THE MORNING AFTER

Last night was sad for me. It was a tear-in-my-beer kind of night and I had noone to share my woes with besides the occasional flying ant. Today I woke up determined to have a better day.

 I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I looked out of my french-door windows just as a huge yellow butterfly fluttered past. It had rained all night and the fog was lifting over the distant mountains. Clouds were resting on the towering Sumaca volcano like a Panama hat and a double rainbow was shooting forth from it. What homesickness?

I went into the bathroom to take a shower. No electricity, which meant a cold shower because...well, this is Ecuador and of course most showers are now run on electricity instead of gas tanks like when we lived here before. The shower lasted long enough for me to get decently clean. I jumped out and grabbed a towel. There was my landlord, Elena, peeking at me through the window. She was asking me if the electricity was back on. She orderd me to check. Yep. It had just come back on.

Tank-top barely on and my hair still wet, there was a knock at the back door. Again it was Elena. She was introducing me to the electrician who had come to fix the light connections that yesterday's carpenter had accidentally torn out. Within five minutes of learning that I was American he asked if I was married. When I said yes, he acted as if I was a liar since Joe and Carlie are still in Quito and he didn't see any evidence of them. "OMG, I need coffee", I muttered to myself.

As the water for my coffee was boiling, Elena ducked back into my house via the back door that she had left open. She told me she was going to cut off our shared Wi-fi connection because she can't afford the bills anymore. Her ex-husband husband isn't sending her any money and her grown children hate her. She began to cry and there I am, hugging and comforting her in my own kitchen like she's my baby. She wipes her tears on my tank-top and looks up at me. "You're only having coffee for breakfast? That's not good", she cries.

The electrician begins to drill through the wooden jail cell that the carpenter put in yesterday. I can feel a hint of a head-ache creeping in. Elena's dogs are barking outside, my dogs are barking inside and the electrician is interrupting Elena's dramatic melt-down to ask me if my dogs are vicious. Elena interrupts him to ask me if she can have the broken bed that the neighbor gave us to borrow. The parts have been sitting in my bedroom for two weeks, next to the other bed that Elena let us borrow. That's yet another story...

Anyway, the electrician, who's name I learn is Galo, finally leaves after coming back again because he "forgot" his tools. Elena also leaves so she can go gossip with the neighbors. All the dogs in the world stop barking and I'm finally alone with my hot coffee. I sit down at my breakfast table and take that long-awaited sip. The milk for my coffee had spoiled and it was the most horrible sip of death ever. The home-sickness returns.

HOMESICK

I can't sleep. It's a bit past midnight here in the Amazon and raining pretty hard.  Joe and Carlie are in Quito five hours away getting some Visa paperwork done. Mine can't be done until next week because I ran out of free pages in my passport. So I'm alone, sitting here getting attacked by dive-bombing bugs and re-reading some old blog posts from about this time last year- November 2010.

What a great life I had back there in NC! Everything that made me happy was at my disposal. My family was there, all my best friends that I grew up with, a variety of great foods, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, my favorite downtown restaurant. Looking back I really did "have it all". And yet we traded it to live here in Tena, Ecuador. I have had some happy moments here over the past month, but overall this has been a much rougher transition than when we lived in the mountains of Ecuador in 2007.

Yesterday Carlie was attacked by bees and had to get a shot because her eyes were swelling shut. Joe struggles just to get people to understand one sentence of his botched Spanish. I killed a flying roach today in my dining room that was so huge I wasn't exactly sure if it was a roach or a brown parrot. I got bit by something on my ankle tonight that has made my whole ankle swell up like I have diabetes. I can't and doubt I ever will be able to afford a washing machine. It's so hot here during the day I have to take no less than 3 cold showers a day. There's a queen ant staring at me from the wall near where I'm blogging. I JUST WANT TO GO BACK TO RALEIGH!!

And yet, I know when I wake up tomorrow, I'll want to blog about our new friends here Tim and Monica, or Carlie's new friend Arianda who held her hand after she got stung by bees, or about how I drink my coffee on the balcony off my bedroom overlooking a tropical garden each morning, or how the sound of the rain and booming thunder each night makes me feel so content with how little we have, or how swimming in the rivers with Joe and Carlie make me feel so proud of our family for having jumped through so many hoops to get here. Maybe I should just stop reading old blogs and looking at old pictures and think about how happy I can be here if I let myself.

Ok, I'm going to bed now...under my mosquito net...

