TGIF

Friday the 22nd is up

Feeling Expensive

So today I woke up around 7 am and laid in bed in and out of sleep until 9--my favorite. I love waking up to my own body and the sun and not an abnoxious alarm. We then all mosied on down for the breakfast buffet. So good. We all ate way too much. The hot chocolate reminded me of the kind we used to treat ourselves to once a transfer in Spain. Super rich and delicious.

After breakfast, we went to the Casa de Cultura--a museum Allie had found online. We asked the concierge if it would be possible to find a taxi for 6 people, and told us about the bus that was just around the corner and went straight there. Feeling adventurous, we agreed. The bus was fun. We held our bags close to us the whole time and giggled the whole way there just loving the spontaneity of this whole last day excursion.

The museum was way cool. They had art and artifacts dating back from approx. 12,000 BC until the present time. I was amazed at how well preserved most of the pieces were. It was incredible. My favorite piece of the whole museum was a painting on wood of Christ and His mother, Mary. It was just so intimate. It only really showed their faces, but you could tell that He was lying in her arms after being crucified. The thing I loved was all of the emotion that was in the painting without Christ looking so weak and helpless or Mary looking hopeless. It was stunning. Of course the artist was unknown and they didn't have a print of it or anything down in the gift shop, so I will tell you about so that I won't forget the beauty of it.

I loved the museum. We haven't done a lot of artsy things on this trip, and so it was great. I was missing my Erin though. I know it would have been even better had you been there to explain how fantastic everything there was and the symbolism to me.

After the museum, we came home but were still too full to eat so we lounged around until about 2 o'clock and then headed down for another delicious free meal. Lunch did not disappoint either. It was probably one of the most delicious meals I have had on this trip. What am I saying? It DEFINITELY was the most delicious meal I have had on this trip. They served us ceviche as an appetizer. It is a shrimp/salsa thing that Ecuador is famous for. Neither Allie or I like shrimp that much, but didn't want to pass up the free opportunity to try it, so we shared a bowl. I tried it. It actually wasn't even that bad. The salsa is good, and I could barely taste the shrimp. Maybe someday I won't be such a new-food-pansy. There was a dessert bar and I chose a chocolate cake thing with whip cream and raspberry sauce. Most of the desserts down here have always looked a lot better than they have actually tasted, but that was not the case with this one. Chocolate goodness.

Now, it is 3:30 and we are heading up to the pool they have here and will swim in the pool, sit in the hot tub, enjoy the sauna and steam room and just relax. This is good for me. ;) Our only plans for the rest of the evening are to shower, pack, eat dinner, and take some sweet pics of our new place before we take off for the airport at 8. This is the best act of service I have ever performed. Thank you Delta Airlines.

Megan summed today up best when she said, "I just feel so expensive right now." Sad part is, we definitely do not look expensive, especially because none of us have ANY clean or nice clothes left. So we will try not to embarrass the hotel too much.

I just made $400 in 2 minutes!

So my flight for the U. S. of A. is leaving in 37 minutes, but I will NOT be on it! Why? $400 in Delta vouchers, a one-night stay in a 5-star hotel, free food and transportation is why!
I got the offer first and Allie was checking in at the same time and I asked her if she would do it with me. She had some plans back on the homefront so she faltered, so I turned to Sonya, related her the details, after thinking about it for a minute, she was in. Then Allie seeing us all excited decided to ditch her plans and join us for the party. Three more girls decided to join us. Two of the boys called their wives but when they heard the sadness of their wives about the 24-hour delay it was a no go. Oh the joys of being single and unattached!
I'll be arriving Saturday morning at 10:25 am! See you then!

Allie & I living it up in the posh. Yep those are REAL roses. BEAUTIFUL!

Slippers party!

Ecuador Excursion

So today we did some of this

And this

It was definitely one of the most fun days of the trip. Zip-lining was exhilarating! We got to do 13 different runs for only $8!! I love Ecuador! There were super fast ones, one where they bounced the cable up and down so you were springing around just trying not to catch your neck on the cable, and one SUPER long one. Loved it. They also let us do tricks with the guides. I got to do Superman twice. I will attach a video of that so you can see it.

The other trick I got to do was “mariposa” (butterfly). Basically you are attached to the guide and I guess somehow to the cable, not really sure about that actually (hmmm. . . that’s kind of scary now that I think about it), and you are hanging upside down in like a big X (almost like a butterfly, hence the name). The butterfly one was a little scarier and more thrilling, but I liked Superman better because you got to just look down and around you and you really felt like you were flying. Awesome.
The best part was that after we were done, I realized that they never even had us sign a waiver or anything. Things are just so much simpler down here. I love it.
I was ready to do it all again, along with the majority of the students after we were finished, but we had a waterfall hike already planned so we jumped into the back of these trucks (that is kind of the mode of transportation it seems when going out into the mountains or out of the major city).
We took a tram ride over to the other side of this valley thing to start our hike. The “tram” was actually scarier than the ziplines! I think that it was probably at least 100 years old or something. Well, maybe it was not actually 100 years old, but it definitely looked like it was.





Then we hiked around through the Amazons for a couple of hours. The waterfalls were beautiful. It all just seems like a movie or a dream now because it just doesn’t seem real that there are actually places like this in the real world and not just in the movies. I loved it. Hiking back up and out we started getting a little bored, so of course we had to sing a few girls camp songs. Poor boys.

After the adventures, we had a 2 ½-hour ride home back through the jungle and pretty mountains and hills. I snuggled up to the window and listened to Screwtape Letters on my iPod. My favorite. It was a perfect set-up to contemplate my tiny little life and the universes. All in all, I would say it was a pretty darn good day.

