Dear Annie

A letter I recently wrote to a lovely young woman in Honduras:

Hey Annie,

Thank for your update. I like hearing your news, and especially your openness. Sometimes I struggle to defer to decisions made by Rostro administration, and then remember that I took a vow of obedience and I listen. There´s a place for challenging injustice and ignorance, but at 24, my bigger challenge is being quiet and humble.

I hate that women here look like they do. You said it - ripped and stretched by childbirth and probably abusive husbands/boyfriend/fathers. They look old and broken at 30. Their iron frames look pathetically thin and weak, and somehow are carrying more weight - physical and emotional - than I know how to bear. Recently I read something by Max Lucado, something about not trying to tackle tomorrow´s problems yet because we don´t yet have tomorrow´s strength. Wait for it, the problems and the strength, and stop worrying. Good advice for us. For them? Are they getting the strength they need? Sure. God provides it. But why are they given days that rip their bodies to shreds without taking into account the needs of their minds, hearts, and spirits? I watch this and feel silly in how simple and insufficient my response is. It´s wrong, it´s unjust, it´s not right. It´s also not my job to fix it. So I sit here and feel blessed and grateful and responsible.

Did you ever go to Spirit of Sophia? A few years ago Sarah Miller shared some simple and painful insights about our learning. We all talk about our process of learning about life. From there we talk about our growing sense of responsibility, how we´ve been given so much education and love, how we´re so blessed, how we feel guilty about how God stacked the deck in our favor, how we´re obligated and excited to pay it forward. Luke 12:48 stuff. Sarah challenged us to stop promising a future of work and start now. We´re mortgaging our lives, she said, by waiting until we finish this paper, this class, our college experience, to start serving the way we´re called. I´m studying now so I can be better prepared for later. I´m taking it easy now so I can go hard and fast when I need to. Stop it. Stop making excuses and buying time. Step up, wherever and however.

So I got my degree from ND and moved into the world, and now I´m in Ecuador, where I came to serve and to practice some of that precious, lightning-hot love. I´m here and living. But I´m still looking forward. In college I said, ¨Just wait until I get to Ecuador. THEN I´ll be able to serve the poor the way God really wants me to.¨ Now I´m here in Ecuador, feeling helpless and somewhat purposeless, not knowing how or even whether to get involved in the ugliness of corrupt systems and neglecting families and abusive relationships. Now I´m saying, ¨Just wait until I get back to the US. THEN I´ll be able to use my gifts they way God intended. THEN I´ll be able to serve.¨

A few things are working on me here. The first is that I´m struggling to break out of the I´m-in-college, this-isn´t-the-real-world, just-wait mentality and trying to find the best ways to use the immense God-given, jointly-honed gifts. The other is that I absolutely underestimate myself and what I do in a day. I absolutely undervalue the power of loving someone quietly and with dedication and with God. I think too little of prayers, and casual greetings, and making my mind and feet still enough to look people in the eye. I forget that their mothers, kids, teachers may ignore them, and that getting someone´s attention is a rarity and a luxury for kids and parents alike. I´m not mortgaging anymore. I didn´t mean to stop - it just happened. But I have to give God credit for the muted, patient work He´s doing through me if I´m ever to believe that.

Sending you peace
and strength
and patience,
Cristina

Hearts and stars

March came and went with my silence - disculpenme! The month kept me ever-moving, or homebound due to rains, and finally I emerge to celebrate drying puddles, Easter blessings, and children.

Yes, rainy season is slowly closing! After months of mud puddles, moldy clothes, and oppressive heat, April is blessing us with lower temperatures, sunless skies, and tapering rains. Halleluiah! It´s still painfully hot, but my skin has learned Ecuador enough to appreciate even this minor shift. Neighbors tell us the rains and heat will continue to subside and that June and July are downright cool in comparison. Amen, amen.

We enjoyed a different Easter celebration than we´d ever experienced, including a Good Friday caminata that left our crucified ¨Christ¨ on the cross. I stood stricken in the crowd, not caring that tears rolled down my cheeks. I´ve never seen anything like it. I´ve never watched someone crucified, particularly not my Savior. And I still haven´t, I suppose, but now I understand His sacrifice in a more personal and even visceral way. It hurts, but it added a new sweetness and joy to Sunday´s Resurrection. Here, Sunday is not the heartiest Easter celebration - the Saturday vigil takes the cake. Still, Sunday found me skipping down the street to mass, celebrating my risen Christ! What a gift.