THE CARPENTER

With temperatures in the 100s each day, I've been complaining a lot to our landlord how hot our house gets inside. At 5pm when it's in the 80s, our house is still hovering around 98. I was at my limit with this house when Joe had to carry me to the cold shower the other day because I got heat exhaustion in my own kitchen. I told Elena, the landlord, that we would be looking for a new, cooler apartment. She immediatly called a carpenter to see what could be done. She wasn't about to lose paying tennants after just 3 weeks.

I got home today from house-sitting at Jessamyn's around 1pm after watching all her DVDs. In the courtyard of our home was the carpenter, all of 5 feet tall, sledge-hammer in hand. Elena knocked on my door and apologized ahead of time for the mayhem they were about to impose.
"I was about to go to the grocery store anyway", I said.
"Don't worry, pay Olivia a few cents and she'll go for you," Elena snapped.
Olivia is our shared maid who does whatever you tell her to do for $8 a day. She has no husband and several grown children who mooch off of her. I have no doubt that there are days when Olivia doesn't eat. Although poor myself, I try to come up with jobs for her just so she can have a dollar or two in her pocket. I gave her $5 and off she went to buy some chicken and veggies for my soup. I let her have the change and she was thrilled.

Meanwhile, Carlos the Carpenter was busy sawing a hole through the wall. We live in a slatted wooden cabin and he and Elena decided to open it up more to let air pass more easily between the front and back parts of our house. The final result was a wooden slatted "window" that looks more like a wooden jail cell in my living room. This makes now the second indoor window we have, the first being in our bedroom and overlooking the kitchen. Odd, I know. As I'm cooking my soup Elena proceeds to redirect my attention to clearing off my other countertop so that Carlos the Carpenter can stand on top of them. Within seconds of me moving my glassware, he's swinging the sledgehammer between the wall and fiberglass roof. Cement was flying all over my kitchen, and before it was all said and done with, the remains of what used to be part of my kitchen wall was sitting broken in a wheelbarrow. It was still 98 degrees in my kitchen, or maybe hotter since now the soup was boiling.
"Wow! Feel that cool breeze," said Elena. "Tomorrow I'll buy another water-hose so we can rinse your roof when it starts to sizzle".

I guess I can tell my friends that I basically live in a wooden tent now because I feel like I'm camping outside in the elements. Except tents are pretty secure when it comes to keeping out bugs. In our home here I might as well leave out the Welcome mat for any type of creature that stops by for some left-over soup. Even as I type this, a kite-sized moth is hovering above. My chihuahuas are afraid that it will swoop down and eat them. Elena is making plans to have a capenter put in screens in our windows- a luxury here in Tena. But she won't hire Carlos ever again.
"He's a crook," she grumbled as she mopped the dust off my kitchen floor. "He charged me $15 just to do those two things".

LIGHTS OUT

No sleeping in. We live next door to a high-school and each morning we are awakened with bells, sirens and the principal giving a very loud 'have-a-great-school-day' speech in a mega-phone. Halfway between dreaming and reality, I always think it's Joe yelling at me in Spanish to get up and cook breakfast. So I did. It was 7a.m.

Today was another hot one. Real feel was 105, according to accuweather.com. I was inside teaching online and Joe and Carlie were living it up in the pool, trying out Carlie's new dolphin float I bought her yesterday. It was hot, I was hungry and I was done cooking for the day. Time to go out to dinner. After Joe and Carlie showered and dressed, I texted my new British friend  Eleanor (who was raised in Zimbabwe and had me over earlier today for iced tea and lemon tarts) and she suggested we all meet at a burger joint called Brutus. (Yes, the one from Popeye) But it was closed, so we walked over to our favorite hang-out, Iguana.(Iguana is the same outdoor restaurant that a random six year old off the street walked up to our table the other night and finished drinking Jessamyn's drink and then walked away without so much as a thank you.)  Eleanor and her husband Gary never met up with us. Their car had broken down and they had bigger fish to fry.

At Iguana the American music was thumping and the BBQ wings were the best I've had in my life. Carlie was enjoying drinking her Nestea and Joe was wolfing down his cheeseburger. We were right in the middle of naming that tune (Beck, Spice Girls and Beyonce) when all of a sudden the power in the entire town of Tena went out. Little screams could be heard across the street at the park where about 75 kids had been playing. Each parent lit up thier cell-phones to find their corresponding kids. At Iguana, the music stopped and we were left to stop mid-chew staring at nothing but the millions of stars above us. As some of the other customers scrambled away in the darkness as to avoid having to pay for dinner, we sat there holding hands until our waitress brought us a candle--which only attracted a million mosquitos and other odd flying creatures. We ordered another beer and kept singing to inaudible music. Finally we paid and left. As we were walking through the middle of the street in the dark (to avoid stepping on dog poop or tripping on broken sidewalks) I couldn't resist the urge to relieve myself of some of the beer. Doing as other Ecuadorians do, I found a drain hole in the road that would serve that purpose. Midstream, a motorcycle flew past me with its brights on, lighting up all of Tena and...my backside. I've never heard Joe and Carlie laugh so hard.