A friend we picked up along the way

Okay the smile MAY be a little fake. . . because gross!!

Highway Robbery & Drug Smuggling

We left Guayaquil today. As we packed up last night I felt like I was leaving home again. We made so many friends there, even within the hotel—Angel and Ronald the doormen; Papi (don’t know his real name, we just called him that because we always had to ask him for the sheet to sign out whenever we left the hotel so our instructors would know where we were, and he liked the name); Freddy was our favorite guy at breakfast; and of course our girls that helped us clean our room: Teresa, Lady and Nelly.
We arrived in Quito around 11:30 am today. It is TOTALLY different than Guayaquil. It is super green and the streets are a lot cleaner, and it just seems a little less third-worldish. I have to remember though that we did basically only see the airport and then we drove through the town on our way out to Otovalo. Even though it is cleaner and nicer looking though, Guayaquil will always have a very special place in my heart because of the friends I met and was hopefully able to serve there and maybe even because it wasn’t so nice looking.
We did have an experience at the airport that didn’t leave the best taste in our mouths of Quito though. As a group of 22 people, and even worse, 22 American people, getting around is sometimes a little bit of a circus. After we got off the plane, we went down and got all of our bags at the baggage claim no problem. We then in herd-like fashion started exiting the airport looking for our Quito/Otovalo tour guide, Ornela, and the bus we would be getting on to go out to Otovalo. We found Ornela as soon as we exited the airport and she waved the bus over to get us. As we were walking out to the bus, all of these people started swarming us, some asking for money, others asking to take our bags. Thanks to my mom, I have awesome luggage, that sticks out so that it is easy to find and all chains together really well, so it is super easy to manage and so I just kept telling them, “No. I’ve got it, thanks.”
So we all form this line to get our luggage put under the bus and still there are like 4 people helping put the luggage in. We knew after, that really we only had one bus driver that probably should have been helping. Where the other people came from, I have no idea. Luckily though, I just stood there until I had handed them each piece of my luggage and watched them load them each into the bus. I then got on the bus.
Anyway, there were six of us on the bus—me, my two roommates (Allie and Mykel), Jarom (one of the 3 boys on the trip with us), Marie and Tricia. Allie and I just sat down and were putting ourselves together—arranging bags, sweaters, etc. Then I notice that there is this woman walking down the aisle of the bus. I think nothing of it, except I poke Allie and say, “Hey look at those girl’s sunglasses! They are super cute!” Allie agreed and we kept on doing whatever we were doing (which was nothing). Next thing I know, there is someone tapping on the other side of the bus and talking to Marie, I look over there to see who it is, just as a man dressed in really nice clothes, comes and taps on our side of the bus and starts talking to Jerome. He says, “Where are you from?” As if it isn’t obvious?! We are like a walking American flag everywhere we go. I don’t really pay attention to anything else the man says, but can’t help but notice the big cheesy grin the guy is sporting. It was almost like he was playing the permasmile game himself. Eventually the tappers of both sides of the bus leave and then Tricia is frantically searching for her backpack.
The story is that some man in a white button-up official looking shirt got on the bus and asked Jerome if he could help him with his backpack, and Jerome said no. He then moved on to my roommate Mykel and was able to talk her into giving him her carry-on bag but not her backpack. He put it above her head and then moved it down towards the front of the bus. She noticed and said, “No! Aqui.” (pointing for him to bring it back above her head) and so he did. Unfortunately Tricia was not as lucky. He asked for her bag and she let him put it up on the shelf above her head, and then as far as we can guess, he slid it to the front of the bus with him as he walked off and was able to take off with it while the people were tapping on the sides of the bus! It had everything in it—her computer (with pictures of her and her fiancé that she was going to put in her wedding video), her iPod, her camera and $150 cash. So sad. We all pitched in $10 or whatever, but even still that barely even covered her lost cash! Sondra (one of the professors) said that we could use the leftover money we have from the trip to help her out too, which will hopefully help a little more, but still, such a bummer! We are super lucky though that they didn’t get more bags. It could have been way worse. I still am puzzled as to why they didn’t even ask Allie or I. I know that I probably would have been dumb enough to give them my bag too. He just looked like he belonged to the bus crew! I never would have guessed that someone would have the guts to get on the bus and do that if they weren’t a part of the bus staff or whatever. We know better now I guess.

Taniel, one of my friends here, randomly took a picture of the bus at the precise moment when the distractions were happening. You can’t see any faces, but you can see the man’s shadow in the bus. Freaky. Our tour guide made Tricia go through the whole process of reporting it and everything which took forever and even Tricia herself didn’t want to do it, because she knew that she would never see any of her stuff again regardless, but whatevs. We all are going to be a lot more cautious from now on, even with our own tour guide because there are some reasons for suspicion of her possible involvement, not that we will ever find out for sure, so I will try not to false accuse.
After getting through that mess, we had a 2-hour bus ride to Otovalo to the prettiest little hotel on the lake. Here is the link to it and you can check it out yourselves. http://www.puertolago.com/

Our room is the top window on the farthest left

It was a fun change up from the city. Everything is a lot greener and prettier here. It is like a new country. Beautiful. I still love Guayaquil though. The rooms here are more like cabins and we also don’t have the best internet service or whatever so that is kind of a downer especially for the married and engaged peeps on the trip, but it is really nice and relaxing here. It has a kind of Tahoe-like feel. Love it.

