Paying dues and crazy driving

This trip continues to fly by. We got back from Rose's area (Atuntaqui) last night. We really enjoyed our time there. Picking up from the last post, which was Saturday at the meeting, we've been to a couple towns nearby, such as Cotacachi, known for its leather shops, Otavalo, which has this incredible local market on Saturdays, and we've made our way down to Banos, where there are thermal baths. Here are some of our experiences and observations:

Clothing: In Atuntaqui it is amazing how CHEAP clothes are. And not just local styles, I mean US name brand stuff like Nike, Adidas, North Face, you name it. According to Rose, all of these things are made here and shipped to the US, except for the stuff that stays here and gets sold in the local shops. If you live in this area, you can dress like you might be accustomed to in the US for a fraction of the price. Not only that but getting someone to tailor the clothes to fit you perfectly is common and cheap. Rose will sometimes take a picture from a magazine of a style she likes, bring it to her a seamstress, pick out the material, and have it made for next to nothing.

Paying my dues: Everyone told me that you always have a high chance of getting some kind of stomach issue with the local food at some point. I had hoped to avoid it but apparently that was not to be. We had bought an interesting fruit at the grocery store that Rose says she has never had a problem with. It is called a Pitaya from what I've researched (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yellow_pitaya.jpg) although Rose called it something else. First I will tell you that it is delicious. It was like a Kiwi - but sweeter and juicier. In fact, it was so good and I was so hungry that after I tried it I ended up eating 1 1/2 of them. That was about 4p. Later that evening we took a drive up this beautiful mountain that I think was called La Estelita. The road was dirt, steep, and rough with switchback after switchback until we were above the cloudline. By the time we made our way back down my stomach was hurting but I wasn't sure if it was because of hunger (I hadn't eaten much all day), the rough winding road, or from something else. I assumed hunger. We headed to dinner and Rose took us to this dive-looking place at the base of the hill that she swore was good. It was across the street from lake Yahuracocha but looked nothing like what a lakeside restaurant I've ever seen looks like. When we arrived, I was afraid. It was busy, noisy, and as 3rd-world as I could have imagined. Can this place possibly have edible food? We ordered, paid, sat down at a table and a short time later a plate with a 12+inch whole fish and a few potatoes was delivered to each of us. Is this what 'bone-in' means here? To my surprise, though, it was excellent! Unfortunately, I got to enjoy about 4-5 bites before I realized my stomach just wasn't going to play nice with the Pitaya fruit I ate earlier. I went to the car to lay back and see if it would get better, but no dice. The others finished up about a half hour later and we headed home. I ended up having to drive so I wouldn't add car sickness to my misery. I was just praying I could make it home before letting loose, but this country wasn't even going to give me the decency to be sick in private. Why else would there be heavy traffic in town at 8:30 in the evening? At the point when I realized I was moments away from losing it, a driveway for some kind of business appeared on the right. I whipped the car into the driveway, jumped out, and barely made it to the building wall 10 feet from the car before I lost it...all. Well, not all - a half dozen heaves later, then it was 'all'. The 'evidence' clearly convicted the Pitaya fruit as the culprit. At least I felt better. Unfortunately that was not going to be the end of it, or at least not the only end. 20 minutes later as we pulled up to the house, I had to run from the car to the bathroom to experience the other 'end'. I hope it doesn't offend anyone, but in the interest of accurate reporting, the only G-rated words to accurately describe it are, 'peeing out of your bottom', over and over and over. The fruit seems to divert the liquids to the wrong exit. Moral of the story: beware of the Pitaya fruit! Click on the link above to see what it looks like in case they call it something different wherever you may be.

