Hola Ecuador

Hello friends,

I hope all is well in your part of the world. I made it down to Ecuador. I am doing my third summer with VISIONS service adventures. My first two experiences were down in Nicaragua. I have told many of you of what VISIONS is and what I typically do. This summer I´m in a new place a new culture and a new home base.

For those of you who don´t know about VISIONS, I will tell you a little. It is a service learning adventure company for American High School kids. They come from all around the country and they arrive not knowing anyone else. We all live in the same place, eat all of our meals together and do significant service projects. This year our projects include finishing a kiosk for a tincy tiny village called Sucre. The hope is that kiosk will serve as a place for local artesains to sell their crafts to the travellers passing through. There is a legend that a treasure exists in the mountains near Sucre, the treasure of Atahualpa, the Incan leader of Ecuador. He was tricked into a peace meeting with the Conquistador and later executed. His general his all of the gold from the Spaniards and to this day it has not been found. Another project is building a chicken coop for an old person´s home up the road from our homebase.

We are staying about 20 minutes away from Sucre in a town called Patate. Our homebase is an Agriculture school. It is more like a campus with a series of buildings and a kitchen and dining area. One component of VISIONS is our ´circle time´ where we all gather in a circle and share our feelings. It sounds a little silly, but when people buy in and share their experiences it is a pretty fantastic insightful experience. Last night we had our first Allyo (community in Quechua) with our group of kids. I couldn´t believe all they were sharing. Because  our trips are an unplugged experience, with no music players, iphones etc, many kids commented on how good it felt to talk with people, face to face rather than chatting, texting. They also remarked on how easy it was to just be themselves and yet still get along with such a diverse crew of peers.

When I come home at the end of these trips I gush to anyone who will listen about how great of an experience it is. As the year goes on those sentiments stay the same, but the reasoning becomes less and less clear. I go to this place, I have to work from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, I sleep on the floor with pretty simple accomodations and I´m constantly around people.  It does not sound like my ideal summer vacation. Now that I am here again I remember why I love it so much. I am present. I go through the day and my mind is in the moment. I spend a day working working working, and when I hit the pillow it feels good to feel so exhausted. I´m very happy to be here.

My co'leaders and I arrived almost two weeks ago to prepare everything for  the kids. This summer I am assigned the task of food honcho. Details have never been my strong suit, and that may be a dramatic understatement. I have been stressed and excited for the challenge of managing food for a group of 30 people in a foreign country. Despite the stress, the benefit  is that I am able to work closely with our cook, Doña Lupe. In Nicaragua our cook Darlín and I were besties.

Our first night in our little village town of Patate we met Lupe. I came out of our bus and said ´You and I are going to be best friends´, and she looked at me with her skeptical stoic stare and I held my smile for awhile until the silence between us became awkward and I retreated to the bus again. Since then we have slowly been getting a feel for each other. Yesterday I spent 5 hours in the kitchen with Lupe cooking a traditional Ecudorian meal (Llapingachos, huevos fritos and chorizo). I am slowly but surely removing the layers of her serious demeanor and we now do fist pump explode everytime we pass by each other.

Please forgive the scattered thoughts of my experiences thusfar, I will put up some pictures soon. Our kitchen has a view of the Volcano Tungurahua the same Volcano that erupted in 2006. But I have only seen it twice in two weeks (it´s always clouded over!)

Hasta entonces!!!