Just chilling on the dock looking at the Andes

We went out to the Ponchos Fair right after check-in and we stayed there for almost 4 hours finding and buying lots of cool stuff and lots of stuff that we didn’t need. J I bought a bunch of finger puppets for my cousin Lucy, some fun jewelry and another pretty nativity. I am a sucker for nativities. I also discovered a new favorite shopping partner, Allie. Like I have mentioned before, I am not the best at loving to shop and it was great to have another person who knows how to move through the “stores” with me and not linger too long. We probably missed out on a lot of good deals because we didn’t take time to look at everything, (not to mention because also I suck at bargaining! I just hate to feel like you are taking advantage of them just to save a few cents that they could use more than you. I didn’t ever pay the first price they asked though, so don’t be too ashamed).

Then we went out to eat at this restaurant our tour guide had picked out for us. It was really good. We had these like cheesey/meat crepe things that I wouldn’t have normally ordered for myself, but loved them. Then we went back to the hotel, had a quick devotional, and then girls night in our room. Of course we had to watch She’s the Man because what else would be more appropriate for girls night? Fun. If you are wondering why I look so stinking wide-eyed and alert in this picture, it is because I looked half doped-up in the one before and tried to make up for it in the second picture, but apparently overshot the mark.
After the other girls left, I was unpacking my suitcases a little, and when I opened my smaller suitcase I was met with an interesting surprise! I had a ton of extra room in that suitcase (because I had to bring a bunch of medical supplies over here that we had used in Guayaquil) so I had put everything in the suitcase, and then laid a black garbage bag over it and strapped everything down so it wouldn’t be floating around everywhere during the flight. Well when I opened my suitcase, I wasn’t surprised to see that a few of my things had wiggled their way out on top of the garbage bag, but what did surprise me was that there were several packages of medications that were ripped open laying on top of my bag.


We all freaked out for a minute and then called our professors to come over and check it out. Sondra and Cheryl were so good and quickly came over. Sondra put on latex gloves (yes, only nursing students probably pack latex gloves with them) and inspected it. It turned out just to be some topical anti-fungal medication and some vitamins. It was funny because as she dug into the box that had been ripped open, there was a piece of paper in there and she was like, “It’s a note!” Of course we all gasped, and then laughed when it turned out to be a prescription for the drugs.
I am still not really sure how those ended up in my bag, one of the creams must have also been opened too because I have some cream on my pajama bottoms and on a few other things, but overall, not too bad. It just added to the creepy day. Another girl on the trip, also found drugs in her bag in the same condition—ripped open boxes, just laid on the top of her stuff. Weird. Our guide is supposedly going to try to get the medications back to the person they were prescribed to, but we’ll see if she actually is able to. I hope so, the receipt said it was like $25 or something, which is a lot down here. Creepy, yet very pretty day.

4-wheeling, lunch, love & fun

Last day in Guayaquil. We were all scheduled to go to a final meeting with Hogar de Cristo to talk with them about the things we found in screening the kids and just do a wrap-up. We had an opening meeting with them though our first day here and it was interesting, but I really didn’t feel like we ALL needed to be there for it, so when my professor, Cheryl, asked me if I wanted to go out into the community with her again and do some more interviews I was totally on board.
We met some amazing women. One of the women was just SO excited about being a mom. She already had two children, but she was just still so excited and euphoric about the whole thing. It was really just an incredible experience getting to hear her talk about everything. She didn’t say anything particularly new or fascinating, but the sense of sheer enchantment with being a mom in her voice was contagious. Okay now I sound cheesy, I will stop now.

Wilson, one of the guys from Hogar de Cristo came to pick us up from the subcentro after the meeting at the office was done. Two of the boys from the group were with him and I wondered, “why did they come out? That’s weird.” As it turned out, they had convinced Wilson to take us all digging a little bit on our way back to the office in the ambulance (aka Land Rover). It was super fun. I’m so glad that sometimes boys don’t ever seem to grow up.
We met up with the rest of the group and headed back into town to meet with the Junta because they were providing a lunch for us. It was at a really nice restaurant right off the Malecón (the boardwalk). They had Spanish Tortilla on their menu and so I ordered it as my appetizer. But it was bad news. It definitely was not as good as Hermana Moreno’s or anyone else’s in Spain for that matter and actually made me more homesick for Spain than anything. Oh well. I guess I will just have to go back and visit! ;) Anybody up for a fun run to Spain?
After lunch we went home to blog, pack, and relax! For our final evening in Guayaquil, we got batidos (smoothies) at a little corner fruit shop and played love-odometer. This is basically a glorified game of MASH with playing cards. We had fun predicting each other’s future lives (husband, number of kids, wealth, etc.) and having girl talk. I love all the girls here. We seriously have so much fun together. Here’s the fortune telling crew with one of our awesome instructors- Cheryl.
The night was spent packing up all our gear, although we did have a little fun. Allie had a random idea earlier in the week to make a movie like we were Spiderman scaling the wall because our elevator had an open side that would pass by while we were going up. Anyway, we decided we should definitely make these videos we had talked about. We were exhausted and delirious so this probably was a lot funnier to us than it will be to you but enjoy!

Okay I am now seriously questioning my reasoning and sanity in putting out this incredibly embarrassing video of myself, but hopefully it will at least lighten someone's day or at least let you know that there are people in the world more easily entertained than you.

If you want another taste, you can check out Allie's Spiderman vid at http://alliejoyce.blogspot.com/2009/05/today-was-little-bittersweet.html

Interviews, Smiles, Ice Cream & Missionary Work

Today I went out to the subcentros again to do interviews. This time though I went with Allie because Cheryl had to stay with the other students at the hospital. It was so fun. The woman that took us around at this subcentro wasn’t as outgoing and didn’t seem to know the people as well, so she kept saying, “I don’t know of anyone else who has recently given birth.” And I would say, “Well, why don’t we ask these women sitting here on the corner if they know of anyone?” She would say, “I don’t even know them!” And this is where I would be so glad that I had served a mission, because during that year and a half of going up and starting conversations multiple upon multiple times a day with people that you had no idea who they were, I definitely got over the feeling awkward about it stage. Also, asking them if they knew of anyone who had recently had a baby is usually a whole lot easier than diving into something deep and asking them to change their lives. (Not quite as fulfilling, but easier.)