Like most 3rd world countries, well, like maybe all countries except the US (sans California and New York), the driving here is rediculous or awesome depending on your perspective - either way it is very different. Most non-main roads are two-way, one lane in each direction with a dotted or solid line down the middle. However, that is really just a suggestion. While driving or riding with others, I never saw a solid line discourage any drivers from passing other vehicles. In fact, even oncoming traffic doesn't discourage drivers from passing other vehicles! The driver who is passing and about to smash head-on into the oncoming vehicle simply squeezes closer to the vehicle he is passing and maybe flashes his lights at the oncoming car. That car has no choice but to move over and squeeze by on the shoulder. Neither driver seems to slow down or think that this is anything but normal. This oft-repeated scenario effectively creates an imaginary 3rd/middle lane. Well, it must not be imaginary since everyone knows about it. Personally, I got the hang of this pretty quick. Especially since the little car I was driving probably had all of 50 horsepower...on its best day. So every time I tried to pass someone, it would take what seemed like an hour and a half to make it past whatever I was passing. Oh yeah, we were living in the fast...er, middle lane. By extension, I also have to tell you about the buses. I had read Noah's blog about them, but nothing really prepares you for this experience. In town it wasn't bad, but once we left Quito to head to Banos and got out of town to the winding mountain roads, we really began to understand. The bus drivers are simply insane, there is no other way to put it. Its best not to stand up or you might end up in someone's lap (ask me how I know). I doubt a fighter jet at Mach 5 produces more G's than a multi-ton, fully loaded Ecuadorian bus rounding what should be a 25mph mountain curve. Back home, all of the other vehicles pass the buses because they're so slow - well, here in Ecuador, the buses are the ones passing EVERYONE. We were passing trucks, semi's, cars, even motorcyles! I'm telling you, these drivers are insane (even by my standards).

Other places we checked out: Cotacachi is a quaint little town where every shop sells leather. Great prices for everything and anything made of leather. There is a brother here who makes book covers and bags designed specifically for JW literature and sells it online, shipping it to the US and other places. If you buy it locally, it is nearly half the price. We bought a bunch of items for us and for friends back home and his daughter threw in a couple extra small bible covers for good measure. Now we just need to figure out where to pack it all. We also went to Lake Cuyecocha national park. This is a lake that was formed in a crater. What is cool about it is that the original top of the mountain basically dropped into the crater and it forms an island in the middle of the lake/crater. No fish live in the lake because of the volcanic activity at the bottom of the lake.

One of the things about this place is that many people here are short. In the case of many of the local Kichwa Indians, they are literally miniature! When I tower over people, you know they're small. But these women carry packs on their backs that are nearly as big as they are like it is nothing. These people may be small but they are tough!

While the temperate climate and excellent soil here may not grow tall people, it does make the produce grow two or three times the size of what I'm used to seeing back home. For example, a brother gave Sam some carrots and beets from his garden and the beets were the size of softballs and the carrots looked more like orange oversized cucumbers. The corn stalks grow so tall they look like skinny trees.

Well, I'm being rushed out of the internet cafe, our ride is here. will post more later and try to add pics. Love and miss you all.

After our 'acclimating day' Tuesday, on Wednesday we felt better and were ready to roll! Josue picked us up in the morning and took us back to where he and Jania have settled, a town called Tumbaco which is about 20-30 minutes from Quito. Since we hadn't been more than a block from the hotel since we arrived, the ride there allowed us to see how beautiful the green mountain terrain around Quito is. Unfortunately, the pollution that just pours from the buses and cars is brutal and causes a stark contrast - emissions standards maybe aren't quite the same here. When we got to Tumbaco, we hung out in Josue & Jania's apartment to wait for Jania to come back from a study. She was running late and when she FINALLY made it back, she was completely unapolagetic about the study being so good that she couldn't leave...(can you believe that?).

We then split up - Samantha went with Jania and Elsie (a sister from Oregon) and I went with Josue - and headed out to their return visits and studies. The first stop was a study Josue has with a couple who operate a 'Porta Cabina', which seems to be some kind of small payphone shop and cell phone store (these shops are apparently everywhere here). The study was fantastic from what I could gather from my quiet, English-only perspective of a sometimes rapid Spanish conversation. I wasn't able to contribute at all (except smile and look up scriptures with them) but I thoroughly enjoyed watching Josue conduct the study with this couple. They were humble, asking questions, thoughtfully reasoning on the scriptures Josue was showing them, and were completely engaged in the study. At one point, the husband got a pen out and underlined a particular scripture that Josue had asked him to read. Everyone we talk to who has spent time preaching here says that sincere studies like this are common. Samantha also had some good experiences with Jania and Elsie. Apparently they gave her a brief presentation in Spanish for a tract and so she went over to offer it to a little old lady. Well, I guess the little lady was not too happy about it at all. She was Catholic and Sam says she basically chewed her out. Oh well, I guess it happens here, too! She did have some good experiences and has a couple of funny stories from the rest of the afternoon but I'll have to have her write about them and post.

