Luis y el Pulpo

So Luis(little rascal from Semillas) and I are reading a story the other day about el pulpo(octopus) who wants to find a friend to play with. None of the other sea creatures will play because they are scared he will eat them. The last page of the story ends with el pulpo asking a tiburon, shark, to play, and what happens...the shark eats the pulpo....Why am I telling you all this, well because the best part of the story happened when I said, el poopoo, yes that means poop----and Luis went into a fit of hysterical belly laughter saying "lupita just said poopoo" he could not contain himself and i have never seen this child laugh so hard.

Watching him I could not help but start laughing hysterically and the two of us were just sitting there laughing and laughing about el poopoo. This went on for about five minutes, and I was laughing so hard that by the end I was crying. May seem really stupid or insignificant, but honestly this was one of the best moments of my week. It was in this moment that I realized, that it doesn´t matter what we do with these kids during our two hours at Semillas, it doesn´t matter if they learn fractions or can count to a hundred in a single afternoon. It doesn´t matter if they understand the geometric shapes we teach them during activity, or if they can multiply 8 times 12.


We are here to be with them. To laugh with them, to play with them, and to let them be kids, if only for two hours a day. I´m not really sure what happens from 5pm on in the course of their nights, but I have heard that in some houses it is not a pretty time. Parents are exhausted, and alcoholism is rampant in this culture. If I can get a kid to laugh with me over the course of my afternoon at Semillas then I feel like it was a productive day.


We really take for granted that kids have a place to play and create and imagine in the US-- because it happens all the time. When homework is done, and there are a few hours left of daylight, kids at home can go play in the neighborhood or in their backyards or go to a park down the street and just have fun. I´m really struggling with this here. These kids don´t have green grass, or swingsets, or markers, or playdough, or bikes. They have dirty rivers, and rusted wires, and broken glass laying around the dusty dirt roads that surround their houses. Not to mention the tons of stray dogs that are everywhere and leave their trails as well. It´s just something that I think about a lot. I know that these kids have joy in their lives and smile like other kids, but I can´t help but feel real sadness for them. They shouldn´t have to worry about finding a safe place to play in everyday. They are only kids. It´s these thoughts that give me the grace to continue playing at Semillas each afternoon.


As for Redima, it´s still taking time. Mondays and Tuesdays are better than Wednesdays and Thursdays, but again, I know things will work out. I am just so thankful that for the most part, the woman that work there are so caring and compassionate and always asking me what I ate that day ha. For some reason they are all very concerned about me and my diet, and just want to make sure that I don´t waste away here. I keep telling them that its really not a problem, and that if I eat any more beans and rice i´m going to turn into a freaking frijole, but they keep asking, so I keep answering :-)

That´s about all I have time for today kids, but I will be sure to keep you posted about my upcoming week.

Still thinking about you and praying for you all. Oh and Karla´s birthday was a lot of fun, not to mention the cake was delicious!!! I miss sweets so much it´s not even funny. I think that´s why i´m starting to get addicted to the crystal light packets. It´s the one thing I have to look forward to at night! Sad I know....oh well, when in Ecuador....

Love you all!

Lupita

Lava las manos por favor!!

One week down kids! Ha thats what I kept thinking all week, not so optomistic right? I don´t want to try and pretend that this week was amaing, because honestly, this past week was rough, to say the least. I was so frustrated, exhausted, and just frazzled for most of the time, but all in all I survived. So that´s the first step.

Redima was tough--the language barrier presents a huge challenge for me every moment that I´m there. Initially they were asking me to do things that I was not so comfortable doing, like just starting all of these IVs without pumps, without gloves, and without supervision. Needless to say I just gave them this petrified stare of, you´re kidding me right? And after that first day incident, I think they´re trying not to overwhelm me, but at the same time, now I´m on the brink of boredom. Honestly, I think i´m still figuring out my role there-I need to be comfortable wtih the tasks they ask me to do, and they need to feel confident that I can perform these tasks without freaking out. After the IV gig, I think they questioned my statement-soy una enfermera, ha! But I tried explaining that I was new and just graduated---still didn´t seem to be an excuse here.

With time, I know Redima will be rewarding, but for now it´s a lot of unlearning everything I ever learned in nursing school haha. Sterile fields---pfff, hand washing---out the window, confidentiality---does not exist in Ecuador, and yes people here give every shot in the butt, despite the fact that research has proven you can paralyze a person if you hit the sciatic nerve....(or at least i´m pretty sure I learned that at BC)....I´m going to be okay, i´m going to find my place---I need to be patient both with myself and them because this is still so new. I´m just so anxious to "help" which is really the root of the problem. However inefficient I may think this clinic is, it´s still running and operating with or without me. So I just need to relax, take a step back, and find out where I fit in this whole scheme of healthcare.