In asking around, we were able to find 2 women who had recently given birth and were able to do interviews with them. When we got back to the subcentro, the ambulance still wasn’t there to pick us up and there was a woman coming out who had just had a baby and she allowed us to follow us to her house and interview her there. When we got there, she took off her shoes before entering the house and so we did the same. She told us that we didn’t need to or whatever, but of course, if she herself did it and from the looks of the number of shoes on the porch, also made her children do it, how were we not going to do it. It was just a crazy feeling though to take off our shoes to enter the house when it really just seems like everybody is just always camping out here.




When we returned again to the subcentro, the head volunteer lady came out and apologized that she hadn’t been able to take us out to find women because she had been in a meeting and invited me to come back the next day. I told her that I would have to talk to my professors and see if it would be possible, but I would love to.
After clinical, the nursing program at the University of Guayaquil had invited us to come and tour their school. We went and toured the school which was actually incredibly like our own school back at the SWKT, except for one thing that they have that we all wish we had. Instead of using mannequins, they have their own “clinic” where real people come in to get checks and help and they are able to learn using real people. A little scary (on both sides) but cool. We also got to just chat with several of the students. It still amazes me sometimes how similar all of our concerns, complaints (about busy work), hopes and dreams are.

Driving home from the university, we were all a little tired and some were a little grouchy, so my friend Casey and I somehow came up with the “Permasmile game.” The rules were that you had to permasmile the whole way home. You could talk and do basically anything you wanted, as long as you were able to keep the permasmile on your face. We got almost the whole van involved. Let me tell you though, that after 20 minutes of all out grinning, our face muscles were absolutely quivering by the time we got home. It was a good dorky fun game though and it seemed to lighten everyone’s mood a little.

After burning off all of those calories exercising our faces, we decided that we needed to treat ourselves to ice cream at Fragolis, and not just their regular ice cream cones (which are incredible), but their famous stretched and chocolate dipped cones. See picture below. Good times.
Then we got showered and all pretty to go perform at a musical fireside. The missionaries who came to our ward on Sunday when we sang in sacrament had apparently spoken with their mission president and the other missionaries of their district and decided to do a musical fireside for their investigators and asked us to help them. So we sang Joseph Smith’s First Prayer again and some other song that I can’t remember right now. Yay for fun missionary experiences!

Hanging out with the Professor & Temple Time

Today was another one of those favorite days. I chose to go back out into the community again today, but instead of going to the schools and working with the kids, I got to go out to one of the health subcentros again. I went out with one of our professors, Cheryl Corbett. She is one of the professors involved with the study I am helping with so we went out with our main objective being to do some interviews of the women in their own homes. When we got to the subcentro though there were people already waiting for us to check them for their blood pressure and blood glucose. Actually, that is kind of the funny thing, half of the people didn’t even know what we were checking for, they had just heard we were coming from the people at the subcentro or from their friends, or had passed by and noticed all of the people waiting around and just got in line. It cracked me up every time when AFTER I had pricked one of their fingers for their blood glucose level and told them if they were in the normal range or not, they would turn and ask, “Now, what was that for?” “What was that?” Oh man! It almost scared me how much they just trust us, because I don’t think that if I just saw a line where people were getting their fingers poked, I would just hop in without even finding out what they were checking for, let alone WHO they were. So funny. Love it.

After about an hour of pumping through the line, we were able to escape and go out with a guide from the subcentro to find some of the women who had recently given birth. We interviewed three women. It was such a neat experience. I liked it a lot better than even the interviews I had done in the hospital because they were just so much more open and natural in their own homes and also they had more time to have processed the whole birth experience. (For example, one of the questions is, “What is the most difficult/gratifying thing about being a mom?”, and that is just kind of a ridiculous question for a woman who has not even left the hospital yet and has only been able to be with her baby for less than 24 hours or something.) It was really neat.

One of the women in particular touched my heart. She was only like 26 years old, and she already had 5 miscarriages, she had a 4-year old daughter and a new baby girl just 24 days old. As I got into the interview and asked her questions about her pregnancy, she mentioned that her “husband” (aka boyfriend) had not let her leave the house to go to her appointments with the doctor while she was pregnant and wouldn’t give her food either. She said that several of her friends told her to have an abortion (down here that is usually accomplished by drinking some crazy toxic herb thing that kills the developing baby) but she said, “I told them no. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to take care of the baby, but I knew that I am not a killer.” I was so touched and proud that there still exists some sense of sacredness for human life in this world that sometimes seems to be turning upside down.

She also told me that her husband beat her even throughout the entire pregnancy. She said that she just remembers trying to protect her stomach each time he hit her. I could not even imagine. (PS She had left him just on Sunday and is living with her mom right now at night, and staying in her old house sometimes during the day while he is at work, so that is why she probably even dared tell us these things.) She said that she rarely got more to eat than crackers and a soda during her pregnancy. Between the lack of nutrition, maternal stress and physical abuse, by some absolute miracle, the baby had actually come out pretty healthy, a little small, but with no real problems. Anyway, I spent the rest of the interview, just being amazed at this woman’s faith and courage to take her current situation head on.

