Happy holidays and Merry Christmas from the jungle, sorry it has been so long since the last report, but things have been fast and busy over here. For Thanksgiving, I was able to go to Quito a couple of days early and stay with the Roseland’s (Richard, Ximena, Gustavo & Santi), who are pretty much my family now. Sara Dunlap also came early to visit/hangout and spend some time off from teaching English in Manta. All of Thanksgiving day, we were cooking and trying to get ready for when school was out. It is not a holiday down here and we wanted our teachers to celebrate with us. We (Roselands, Sara Dunlap and I), the Coyle's and a couple of Ecuadorians from Montebello had a great time and definately made some memories. We tried to fry a turkey, but due to the small burner, huge turkey and high altitude, we didn’t eat till after 10pm. While we waited, we played Monopoly, watched some weird tv show, talked and in general had a nice time fellowshipping.
The next day, Sara, Ximena and I just laid low and kept sure that the house was in prime shape again. Later that night, since there wasn’t much else going on, Sara and I drove to the mall and went to see a movie at the cine. It was strangely nice driving in traffic again, being able to drive to do something as simple as going to a movie.
On Saturday Alex Coyle, Sara, Gustavo and I went and up the cable car to one of the highest points of the area, walked and walk and walked some more. We went to the Basilica, and some other touristy places. Under the Basilica there was an old catacomb/cemetery that we looked around for a while. It was unique. A graveyard above ground is much more cheerful and less solemn then one that is under it. You could feel the air was somehow richer, denser and holy like the stuff you would find in a place that had been untouched by the things that grind the bones of the soul, minus death but there was a peace that overshadowed it.
I was suppose to go back to the jungle on Sunday. Before I left for Quito, I found out that there was a census that day and the government restricts pretty much everything. The only thing you can do until 6pm was is stay indoors, after 6pm life returns as normal. When our census people show up (two college students) they about died and lost their marbles when we told them that ourselves. The five of us (Richard, Ximena, Gustavo, Santi, Sara and I) made up three households, five different visas (resident, missionary, tourist, student and dual citizenship), three and a half nationalities; all have a total income of zero. Needles to say, it took some explaining for them to understand, even then, I still think they thought we were crazy.
I hadn’t been in the jungle more than a couple of days before the family had to make a break for the states. They had been invited to be the guest of Handel’s Messiah in Tennessee. While they were gone, we still had school as usual; however we had some very unusual things happen.
• We thought we burned up the water pump the first day.
• The next we did have any running water
• Then it was the water in the cabin was leaking, (we had a break from out water worries on Sunday)
• Monday the toilet practically exploded in between Math and English (took two hours to clean up).
• No water the next day since we washed so many loads of dirty clothes the day before.
• Then we had Wednesday. I had been sleeping in the house so that there would be an adult in the house with the kids. Jean and Joyce stayed in the cabin. That morning as I was getting out of bed, I hear this explosion go off and then hear Joyce screaming bloody murder. Turns out that the hot water pipe burst while Jean was taking a shower, which is a lot better than the kitchen being in flames like it first thought.
• Thursday the rest of the hot water here decided that it was going to go the way of the dodo (extinct), which marks the end of our “Water Woes” as Jean dubbed them.
• So we had lots of fun. Seriously. We made a bunch of things like pizza, burgers, cakes and other stuff too.
Jean and Joyce left for the USA the day of the 13th early. It was the kids and I till Tuesday. The family was suppose to be driving home that day but they were still stuck in the USA due to plane trouble. They came in the next day. The house resumed its normal activity and on Wednesday morning, school was in full swing. We continued to have school until the 21st, and the kids did a Christmas program for their parents.
We were given our newest member to the family, Robbie, he came to us on the 22nd. He is two years old and the cousin of two of our girls, Saida and Jadyra. He came from the village down river. He has two infections and has a lot of worms from drinking the water; we are giving him some medicine and have seen a lot of improvements. However, while he was pretty skinny when he came to us, he has gotten a huge stomach and when he eats now he looks bloated and/or eight months pregnant. He used to try to run off all the time, but he has gotten so that he doesn’t do that anymore, but he still likes being outside all the time, and sleeping on the floor.