On Friday of Easter week, our rag-tag team of volunteer managed to come together to create a surprisingly organized day of challenges for our kids. The Third Annual Rostro de Cristo After-school Program OLIMPIADAS brought together a team of kids from each of our three after-school programs (Semillas de Mostaza in Arbolito, Valdivia in AJS, and Manos Abiertas in 28 de agosto) to compete in academic and athletic events. Language, Math, and Geography started the day, followed by a high-energy obstacle course y por supuesto a soccer tournament. I´m proud to announce that my Semillas munchkins took the gold by scoring the most overall points, though the kids from Valdivia won the Character Award for sportsmanship and Manos Abiertas absolutely wins the Spirit Award. I´ve NEVER seen a band of six year-olds scream like that. Unbelievable. Since I hosted the event at Semillas, my mind was everywhere and I ended up watching and enjoying very little of the day. Still, hearing rave reviews from kids and parents in the subsequent days sweetened my memory of the craziness. Despite the headaches, exhaustion and extensive planning, I´m proud of our kids, volunteers, and Kevin for coming together to work and play.

Recently I´ve been considering more concretely my post-Ecuador future. I applied for a job doing community organizing in my hometown of Waukegan, IL and have spent a fair amount of time writing the application, communicating with the organization and interviewing. Ultimately my August 9 return date will almost certainly disqualify me from the position, but I hope to work with them in some capacity (likely volunteering) when I do return to Waukegan.

And that´s what gets me. Waukegan? Five years ago I was chomping at the bit to bail out, planning to shake the dust off my feet and never again call it home. It was small, boring, and, worst of all, familiar. Now, all of a sudden, after traveling thousands of miles all over Latin America, it´s my first stop and most compelling call. What gives? What changed? I did, I suppose. It seems we Peace Studies major and ¨global thinkers¨ of all walks of life easily fall into the trap of the international. It´s sexy. There´s nothing glamourous about Waukegan, but Ecuador, Sierra Leone, Cambodia - now that´s sexy. They´re exciting, different, foreign, exotic. They impresses people. But they´re not where I´ll be useful. The more I learn about who I really am (versus who I may naively wish I were), the more I realize that my gifts and skills call me back home. ¨Home¨ doesn´t necessarily mean Waukegan, though it will in the short term. But being in the States, working wherever I may be called in whatever capacity, is where I´m ready to go. It might be sexy, but I doubt it. But it´ll be mine and I´ll be good at it. And, man alive, am I excited.

So there´s the challenge. Since my arrival I´ve struggled with the reason for my presence here. Why do I stay where I´m useless when I could be working in a place where my knowledge, skills, and networks could help me accomplish great things? Now I look at my next step and realize that I´m not only going to be darn good at it, but am eager and excited to start. How do I stay where I am? I´m wrestling with my enthusiasm about the future, trying to subdue it to stay present. My body will be here until August. My challenge now is to keep my spirit just as local.

The trick, I think, will be to realize how blessed ¨here¨ is. It´s been easier lately. Yesterday at Semillas I sat back and listened to Scott´s charla (talk) about what it means to be a good friend. With Belén and Bola under each of my arms, I took in these kids, breathed their air, thought about them showing off their new toys. What a gift! Tops have entered Arbolito as the new craze. Yesterday I tried my hand for the first time. The kids gathered around to watch Kevin and Denise teach me to wrap and throw the top, and shouted with praise when I nailed in the first time. I saw how excited they were to share with me. Sometimes I forget that I´m special to them. I forget that they appreciate and maybe even need my love and attention. I need to stay here. I want to. My body´s here. My kids want to hug and squeeze and climb all over that body, and it´s not only my duty but my privilege to keep the spirit. They deserve the spirit. So do I.

Remembering the blessing of my time here has also been easier as I´ve watched a dear friend bid it farewell. This morning we dropped Dre off at the airport, sending her back to her family in Houston and her new job in Chicago with love and a flow of tears. How can I tell you about her without sounding trite? If I say that she invested more time, energy and love in the house community and the neighborhood than the rest of us, I sound cliche. Or if I tell you that she was an example of self-gift, service, and hospitality, I sound insincere. But that´s Dre. It´s not all she is. She has her weaknesses and limitations too. She can be frustratingly passive. She gets stressed easily. She always puts those damn Jell-o cups in our fridge and they spill everywhere. But today, to celebrate her, I give you the gifts she´s given me, and they are these lessons, self-gift, service, hospitality. In the last few weeks, I´ve begun to see her more genuinely. As she got ready to leave, she seemed to guard herself less. She laughed and played more, and also gave as much as she could. Some people would pull back as they prepare to leave, hoping to avoid the pain of separation by denying love. Dre did the opposite. She loved more.