We met with her in her mother’s house, which was made out of cinderblocks, which is actually the high-quality stuff around these parts, but the inside had more of the feeling of a garage than anything else. I have a video I will try to put up. Needless to say, this woman was living in very humble conditions, and this was the house of her mother, I can’t imagine what her own house looked like. There was one point when her niece opened up the refrigerator to get something and I noticed that it really was completely empty save maybe 4 small items; yet, the moment we had arrived as unannounced guests, she had sent her niece and daughter out with a little money that she got from who knows where to buy some Coke to share with us. It reminded me so much of the people I met on the mission, especially the Central American people in Virginia and the South Americans we worked with in Spain. They are just unbelievable giving. It almost makes me sick how they would give you every single thing they have if you asked them to; and even when you don’t, they still make HUGE sacrifices just to serve you and make you feel special in some way. I could sure learn a lot from them in the charity department.

We also learned come new common cultural practices from her. Apparently here in Ecuador, outtie (sp?) bellybuttons are not super cool, so after the umbilical cord falls off, they melt candle wax and pour a little bit of it into the baby’s umbilicus, cover it with gauze and tape it down for a month in order to prevent it sticking out. I don’t know if it actually works or not, but we have since found that it is pretty common practice down here. Also when we came into her house and she handed her baby over to me, I noticed that the baby had a small square of newspaper stuck to its forehead. I would have normally taken it off thinking that it was just an accident, but since being down here, I have learned that things aren’t always what they appear, so I asked her about it, and apparently, it helps the baby’s hiccups go away. I asked other people about it, and a lot of them swore by it. So my challenge to all of you young moms out there is to try it and let me know if it works.

If you look hard, you can see an edge of the square of newspaper on the baby's head

One last crazy thing about her whole interview is that she told us that during one of the visits her husband had allowed her to have, she had an ultrasound and the doctor told her that she was having twins and that at least one of them was a boy. Well at Sotomayor, which is where she had her baby, they routinely do C-sections for all twins, so she had a C-section. She says that she doesn’t remember anything about the C-section after the put her out, not even seeing the baby until they brought her to her in the postpartum unit, and there they told her that she had only had one baby and that it was a girl. I don’t know if the ultrasound person was just totally crazy. I have heard of them missing twins before in ultrasounds and just thinking that it is the same baby and has moved or whatever while they are doing the study, but haven’t heard a lot the other way. Also for her to be told at least one of them was a boy and then her one baby turns out to be a girl. I don’t know. It just seems weird. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the babies died or had major complications because of the mother’s pregnancy history, but it’s weird that they wouldn’t tell her about that. Also, maybe the hospital decided that there was no way she was going to be able to take care of two babies, due to her lack of any income and marital situation, and gave the baby up for adoption. Or like I said, maybe the ultrasound person was just crazy. I don’t know, but it seemed pretty crazy. She didn’t seem to have any doubts about anything about the situation though which is good (it might go back to that whole complete trust in medical authority issue, I don’t know) and so I wasn’t about to stir up the pot and ask more questions about it.

This video shows some of her living conditions

Another woman we interviewed lived in a bamboo house that was on 8-foot stilts like the one we built last week. The house was impeccably clean and organized. And this was with absolutely no notice that we would be coming to visit her. It was impressive. Even more impressive or shocking maybe, was the fact that her 2 year-old son could climb up and down the 8-foot ladder to the house all on his own. I was even a little scared going back down the tiny, rickety thing, but he just took it like a natural.

After clinical, we got to go to the temple again. I love going to the temple down here. It is beautiful and always such a spiritual lift. Today as I was learning and pondering in the temple, for some reason I started thinking about foreordination and about how we all have certain “missions” that our Heavenly Father has planned for us to accomplish if we keep the commandments and follow His plan. And I realized that in order to be worthy and able to complete the things He has planned for me, there are some major things I need to work on and change in my life right now. This might not sound like it was the most fun or exciting thing of my day, but actually it was super inspiring. I think that is what I love about the way Heavenly Father teaches us—He lets us know what areas we need to work on if we ask Him, but instead of feeling bogged down and worthless after, I always feel inspired and motivated and like I can do anything with His help. I am so grateful to know that we truly are literally children of God and that He loves and cares for us as such.

La Vernaza & CPR to the max

Today was my one and only real clinical day at Vernaza. We came here and toured all of the units our first day, and then last week, we came to a little health fair here, but as for doing real nursing stuff, this will be my only day. I am not that sad about it though. I mean, it was great and all that, but I just like the community rotation with the kids and the mother/baby stuff so much more.
We taught a CPR class first thing to the auxiliaries (kind of like our CNAs in the U.S.) when we arrived and that was fun. The people here are just so fun to work with. Every day I realize more and more how much they are just like you and me, and at the same time, love them for their differences. After the CPR class, we kind of got to choose where we wanted to go. I ended up going to the burn unit. I actually find burns probably one of the grossest and most painful looking things, but a lot of the other students had talked about how neat of experiences they had there, so I didn’t want to pansy out. We had to put on these plastic blue suits to enter the unit. The protection was great, the sweating under them and the plastic sticking to your skin was not so great, but what are you going to do?
We saw a woman who had somehow spilled boiling milk on herself and had burns all down her arms and chest. The doctors were cleaning out her wounds and that was also a pretty nasty one. We also saw a man get skin grafts that had gotten in a motorcycle accident and had burns over most of his entire body, save luckily his face. I found myself reconfirming my anti-motorcycle feelings, and then I thought of Jerry Jolley who used to feel the same after his paramedic experiences, but is now Mr. Harley Davidson himself, and I decided not to make any final or rash judgments, but man it was nasty.
I did make one resolution though. I don’t mean to diss on the doctors down here because the same thing happens up in the good old U. S. of A. as well, and it is just as bad. As the doctors were working on these people, their faces were covered with a towel by the anesthesiologist so just in case they woke up or whatever they wouldn’t see everything happening and freak out (I don’t know how they wouldn’t have freaked out about what was happening to their bodies though even if they hadn’t seen it, but whatever) and I don’t know, it was like the doctors were sitting there working on the body, but it was like it wasn’t even a real person to them. And I think that is easy to do. I mean, in a way, you almost have to do it or mentally you wouldn’t be able to handle some of the stuff you have to do or see, but still I think that there must be a way to always remember that this person you are working on, isn’t just like a machine or a piece of meat (excuse the expression). So I challenged myself to always remember that—to always remember that each person I work with someone’s family member or loved one , and more, a child of our Heavenly Father, and therefore my own sister or brother. Looking at it from that perspective kind of changed things for me.
Tonight we had our last health fair here in Guayaquil. I helped teach the CPR class. I have sat through hours and hours of classes about CPR, but I don’t think it really sunk in until this trip. However, they change the ratios and rules about every other year, so I won’t get too comfortable. It was a lot of fun though and I always love to see how surprised people are by how tiring performing CPR is. After even just the first 5 cycles when you do another evaluation of how the patient is doing, everyone is sweating and tired. When we told them that you have to do it until the patient becomes conscious or the ambulance arrives at the scene some of them just about died saying, “That could be 3 hours!” Hopefully that was at least a little bit of an exaggeration.