For Christmas, we had family come down, Charmai’s brother and Roberto’s parents, brother and two nieces. They came in the 23rd. We did all of our cooking and had our big meal on Christmas Eve. The kids and everyone seemed to have a great time. Overall it was a good visit. The brothers stayed in Jean and Joyce’s room since they were still in the USA. Charmai’s brother brought the kids a Wii, so they have been enjoying that. The kids got me a couple of gifts, a necklace with a seed that has “J” on it, black socks, a Christmas tree, an orange and some hair clippers.
On the 27th we all went to Quito. Four kids and I took the bus since there wasn’t any room for us in the car. The trip was uneventful and passed quickly, both good things. When we got to Darin Coyle’s house (where the family was staying) I was able to hang out for about an hour or two. I went to the Roseland’s to stay until we went to Manta on the 29th. The next day, we made sure that everything was in order for when the Texas Roseland's (Richard's parents and sister - Dino, Melissa & Rebekah) showed up that night. Jonathan, Ximena’s brother, had left his Xbox at their house so Gus and I played on that off and on throughout the day. The family showed up at the house at almost 1:30AM the following morning, so we said our hellos, moved all the bags and hit the sack.
The next morning was Christmas, or just like it. The family had been bearing gifts from the States and were ready to give them out. I was also given some gifts and my Timbuk2 bag from my Papa and Nana. Then the dog, Richard, Dino, Gus and I jumped into the car so that we could start out six hour drive to the coast. The girls were going to be taking their forty-five minute flight there later in the afternoon. The ride was pretty plain, that is until it got dark. We had fog most of the trip while in the mountains, then we had rain, then it got dark. Most all the roads seemed to be the normal ones -filled with pothole and uneven roads. One point, we thought we had taken the wrong road, so we pulled off to the dirt shoulder, which had a nice steep six foot ditch next to it. Since it had been raining all day, soon as we hit the shoulder, we felt the car slip a little. The moment we felt that, Richard put it in four-low and Dino, Gus and I jumped out to try to push the side to keep the car from sliding down the embankment. Just as we were running out of shoulder, the tires gripped and pulled us back onto the road. Just one of those things that happens to let you know that God is still looking out you, and that He will pull you out when needed. We pulled into Manta later than we planned but we were all glad to be there.
The next morning we went to the fish market - they just dumped the fish on the sand, cut off the parts they don’t sell, and then people load them up in their pickups. We went to the beach for most of the day, played some tackle football (2v2) and soaked up the sun. When we got back to the house, we helped make the Ano Veijo and relaxed.
On the 31st we didn’t do much. Gus was bored of just sitting around the house, so we went to the mall to catch a movie in Spanish. I think in general I was able to figure out what was going on but I’m still sure I missed a lot. We tried to get back home but we forgot what the name of the area, we asked the cops, who of course didn’t live there. We took a taxi to the main road and Gustavo was able to tell the guy were to go from there. We went to a New Year’s Eve service at the church, went back to the house and ate. After that is when everything started to come to life. We marched down to Grandma’s house, found a nice spot in the middle of the road and we took our Ano Viejo into the middle of the street, gathered the neighbors (who added theirs veijos to the pile), smothered them in gas and lit them up. W e then threw "fish killers" (pretty much half sticks of TNT) in the mess and stepped back and watched our fellow rioters make a night of it. It was like nothing else, if you didn’t know what was going on, it would have looked like the city was being looted and burned. However, there was a method to the madness and they knew the method pretty well. We got back to the house at almost two, since Jonathan, Gus and I went and walked around for a little bit before calling it a night.
Everyone slept late the next morning, and ate breakfast close to eleven. We loaded up the car and drove to another beach about thirty minutes away, where we would spend the day and eat fried fish. The fish was just scaled and gutted, and then fried. When you’re done with it, all that should be left is the spine (marrow sucked out), the ribs and some of the head. The fins and tail kind of taste like French fries. We saw a sea turtle swimming in the surf at one point in the day, which was really cool.
We got an early start on the morning, hoping to get on the road early too, which worked out pretty well actually. We rolled back into Quito close to five, but we had hit alot of holiday traffic in some of the towns, stopped to get something to eat and had some heavy fog to slow us down, we still felt like we made fairly good time though.
I went to school with Richard in the morning, so that Darin could take Jean, Joyce, the two older girls and I to the bus stop back to the jungle. The ride was really fast and we were able to get to Tena, go to the store and hit a taxi home in, just over five hours, not too shabby actually. The kids were glad to be back, as were all of us. Another successful adventure conquered and watched over by the Lord
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