Back on the main road, Quince de Noviembre, every resident of Tena was outside acting as if this was the event of the millenium. Apparently it isn't very often that the power goes out in the whole city, just certain areas. But everyone was prepared for just such an event. Food carts were lit with candles inside of plastic cups, diners still ate at restaurants lit with candles, teenagers roamed the bridge over the river with cell phones lit, a cart loaded with jungle trinkets was lit with a tiny flashlight overhead. It was something out of the movies with all the candles, and a lone bar that had a generator with the lights still on. We flagged a taxi in the darkness and took it to Jessamyn's house. She had no power either, but wanted us to briefly meet her dad and grandma who just flew in from the States. We laughed all the way there with the taxi driver who joked that the lights were out because Tena forgot to pay the light bill.

By the time our visit at Jessamyn's was coming to a close, the lights came back on. We were relieved, because Jess lives on a very dark road by the river and it would have been a fiasco trying to manuever our way back to the main road. All in all, we had a great time tonight and forgot we have to get up early tomorrow to go to Quito, 5 hours away, to register our Visas. Good thing we have an automatic alarm clock at the highschool on megaphone. We're still not sure how to explain it, but Tena keeps growing on us each day.

LONG AWAITED

Here is the long-awaited blog  post about our new life here in Tena, Ecuador. And yet the title also signifies finally begining the long-awaited life we've been wanting since our return to the States in 2008. This post is dedicated to the friends and family I miss so much and wish I could fly (and bus) them here to see what all the fuss is about.

Day 1:
Our hostel provided a private van ride from Quito to Tena. It takes four hours to get to Tena because it's downhill, but five back to Quito. We passed through the outskirts of Quito, the capital of the country, and whizzed passed farms and random llamas. Soon we were in the middle of Mars-like terrain passing nothing but silent paramo grasses and an occasional waterfall. Noone in the van talked, as if our passing up and down these mountains was some kind of sacred pilgrimage not to be disgraced by chit-chat. Over the following mountain we arrived at other pueblos, some with one lone stop-light for the 5 people who live there. (none of whom own a car!) At each pueblo, Joe's face read, "I hope this isn't Tena. I hope this isn't Tena..." Carlie slept most of the way. On the decent of the last mountain before Tena, thick fog lay on our van like a velvet cloak. We had to crawl around steep curves and prayed that we were on the correct side of the road. Sometimes bamboo would jut out through a cloud and over the windshield, knocked over by a previous rainstorm, or we'd drive through an impromptu stream. I began to peel off some of the layers I was wearing. The fog lifted. Palm trees and sandal-wearing locals surounded us.We finally made it to Tena. "So this is Tena," Joe said with a hint of delight in his voice.

Week 1:
For the first week we lived with Jessamyn & Aedyn, a friend of mine and her son, in their home. We slept on the bottom bunk, Carlie slept on the top, and all our luggage slept in the third bedroom. Every night that week while getting dressed for bed we'd run across a huge roach the length of a No. 2 pencil and every morning while relaxing in her hammock on the front porch, we'd spot a tarantula in the grass. The "culture shock" really came when we'd help Jessamyn prepare a meal and have to try to keep tiny ant-like spiders out of the pots and pans as we cooked, or the bigger black ants out of the scraps of food left on our plates. But worse than the bugs was the heat. Never in our lives have we experienced such heat and humidity without any relief from some minutes of AC. Even when we've visited places throughout the Carribean and Mexico, at least we've had an air-conditined lair to return to after hanging out all day at the pool or beach. Tena is the Carribean minus the AC for tourists and, of course, the beach. One morning I checked an online weather website. It was 9am and 101 degrees. And just when you think you can't take the heat anymore and you're about to slit your throat in delerium, a violent thunderstorm will swoop down from the surrounding mountains and cool things off by no less than 20 degrees. Still, daily life in "only" 85 degree weather with no AC, having to walk to the grocery store that's a good 3 miles away and carry all your goods back on foot if you don't have the extra money for a taxi is no picnic for someone used to a two minute air-conditioned drive to Trader Joe's. Near the end of week one, we were all often in companionship of Jessamyn's toilet and I was crying myself to sleep from lonliness. I missed my friends, my family, "normal" food and every convenience under the sun. "These locals have no idea how hard they have it", I pondered. "I think I hate it here", I told Joe. At this point, the only positive thing I could name about living here was that we had lost some weight. Then came Sunday.

