Two Things

1. For those of you who've tuned in for the first installment of the "Gringa Gringa" Papa John's drama, I have a continuation.

I ordered again while my friend, Megan, was visiting. I went through the name part again, slowly spelling out my name, and pretty confident that this time we got somewhere.

Then the pizza arrived. I have become Masuit Fasocrer. Seriously. I'm not making that up.

2. I'm been dealing with some sort of gastro-intestinal nastiness, so I've been spending more time than usual in the bathroom. Today I was spending some more quality time in there and I started fiddling around with the little cap on the faucet....you know, the screw-on part with the strainer in it? Well, this was different from the kind I've seen in the states, but the impressive part was what was in it. Small boulders. Here's a picture in case you think I'm exaggerating:

Guess it's good that I don't drink the water here, huh? :)

"Changable Weather" My Sweet Bippy!

Preface: this is my 100th post on this blog. Just thought I’d mention that.

This week as I took my rent money to the top floor of my building to pay my landlady, I refused to come in because I was sick and didn't want to contaminate anyone. The landlady readily agreed and with the sympathetic Ecuadorian grandmother look (that I'm coming to appreciate here) told me that "the whole world" is sick right now, and it's because of the changeable weather.

I nodded and agreed and promised to "take care of myself" and went back to my own apartment, shaking my head and rolling my eyes at this equatorial country's opinion of "changeable weather".

People, it's May. Know how I know? Not because the grass is green again, or the trees have little leaflets or because the birds have returned from their winter homes. No, it's looked like spring here since I arrived. Last August.

I know it's May because my facebook friends keep posting pictures of their newly-spiffed-up flower gardens. Because my brother emailed me a clip of my nieces fishing at the neighbor's pond. Because people back home are starting to talk about graduation open houses. Because Dalen's playing softball. Because Dad's riding his motorcycle to work again.

Ecuador is beautiful, but this whole seasonless thing...I don't know. They tell you they have seasons here. What they mean is, sometimes it rains a lot and sometimes is rains a little. This is not enough change to constitute a season.

And a temperature change of 1.5 over the span of a month is NOT changeable weather! Examples of changeable weather, in case you, too, are unclear about this, are as follows:

-This December when I flew home for Christmas, it was -7 degrees on my first night. During my ten days at home, the temps rose to an UNSEASONABLE 60 degrees, and then dropped again to freezing before I left. This, friends, in changeable weather.

-You know what changeable weather is if, when you purchase or make your childrens' Halloween costumes, you arrange for them to be a size too big, and of lightweight material. That way, if Halloween turns out to be an 80-degree evening, they can wear just the costume. And if it's a 30-degree evening, you can put in on over their snowsuit. Changeable weather.

-Once when I was in sixth grade it snowed in May. I remember running off the playground with tiny cold snowflakes kissing my shorts-clad legs. Changeable weather.

And here are a few things that changeable weather is not, just to be extra clear:

-Changeable weather is not when the sun goes behind a cloud and the temps drop ten degrees. We call this equatorial sunlight.

-Changeable weather is not when, regularly each afternoon at 3pm the sun disappears behind a honkin' huge storm cloud and the skies proceed to dump all they've got in the way of precipitation for an hour or so, just long enough to make your walk home from school more like a wade. Annoying- yes. Changeable weather- not so much.

-And finally, changeable weather is not when the calendar has switched to a definitively springy month (such as May) and you mentally talk yourself into feeling like it's spring now. This does not cause colds, or flus or other illnesses. This does not actually change the weather. It's all in your heads, people. Wishful thinking, that.

And now, I think I'll take my sickly self off to get ready for bed. So I can face another beautiful spring morning tomorrow, with my non-weather-induced cold.

Thank you.

A New Life

I've been sick, which is kindof nice, at least for the resting-up aspect. I can't believe how much I can sleep. Hours and hours and still sleep the night through. But on the other hand, I'm remembering why, as a general rule, people prefer NOT to be sick. I'm pretty sure the last time I had the flu I was in Russia. Nearly passed out on the subway in Moscow. Nearly passed out in the bathtub in our hotel, which was built to house olympians in the 1980 games. That was (wow) fall of 2001. Eight years without the flu, but I'm making up for it this week. Happily, the super-sweet doctor I went to see this morning (my first experience with the Ecuadorian medical community was quite satisfactory) said the flu that's going around lasts a bout 10 days, so hopefully by the end of this week I'll be back to normal.

