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