Sometimes she drove me nuts with her constant ironing and her unwillingness to come right out and tell us what she really wanted. She surprised me. Even I didn´t know I care for her as much as I do. And as I´m saying goodbye to her, I realize I´m losing a bigger part of myself than I expected. When did I give her myself? When did she accept me? There was no flash moment, no give-and-receive. Piece by piece, I guess, in these last 8 months we handed over bits of ourselves to each other. I have some of her, which is why I can still feel strong and energetic right now. So this is the gift of living together so long. Community. Love. I love her.

Prayer intentions: for Andrea, that she travels safely and finds the love and companionship of people who care, and that she heals in all the ways she´s broken; for Lisa and Ian throughout their engagement; for all mothers-to-be, especially Karen, Cristina, and Katiuska; for Maria and Beatriz, who are both suffering from uterine cancer; and for whoever needs grace today.

Día de amor y amistad

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.

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!

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.

My gift

Soon I will write more about Christmas in Ecuador, which blessed me fully and festively. For now, I simply wish you all a merry and holy Christmas. Celebrate!

Also, I want to note that I am blessed with an incredible family - a crew of parents, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a grandma that would make anyone grateful to be alive. Thanks to all of you for your unflinching love, support, and ridiculous stories. You light my days!

Finding it anyways

A response from my dear friend and a particularly bright light, Erin Ramsey:

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to the complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it"

- The Talmud

Fotos

Pictures! It´s about time, eh? This is my house - a slice of the first-world amidst Arbolito´s poverty. On one hand, I am very uncomfortable living in this palace while my neighbors live in cane shacks. This hand is very heavy. On the other, much less believable hand, I understand Rostro´s philosophy that we´ll be no good out there if we´re not taking care of ourselves in here. It´s not exactly what I wanted, and was very hard to adjust after visiting the vol house at the Finca. Nonetheless, it´s my home so let´s run with it.




And my street. This is taken while standing in front of the gate (yes, it´s gated, and also guarded) around my house. If you follow this street down to the dead end that you see in the distance and turn left, you will see...

...the church, La Virgen del Perpetuo Socorro (look it up) where I sing on Sundays. You can also see the beginning of pavement in Arboito (exciting!). There are currently four-ish paved streets in our 5,000 person world. The rest are dirt and rocks. Rough on tires, but it creates amazing soccer players at a very young age.







The Arbolito community - my housemates. Another 5 live in a separate house a few miles away, but these are my Ecuadorian family. Top row: Christine Donovan (obvio), Santiago Bunce (my platonic Ecuadorian life partner and soccer star), Nate Radomski (Logistics Coordinator and surprisingly resilient victim of ambiguity), Marie Miano (gentle friend, biggest challenge, and probably our best cook), Scott Winkelmann (resident musican and reminder that life is a gift). Front row: Andrea Readhimer (house accountant and lover of lime), Patrick Cashio (Community Member Emeritus - he left on Tuesday to return to the States). I love them.




A tanquero (water truck). I´ve written about the water that gets trucked in to Arbolito. Trucks like these carry it in. In the foreground is Elkin, Nate´s adopted son who is chock full of personality, and Sonia, his mom.






The aformentioned Iris (the one who can´t do math) and me.










Some of our Semillas kids participating in a minga - a big cleaning party where we get them to pick up all the trash and give the winners bananas. Sound familiar, parents?








More to come - I love you!

Find it anyways

Thursday. Our afternoon at Semillas began as any other. Halfway throught homework hour, I heard a loud noise and stuck my head out to investigate. Paul the guard is running over to me. ¨Get them inside!¨ We had 60 that day. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for - they knew what happened. The noise was a gunshot. Thankfully the shooter missed and the target took off running. All of this where another man was shot and killed on our second dy of work back inAugust. All of this outside the front entrance to Semillas.

Last Monday a little girl disappeared from a neighboring commuity and turned up in Arbolito the following morning. Many details remain fuzzy, but we do know that there is a man living in our sector who pays people to kidnap children, then sells them on the black market. I soften this story by telling myself the buyers are looking for young, hard-working maids and construction workers. Then my stomach turns when I remember the way Saturday-night drunks watch the little girls playing in the street.

Walk up a block from my house and you´ll find a house much nicer than the rest. Out front is a motorcycle (neighbors have bikes) and two large, metal soccer goals (neighbors use piles of rocks). Clearly business is good. The house´s owner is pimp. All the neighbors know - even the kids - but no one turns him in because he protects the neighborhood (by force, as noted by the bulge where his back meets his belt). He has made an implicit agreement not to ¨sell¨ in the neighborhood, which neighbors say he keeps. Besides, no one wants to get on a pimp´s bad side. Two weeks ago, he was killed. He was shot eight times. Thankfully for us, this murder occurred in Quevedo, about four hours from here. Death is death, murder is murder, and we mourn with his family, who keep coming in from the country. But its hard to be reverent when a pimp´s brother is checking you out during the wake. Business will continue. His cousin, who was second-in-command, has likely resumed their normal activity after this little bump in the road. The workforce and the clientele keep the market afloat, though I do wonder how long this next boss will last.

