Santi´s departure and my lack of direction (or overabundance of direction) from Rostro, I´m enjoying life here. Friendships keep growing, as long as I give them the time and space to develop. I´m mostly healthy (minus the parasites) and I´ve found a lot of support recently from my Ecua friends, my house community, the AJS folks, old vols who´ve come to visit, my family back home, and of course the Big Guy upstairs. Special thanks to Clare and Darcy!
Today´s prayer intentions: for Santi and Patrick, that they forge ahead and make the lives they need; for Patricia and family´s health; and for all of us walking through Lent, that we do it disposed to change. AMEN!
The bugs. First, grillos. Grillos, to quote one insightful ex-vol, are ¨dive-bombing crickets.¨ For two weeks we found them everywhere. In our rooms. In our beds. In our refrigerator. And this is to say nothing of the swarms that encircled the streetlamps. For a few frightful days, we were killing 50 a day. Each. All in the house. Not exactly fun, but an interesting adventure. It reminds me of my folks´ stories about killing cockroaches in Florida. I guess I´ve been spoiled up North, though you folks back home probably read my words enviously from beneath a foot of snow.
Mosquitoes. They´re everywhere, and we have the bumpy, splotchy, astonishingly itchy skin to prove it. Roberto, my favorite guard at the local clinic, gave me his view on their recent invasion: ¨These mosquitos set up a pact with the blood bank. They´re making a fortune.¨ Sleeping under my mosquito net made me feel exotic and special at first, but has become a nuisance, especially when I trap one of my flying foes in with me and I wake up scratching a dozen new bites. Foot bites are the worst, especially the soles. Lately, though, I´ve been less bothered by the mosquitos. Sure, I hate the itchiness, but it´s hard to get that upset about a being as stupid as a mosquito. I used to loathe them. As I´ve paid more attention to them (ie. savagely hunted them nightly before bed), I´ve come to realize that they fly around mindlessly and only bite when they happen to run headfirst into something with skin. They don´t choose to be a pain. They´re just hungry. And dumb. So they bother me, but I no longer actively hate them because it just doesn´t seem fair.
Another big piece of news (right on par with mosquito intelligence) is the recent departure of another volunteer. In late January Santi left Ecuador to return to the States. Santi and I worked together at both our morning and afternoon jobs, so my life has changed dramatically. On a personal level, I´m sad and I miss him. He drove me crazy, but he was a good friend and an endearingly and infectiously goofy force in my life. On a professional level, I´m frustrated because my life has been uprooted, though also grateful because his departure has given me the chance to start some things fresh - a rare opportunity. On both levels, I´m also happy he left because he wasn´t fulfilled here, and that energy also infected me. I have high hopes for his own fresh start, and for the mix CDs he´s going to send me :)
I feel similarly about our community, which is down to 5 from our original 7. The house feels enormous, and will feel even bigger when Andrea leaves in April to start her job. With Santi´s departure, we stopped holding our breath and are now looking and living forward. Dre will leave, but at least we know well in advance. I´m proud of all of us for our recent honesty, communication, and simple goodness since Santi left. Yes, I have high hopes.
Recently all ten of the remaining volunteers went on our second quarterly retreat to a beach town called Ballenita (¨little whale¨). Many thanks to Kevin for his Ecua-side organizing, Rostro USA for sending us a retreat leader, and John Ropar for coming down to guide us. I drew a lot of personal questions and growth from the weekend, but I´m left thinking more about conversations concerning Rostro´s mission here in Ecuador. From the beginning, I´ve been restless about Rostro´s mission statement, which clearly states that it functions to serve North Americans as they experience Ecuador rather than serving Ecuadorians. A year ago, this nearly kept me out of the program, though one tiny clause about helping Ecuas find long-term solutions gave me hope. Now that I´m knee-deep in Rostro, I feel kind of lost. We´re here to be with people, so spending time in the community is the most important things. But we also benefit from knowing how Ecuadorian organizations confront problems, so our morning jobs are the most important. But our after-school programs are consistent from year to year and we started them ourselves, they are the most important. But retreat groups are part of our mission and expose people to Durán, so they are the most important. In summary, I´m doing so many, varied things that I´m not doing any of them well. I have my own thoughts on what´s most important and effective, but I´m not an island - here or anywhere. Got any advice?
Despite my confusion amidst Santi´s departure and my lack of direction (or overabundance of direction) from Rostro, I´m enjoying life here. Friendships keep growing, as long as I give them the time and space to develop. I´m mostly healthy (minus the parasites) and I´ve found a lot of support recently from my Ecua friends, my house community, the AJS folks, old vols who´ve come to visit, my family back home, and of course the Big Guy upstairs. Special thanks to Clare and Darcy!
