Skip to main content

Travel Journal: Cuenca, Day 10

     Such a long day. I'm wiped out. I didn't end up teaching tonight at youth group because we got back from the outreach so late (thought I'd get back between 4 and 5... it was after 8 pm). It worked out alright though, and we really did have a great day.

     Got up at 5:45 to be out the door by 6:30 to pack the cars and leave for Suscal at 7. We got to the town at about 9:15 and our caravan of vehicles stopped for a cafecito which included two giant portions of chibiles (corn meal and cheese wrapped in a husk). The coffee was great once we put sugar in it (almost everyone drinks it that way so I'm normal here, not a pansy) but I could barely eat the other thing. I could smell the cheese coming from a mile away and it made my stomach turn when I accidentally got a mouthful of it.

     Dairy products are the one thing I cannot do here (besides ice cream of course). They are made with a ton of preservatives - milk is sold in unrefrigerated cartons and will stay good for months. All kinds of milk and cheese have the same funky aftertaste to me. This week I found out that the funkiness is formaldehyde. Thus ended my attempted consumption of Ecuadorian dairy products. Of course, this meant that I got severely made fun of for hardly eating anything today at second breakfast, but what else is new?

The ride in to Suscal was absolutely incredible:

RAINBOW

CLOUDS

I REPEAT, WE WERE DRIVING THROUGH CLOUDS

Then the Christmas programs and gift giveaways:

Puppet show! Papa Noel shared with the kids that his friend Jesus is the one who brings joy and peace on Christmas.

Capturing every moment!

Apparently there is a Christmas song about a burrito that everyone knows...

These guys were troopers. They did their bit 4+ times today, twice in the rain.

Another one of my favorite photos. We crammed into all the trucks on our drives to the next community. And we feared for Isma's life while he was perching on the tailgate and taking selfies. 

Isma teaching Kasen to use a trompo, a traditional Ecuadorian toy. I was a natural - nailed it on the first try. A miracle, really.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience. I had another "is this really my life?" moment when I was eating chicken and rice, leaning on the tailgate of a truck, looking up at the mountains and being surrounded by cool misty air. I'm glad we got to participate in this kind of outreach, and I'm glad I got to do it with the friends I made over the summer! 

     Also, this trip has done wonders for my Spanish, praise God. Today I rattled off a question to Sabri and then Christian and Jenny (the clowns in the picture above) asked me if I spoke Spanish. I laughed and said "un poco." Then she laughed, and scoffed, and repeated what I had just said to Sabri, like, "Yeah sure, just un poco." It made me feel so good. I get made fun of because I don't talk much (though that's kind of true in either language), but I'm loads more confident about using what I do know and much less embarrassed to admit that I don't understand something. I was able to carry on a full conversation with one of the leaders from Suscal who accompanied us today, and I translated for Tiffany while we were in the truck. I'm so happy to be able to SEE improvement. (Two of my life goals: become fluent, and then teach my kids.)

     I catnapped all the way home, trying not to think about how long it had been since we stopped at a bathroom and when/if I was going to eat dinner. Tiffany and I got separated into different cars so I was dropped off at the curb at tv station and decided to wander over to church to see if there were still people there. It was another fleeting moment of slight panic, because I had zero way to get in contact with Tiffany, buses don't run that late, and I knew I couldn't give a taxi driver directions to the house. Thankfully, I caught the end of youth group and grabbed a ride home from Bobby and Lori. Thank you Leeks!

     There was so much "doing" today that there wasn't a whole lot of reflecting. Which is kind of nice. since I've been wallowing in my thoughts for a few days. It was starting to get suffocating. I'm planning on going to Miguel's church tomorrow and possibly going to El Cajas. We shall see. Nothing much has been going according to plan, but as long as I'm rested I'm 100% down for going with the flow. 

Final thoughts: 

1. Finishing the post an hour earlier than the usual cut off = celebration.
2. I'm very much looking forward to reuniting with my home church squad in a week.
3. "Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." Prayer request every day of my life. Today is no exception. 


Buenas noches, Dios te bendiga.
Mucho amor de Cuenca <3

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Travel Journal: Cuenca, Day 1

(I've been using a countdown app since day 120. Finally seeing this was pretty surreal.) The whole travel process felt like a whirlwind of: " How  far away is my gate?"  " Why  is this the noisiest suitcase in existence?"  " Who  told me I was old enough to travel without supervision?"   For the record, I navigated all the American and Ecuadorian airport connections and bag retrievals surprisingly successfully. The only hiccup was a stop at a security check because I forgot to drink all my water. (Sorry, Mom.) (Waiting alone for the last flight in a nearly empty terminal.  One of the many "This is wild, I can't actually be doing this by myself" moments I've gone through over the last 32 hours or so.)      As my first full day in Cuenca winds down, I might have to call it the longest day in existence. Though I slept for a rough total of 3.5 to 4 hours during my overnight travel, the longest stretch was 2 hours at a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Choose This Day

“Now therefore fear the  Lord  and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness.  Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the  Lord .  And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the  Lord ,  choose this day whom you will serve , whether  the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or  the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.  But as for me and my house, we will serve the  Lord .” Joshua 24:14-15 (ESV) "Choose." If we're living in the reality of the Kingdom of God, I don't think there's any way to over-spiritualize. That phrase gets on my nerves like nothing else. I think we use it as a cop out, a way to sidestep the responsibility of living like the Kingdom has invaded every nook and cranny of our existence. Every choice is an opportunity to feed my flesh or feed my spirit. Every choice is a challenge - am I going to lean on my own understanding, or listen clos...
Post a Comment
Read more

A New Thing

My worldview has been wrecked on multiple occasions over the last year and a half. I almost wish that was an exaggeration, but it is not. Sometimes for the better, always for the unknown. Each time feels unprecedented, each revelation seemingly irreconcilable with life as I have known it. But that's the point. Each of those instances has been a point of no return. One cannot put bubbles back in the bottle after pouring out dish soap. We cannot shrink our minds or appetites for adventure back down to former size once God has blown them wide open with possibility. (Plus, it's much more fun to have bubbles everywhere.)  Faith tastes like the gunpowder-residue air that comes with fireworks. There's a right good chance that things will  explode, but it's going to be beautiful. Whenever it happens. However it happens.  Why is it that as we're eagerly searching the skies, refraining from blinking as much as we are able, barely hanging on to the edge of our se...
Post a Comment
Read more