Over the last few years, the electric company has slowly made its rounds through many of the poor neighborhoods, installing locked meters on all the houses to keep people from stealing electricity. Seems fair. Right? And if you don´t pay your bill, they cut you off. That´s normal. Right? Sure it is. But it´s not just. Not when the family with two bare lightbulbs pays the same as the neighbor with two TVs, a refrigerator, a stereo, and exterior lighting. They pay the same flat fee - $33/mo. - and suffer the same consequences though their households show a stark difference in both income and consumption. Also, it´s worth mentioning that this is a public company, government-owned and -regulated.

At a local public school, Escuela Simon Bolivar, where classrooms are crude cane shacks, mothers of students have been gathering more and more frequently to discuss what´s happening. The director of this public (¨free¨) school has been charging some families for tuition. The school receives funding from Hogar de Cristo for students of HdC families, and is supposed to use them to expand the workforce to reduce the 60-1 student-teacher ratio that the government supports in its public schools. The director has failed and the new teacher, who is not receiving a paycheck, protests by simply not teaching. Kids are in the classroom, so it looks like they´re learning. But their rowdy noise travels easily through the cane walls and disturbs neighboring lessons. In the end, very few children are actually learning.

Yesterday after Semillas, I sent my kids home and walked out to find Belén, who is six, walking toward me tugging an enormous pink backpack. Bringing it to Semillas to sell to another girl. She couldn´t go home, she said matter-of-factly, because Mom had gone out and locked the door. This didn´t bother Belén nearly as much as it did me. What was she going to do? Wait for her brother and sister, she said. Clarita (9) and Winky (7) (yes, ¨Winky¨...I don´t get it either) came home, but without keys. Mom doesn´t give them keys. Eventually Belén wriggles her way through a hole near the floor and they tug on it to make it big enough for Clarita to enter. I left them there, with a hug and an offer to come to my house if they needed anything.

So what does all this mean? Neglect, embezzling, corruption, prostitution, kidnapping, gun violence. This is not small potatoes. This is very, very big, enormous, chemically-enhanced potatoes. Part of me wants to write you a nice resolution that leaves you feeling hopeful. But maybe it´s more fair to make you sit with this for a while, too. Be uncomfortable with ugliness. Find hope anyways. That´s my challenge every day. Now it´s yours.

Dándose gracias

Meche and Wellington are back! A month ago, they suddenly disappeared and their sister (cousin? neighbor?) informed us that they´d gone to live in Spain with their mother. Clearly this is not the case and they´ve triumphantly returned to Semillas to bless and bother us with their tiny, waddling presence.

Last week Ecuador suffered an earthquake – a 6.7, epicenter near the Peruvian border. Here in Duran, we were wrapping up Spirituality Night. Like any good Midwesterner, I sat dumbfounded until the sound of breaking glass and a California native pulled me out of the house. Gracias a Dios, all of us are fine, and our neighbors also suffered little to no damage. Keep these folks in your prayers – in the last week Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador were each hit once, and Chile is still shaking from their three.

On Saturday my director/pseudo-communitymate Kevin will marry a lovely ecuatoriana named Emilia. Despite this blatant violation of the ¨No dating Ecuadorians¨ policy, I´m happy for them. Congratulations, Kevin and Emilia!

Last week I learned to make a dish called seco de pollo. We began the process with a living, breathing, clucking chicken. Sadly I arrived too late to partake in the entire process (ie. I didn´t get to slit its throat), but I did get to drain the blood, pluck the bird, cut it up and take out the innards (what a great word!). Yes, I plan to cook for anyone who will let me when I come home, though I won´t insist on beginning with live fowl. Now that I´ve seen this process from start to finish, I am astounded that I haven´t gotten sick yet. Blood dripping from the body onto an old, rusty table as we wash it with parasite-ridden tank water - mmmmm. Nonetheless, it was delicious AND educational.

Tank water – I haven´t explained this yet. Although parts of Duran have running water, Arbolito is not so blessed/developed. Water trucks drive daily through the nighborhood and families who need a refill wait outside with their barrels, shouting ¨Agua!¨ intermittently with little regard for how close or far the nearest truck is at the moment. Water quality is poor - not healthy, but not deadly. Most of our neighbors use it for cooking, bathing, washing, and some drinking, though some drink bagged or bottled water.