Today´s prayer intentions: for Santi and Patrick, that they forge ahead and make the lives they need; for Patricia and family´s health; and for all of us walking through Lent, that we do it disposed to change. AMEN!
miércoles, 6 de febrero de 2008
Catch Up, vol. I
Manchada. Así estoy. I´m stained purple and red after a paint war in the neighborhood to celebrate Carnaval. Not all Ecuadorians commemorate the three days before Ash Wednesday in the same style, but on the coast, the custom is to throw water, paint, flour, mud, and even animal fat and motor oil on passing friends and neighbors. The ¨festivities¨ make leaving the house an adventure and in these three days, I never successfully left without returning a disaster. Most people throw harmless tempera, though some, as I discovered as I tried to scrub it off, opt for house paint. My hair is currently two shades of red, with random purple highlight every now and then. Throwing people in puddles is another Arbolito favorite, which proves especially easy now that we´re in the rainy season and entire streets are flooded. Thanks to a few friends (who are much stronger than their deceptively skinny frames suggest), I ended up face-down and submerged in a flooded street. Oh well - I was due for my quarterly parasite check-up anyways, and that mouthful of water I drank will ensure an interesting diagnosis. I´m a mess, my clothes are destroyed, and my stomach regularly gurgles about that delicious shot of puddle-water, but man, oh man, was it worth it!
I should back up and give you a long overdue update. Let´s go back to Christmas...
We celebrated Christmas Eve with a mass, though I listened to the first half blind as I waited ¨backstage¨ for the gospel reading´s nacimiento viviente (Christmas pageant), which I graced as a maestro de la ley (a scribe). I stuck out like a sore thumb, as the saying goes, or like a tall, red-headed woman in Ecuador, which may be even more awkward. But I did my best in our posadas and delivered my single line (¨In Bethlehem of Judea because that is what the prophets wrote¨) with gusto.
Posadas. Te lo explico. Let me explain. Posadas is a Latin American Christmas tradition which reenacts Mary and Joseph´s door-to-door search for shelter, which finally brings them to a stable. Here we did it in conjunction with our parish, though I know several families who do it within their neighborhood communities back in the States. Want to know more? Try Wikipedia.
After mass we came home for a cozy family meal of enchiladas (not a traditional Ecua food - one of my communitymates is Mexican), beans and salad, then opened a few gifts before dragging ourselves to bed.
Santa found us in Ecuador! We opened presents in the morning (thanks Mom and Dad, Kat, the Winkelmanns and Mrs. Mary Miano), then spent the afternoon at a neighborhood party. I still haven´t gotten used to the dance competitions that pit 7 year olds against each other to the impressively sexual lyrics of reggaeton songs. But it´s neither my culture nor my child , so I stand back and watch. Dinner brought us to Guayaquil to the home of Sr. Annie, a nun from Brooklyn who runs a home for patients with Hansen´s Disease (you know it as leprosy) where some of our vols work. Annie is a vibrant Italian woman and a gifted chef, so we feasted on lasagna and meat sauce before diving into an hour of Christmas carols (Bezaires, you would have been proud). Exhausted, full, and delighted, we piled into our van and headed home.
Fast forward to New Year´s. The evening began with another mass and a Nueva Generación dinner. I ran home to rest briefly before before midnight festivities, then we crossed the street to count down with our guard Abráhan. Another Ecua tradition: the burning of the año viejo. The premise: at midnight, everyone burns a paper mache figure to represent burning the last year to make way for the new one. The victims: Spongebob, Puss in Boots, Rafael Correa (current president of Ecuador), and...me.
Like many, Abráhan made rather than bought his muñeco, and spent the entire week secretly creating a lifesize effigy of yours truly. Midnight arrived and Abráhan doused ¨me¨ with diesel and set me on fire, giving life to the whopping 140 firecrackers he´d stuffed inside. If I weren´t friends with Abráhan, I´d be appalled. As it stands, I´m flattered.
We stayed for a midnight meal, then Scott and I rook off to stroll through the lively streets of Arbolito, visiting various friends along the way. After rounding up Eduardo and Anita, we made our way to Andres´ house to dance our little hearts out until 4:00a. The parties continued, but my ánimo ran out, so I came home to sleep for three hours before heading to another (and very sparsely populated) mass. I was half the choir and after such little sleep, I sounded like a rooster, but I gave it my all.
