Summer in Ecuador: My time in Otavalo

Hi everyone!

I just made it back from Otavalo today and it was such a great experience! I was able to do so much and learn so much while I was there, it was definitely a blessing. The family that I was staying with was so sweet and did everything they could to make me comfortable and really worked with me, especially because of the language barriers. The father, Oswaldo, knew the most English out of all of them, and he enjoyed every time he could say a word in English to me. Lorena, my mother for 10 days, was the sweetest probably. She is a school teacher, and every morning before school she would get up and make breakfast (desayuna-- i know Spanish!) and she was just always taking care of everyone in the house. I would ask her questions of how to say things in Spanish and she would ask me how to say things in English; we definitely both learned a lot from each other. She made the best fruit juices in the morning and at night. She would take fresh fruit and in the morning add milk to make something like a shake, and at night she would add water to make the juice. Michelle, their daughter, is 14 years old and we were able to bond over music. She knew a couple songs in English and enjoyed going through my Ipod of over 5,000 songs. Even though she didn't recognize much, she enjoyed that I had The Lion King, High School Musical, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and especially Enrique Iglesias :) I connected the most with the son, Christian, who is 10 years old. Him and I had a ton of fun playing games, dancing around in the kitchen, playing soccer, and just laughing a whole bunch. I taught him to fist pound and say the word "booyah," which I must say was quite funny. We joked around a lot, and it was really cool. The family was seriously so sweet and really enjoyed being around each other. One night, we all just sat around the TV and watched "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (in Spanish of course) but everyone was guessing the answers and laughing and having a great time together. The closeness of the family was truly a blessing, but it made me miss my family a lot more.

My mornings during the weekdays consisted of taking Spanish lessons for two hours with Rosa. She taught some of the missionaries that I am working with this summer when they first came to Ecuador 9 years ago, and they have been sending interns to her ever since. She was great and I really did learn a whole lot. We crash coursed verbs, in the present, future, and past, and we tried to get as many phrases and words written down so that I could take them with me and practice while I am back in Quito. It was a lot work trying to get Spanish down as quick as possible, because the more I learned, the more I was able to contribute to the conversation in the family. The most frustrating part of the experience probably was that I could understand most everything that they were saying to me, but it was real hard to try to say anything back to them. I couldn't find the right words, and when I thought I knew what I was saying, I would speak in French instead of Spanish and just confuse everything. I did get a lot better as the week went on, and I was able to write a short, but nice, thank you note to the family.

One of my favorite parts of my experience in Otavalo was working at Compassion in the afternoons. Every day at 1pm I went over to the Alliance church and got to hang out with kids until 5pm. The Compassion program, which was started by Lorena, is a place for kids to go after their school day and they can get a decent meal and not only play with other kids, but there was also education classes that they had to go to. I helped out in the classes by doing whatever was needed of me by the teacher, but I would say playing with the kids was the most fun. Whenever I tried to take pictures of them or with them, they just wanted to take pictures themselves. They kept grabbing my camera, and since I am kind of a sucker for kids, I would let them try to take some pics. All I kept saying was "cuidado" (be careful) over and over again, and thankfully no one dropped my camera, and a bunch of cute pictures came out of it. I met some great kids, and once again, a lot of them just wanted to play with me or show off some of their English skills. Most of them could count to 10 and say a couple of colors in English, and every day they would repeat them for me. I think it was their way of connecting with me, and that was really cute. The last day that I was at Compassion I spent a lot of time just goofing around with the kids. e were listening to music and dancing and, of course, taking more pictures. Then, the girl I was with and I taught some of the kids the YMCA and Macarana. They thought it was the funniest thing because we were just having fun and dancing and not worrying about who was watching, but they all got into it. We even got Christian and his friend Joel to dance with us, and that was quite an accomplishment! The kids at Compassion were just amazing and it was such a blessing to be able to meet them all.

Over the weekend, the family wanted to take me out to see some of the other sites around Otavalo. On Saturday, we went on a walk to la cascada (a waterfall). It was close by, even though we had to go through a bunch a little spaces and climb some high stairs, but it was worth it. It was so beautiful, and of course I took a lot of pictures. On Sunday we went to a lagoon in a town over where we were able to see Cuicocha, a volcano. It was really awesome to be so close to something that could erupt at any time. Ecuador has so many beautiful sites, and I just cannot stop being captivated by the beauty of everything. Even during the bus ride back from Otavalo today I found myself looking out the window the whole time at the mountains and the towns and the clouds. It's such a high elevation that half the time you basically feel like you are in a cloud.

What's in store next for me is that my first team is coming down on Saturday night and then on Sunday we are headed to El Carmen. I was in El Carmen for the Amazing Race and that is where I got to use the machete to clear a field for a church. Well, our project until Thursday is going to be working on construction for that church. I also will be helping with the Vacation Bible School while I am there with the team. Thursday night we will come back to Casa Blanca and then hang around this area and finding some ministries here until the team leaves early on Sunday morning.

I am still doing well and really enjoying the time that I have here. I'm trying to include some pictures of my time in Otavalo below, so hopefully it works!