In the volunteer house, we live a cushy life. A giant cistern sits under the ground and feeds water into our sinks and showers. Our luxury stops at running water - temperature control is another story. Since the cistern´s metal roof breaks the surface of the ground, it soaks up sunlight and heat all day long, and loses it all night. In the morning, showers are ice cold, but by 10:00, the water is warm and at 2:00 it´s too hot to touch. 6:00p is your best bet.

We try to conserve water as best we can because our cistern takes an entire truck to fill it. Therefore, every time we call our water guy (called El Gato for reasons unbeknownst to me), that is one less truck that circulates the neighborhood and fills out neighbors´ empty barrels. This point hit home for me a few weeks ago. I stopped by Patricia´s and chatted with her while she did laundry behind the house. Her water barrel was almost empty, and she needed more to finish the wash. When we heard a truck rumbling by, she sent Fernando outside to flag it down. The rumbling continued down the street and Fernando returned to inform me that the truck refused to stop, presumably because it was headed to my house. Sure enough, I found out later that our cistern was freshly filled that afternoon. Man. Of course I know that my consumption of resources affects the people around me, locally and beyond. Now I´ve seen it with my own eyes. Think about that the next time you brush your teeth.

What else, what else? Ahh - for those of you who´ve left comments for me, please also leave your email address so I can contact you de vuelta! This applies especially to old volunteers - I would like to know you.

Oh, and I have parasites. Thankfully, I also have the pills to kill them. $0.70 for the medication to kill two classes of intestinal paraites - wow. I´ll be fine in a week.

Happy Thanksgiving! How strange to think that most of you are at home, helping to cook your turkey and pie and probably enjoying a crisp Fall day. I must admit to jealousy. That said, I am immensely grateful for my opportunity to be in Ecuador, even if that means I cannot be where you are. I am also grateful for YOU, because you clearly love me enough to read about my life. Thank you for your love and support, and especially your prayers. God´s grace - man. Where would I be without it? I wouldn´t have survived this long, that´s for sure.

Our mayor agreed to fill in our road! Very few roads in Arbolito are paved, though we recently got a new one. (I found out later that this particular road was paved because it´s where the biggest local drug dealer lives and he and the mayor are buds. Oh, what good news.) My street is a dusty, rocky mess with a huge dip in he middle that turns into a cesspool during rainy season, so neighbors got together to organize (yes!) and meet with the mayor. This was their third meeting, but she finally agreed to do it. The process is starting on another nearby road, and I´m hoping she complies with her promise before the rains start. Either way, I´m proud of my neighbors. This is not their first organize-to-achieve success. Last year they got a community clean-up together and also talked the power company into giving them deeply discounted poles from which to hang power lines - a huge improvement from the old sugarcane poles (dried out cane and electrical currents? Talk about a fire hazard). I walk with hope.

Yes, hope. I have it. I have to. Thank you, Lord.

Today´s prayer intentions: for Kevin and Emilia, as they begin a marriage and a life together; for Patrick and Catherine; in thanksgiving for all, all, all the gifts God gives us and that we give to each other. Amen!

A day´s work

Long ago, I mentioned that I spend my mornings working with an organization clled Hogar de Cristo. Specifically, I work with their micro-credit program, which gives smalls loans to individual women who work together in groups of 10 or more. Each of these ¨banks¨of 10+ women has a director who is in charge of collecting weekly payments and depositing them in the bank. Hogar follows this structure because it promotes accountability not only to the organization, but also to the neighbors and friends who make up each bank. Subsidiarity - good work, Hogar.

We spent the first month shadowing Promotoras - the Hogar employees who visit the women who are behind on their payments. Working with them gave Santiago (my site partner) and I a good sense of how the program works , but was otherwise frustrating and unfulfilling work. After a few meetings with Hogar folks and our Rostro director, we found our niche within Hogar.

Every day I´m out in one of three communities (Arbolito, where I live, 28 de agosto, or5 de junio) meeting with women to...well...to accompany them, I guess. I have a tough time feeling like this is work - usually I have the sense that I´m playing hooky from what I should actually be doing. Hogar believes strongly in ¨accompaniment and empowerment¨ and thus, my job is to visit their clients to sit and talk. That´s it. So no, it doesn´t feel like work, but this may only be because I enjoy it so much.

