Food and District Convention

Cool pics of the mountain we took when we were in Ibarra.

  

The last week or so has been crazy busy!  I think this is compounded by the fact that we only have the daylight hours to get things done.  At about 4p or so, the traffic gets lousy and riding the bus between Atuntaqui and Ibarra takes twice as long.  And especially when it gets dark at about 6:30-7-ish, there is pretty much nothing you can do after that point, unless it can be done at home.  So, taking off from the house in the morning and spending 4-5 hours either in field service, at an internet cafe, shopping, and/or a variety of other typical errands, and there you go, the day is shot.  It should help if/when we find a place in the city in Ibarra so that we’re closer to everything.  Until then…

Still haven’t found a place of our own yet.  We saw a house that sounded great when we talked to the neighbor, but later when we went to look at it, we learned that the owners don’t have the money to complete it, so who knows when it might be done.  We actually did find the perfect place, though!  4bed, 3 bath, brand new townhome, modern, perfect guest room with bath, lots of amenities, and so nice!  But…the guy will only sell, not rent.  :(  We actually considered buying it for a minute…and so the search goes on.

Food.  It’s so easy back home, but not so here.  You have to be so careful with everything!  Every piece of fruit or vegetable that you buy at the market or anywhere else except a fancy hotel has to be cleaned.  Even when you buy things at the SuperMaxi you can’t relax.  2 of the 3 chicken packages we bought there smelled so bad when we opened them that we had to throw them away.  Maybe we need to buy the live chickens at the market and wack them ourselves to be sure its fresh, I don’t know.  Sam has often bragged about having to do that as a kid so she DOES know how...  It is kind of funny to see people walking around with a chicken they just bought at the market.  Usually they carry it by it’s feet hanging upside down with the poor thing softly cackling and squawking – I really feel bad for them.  I mean these Ecuadorians swing the poor things around like they’re a sack of potatoes.  I can only imagine the headache you get being swung around upside down like that.  Anyway, getting hungry here is a bad idea.  You see, the days of being able to run down the street 5 minutes away to grab some decent food are a distant memory.  There is no such thing as ‘fast’ food here – I don’t think anything, especially food, is fast in this country.  So, it either gets prepared at home, or you have to take an adventure into town, which requires a walk to the bus stop, the bus ride, the walk to the ‘fast food’ place from the other bus stop…you get the picture – you might as well have stayed home and made something.  Either way, you’re a looong time away from food.  So it’s just best not to get hungry. 

Speaking of needing your food to be clean – I got sick again.  It was different this time, though.  No puking.  No squirts.  This time it was just a gurgling in my gut, especially after I would eat.  The first day or two I didn’t pay much attention to it, figuring it would pass at some point.  But, the gurgling had a nasty side-effect – gas.  I was CONSTANTLY passing gas.  These weren’t your every-day run-of-the-mill puffs.  No, they were awful, nose-hair melting, run-from-yourself kind of gas bombs.  Sitting on the john was a torturous experience that I had to keep finishing as quickly as possible.  They were uncontrollable, too, so if one leaked out while I was around people, I would have to play it off on a nearby baby or little kid, or simply walk off and hope the people around me didn’t smell it until I was on the other side of the room/street/whatever.  After a couple of days of this, I realized I needed some help.  At Sam’s suggestion, I started mixing some grapefruit seed extract (GSE) into juice 3 times a day – a couple days later I’m cured!  I am now a believer in that stuff!  I think this means now I can eat anything I want as long as I chug down the GSE.  Apparently I am late to this party, though - just about every other gringo/American already uses GSE for just about everything.  They wash their food in it, they drink it, it’s the cure for everything that tries to kill you in South America! (including gas)

District Convention:

The DC here was awesome!  I don’t know why but having the DC in a small venue of less than 1,000 people was amazing.  The more amazing part was that nearly all of those in attendance were need-greaters or Bethelites, or even missionaries.  Being in the midst of all of these high-quality, self-sacrificing brothers and sisters and talking to ones who have been here for years accomplishing so much while making do with all of the inconveniences of a 3rd world country – it was inspiring and makes me utterly impatient to settle in, learn this language, and dig in!  It’s only been 3 weeks but I’ve got ants in my pants (not literally but that probably happens easily here).  At least the Spanish is starting to go from ‘utterly atrocious’ to just ‘really atrocious’.  Here are a few pics from the DC (you might recognize some faces from WA).

(Allison, I put this one in just for you – wanted you to know that your awesome gift goes with me everywhere!  I love my coffee cup!)

 

Mike & Linda from Canada – just got here and moving to Cuenca after the DC.