There is one thing here that is apparently common but really caught me off guard: nursing mothers seem to have absolutely no issue with just popping it out and feeding their kids in public. In fact it is such an afterthought that they'll do this right in front of you, right in mid-sentence, and never lose a beat. This happened during Josue's study I mentioned above and it took me completely by surprise. One moment I am quietly marveling at how humble and sincere this couple is, the next moment I look up from my bible and the wife has lifted her shirt and is sticking her nino's mouth on the feeder. Ah!!! I guess Josue is used to it already because he never lost a beat either - he continued with his question like nothing happened and she went on to answer while nino had a late lunch.

Thursday we hung out in old town Quito with a missionary couple who has been in Ecuador for over 40 years. They had some good experiences to share and we really enjoyed their company.

It is amazing how many brothers and sisters from the NorthWest are down here or have been down here in the past. One sister, Rose Cyrus, used to be in the same congregation as Sam in Eatonville, WA and now lives in a town 2 1/2 hours North of Quito called Atuntaqui. She came down Thursday night so we could all ride the bus back up to her house Friday morning. Major round trip for her but I was too chicken to try getting up there byourselves. It's going to be interesting getting to our other destinations around the country next week. Maybe we'll know Spanish by then and it won't be so bad - we've been studying...

Rose took us around the last couple days and we went to a local fair that only occurs twice a year (good timing, huh), an amazing local weekly market, and to her meeting today (Saturday). The fair is apparently a big draw and turns this little quiet town into a busy and loud affair in the town center. A major draw for the fair is a long parade through the city streets of floats and groups of dancing children that I understand to represent nearby indigenous Indian tribes and maybe some other groups. The kids were adorable in their little matching outfits, and you have to hand it to the adults who got these little ninos and ninas to perform their little dance routines (more or less!) to the music down the parade route. We really enjoyed it! There was one exception for me, though. One group had an older boy and girl leading the dancing for the little ones. Well the boy just struck me odd. He had so much energy and was twirling and dancing and shaking it like I've never seen a man or boy be able to shake it. It was similar to the Hawaiin luau girls on the islands. I don't know if I will be able to ever go salsa dancing again for fear I might accidentally look like that. On another note, the music really cracked us up. You see, every float or group of kids (anywhere from 10-20 maybe) was preceeded by a 'sound system vehicle' that played their specific traditional music. These 'sound system vehicles' typically consisted of an old pick-up truck with 2 to 5 large speaker boxes precariously stacked high in the back of the truck. Of course, BUNGIE CORDS were placed around these large speaker boxes to keep these unweildy loads 'secure'. It's a good thing there aren't as many lawyers here as there are in the US. We were cheering just as much for the highest, most rediculously stacked sound trucks as the dancing kids. The other thing that was impossible not to notice was that many groups' 'sound system vehicle' operators had hearing issues. It's the only explanation as to why most had the music turned up so far beyond the distortion point that it was nearly impossible to understand the music. Maybe they used to be able to hear ok at one time but so many years in the 'sound system vehicle' business messed up their hearing. But the kids were really cute.

The local weekly market was also interesting. The locals, including ones like the Kichwa (hope I spelled that right) Indians, make amazing crafts. There is a really cool chess set that I hope to buy where the pieces are represented on one side by conquistadors and the other side by Indians. We did buy some gifts along with a neckless for Sam and had lots of fun bargaining. I think we got good deals, but who knows, they could be still laughing at us Gringos who paid 3 times what a local would.