Today Santi (my site partner) and I met a woman named Victoria. She makes all sorts of jewelry and spent almost two hours giving me an impromptu lesson in macrame. Unbeknownst to us, her daughter was making lunch in the kitchen during my lesson, so when she suddenly appeared with two plates of food (a huge pile of rice with a side of mashed potatoes and a hamburger the size of a silver dollar - we feast on a carb-heavy diet), Santi and I had no choice but to push aside our beadwork and chow down. Over lunch, our questions pulled out her story - she was a teacher in Guayaquil (major city across the river) for years, and her plan is to open a kindergarten in the house across the street. She gave us plenty more on the Minstry of Education, on private vs. public school here in Ecuador, on corruption and misappropriation of funds in the education system. I ate, frustrated and small.

She also shared her thoughts on culture of interpersonal relations here in Guayaquil and in the country as a whole. In the jungle and the mountains, people build community. They live together. They share. Here on the coast, they´re more selfish and individualistic. Can we change that? Sure, she says, but it´s a long process. People don´t organize here. Things aren´t fair, but they don´t work together.

So now what? All I can change is me. Yes. True. And believing that is the only way to survive community living. Lead by example. Still, I know voice plays a role. My life will be my legacy, but when I need to use my words, God, please take them. My life is yours. My voice is yours.

Today´s prayer intentions: for grace, trust, and patience

For Iris

In a few hours I head to work with several dozen Ecuadorian kids who are waiting for me with homework questions. In an effort to continue to process of turning Rostro´s programs over to Ecuadorian direction, we´ve been talking to community members about what they want us to do with our two-hour-a-day after-school program. They want us to teach English. Their kids can´t add, they can´t find Ecuador on a map of the world, and they can barely read in Spanish, but parents want us to teach English.

To be sustainable, it needs to come from the people. Yes. I know this. But I can´t help but feel like the people have a grossly skewed vision of the world that makes English and anyone who speaks it into a superhero or a savior. What do I do? I shut up and listen, at least for now. Wisdom welcomed.

Today´s pray intentions: for Catherine; for young idealists to find the strength to create change, especially the folks from Villanova; and in thanksgiving for Patricia´s growing home.

Hospitality

How do I overcome the desire to guard my territory and my time and let others take part in my life? How do I let the present moment take precedence over the planned future?

Here, I do this more easily. My schedule changes in the three seconds it takes a neighbor to invite me in for lunch, or as soon as the herd of children see me and sprint to tackle me into a game of Cafe Chocolate. Here, I let myself be taken by life as I learn to trust spontaneity.

I give my time, though not my home. Like most houses here, our home is gated, though it´s unique in that it has a guard, and only Rostro staff are allowed in unannounced or unaccompanied. I am uncomfortable with the distance this system creates between us and our neighbors, but understand its necessity (or at least utility) for security and other reasons. Following the recommendation (not rule) of our directors, our community opted for a no-visitors policy, to be revisited regularly. Eso me cuesta. Again, I understand its purpose, but I struggle with the distance it creates. I want to share my space with people I care about, to give them the intimacy of my sanctuary.

Here, now, I can´t. So - how to be a hospitable guest? How to share my heart and home outside of the gate? Pictures, bananna bread, conversation, radical availability. That´s my best answer to date.

I am not Ecuadorian. As welcome as I feel with certain families, I don´t and can´t understand life in Arbolito. I will leave. I can leave. Poverty is the absence of power to change your life. (Who said this?) I have power. I have a college degree, money, two languages, white skin, and I vote for the president of the United States of America. I feel welcome, open, loved, loving, and learning, but I am not arboliteña and I want to respect the difference. Yes, I still learn across a gulf, and I learn more honestly.

Given the gulf, why do they invite me in? Because I´m new? Special? A good person? White? Rich? Able to give them things? Or because close quarters and sugarcane walls make barriers fluid, and everyone cooks more than their family will eat?

It´s easy to fall into the trap of cynicism and to believe that new friends here will eventually manipulate the gringa into repaying them with favors or money. But I don´t believe that. Some will try to exploit me, but this is true anywhere of any people. The world I want to create - the world Christ calls me to create - sows trust and generosity to reap love and strength of community. How can I construct this world if I don´t first believe in it and live it? I won´t request what I refuse to live.

¨I am blessed to be a witness.¨

Trust is risky. So is generosity. Eventually, I´m gonna get screwed. Someone will take advantage of my whatever goodness I manage to share. You will read those emotions too as the year (as life?) wears on, and they will be ugly. I will try, try, try to live joyfully despite disappointment and deception. Bear with me. Feel free to join in the experiment. Also to pray.

What a small price to pay for build love.

I trust you.

Today´s prayer intentions: for the cumpleañeros, Brigitte and Fernando; for us to find strength to love through difficulty, and that we resist the hardening of our hearts as we face the ugliness of this world. And also in thanksgiving for good parents, both mine and others´.