Sunday:
We were introduced by Jessamyn to Gary and Eleanor, a couple who moved here from Ireland 18 years ago with their four young kids. Now empty-nesters, they invited us to their lovely home for a gourmet meal , complete with orange-liquour poundcake, outside under a grass-thatched roof. It was 96 degrees in the shade, but as I sipped on the lime-flavored tea, I felt myself not caring so much. Afterwards, a few other friends including a couple of children Carlie's age, piled into Gary's van and they drove us to a spot on the river that's clean and paradise-like. There was about 20 of us in all and we swam the rest of the afternoon under waterfalls and in currents so cold it took my breath away. Carlie had fun learning Spanish with her new Ecuadorian friends and jumping off of rocks into her daddy's awaiting arms. At one point I took her aside and we sat on a rock together looking off into the dense green distance. "We live in the Amazon now," I whispered as I held her wet hand. She simply nodded without even looking at me, as if we've lived here her whole life and I'm dumb enough to just now realize that. She dove back into the water to collect rocks with her new friends and left me alone staring at the flaming sunset over the jungle trees. "It's not so bad here," I thought.

Week two:
By the middle of week two we had found our own home, moved in, and had begun to make it our own. Carlie hung a hand-painted poster on her wall, I folded all my new yellow dish-towels, Joe cleaned out and refilled our landlord's above-ground pool. The days were still hot and hard, but the evenings balanced it out with trips to the local public pool (complete with slides and wooden diving boards) with Aedyn and Jessamyn or our new favorite outdoor restaurant, Iguana, for cheeseburgers and a cold beer. I was crying less, missing NC less, and even making more friends. "I love it here," Joe blurted out one morning as we drank coffee on the balcony off our bedroom. (where I'm still sitting now as I type this) Two parrots and a hummingbird flew by. "It's not so bad," I answered.

Week 3:

It's almost week three. It's still crazy hot, bugs still come in and out of our house like they pay the rent, the food in general is still pretty gross and our feet are constantly dirty from walking in the streets thick with river dust and mud. But today, Sunday, we were invited to another lunch with our other new friends Rita and Woody from Florida. Through them, we met 11 other new friends. Among them was Abbey, the daughter of Gary and Eleanor, who is now a 28 year old adult. She speaks perfect Spanish and guides tourists on river rafting trips. She helped Rita serve the chicken over rice as she told Carlie her adventures of growing up as an Irish blonde girl in the Amazon 18 years ago; stories of being pushed off cliffs into the rivers below  by her two brothers or how she went to public school here and learned to love lemons stuffed with salt as an after-school snack or about the pet monkey named Elvis they once had but had to give away because he kept eating all the family's food out of the fridge.(Elvis finally kicked the bucket when he accidentally ate poison) Then she told us how she earns extra money, working as a kayak guide in western Canada once a year. Of course this led to more stories about confrontations in her trailor with moose, bear and wild squirrles. Carlie's eyes were wide and she hung on Abbey's every word. "I really like it here, " Carlie finally admitted on the twenty minute walk home, dodging huge cracks in the broken sidewalk and dog poop.

 On the corner, I flagged down a taxi and took it to Jessamyn's house. We can't afford a washing machine, so she's been letting me do laundery at her house and I needed to go pick it up. When I arrived, Jessamyn was just awaking from her afternoon siesta and Aedyn was Skyping his grandpa who is coming to visit tomorrow from the States. The afternoon sun was hot, but not unbearable as I gathered my laundry off the line. "I like your capris", Jessamyn said as she handed me a cool glass of water. I looked down and realized I had worn basically pants in 90 degree weather to Rita and Woody's and now, getting my clothes off the line in the sun, I still was not too hot. I guess I'm starting to get accustomed to being baked alive. She handed me her house keys. We'll be house-sitting for her while she's touring her dad around Ecuador next week. Jess is my first really good friend here. She's really helped me to endure these first few hard weeks and I couldn't have done it without her. I picked up my huge laundery basket, about as tall as I am, and walked about a half-mile up the road carrying it in the evening sun so as to catch a taxi on the main road back to our place. My taxi driver was impressed when I told him I was from the States, (just seven hours south of New York City) but that I've now made Tena my home. "Por que?" (why?) he asked with amusement watching me hold my laundry basket in my lap to avoid it tipping out. "Because I love it here", I answered back in his language. The words just popped out before I could help myself! And then I realized I meant it.

And so there it is. We've lived in Tena, Ecuador just three short weeks and we've already fallen in love with a place that has more cons than pros. I'm not sure how that happened, but I feel blessed that it did.