Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Carmen Bajo
Yesterday we visited the place where Laura has her ministry and where many of the children we sponsor for school live. It was good to reconnect with the people we know there and see the kids. Plenty of hard construction work, painting and a VBS program left us physically exhausted but spirtually energized by the amazing work that is going on here. We ended the day at Pastor Fabian's house for dinner and a tradional Ecuadorian birthday celebration for Alex. Ask her about it! MF
Nearly the End
Well for those of you who don't know today is my 16th birthday. Of course it was spent out of the country; far away from home; without my parents, family, friends, etc. Not in any way am I complaining because it was a fabulous experience, just very different from all those birthday's I've known in the past. I think it was the first time I've done manual labor on my birthday. At Carmen Bajo we (or more like the guys) knocked down a small building made of concrete blocks and safety glass, then (the rest of us) proceeded to clean up all of the broken concrete blocks. Hard work. After lunch we did a vacation bible school of sorts. It was much more like organized chaos compared to just chaos at Emaus. Carmen Bajo is more developed and larger and has been around longer than Emaus. It's sad that we'll be leaving tomorrow and won't have time to build relationships at Carmen Bajo like we were able to at Emaus.
Tonight for dinner we went to Pastor Fabian's house (pastor at Carmen Bajo). We had a very delicious meal and I was sung happy birthday too. A surprise was the birthday cake after dinner. It was so unexpected and so nice of everyone. Apparantly there's a tradition in Ecuador that for your birthday you have to take a bite out of the cake. So following tradition so did I. In the end my face was stuffed in the cake, yes even up my nose a little, and I have now followed Ecuadorian tradition for birthday's. It was quite an experience, reminding me of 1 year olds who also stuff their faces in their birthday cakes.
Going back a day we went to the market yesterday. It's about a 2 hour drive through the mountains. Quito is in a valley surrounded by mountains so yesterday we went up in those mountains and saw Quito from a different perspective. The market was great. They have so many interesting things that you won't find back home or you won't find it in a setting like this. The only thing I have to compare it to is the flea market. I got to bargain in spanish so that was new. We ate at an amazing restaurant for lunch called the Pie Shop. I had a fabulous burger which I split with Becca because it was literally the size of the plate. And an even better slice of apple pie with ice cream. Yum.(:
To conclude I will miss Ecuador. I know we still have a little time left but the time has flown by and I have just learned so much. This has been an amazing experience and definitely something that I will never ever forget. The people are so friendly, the food is delicious, the landscape is breathtaking, and it's an experience of a lifetime.
-Alex
Tonight for dinner we went to Pastor Fabian's house (pastor at Carmen Bajo). We had a very delicious meal and I was sung happy birthday too. A surprise was the birthday cake after dinner. It was so unexpected and so nice of everyone. Apparantly there's a tradition in Ecuador that for your birthday you have to take a bite out of the cake. So following tradition so did I. In the end my face was stuffed in the cake, yes even up my nose a little, and I have now followed Ecuadorian tradition for birthday's. It was quite an experience, reminding me of 1 year olds who also stuff their faces in their birthday cakes.
Going back a day we went to the market yesterday. It's about a 2 hour drive through the mountains. Quito is in a valley surrounded by mountains so yesterday we went up in those mountains and saw Quito from a different perspective. The market was great. They have so many interesting things that you won't find back home or you won't find it in a setting like this. The only thing I have to compare it to is the flea market. I got to bargain in spanish so that was new. We ate at an amazing restaurant for lunch called the Pie Shop. I had a fabulous burger which I split with Becca because it was literally the size of the plate. And an even better slice of apple pie with ice cream. Yum.(:
To conclude I will miss Ecuador. I know we still have a little time left but the time has flown by and I have just learned so much. This has been an amazing experience and definitely something that I will never ever forget. The people are so friendly, the food is delicious, the landscape is breathtaking, and it's an experience of a lifetime.
-Alex
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