Happy birthday, Pops!

This entry, and most good and a few bad things about me, are dedicated to my dad. Yesterday he began his 55th year of his loving life. I love you, Dad!

I didn´t look in the mirror today. Here, I barely do, but thankfully I always know that my hair is a mess or if I´m blessed with a pimple because my Ecuadorian friends point them out. This doesn´t surprise me from a culture where the names Fatty and Old Man are as common as Maria and Ricardo. One of our Semillas kids has an extra stub on each hand. His friends call him ¨Seis¨.

La amarguita - así era yo a lo largo de un sabado feo y caluroso. I let butterness gnaw at me. Why? Pancakes.

Three weeks ago my neighbor Ricardo (son of the aforementioned Patricia) turned 16. To celebrate, I offered to make him a pancake breakfast. Scheduling conflicts repeatedly delayed the date. ¨Cristina, why haven´t you made my pancakes yet?¨ ¨Because you weren´t home , because I was bed-ridden, etc.¨ ¨No, becauase you´re lazy and a liar.¨ Ouch. It wasn´t supposed to sting - it was supposed to be a flippant, playful remark from a 16 year old boy who lacks tact to a girl he treats like a sister. It stung because I let it.

So I made his precious pancakes. Without a lick of love, I mixed and cooked the batter, all the while muttering how rude and ungrateful that bratty teenager is, what a jerk, I hope he chokes on his pancakes, grumble, grumble, grumble.

Bitter.

My Rostro sister Marie is a joyful servant. She serves us only when she can do so joyfully. Otherwise, she leaves our work to each individual. She washes my dishes only when it enlivens her. In this, Marie is my mirror, my teacher.

It seems I failed a test. The plate of pancakes I delivered to Ricardo dripped with resentment, and he tasted it enough to pull me aside later to apologize. Thankfully what I atoned for Joyless Service with Compassionate Forgiveness. I also apologized for my short temper and calmly reopened my heart to my little brother, who did, in fact, thank me.

So...turtle blood. You can drink it. It´s sweet, and best when chased with Coke. ¨Try it - it´s good for you. Full of vitamins.¨ I graciously declined, but watched my Semillas kids suck it down. Yum.

Last night I attended a quinceañera (15th birthday party. Big celebration marking a girl´s entrance into womanhood) for Dalia, a girl in the youth group I am also a part of (Nueva Generación) who´ve I really taken a liking too. According to the invitation, festivities would begin at 9:00p. We´ve already learned that Ecua time bumps everything back, so we arrived at 10:00p, a little worried we would miss the presentation. We were the first to arrive.

The presentation finally got rolling around midnight, and we stayed to dance until around 1:30a when we were, appropriately, the first to leave. A bleary-eyed Dalia informed me at Mass this morning that the party kept rolling until 5:00a. Give me a few months to build up Ecua-endurance, and I´ll be right there with them. Dalia choked back tears when she toasted her family in gratitude. What a blessing to be invited to the party and into this family.

Again, thank you for letters! I´m amazed by you folks and all you´re doing, for me and for the world. Responses will come, but slowly, as I have to wait for USA-bound visitors to grace our home. Peace, my friends.

Today´s prayer intentions: for Rosa, Dalia´s sister, who recently found a tumor in her cheek, that she and her family find the peace and strength to deal with the doctor´s news tomorrow; and in thanksgiving for friends, old and new, local and far-and-away.

Con gripe (GREE-pay)

Así ando, con gripe. I´m sick as a dog with enough junk leaving my nasal cavity to question what modern medicine teaches about the human body´s maximum volume capacity. I wonder if I´ve leaked any brainpower in the process. The last few days have left me bedridden and this is my first exciting foray into the world since Wednesday. Who knew buying bread and hitting up the Internet cafe could be such a thrill?

I have discovered the cause for my sickness, or rather, my Ecuadorian neighbors have discovered it for me. Cambio de clima, se dicen, y mucho polvo. Blame it on the change in temperature and the excessive dust. Whether we have the sniffles, a sore throat, upset stomach, or a broken arm, these two are always the culprit. It´s like going to the campus medical center and receiving their super-potent antibiotic pack for everything from the flu to carpal tunnel syndrome. Regardless of the cause, I am resting a receiving lots o´ love from concerned neighbors and communitymates. If I can´t have Mom, at least I have good friends.