CPR video to be added soon!

moms, $1 meals & market

This week I am assigned to work at the general hospital, Luis Vernaza, but because we have so many other things going on, and now only 2 instructors, they are kind of letting us choose our own clinical sites. So today, I chose to go back to good old Soto Mayor, the baby factory. I love that place. I didn’t do any labor support today though. Before we came, I was asked by one of my professors to be one of four students to help them conduct interviews here in Guayaquil of women who recently gave birth. We just ask them a bunch of questions about their whole pregnancy, the actual labor and birthing process and then the post-partum period. I did a few interviews my first week here, but in order to get the minimum 20 interviews that the head professor, Lynn Callister, wanted, I needed to do at least six, and I had only done 2. Today I did 3 more. They are really a lot of fun, especially with the first-time moms. They are just so excited and emotional about the whole thing. It has been very a neat experience talking to them.
One thing that I love is that these women who I have talked to are all extremely spiritual. Almost every single person I have talked to, when I asked them about what helped them the most during the laboring process mentioned Heavenly Father as their biggest source of strength. It’s also been fun just to hear about the different customs and ideas they have. One big thing here is that the moms put little red bracelets on the babies to protect them from being “ojeado” (the evil eye). From what I gather, it protects them from when they meet people that want to do them harm, it protects the baby from getting sick. It is also connected in some way to the custom that if you are admiring a baby, you need to touch it, because if not, maybe you are giving it the “evil eye” or something. I’m still not completely sure on that whole thing but, yeah.
By the time I had finished three interviews, it was time for the women to have their allowed one-hour visit with their family and so I definitely did not want to encroach on that time, so I left post-partum. I was going to try to get back into the labor and delivery unit, but they wouldn’t let me in because we already had 5 students in there or whatever, so instead I went and found one of the nurseries. The nurse I worked with was super cool. It felt just like a clinical in the States, she taught me stuff, like how to give a baby its first bath (I never had actually done that before) and then expected me to do it. It was super fun. But remember how I mentioned a while ago how the babies don’t get to be with their moms for four hours if it is a normal delivery or for six hours if it was a C-section, and we always worried about the babies getting really hungry? Well, I found out how they solve that problem! If a baby was crying because it was hungry the nurse would pull out a bottle from who knows where, wrap it up in a blanket and come and hand it to me and have me hold the baby at the back of the room with my back to the window so the parents couldn’t see that we were bottle-feeding their children! I seriously felt so sneaky! I especially laughed when I was back there feeding a baby and I looked up at the wall in front of me and found a huge poster about how giving only mother’s milk for at least the first six months is the best thing for the baby! Oh Soto Mayor!
We found this amazing place for dinner tonight. $1 meals! Yep, I paid $1 for carne asada (thin steak), rice and beans! I will let you know if I am sick tomorrow, but for today it tasted really good and with a price you can’t beat, the cons seemed minimal.

All of this for $1!

After dinner, we went out to an artisan market here in Guayaquil. It was fun but pretty crazy. Most of you know how much I just LOVE shopping, especially in places that have a ton of things just all stacked and shoved together. I am pretty sure that entering the store Ross Dress for Less is like my worst nightmare. (Maybe that is one of those things I could work on changing as well.) Anyway, this place was packed and there were rows and rows of all of these different little booths. It was inside a building too so it was also super hot and sweaty, yeah, I think you get the picture. Amazingly enough though, it was pretty fun. We were only there for an hour, so it wasn’t that terrible, and I found a really cute necklace and earrings set for $2, so I shouldn’t complain too much. I would have died had I gone there with my friend, Eleanor Kramer, though because I think we could have been there for more like 10 hours. (I am just remembering a brief shopping trip we had going through Vegas once.)
FHE and then nighty night for this little nurse.

Okay so I realized today that I am not so good at remembering to take pictures. Allie, my roommate is usually the one to help me out in that area, and we weren't together today. So sorry about the only picture being of the $1 meal.

A Day of Rest

Today was our last day of church here in Guayaquil. It's funny how after only a few weeks, you kind of get attached to the members. The members here have been super sweet and kind to us all to so it will be sad not to see them again next week. I am sure that we will meet fun new members in Otovalo, but still, me da un poco de pena. They asked us to sing during sacrament meeting as a "parting gift." We sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer to the tune of Come Thou Fount and it was beautiful. I can say that, because I am very aware that the results of the beauty of our performance had very little to do with me, and more because we have some amazing voices in this group and because the hymns just have such power to bring the Spirit. I loved it.
Sorry to disappoint, but we didn't do much else today. We were tired from the week's work and really just paused to enjoy the day of rest for the rest of the day. We didn't even leave the hotel for dinner. We just ate here. I don't even think I took a single picture today. Kind of sad, but kind of necessary, so what are you going to do?