All that said to lay the foundation of thinking. I recently realized that I can't not think. Not when I'm tired, or sick, or even asleep. I used to think everyone dreams every time they sleep, like me. And this week I've had more thinking time than normal, since my daily activities have been rather subdued.

Just now I was working on a Bible study and my computer's screen saver clicked on- a slideshow of pictures. As I watched the photos pan across the screen I realized that all of the pictures are less than a year old. They're all from my life here. Scenery around Quito; my HomeBase class at school; my birthday celebration; a shot with a roommate at a restaurant. And I had two contradictory and yet true thoughts:
-It's so easy to make a new life
-It's so hard to make a new life

If you've ever started over somewhere, I would imagine you can relate. Some of it's easy. From my first minute in Ecuador I was surrounded by community from the school. I arrived with a place to stay; a job; a group of co-workers and a church family. It's been the easiest overseas adjustment I've made to date.

And yet, it's hard. I recognise that when I go home for the summer, one huge draw is being with people who know me deep. Now I'm not a hard person to get to know. I open up pretty easily (maybe to a fault?). But there's still something about an old friend. A comfortable friend who knows your experiences, your gifts, your faults, and has moved on. Someone who knew you in middle school. Someone who can recognise the flashes of who your were as a kid when they show through your adult facade. I miss that.

It's hard because I don't really speak Spanish. I pretend sometimes, but even when I do understand, it's hard work. People who've been here for ten-plus years tell me it never ceases to be a truly second langauge.

It's hard because the culture isn't mine. I can try to adapt, but it will never be mine. I will always be trying to figure out the whys and hows of life here.

But then again, what's hard isn't always bad. Often, it's the hard that's worth working at. Where's the challenge in the easy? And here, in these three sentences, you see the conundrum of my life. The safe, the known, the comprehensible...becomes boring. But the new, the unknown, the scary...becomes wearing.

I guess the bottom line is that neither is my true home.

Drama in Cuenca

Last weekend I went to Cuenca, Ecuador with a friend to enjoy our final long weekend of the school year. Overall it was a good trip. I arrived on Thursday evening and flew back to Quito on Sunday morning. On Friday, the rest of the group went to hike around in a national park called Las Cajas. I'm not a big hiker, plus it'd had been raining a LOT, so they all had to wear rubber boots. And in addition, I was getting sick (though I didn't realize it then). All of these things combined to equal Leslie doesn't want to go. Instead, I spent the day by myself. This blog is about that day.

After seeing the girls off to their hiking adventure, I spent a liesurely morning in our host family's empty home. The rain, which had been falling steadily since I woke up, finally stopped around 10, and about 11 I decided to go into town to see the sights of Cuenca. This involves calling a cab, explaining where to come get me (the house was about 10 minutes outside of town), figuring out the alarm system, and hopefully leaving without setting it off. In the end, I decided to just try to hail a cab and avoid the phone call. You may recall my experience calling for pizza from my own house. So directing a cab to someone else's house seemed a bit intimidating. Anyway, I managed the alarm system and trekked up the hill to the road and waited for an empty cab to come along. Here's a picture of me at that moment:

A car or two passed. A cab or two passed, but they both had people already. I waited. I sang a song. I enjoyed the non-cityness of my locatioin. No cab. I briefly considered going BACK inside, messing with the alarm, hoping the alarm place doesn't call and say a lot of stuff really fast in Spanish that I didn't understand then the police show up at this house that wasn't mine, and then trying to call the cab place and give directions.

I waited longer. A car from the neighborhood pulled out onto the street. They drove slowly and looked at me, but then seemed to decide I didn't need help and kept going.

I watched a huge dumptruck pass and pondered whether, should a truck driver offer me a ride into town, I would say yes or not.

I waited. Another car, an SUV with a young family, pulled out of the neighborhood area onto the street. They, too, looked at me. And then a miraculous thing happened! They stopped and the man raised his eyebrows and pointed in the direction of the city. "Do you want to go into Cuenca?" he seemed to say. I, too, raised my eyebrows and nodded enthusiastically.