Semillas on the other hand is a complete one eighty. Absolute madness, complete chaos. For two hours everyday I have screaming kids literally launching themselves at me begging for my attention. There are these two brothers Abran y Luis and although they are two of the cutest kids I have ever seen, they are like leaches. I usually have one on one leg, and one on the other. They´re so silly though and just laugh and smile-- so as much as I want to get annoyed I really can´t help but think maybe this is where they get their daily dose of attention, and let it go as I drag them around the compound. By the time Semillas finishes at 5 I am absolutely beat. Sooo tired, and I think that´s why this past week was so hard for me. I haven´t yet figured out the best rest schedule for my body. I need to find a happy medium where I have energy for both jobs, and don´t deplete myself--because our days don´t end at 5 either, then we have to cook, clean, and three nights a week have either a community night(games-fun stuff), spirituality night, or community meeting (where we talk about all of the stuff that´s either going well....or not so well in our house)...The days are long, but again, with time, i´ll get the hang of them. I´m usually passed out by 10 oclock every night and feel so old, but I guess this is what adults do? Maybe?

So there´s a brief look at my past week---and a few other things I wanted to let you know:
1. I will NEVER get used to taking cold showers---they are awful, and if I had to say I hate anything about Ecuador, this would be it.
2. Buses don´t stop here, you kind of have to get a running start to get on, and then hop off a moving bus when you want to get off--it is so crazy, and i´m just praying to god that i don´t eat it one of these days.
3. I have become the master at jumping rope--aside from futbol, it is my only source of cardio here, and i kind of feel like Rocky as I get up at 6:30 every morning to get a little work out in.
4. Our house is becoming famous for baking banana bread, Dan´s mom has the best recipe, and low and behold there are a lot of bananas in Ecuador, so we usually make it at least twice a week.
5. I am reading The Shack right now--and would love to hear comments if any of you have read it because I still don´t know what I think about it.

and lastly 6. I still miss you guys all so much, some days are just harder than others, but I try not to get too weepy when I think about you all. Sometimes I just feel like I´m going to be missing out on so much this year, but then I have to put a year into perspective and think, it´s going to be okay---i´m going to have amazing memories too.

I love you all so much, and am trying to do my best to work on my snail mail. Oh and also, I figured out that I can send text messages for 7 cents, so if you get a text from a strange number it may be me just saying hi and letting you know that i´m thinking about you.

Thats it for now--Karla´s birthday is tomorrow! woohooo--so I have to go clean and get ready for people to come over! We´re making a cake too, so exciting!

Hasta luego,
Con mucho amor,
Lupita

Viva Ecuador!

Hey Everyone!

So i´m here...Living in Ecuador! Can you believe it? I still can´t ha! It hasn´t even been two weeks yet, and I´m already calling this place home! (don´t worry mom---this is only temporary! 35 Livingston Drive will ALWAYS be where I return to!)

I told myself I was going to prewrite this entry so I was more organized, but of course I didn´t so here comes my scatter brained head:

For the first week we were here the eleven of us were living together in the Arbolito retreat house--very cozy, but a lot of fun. They still hadn´t decided who was going to be living with who so for that reason we all stayed together and shared the big house. I guess I should first say that Rostro volunteers are split between two neighborhoods: Antonio Jose de Sucre and El Arbolito, each house also has a neighboring retreat house which is where the high school and college kids stay when we host them for retreats. The houses are only about a mile a part, but we´re not allowed to walk between them without a partner because they say it can get a bit "sketchy"....needless to say, we´re very careful when we walk through them and ALWAYS are with a fellow volunteer.

The two neighborhoods are VERY different. AJS is more developed, cleaner, and Rostro has been working in that neighborhood longer. Arbolito is well...not as developed, dirt roads, cane houses, not many stores, small brush fires everywhere, lots of naked children running around-- its basically an invasion community that people just started developing little by little. I thought for SURE I was going to be living in AJS---actually I was positive--it definitely seemed more me, especially for the clean factor, but i´m sure you all can guess where i´m living by now...Yes I am living in El Arbolito with Tom, Dan, Karla, Michele and Theresa....We live in la Casa Grande...it sticks out like a sore thumb amongst these houses and at times makes me feel pretty uncomfortable.


Our house is huge, like bigger than my house at home. We all have running water, our own rooms, huge kitchen, big common room, three bathrooms, and a chapel...yeah it´s pretty legit...but because of this, it makes it all the more important that we focus on living simply. When our neighbors are living out of two bedroom cane houses, with sometimes five kids sharing a bed, we really have to think about what we need in life, and what is only a want....

