Time is ticking in Ecuador!

We have spent the majority of our past week in Conocoto, what a blast! Both, Bekah and I stayed with two different loving families in the area. My middle-upper class family, lives in a beautiful four bedroom home in a gated community. Marco, the father is an auto mechanic and his wife Mariana is an accountant. They have one daughter, Sara, who’s in school for architecture and an aunt and nephew who also live in their home. They were very kind and hospitable. I was very thankful that Sara knew some English because I know very little Spanish.

Parts of our host families

In the mornings, Sara drove us a couple minutes to the Orphanage. Ben and Kelly joined us each day. A few hours every morning we learned Spanish, at our teacher, Secilia’s home. I began to become overloaded with information. By the evening I could barely remember how to say simple greetings. It was especially hard for me because I haven’t had any Spanish classes before and in language studies there are many things to memorize and repeat.
For lunch and the afternoon we were assigned a Casa “home” to join. In each Casa there are about 10 orphans and a mother to care for them. They were all very lively and loving children. The language barrier definitely made it hard for me to communicate with them. But the young children were loads of fun, tickling, cuddling and laughing all the time. In the evenings we went back to our host families.
The first day, Bekah came over with some of her family. We watched the popular movie “Twilight” and later on in the evening, later being 9pm, they decided to take us into Quito, to see the city lights. Bekah and I, knowing that Spanish class would be awaiting us in the morning but both having a sense of adventure decided to go for it anyways. The next few nights were very similar late nights and early mornings. We spent a great deal of time together with both families in the evenings. Usually supper took place around 8-9pm. This is very typical for the average Ecuadorian family. There was always plenty of food to go around and we’re always offered more.
The last night, the girls dragged me and Ben to a dance class. This turned out to be more of an aerobics class! Ben and I decided it was still pretty feminine and we probably wouldn’t do it again. Although we all did get a great workout in! It was sad to say goodbye to our families’ and to the Happiness Foundation on Friday. We made many great relationships and have many great memories in Conocoto.
This weekend we climbed Iliniza Norte! Everything went extremely well, we were blessed with the safety from great guides and all of us stayed predominantly healthy. Although we didn’t have the best weather it wasn’t the absolute worst either! I had no idea what to expect when mountain climbing. It definitely gave me some fear and scare to see how exposed we were to the mountains edge.

Bekah and I on the mountains edge!

Our team ready for the climb!

We are recovering for the next few days here at OMS. On Thursday, we are setting out for the big Mt. Cayambe! Can’t wait to see what new challenges lay ahead! Thank you for those continual thoughts and prayers!

A new country!

Buenas Noches!

We arrived in Quito, Ecuador late Sunday evening! The plane ride went very smoothly but it dragged on all day, Sunday. Darrell, the OMS guest house owner picked us up from the airport. We are staying at the guest house for our first week in Quito. Darrell and his wife Kelly, are super friendly folk, originally from Austin, Texas. They serve us breakfast each morning and we cook our own lunch and supper meals.

Monday was our first full day in Quito. We met another Summit instructor, Ben, whose been working in Quito for a month already. He will be spending the majority of days with us while we are in Ecuador. Ben and Kelly gave us a small debrief about the city in the morning and then sent me and Bekah to get groceries for the week. We went to a huge market where there were tons of fruits, vegetables, chicken, rice and basically everything you could think of. After taking a few hours of using Bekah's Spanish and deciding what to buy we walked back to OMS. In the afternoon we set out again to tour the town. We took the city bus to a large cathedral called "Basilica del Voto Nacional". The inside and outside had very unique architecture. For a total of two dollars we went to the very top of the Cathedral. The top overlooked Quito and its surrounding mountains. It took us awhile to figure out what buildings we were looking at using our map. Eventually, we found a town square with a few museums and the Presidential Palace. We hiked over to the town square and lingered into a Museum until supper time. The museum was full of national geographic pictures. Some of these pictures were about the terrorizing A taxi took us back to the guest house for a $2.50 fee. Kelli and Ben made dinner and we spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

Tuesday, Ben, Kelli, Bekah and I went to a park. We worked out most of the morning, ran the couple kilometer track, did pull-ups, pushups and sit-ups. After a couple hours of working out and adjusting to Quito's altitude, which is 9300 feet above sea level, we went for lunch. Ben took us to where he claimed was ‘the best place lunch’ in town. It was a small restaurant hidden in the neighborhood close to where we are staying. They served us, a bowl of potato soup, a plate of rice, chicken and salad and a banana yogurt for dessert. This is a very typical lunch in Ecuador. After eating, I had to admit, it was very tasty. We spent the afternoon discussing a culture inquiry project and watched a movie called "The Mission". Tonight, I learned how to make rice at a new altitude. With the help of Kelly (from OMS) I made some pretty good rice. We had more chicken and rice for dinner! The rest of the evening we had to play ping pong and do our own thing.

Wednesday, we spent all morning and some of the afternoon on long hike! Bryce, another Summit instructor joined us for the day. The hike took us to almost 15,000 feet above sea level. The oxygen was noticeably different, and my heart was racing at a much faster pace. We are continuing to try to train our bodies to acclimatize at high altitudes. It gave me a little scare and excitement for the big climbs ahead. Bryce, Ben and I still felt hungry after eating a peanut butter sandwich on the trail. So we went out for lunch again, to the “best place in town”, close to OMS. In the late afternoon Bryce, Kelli, Bekah and I decided to check out a Art Museum. The artist was famous for drawings of the early Ecuadorian people such as the Inca’s and Mayans. Many of the drawings showed the darkness of the ancient world. There were a lot of painful stories expressed through this art but it gave inspiration to us, as we tried to understand what their life of suffering and pain was like. Again, the evening was set aside for our own personal time. Me and Bekah played more ping pong and read a few more chapters in our cross cultural book “Serving with Eyes Wide Open”. This book has risen many great questions such as, “What assumptions do we make of the country we’re visiting?” How do we stop ourselves from making assumptions and begin to use knowledge mixed with our observations? We also need to begin to ask what is deeper, behind our observations.

Today, we spent most of the morning at the park, working out and running the track. I didn’t have much energy because of the mix of elevation, eating differently and being in a new place. We spent some time reviewing what we are learning and observing in this Ecuadorian culture. This afternoon we walked the streets of Quito. We found another great lunch spot, reviewed what the Government is like in Ecuador and found one of the oldest ice cream parlors in the city. The ice cream was about one of the tastiest I’ve had in awhile. I couldn’t decide whether that was because the sun had been beating down on us all day or I was still exhausted from working out. Somethings I learned about Ecuador's government today were: Their are many different police authority officials such as transportation police, government police and the military. And none of these police have anything to do with each other. Ecuador is also known as one of the most currupt governments in the world. Their leaders do not stay in power for very long because either they are assassinated or are kicked out by the people. Anyways, it’s almost supper time now. It’s been nice to be able to sit down and share the last couple days with my friends and followers. I hope your still enjoying my blog even with my lack of grammar. That’s all for now, pictures are coming soon!