A World With Octobers

Hello Readers!

It's been 13 weeks since I moved back to Quito, and we're solidly into the first season change since I arrived, both here (dry season to rainy season) and at home (summer to fall).  Here are some photos to update you on what's been happening in my world.

Two weeks ago, I attended a women's retreat hosted by a local church, EFC (English Fellowship Church).  I am currently attending a house church, but when I was here last time, I attended EFC.  The women's ministry leader opened the event to the female faculty and staff of AAI, so I jumped right in, and I'm so glad I did!  The site was about an hour from where I live, and is actually next door to the school's farm property in the same area.  It's rural and quiet and beautiful.  It was a wonderful time, getting to know other women and learned about the ways that God created each of us uniquely and with purpose.  It was a wonderful event!  Here's a shot of out group on the final day:

One of the joys of returning to Ecuador has been seeing people I never expected to see again this side of heaven.  Last week, I had another of those reunions, this time with my director from my first season in Quito, Lori Meehan.  Lori (left of me in the photo) was the director of the Skills Center at AAI when I was here from 2008-2011.  She was a phenomenal boss, and taught me so much both about being a teacher and about being a human.  Lori and her hubby were meeting their daughter here for a trip down to the jungle, but they were in Quito for a couple days on their way in and out.  Vero (on the right) was Lori's administrative assistant during that time, and she was SO gracious to invite me to join her on this visit with Lori.  We went to a local cafe for supper and talked for three hours.  It was a joy to hear about God's faithfulness through the good and the hard that we've each experienced over the past 15 years.

On Friday night, I went to a Fall-themed party that one of the other American teachers threw.  It was on the roof of his building, which is just across the street from my new building.  We had such a great time, eating fall-themed snacks, playing games, watching some of the party-goers do some dancing, chatting, and enjoying the beautiful views of Quito at night.

This is Vale, the other EFL teacher in secondary with her hilarious smiley-face charcutery board!  She teaches 10-12 grades, while I teach 7-9.  Last year she had the ENTIRE secondary school alone, and somehow she not only survived, but returned!  (Respect, Vale.  Respect.)
    

                                            

 There is a huge variety of birds in Ecuador.  Birders from around the world come here to see them.  Even in a city as huge as Quito, my walking-buddy Beth regularly notices and points out our feathered friends on our morning walks.  I'm slowly starting to recognise some of them, thanks almost exclusively to her.  We saw this chubby yellow guy last week.  Beth would remember what kind of bird he is.  I am not Beth, alas.  :)

One day last week, my classroom neighbor, Nathaly, stopped by to hang out and play a game on her phone while I was lesson planning.  Turns out she was playing a game called Plants Vs. Zombies.  I'm not a zombie fan (I mean, maybe no one is...?) but it reminded me that my good friend Josie had told me YEARS ago that she would play a game or two of this when she needed a brain break, so I downloaded it.  It is kinda fun.  Now I have two games on my phone!

In 8th grade I'm teaching a unit on poetry.  Guys.  Poetry is NOT my jam , and judging from the intro survey I had the kids take, it's not theirs, either:

[editor's note: my personal favorite is "fun but boring".  What does that even mean?]

Anyway, we started easy with acrostics, and here is my personal favorite (clearly I am biased).  But aside from the subject matter, it was written by a student that is living a hard life, including the fact that she's trying to catch up with her classmates in her English level, and was accidentally placed in the wrong level English class, so she joined us several weeks into the first quarter.  In spite of the challenges, she was the first student in the class to finish her poem, and she clearly understood the assignment.  All the positive feelings!

I'm (mostly) faithfully doing a DuoLingo lesson in Spanish every day.  This week I earned a T-Rex costume for my avatar, which makes me happy primarily because T-Rex-anything reminds me of my friend, Trisha. <3

This weekend I was introduced to a store that is maybe like a Home Depot or Lowes.  It was a bit like hitting the jackpot in regard to buying a bunch of stuff for the house.  Here's a before and after duo of the bathroom organizer that I got:

And here's the haul of shared kitchen items I got.  Please note the measuring cups and spoons.  On Thursday evening, I was already heating the butter for the no-bake cookies I was making for Friday's fall party, when I realized that we didn't have a single measured container in the whole apartment.  *sigh*  I made it work, but I was REALLY happy to remedy that problem this weekend!

Also this week, I filled my first prescription here.  It was long ordeal, but the part I found most amusing is that here, a pharmacy will often not have enough meds to fill your whole rx (this was a rx for a three-month supply).  So instead they call around while you wait, then tell you when you can come back to pick up the meds.  You pay then, and they handwrite an RX IOU on the top of the receipts, like this:

I'm happy to report that when I returned, two days later, it was easy-peasey-lemon-squeezy to finish the process and pick up my meds.

So there you go.  A summary of what's been happening around here.  I hope you, wherever October finds you, and finding things to enjoy, as well.  If you have any topics or questions that you would like to see my cover in future posts, feel free to leave a comment or reach out directly via email or WhatsApp.