New Year´s Day brought me to Rosa´s in the evening to celebrate her 23rd birthday. Dancing, singing, and penitencias (punishments), which is a tradition in which you stuff a little piece of paper into a ballon before blowing it up and select various people to pop the balloons. They then have to do whatever the paper instructs. Mine was easy: ¨Tell a joke¨. The party was great, and similar to another birthday celebration I´d attended on Dec. 29 for a great guy who reminds me so much of Jeff Michael, it´s astounding. It goes without saying that I like him a lot and think he´s much cooler than I was when I was 18. I´ve been blessed with friendships here and am grateful for the chance to meet, know, and celebrate life with these people!
Today´s prayer intentions: for all of us, that we listen and sloooooooowwwwww down.
I should back up and give you a long overdue update. Let´s go back to Christmas...
We celebrated Christmas Eve with a mass, though I listened to the first half blind as I waited ¨backstage¨ for the gospel reading´s nacimiento viviente (Christmas pageant), which I graced as a maestro de la ley (a scribe). I stuck out like a sore thumb, as the saying goes, or like a tall, red-headed woman in Ecuador, which may be even more awkward. But I did my best in our posadas and delivered my single line (¨In Bethlehem of Judea because that is what the prophets wrote¨) with gusto.
Posadas. Te lo explico. Let me explain. Posadas is a Latin American Christmas tradition which reenacts Mary and Joseph´s door-to-door search for shelter, which finally brings them to a stable. Here we did it in conjunction with our parish, though I know several families who do it within their neighborhood communities back in the States. Want to know more? Try Wikipedia.
After mass we came home for a cozy family meal of enchiladas (not a traditional Ecua food - one of my communitymates is Mexican), beans and salad, then opened a few gifts before dragging ourselves to bed.
Santa found us in Ecuador! We opened presents in the morning (thanks Mom and Dad, Kat, the Winkelmanns and Mrs. Mary Miano), then spent the afternoon at a neighborhood party. I still haven´t gotten used to the dance competitions that pit 7 year olds against each other to the impressively sexual lyrics of reggaeton songs. But it´s neither my culture nor my child , so I stand back and watch. Dinner brought us to Guayaquil to the home of Sr. Annie, a nun from Brooklyn who runs a home for patients with Hansen´s Disease (you know it as leprosy) where some of our vols work. Annie is a vibrant Italian woman and a gifted chef, so we feasted on lasagna and meat sauce before diving into an hour of Christmas carols (Bezaires, you would have been proud). Exhausted, full, and delighted, we piled into our van and headed home.
Fast forward to New Year´s. The evening began with another mass and a Nueva Generación dinner. I ran home to rest briefly before before midnight festivities, then we crossed the street to count down with our guard Abráhan. Another Ecua tradition: the burning of the año viejo. The premise: at midnight, everyone burns a paper mache figure to represent burning the last year to make way for the new one. The victims: Spongebob, Puss in Boots, Rafael Correa (current president of Ecuador), and...me.
Like many, Abráhan made rather than bought his muñeco, and spent the entire week secretly creating a lifesize effigy of yours truly. Midnight arrived and Abráhan doused ¨me¨ with diesel and set me on fire, giving life to the whopping 140 firecrackers he´d stuffed inside. If I weren´t friends with Abráhan, I´d be appalled. As it stands, I´m flattered.
We stayed for a midnight meal, then Scott and I rook off to stroll through the lively streets of Arbolito, visiting various friends along the way. After rounding up Eduardo and Anita, we made our way to Andres´ house to dance our little hearts out until 4:00a. The parties continued, but my ánimo ran out, so I came home to sleep for three hours before heading to another (and very sparsely populated) mass. I was half the choir and after such little sleep, I sounded like a rooster, but I gave it my all.
New Year´s Day brought me to Rosa´s in the evening to celebrate her 23rd birthday. Dancing, singing, and penitencias (punishments), which is a tradition in which you stuff a little piece of paper into a ballon before blowing it up and select various people to pop the balloons. They then have to do whatever the paper instructs. Mine was easy: ¨Tell a joke¨. The party was great, and similar to another birthday celebration I´d attended on Dec. 29 for a great guy who reminds me so much of Jeff Michael, it´s astounding. It goes without saying that I like him a lot and think he´s much cooler than I was when I was 18. I´ve been blessed with friendships here and am grateful for the chance to meet, know, and celebrate life with these people!
Today´s prayer intentions: for all of us, that we listen and sloooooooowwwwww down.
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