My neighborhood is known as Arbolito, although there is no specific small tree that makes this name logical. It started as an invasion - a squatter settlement - about 15 years ago and has grown. The main road and one other are paved, but most are dirt and rocks. It´s divided losely into 4 sectors, numbered based on age and level of devleopment. I live in Sector 3, which hosts the Catholic church and a tech school built a few years ago which moonlights (afternoons) as our host for Semillas. Most houses are made of sugarcane, though some are cement and most blocks have one or two under construction. Arbolito settlers moved into a swamp, and the damp climate remains and gives us LOTS of mosquitos, so I avoid the outdoors during twilight hours. Most of our female neighbors work out of the house - owning a store, sewing, making shoes or some other type of artisanry - and male neighbors are mechanics, bus or taxi drivers, construction workers, or work sporadically in whatever job they can find. Many are unemployed, particularly because Arbolito offers very little in terms of employment, and a good chunk work in jobs that keep them away from the home Mon-Fri.

Te lo explico. Arbolito is a neighborhood of Duran, a large area across the river from Guayaquil. Most of the poor who work in Guayaquil live in Duran, which has developed more quickly in some sectors than others. Every way I can think of to explain these places references places I´ve lived before - Duran´s largest artery called Primavera 1 looks like the main drag in Callao in Peru, lined with stores covered by grates and stoplights that regulate very little. Arbolito is Lima´s Gambetta neghborhood - dusty, dirty, burning trash, small stores, lots of pedestrians and biciclists riding two or three on a bike that looks like it shouldn´t support one. Music, music, music, though this is true for almost every location I visit here. And kids! Everywhere! Guayaquil hosts plenty of street children, though I don´t see them often because there are fewer in Duran and my job keeps me on this side of the river. Oh man, the kids. Those big brown eyes. And they´re all so darn good at soccer. I feel uncoordinated and clumsy with them, but they continue to run to me for hugs and any sort of cariño. I guess soccer skills don´t define one´s worth as a person. Who knew?

Funny anecdote: Duran and Guayaquil are separated by a river, which flows in some of the strangest, most erratic currents I´ve ever seen. Consequently, the river (río in Spanish) is affectionately called the ría, making it feminine and thus matching the female characteristics of being fickle, indecisive, and impossible to understand. I know I´ll catch flack for posting this, but if you saw the way 72 year old Gabriel winked and knudged me with his elbow as he told this story, you´d throw it in too. Oh Gabriel - would that I were old and charming enough to be as excusably irreverent as he! Dimples and a good laugh - dangerously powerful.

Pardon my directionless writings - cabin fever leaves me a little loopy. Peace be with you, friends!

Today´s prayer intentions: for the volunteers at the Farm of the Child, who are taking a weekend retreat to renew their energy, that they find strength and patience for love; and for Raul, for whatever made him cry the other day.

Come in

Dear friends and family, past, present, and future,

¡Feliz dia!

I am in Ecuador. July 31, 2007 marked my first night and I´m dumbstruck when I see today´s date. 6 weeks? Really?

When I first arrived, a veteran volunteer told me that his days in Ecuador dragged on, but weeks and months flew by. Now I sit in the front office at work, scribbling notes in a small book filled with prayres and Spanish vocabulary (parsley is ¨perejil¨), waiting to head out for another interminable day.

I love these days, these long, sweaty days that send me home dripping, drained, and satisfied. Evenings smell like sunscreen diluted with salt water and children´s dirty hands until a cold shower, rice steam, and lime juice take over. I prefer neither clean nor dirty, and I sleep best when I´ve bathed in both.

Nights are cool and windy, though I´m told this will change when the rains come (November-April). The sun is intense. There is no font bold enough for this word.

God is here, in people. Bueno, God is everywhere in people, but I see Him here, now, sweating, laughing. Six other volunteers share my days and theirs over dinner, and five more live in another house nearby. Family.

My neighbors also. Señora Patricia and Co. above all. Nine people live in that open home. Be patient - I will give them to you as best I can in the coming weeks and months. Know that I am well loved here. And that I am blessed.

Monday-Friday take me to work. Two jobs, morning and afternoon. At 8:30a I start my day with Hogar de Cristo, working in their micro-credit program. This job will change dramatically in the next few weeks, so I´ll say more in time.

Afternoons call me to Semillas de Mostaza, an after-school program in my neighborhood that hosts 50-140 kids daily, depending on the time of year. It is my greatest source of joy and frustration. Children´s lies sting more than others, and their growth tastes rich and sweet. Again, I will say more.

I am learning to pray here. A slow process. Singing helps tremendously, as (strangely) do bumpy buses.

Brief, piddly, insufficient. Yes, I know, but it is something! Tell me what you want more of.

Your letters! Thank you, and for your prayers also.

Today´s intentions: Jefferson, that he stop getting in his own way and can learn to behave as well as he so desperately wants to.