Delfines y Las Playas

So I realize that I have not blogged about the last 5 days yet, but have no fear it will be coming soon. I am also super tired tonight, but I promised myself that I would work on my blog today and so here goes.
This morning we left our hotel at 7:30 am for the BEACH!!!!!! Yay! It came a little early since we didn't get back from the Stake YSA dance until about 11:45 (that is LATE for us here, as we typically have to be in the hotel no later than 8), and on top of that, Allie and I stayed awake talking until 1 am. Really smart. (I am realizing now that I still got as much sleep if not more than I usually do at home, so I don't know why I am whining. The heat must just take it out of me I guess. Tired katie.) Moving on. . .
So in addition to many other valuable things, the week I was at the maternity hospital, Sotomayor, I made friends with one of the medical residents and she invited me to go to this beach, Las Playas, with her where she said you can swim with the dolphins and there is a really pretty beach that is not as touristy. Well, she invited me to go with her on a Sunday, so that didn't really pan out, but I had her write down the name of the beach and that is where we went today.
As it turns out, you don't actually get to "swim" with the dolphins, or at least not where we saw them, but it was still cool, and we had several of them come up really close to our boat. (Sidenote, another thing I LOVE about Ecuador: 2-hour boat ride for 15 people = $30.) Fun. It did cause me to make an addition to the things I want to do before I die though, and that is to swim with the dolphins. I remember when I was a little girl thinking that I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I realized later that it was only because I thought it meant I would be able to chill with the dolphins and play with them like the Sea World peeps. So new goal=dolphin swim.
After the dolpin WATCH we went and had lunch at this little cafe thing on this private beach. I think we mostly did it so we would have access to the private beach, but whatever. The food was good and the price even better because it was free because the Junta paid for it all again. I feel a little bad about it because I don't know what we are even actually doing to help the Junta. I feel like we actually help the other organization, Hogar de Cristo, more but the Junta is the one who pays for everything (our transport, random beach trips and fun lunches, etc.). Oh well.

This beach was tons of fun. Salinas, from last week was fun, but the water was warmer at this beach and even better, it had WAVES! I loved it! Major body surfing was accomplished. Boogie boards were in sight, but renting wasn't really an option and none of us shmoozed (sp?) enough to get one of the natives to let us borrow one. But the waves were big enough to body surf so it was tons of fun!
Since we didn't have a health fair to run back to tonight we also had enough time to just relax and fall asleep on the sand for a while. Also fun. So that was my day. A beautiful and fun-filled day at the beach. How was yours?

A Day to Be Jealous Of

Today was probably one of my favorite days of the excursion so far. Okay, maybe just about every day is one of my "favortie" days here, but today was pretty high up there, maybe even first or second. Remember the organization Hogar de Cristo I have mentioned several times before? Well, not only do we work in the schools with them, we also help them with what their organization's name says, "Homes of Christ," in building homes for the people of Ecuador. They only work with the poorest of the poor, (like those who earn $1/day or less or something like that--I'm not really sure where I heard that number, but I have heard it from several people, so. . . why not post it on the blog?!) and they don't just give the houses to the people; the people have to provide their own land and then they set them up with micro credit loans for the cost of the house: $800. The labor for the house is free, because they get volunteers to do it, like us, and then we, the volunteers, pay the professional house-builder (why they think we need one of those is beyond me! ;) ) who comes with us $25 for his day's worth of labor. It seems like a pretty good system.

So we arrive at the Hogar de Cristo warehouse where they assemble all of the walls and everything that they drop off to the sites of the houses for us to put together into something that resembles a house. We pick up two post-hole diggers per house and two hole digger sticks/rods whatever per house. (Only half of our group came today, the other half went last Friday, so there were 12 of us split between the 2 houses.) Then, we all piled into the back of this huge truck. Yep, we rode back there.

The houses were only like a 30-minutes ride away from the warehouse, and we only had to get on two different freeways and a few dozen bumpy dirt roads to get there. No need to freak Mom!

We picked up the owner of our house along the way, and she got in the cab of the truck so we didn't get to meet her until we got to the lot she owned. The pile of materials was there waiting for us, (no, no instructions were included) and we got straight to work. The man who we were working with was not a man of many words I will just say that. He was nice and everything, but all he would ever say was "Por aca" or "Por alla" (over here, over there) and point to something or someone and you would have to guess what he was talking about and/or who he was even talking to. It was pretty funny.

The BEFORE picture

The first job, was to dig the holes for the foundation poles (okay, here is my upfront disclaimer: I had no real previous construction experience and so the terms used in this blog entry may sound quite ridiculous to you, but I'm going to do my best) to go into. The holes had to be a meter deep. That is actually quite deep for those of you who have never dug a meter-deep hole before, thank you very much. So I was glad that it was the first job when we still had lots of energy and not the last job. It was a two-step effort with the pice of rebar to dig up the bottom of the hole and the post hole maker to dig and bring the dirt/mud up out of the hole. A great muscle-building activity I can assure you.