Finally, I have to tell you about the congregation meeting. This was the first Spanish meeting I've attended in over 12 years, and it was Sam's first Spanish meeting period. We've been working overtime this last week or two trying to pick up as much Spanish as possible, especially as we contemplate whether we can make a move down here. Our Spanish is very limited - and that is an over-statement. At the meeting Sam really impressed me. Here it is, her first Spanish meeting, and she goes on to work up an answer and make a really nice comment in perfect Spanish. Shoot! I had also intended to see if I MAYBE could work up an answer but now I was locked in and simply didn't have a choice - she put the bar up there and now I was sweating it to reach it. I racked my brain and was trying to read ahead and find SOMETHING I felt like I could somewhat pronounce. Well, I'm happy to say that I finally pulled it out on the very last paragraph - whew!

It hasn't even been a week and we feel like we've experienced alot. I don't have time to upload the pics before I run out of battery right now but I will post them when I can. I hope you enjoy this post and we'll try to update you again in a few days if not sooner.

Philia, Clint & Sam

The adventure has begun! Well, surprisingly, getting up at 3:45a on our departure date was the hardest part of the journey here. We had flight connections in Chicago & Miami with only 45min in between and I just knew we would end up missing one or both of them – it was so nice to be wrong. Of course, no international trip is truly without hiccups, right? Well, when we arrived at the hotel they had apparently canceled our reservation! And this week of course is a busy week for hotels because of some kind of major holiday complete with parades and all sorts of celebrations. Not sure when it starts but it apparently runs for the next week. Well, unlike in Europe (when this happened to us in France they nearly tripled the cost and we got less of a room) the friendly Ecuadorian hostess reinstated our reservation and upgraded us to a full suite (complete with kitchen, flat screen tv’s in both rooms, etc)! I’m liking this place already. A late dinner and hot shower later, we finally crashed at 2a – long day.

Our first full day here we slept until noon. It’s always embarrassing when the cleaning staff is knocking on your door or calling you and asking in polite terms if you are going to get your lazy self out of the room at some point so that they can do their job. Since we like fresh towels we got up and made our way downstairs to eat. Funny thing about this hotel is that the prices on the menu seem to be more like approximations. I’m pretty sure Sam’s steak was $11.50 on the menu but it was $13.50 on the bill. Same thing happened at lunch – my $4.50 soup and $5.50 tacos were really $5.00 and $6.00 – I wonder if that’s the way it is everywhere – maybe we just need to avoid the ‘expensive’ hotels (expensive? c’mon it was $13.50 for a huge steak! Everything is relative.) While we were eating we met this guy named Rod who is a translator – he was doing a job for a conference here at the hotel. He goes on to tell us that he has been a translator for Presidents Carter and Bush (the first one), along with a bunch of other high profile people and events. The interesting part is that he is the official translator for the ATP! Maybe Howard Murray is the only reader who will recognize that ATP is the Association of Tennis Professionals. Since I love tennis, this fascinated me – I offered to be his assistant or baggage boy or whatever the next time he does work for them – unfortunately he just laughed. He was very helpful, though, and gave us lots of tips about Ecuador.

So far, we are finding everyone very willing to help out and give us information – even offering to meet up with us and show us around during our trip! A woman sitting next to us on the plane visits family here every year and was a wealth of info. She insisted that we call her when we come to a city named Ambato so that she can help us find a place to stay and show us around. Likewise, the Rod guy (mentioned above) offered to meet up with us later in the week to chat more and help us out. But first we need to meet with our brothers! So tomorrow we have plans to meet up with Josue and Jania Fontanez, a couple from Redmond, WA who just made the permanent move here in December. We’re looking forward to meeting their congregation and going out in service with them.

Quito is up in the mountains at an elevation of 9,350 feet. We had been warned that this can make you feel sick until you get acclimated. Sam has been feeling funny since we arrived last night –I thought I was immune until we went walking around a little this afternoon – now I feel a little woozy, too. Don’t worry, mom, we’ll probably live.

Not too much else to report other than that we are now completely aware of our Spanish-deficient vocabulary (as if we weren’t before). Walking around a mall today and shopping for food and a phone card was a laughable experience (more for them than us I’m sure). Apparently you need more than a couple hours of Spanish CD’s to get along. Anyway, we love you all and hope you enjoy our ramblings. We’ll post again soon after some actually notable things happen to us.