I was thinking at this moment of my friend and former roommate, Beth Berke, and how very Berke-esque was this thing I was doing.

I jumped into the backseat with a girl about 9 and a boy around 5. Javier and Gaby, the parents, were gracious enough to take me somewhere in the city where I could get a cab to the museum that I was trying to get to. So, I have experienced my first hickhiking ride!

[editor's note: in the course of our ride together, we discussed where I was going and where I was staying. I think these people were my hosts' next-door neighbors and I think they saw me come out of the house, AND I think that's why they gave an unknown gringa a ride into town. Kids, don't try this at home. Especially if "home" means the US]

So off I trotted, having been dropped of by Nice Neighbor Family, to hail a cab to take me to the museum. A $2 cab ride later, I found out the museum was closed. And it was starting to rain. Dang. But not to be thwarted, I pulled out my borrowed map and figured out how to get back to the main part of the old town. I started walking and thankfully the rain changed its mind and went away. I walked and walked and walked. Apparently the museum was kind of far away. Eventually I stopped at an internet cafe and spent $.25 for a half-hour of internet! I paid the lady, used the facilities (which had a hilarious sink set-up, seen here:)

and set off for the cafe where I was to eat lunch with Luke's host family. You may remember Luke, Christy's friend who's living in Cuenca to study Spanish? His host family owns the cafe and, having found out that I wasn't going to the park with the others, insisted that I come eat lunch in their cafe. So sweet of them. So I went to their place. It reminded me of the Greek family restaurant from "My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding" because the family was wondering in and out the whole time. I ate and tried to pay (but was, of course, refused) and then the host mom drove me to the next place on my list- a shopping area. After some motherly advice (like use your umbrella and watch your wallet) she let me off in front of market square. Thanking her profusely I proceeded to a booth selling postcards and laboriously choose 8 (the lady told me they were 20 cents each, but when I asked for a discount she said I could have 8 for a dollar! I love it when bargaining goes well). I handed them to the lady and reached for my wallet to pay.

It was gone.

Trying not to panic, I squatted down and started taking everything out of my purse. No luck. The wallet was gone. I told the lady I couldn't find my money and she asked if I'd been robbed. I told her I wasn't sure, apologized, and headed back to the cafe.

My mind whirled as I passed the colorful market booths. I know I had it at the internet cafe, because I paid the lady. Maybe it was there? I don't know if I had it at the cafe because they didn't let me pay. My purse was on the floor there; could it have fallen out? Or could someone have grabbed it out of my purse? But if someone had taken it, why hadn't they taken my camera, too? Most of my money was in my jeans pocket (in case I got robbed) so there was less than $5 in my wallet, but my Censo (a government ID) was in my wallet. Could I fly back to Quito with just a copy of my passport? Sigh...

Back at the cafe, no one's seen the wallet. I continue back-tracking to the internet cafe. It's only one block from the cafe. I remember because it was much closer than I was expecting so it stuck in my mind. I walked the block.

The internet cafe was gone. Yes, gone. As in, not there anymore. I stood gaping in bewilderment at the intersection where it should have been. I KNEW it was only a block, but obviously it wasn't there, so I walked one more block. Still not internet cafe. It occured to me that maybe I walked the wrong direction for a block, so I went back to the cafe and tried the other direction. Lo and behold, the internet cafe sat quietly on its corner, where it'd been the whole time. :) I walked in and noticed that the same lady was there. I walked up to her but could tell that she didn't remember me. "I was here this morning" I started...

Her eyes lit up. "Si! Un momento..." She opened a desk drawer and pulled out my wallet! I swallowed hard so as not to burst into tears of relief. I thanked her sincerely and headed back to the cafe for the third time that day. "All is well- I found it!" I reported and continued back to the market area. The lady was still there, crocheting quietly. Truimphantly I held up my prodigal wallet and announced that I'd found it. "You weren't robbed?!" she asked. Nope! From behind her display she pulled out my postcards- she'd kept them out for me. :)

The rest of the day was less dramatic, though really beutiful. Here are some pictures of the scenery in Cuenca.