After/while the holes were being dug we had to put extra nails into the bamboo walls to help strengthen them or something. That was a fun undertaking. I was wishing that I had taken my dad more seriously when he was teaching me how to use (or not use) a hammer years ago while building the barn. It took a while for me to learn that I needed to be brave and hold the hammer down farther towards the base (My father's words, "You don't need to choke up on it Kate!" rang through my head several times) in order to not have to hit the same stinking nail 500 times to get it to go in. But then, just when I would start to get brave, I would get a "subtle" reminder of my rookie-ness when I missed the nail and thundered down upon my own thumb. See picture below. Needless to say, it took me a few more 500-strike nails to get over that one and a few others. This is just the swing that still has me scarred, literally.

This may look like some pansy little red mark to you, but I assure you, this blood blister buddy has stuck around with me all week. (Don't worry, I popped it on my next swing and miss, but it bubbled back before the end of the night.)

Okay, moving along. Foundation poles in and level, walls fortified, time for the floor. We made an assembly line to get all of the materials up to Lazaro and the boys and somehow Lazaro made a floor out of so few boards that I thought that there was no way possible it would actually cover the whole thing. Really, I think I should call these "miracle houses."

The owner of the house had taken off about 30 minutes after we got there to go make us food. We told her that she didn't need to, but of course that was fruitless. She came back about the time we got the floor finished so we took a lunch break. The food was amazing! Probably some of the best I have had since we got here. We were all a little worried about it, just because we try to eat at "safe" places, but "safe" or "not safe," the woman can cook.

One of her daughters came back with her too and so it was fun to kind of chat with them. She told me that 6 people are going to live in the house: her, her 2 youngest daughters and then 3 of her oldest daughter's children. She told me later that her daughter was killed 2 years ago by her husband (the daughter's husband) and that he had disappeared, the police had never been able to find him or anything. I had no idea where her own husband was and didn't ask. My heart went out to her, I can't even imagine what kind of heartaches she has had in her lifetime. She was very sweet, yet a very strong woman. A perfect example of a true "steel magnolia."

After the lunch break, we got back to work hefting the walls up onto the floor base for Lazaro and the boys to nail down. If you were wondering if the girls got to do the grunt work on this part, you are wondering right. I can't really blame Lazaro though because who would you pick to help you up there? The 500-strikes/nail weenies or the boys who even though they might not have been that much better than us girls, at least LOOK like they might. So we heaved the walls up to them and they nailed them all down.

In the meantime, I found some local kids from the backyard neighboring house who were out back trying to climb a banana tree. Sounds like a movie right? So I went back there and started talking to them and playing with them. Kids here love getting their pictures taken so that is always a favorite activity as well.

I also got some of these kids to sing for me. I will attach the video of one of their songs/yells. Okay, I actually can't decide between two, so you can choose or just enjoy them both if you wish.

Videos coming soon. . . I will let you know when I figure out how to post them. I'm sorry that you have to deal with my IT disabilities.

After the walls were secured, we lifted up the wood and the tin for the roof (I know this would have been your favorite part Dad. I know how you feel about those tin roofs.) They nailed all that down while a few of us played with the kids for a while. More kids showed up and then the truck showed up and they all climbed into the back of it. It's amazing how kids all over the world love a big truck. I asked them if they wanted to go home with us and they said, "Yeah!" And then one little 8 year-old girl asked, "Where is your home?" I told her that we were from the States and a little boy asked, "Is that very far from here? Did you come in car or plane?" "Plane," I said. "Oh! It must be REALLY far then!" "Yeah, I guess so," I said.

By this time, Lazaro and the boys had pretty much finished up nailing everything down and so we all got together picked up a few things, took some final pictures, and got ready to go. It was an incredible feeling to see the faces of the woman and her daughter as they looked excitedly at their new house and made plans for a fence and their future.

Before we took off, we had to pull the kids out of the truck. Just as we were about to leave, the girl that asked me where I was from, asked, "When are you coming back?" What do you say to that?! My heart broke. I wanted to tell her that I would come back the very next day, but I knew that was impossible. A lump formed in my throat and I said, "We won't be back. We came to help them build their house, and now it's time for us to go." "But aren't you going to ever come back and visit them? Can I see you then?" Tears came to my eyes, and I had to quickly say, "I don't know if I will ever be able to come back and visit, but if I do, I promise I will look for you, okay?" and then I had to jump into the truck before the tears came down. I hate goodbyes. I feel like we have to do them all the time here. I guess I shouldn't be too suprised though, goodbyes were my least favorite thing of the mission too, so it's not really anything new to me. I cried as we drove away and waved back at them as they waved to us until we were out of sight.

During the exhilarating truck ride home, I managed to lose my pink bandana. Sad news. We got home, and luckily we actually had finished a little early so I had time to take a super-quick shower and get dressed and run downstairs within a half an hour before leaving for another stake health fair. I did blood glucose checks during this one. That was pretty fun. It's fun to mingle with the members.

After the health fair, the ward had invited us to go to the tri-stake YSA dance they were having. Not all of the students went. We were able to talk some into coming though that weren't planning on coming before and therefore hadn't brought clothes to change into and so most of us ended up striking a deal with them that we too would just stay in our navy scrub bottoms and our white BYU College of Nursing polos. We made quite an entrance to the dance with 10 of us all dressed the same, not to mention the gringa vibes that I am sure were radiating from every fiber of our beings. We didn't really fit in at first. First of all, people here dance in lines and not in circle groups like we do in the States, so we were kind of off there. Secondly, and even worse, was the fact that compared to their beautiful, fluid-like dancing, we all looked like we were having seizures out on the dance floor. We didn't stay that long, but in the little time that we were there, we were able to make a few friends, who took pity on us and attempted to teach us a few moves so that we wouldn't embarrass ourselves any further. We didn't get good enough that I feel the need to attach any pictures of this part of the day though. :)

And that was my crazy beautiful day. Thanks for reading if you've made it this far!