Scott Ness, serving as a missionary for a long time here

 

The branch organized buses to pick us up at the various hotels.  It was so nice to ride a bus with no porn or rated R movies playing!

Some of the friends who stayed at the Sheraton.

The Muller’s – the Australians who shared their mustard & avocado with us on Saturday – thus saving us from a dry sandwich lunch.

Phil Cassidy – he and his wife Tina serve in Rio Bamba.  Here he is realizing aloud how the loving elder has a point and maybe he did need the counsel.

 

Another nice thing about the small size of the DC was it was a lot easier to see the drama.  It so happened that some of the first families/couples that we met when we arrived happened to be some of the main characters in the drama.  So, we took a whole mess of pics.  Here are just a couple:

 

We signed up for a cleaning assignment on Sunday.  It’s definitely a little different here.  To begin with, all of the bathrooms are in one building; about 2/3 or more for sisters and the rest brothers.  Being in one building, there really isn’t a need for a little push cart like we used in the Tacoma Dome.  The assignments seemed a little more ad hoc than back home (go figure).  In our first time slot, the brother at the desk just told me to go check on how the supplies were doing and to see if it needed to be mopped.  Well, not sure where the miscommunication happened, but apparently the whole place had already just been mopped.  In fact, half of the bathroom was still sectioned off with chairs so the floor could dry.  So that left the dispensers for me to check.  I dutifully wandered around to each one.  Since it would have been irresponsible to miss any, I moved aside one of the chairs and gingerly walked across the damp floor to check the dispensers on that side.  Well, I guess one of the mopper brothers was still standing by to watch things dry, and here he goes and sees some brother (me) messing up their handiwork.  Since I had absolutely no evidence about me that indicated I was supposed to be crossing the chair border – no latex gloves (I don’t think Ecuador has those), no little push cart, no apron…I just looked like some disrespectful and disobedient brother who was crossing the line.  So, before I could even check more than one dispenser, I ended up getting reprimanded by the mopper-watcher brother that I was violating an off-limits area.  I tried to weakly explain that I had been told to check the dispensers as he was ushering me out of the ‘restricted’ zone but he assured me that they were already full.  So, that part of the assignment didn’t last long.  I didn’t want to go back to my seat having done nothing (except get a scolding), so I went around to the back of the building and found the mop & broom room.  Scott Ness happened to be there and he hooked me up with a mop.  Ok, so now I was carrying a mop around and I could look official!  Who would have thought that a mop could elevate you to a VIP person who belonged.  Now that I belonged, I got to clean up some the floors and counters that get dirty within about 30 seconds after they’re cleaned – now I felt like I had helped…

Speaking of bathrooms, there is a little detail here that makes it a real necessity to do some planning ahead before you decide to make use of a stall.  You see, the toilet paper ain’t in the stalls.  You need to remember to reel off some TP from one of the ‘community’ rolls and take it into the stall with you.  If you bolt into a stall in an emergency and forget, you’re going to have another emergency.  Fortunately, there are showers available…

  

Other DC observations you might find interesting:

• Building: Covered open air.  This allows you to hear the birds singing and see the occasional iguana that climbs up the roof support structure
• Seating: Plastic chairs – better than benches, although you might not be convinced of that towards the end of the 3rd day
• They serve free coffee!!!
• Plenty of bathrooms for all (Sam was blown away by how many stalls there were for the sisters)
• Attendants don’t have to wear jackets!!!

Let’s go back to the topic of food.  It’s tough to find any kind of familiarity here, especially as it relates to food.  For example, we thought we were splurging a little yesterday and we ordered filet mignon steaks in a nice little hotel in Cotacachi.  The waiter described them as very ‘suave’, which means soft.  I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into a really good steak – it’s been so long!  Well, those steaks really were soft - just as soft as they were expensive.  So, for $6 = not so soft <sigh>.  I don’t know if there is any soft meat in this country.  I guess the cows have to constantly walk up and down the mountainsides and they probably have less fat on them than I do.  I’m not sure how long I’m going to survive here without getting a decent rib-eye at least occasionally.  On a positive note, we did find an awesome restaurant in Guayaquil!  They call it Burger King…and it is sooo good!  The Texas Doble is absolutely the best hamburger fast food has invented here.  I’m told that they import the meat, but then they also add jalapeños and some other stuff…it tastes nothing like a Burger King burger in the States.  We liked them so much we had them for dinner twice while we were in Guayaquil for the DC.  So, basically I have to go to Burger King for good meat – go figure.

Above, Mike & Linda ‘protect’ our table at the foodcourt in Guayaquil.

Anyway, I have some more stuff to tell ya’ll but this post is probably long enough, so I’ll save it for later.  We’re missing you guys and missing home, but we’re having fun!  Signing off until next post…