I need to backtrack a bit, the first week we were here, the old volunteers were here with us---another reason why we stayed in the retreat houses---and they were absolutely wonderful. They confirmed my decision that Ecuador is where I need to be right now. Inspiring is an understatement: what they´ve done, or better, how they´ve lived their past year here, was truly beautiful. Seeing the relationships they´ve developed with our neighbors, and how the kids respond to them on the streets was an act of God´s grace. It was hard not to be intimidated by them because they are so loved here, and although we know we´re not trying to replace them, we hope our neighbors don´t think that thats what we´re trying to do, and accept us for who we are. Again, I cannot say enough about them, I feel truly blessed to have been able to experience Ecuador with them for a week.

And now we´re on our own. We had a huge scavenger hunt yesterday to learn our way around the cities. It was so intense. Absolutely exhausting, and at times extremely frustrating, but I now feel like I can navigate these two large cities(both Duran and Guayaquil)....Our team (me, Mary, Steve, and Theresa) came in second, only after climbing 444 steps to the top of el faro, or huge lighthouse, that has the best view of the entire guayas providence...it was breathtaking, and just an fyi for anyone coming to visit me this year, i hope you´re conditioned enough to make this trek with me because you can´t leave Guayaquil without having a glimpse of this view (hint hint)

Some other things to note: My job sites for this upcoming year are confirmed, and I am officially going to be working at the Redima Clinic doing patient intakes, nursing care, HIV teaching, health education, and basically anything that they need me to do. Í´ve been told that I will probably be asked to do some things that i´m not actually qualified for because they know i´m a nurse, and it´s up to my disgression whether or not i feel comfortable to accept...hmm i guess it depends on what they ask me to do right? But for some reason in the back of my head I still keep thinking maybe i´ll be delivering babies this year! ha, probably not, but wouldn´t it be cool if i did?


More than likely i´ll be doing a lot of primary care, annual health physicals, and a lot of presentations...I´m going to be working with Michele which is great because she´s a native Spanish speaker. She´s going to be doing more of the psych counseling for the HIV testing, but we´ll definitely be working closely for much of the time.


For the afternoons i´m going to be running an afterschool program called Semillas de Mostaza with Dan and Karla...let´s just say Jamie was not too thrilled about this placement initially, but after a lot of tears, conversation, and much prayer, I have decided that I think I can handle this...Semillas is at times extremely chaotic, loud, and in my opinion very overwhelming--some months they have 100+ kids attending. For someone like me who enjoys structure and quiet, I could just see myself dreading the afternoons and having to pop a Xanax before every session. However, I am up for the challenge. I know I need to work on my patience and flexibility, and this may just be exactly what I need to loosen up a bit (some of you may be laughing right now) but in all seriousness I am ready. Just keep praying for my sanity and a hope that I bend and not break with this placement. Thank God for Karla and Dan too because they are going to be supporting me A LOT, so they too may need many prayers!


So this is kind of where I stand for right now. I am absolutely in the honeymoon stage of my culture shock. Everything around here excites me and I find myself being so optomistic for what is to come. I love my vecinos, and I barely even know them. Wellington, our little neighbor who´s probably around 8 years old greets me everyday with a big hug and asks me to teach him English any chance he gets. He is so eager to learn and loves the attention. Oh and I should probably mention, I´m now known as Lupita here. No one can say Jamie (but of course), so for convenience sake, I have just started calling myself Lupita, and I actually really love it. When my neighbors yell, Hola Lupita! I can´t help but smile. It sounds so cute, especially when the little kids say it!

I´m sorry if my thoughts are really out of order, there is just so much to fill you guys in on. I want you to have an idea of what I see and feel, so please let me know if what I write really doesn´t make sense or if you have questions about anything. I´m going to try and update this as frequently as possible, but the little computer that i´m writing from runs so slowly and it´s hot as hell in this cyber. Oh yeah and by the way, Ecuador is about 100 degrees right now, and it´s technically Winter in South America---I don´t know what i´m going to do come January.

Here´s my address too just in case anyone has the urge to write me some snail mail :-)

Jamie Buller o Megan Radek
Casilla 09011024
Guayiquil, Ecuador, South America

I miss you all so much, and hope everyone is doing well. ´

I´ll be praying for you! Oh and my brother is going to be leaving for Spain come September, so keep him in your prayers too as well as mi Mama y Papa who will have two children living out of the country! Dios Mio! I know they can handle it though, they´re strong people, and will definitely get through this :-)

Hasta Pronto!
Lupita