FIRST FIESTA

I'm back in Quito again. My passport is finally re-registered and I have to pick it up today at 2pm. Tomorrow I need to get my censo, or ID card. This whole process has cost me hundreds of dollars and tons of frustration. In the end, all it will have gotten me is yet another way for the government to keep track of me and that's it. 

Anyway, I'm sitting here in my hotel room stalling until all the other hotel guests have eaten their free breakfast. Then I'll go down and have a nice quiet breakfast with just me and the friendly owners who have gone out of their way to make sure my stay here is a comfortable one. So I guess now is the best time to blog about the congregation fiesta we had this past Sunday.

First of all, I must relate the reason we had the party. When we moved here six weeks ago, that very first weekend was our two-day assembly in Puyo. At that assembly a brother who is barely 4 feet tall and in his 80s was baptized. He is the cutest little thing you've ever seen and claims that his eyesight is bad so all the pretty sisters will stand closer to him. Well, he was so happy to be baptized that he decided to mark the occasion by buying a pig and having a congregation BBQ picnic. The pig cost him two months wages, so at the party there was a contribution box to help him recoup his huge expense. The day of the BBQ was scheduled for Sunday at 2pm and there was lots of planning to be done.

First a list had to be made of who would be attending and what side-dish they could bring. All this pre-planning merited a pizza party, so about 15 of us went over Gary and Eleanor's house to eat pizza and discuss the party plans. That's when I received my assignment: I was to bring a BUCKET full of aji, the home-made Ecuadorian version of Texas Pete as a condiment to the BBQ. The day before the party I had Olivia come over and help me make it. First she went out and bought me a $9 bucket that had a lid. Then she bought the ingredients:
15 tomate de arbol (a fruit called tree tomato)
10 red onions
a bunch of cilanto and celery leaves
a head of garlic
about 30 red chili peppers
1 carrot
5 juiced lemons

We had to make it in batches and put in the fridgerator because the bucket wouldn't fit. Then before the party I just dumped the batches into the bucket, sealed the lid, and Joe carried it to the busstop. Imagine all the looks we got: we had met Rita and Woody, another gringo couple, at the busstop carrying a big salad and a bucket full of aji. People had no idea what was going on as we loaded it all onto the bus that would be taking us to the Sangeles' home across Napo river.

The Sangeles': Martin and Natalie Sangeles are a couple in their late 30s from Quebec, Canada. They've been living in Tena for 12 years. Before Ecuador was using the U.S. dollar, they were using Sucres and you could buy land here for the price of taking your kid bowling in the States. So  the Sangeles' were in the right place at the right time and were able to buy about ten acres of land right on the Napo river for next to nothing. Martin is a window washer by trade but a carpenter by hobby. He built a beautiful 2 bedroom  home for him and his wife, 2 mini-cabins complete with bathrooms, kitchenetts and tv's on the river for when their Canadian friends come to visit  and a playground complete with a wooden castle for any kid who comes to visit. Their land has a swimming pool, an outdoor wet bar, a small pond for thier geese, a chicken run and coop, a boat landing to the river, a greenhouse with nice garden and any kind of fruit tree you could imagine. They are the Trump's of our congregation, but a very humble and wonderful pioneer couple. Really, really nice people...but you can't help but be the tiniest bit envious-- their huge brick wall that separates their property from the main road has a decorative iron boa constrictor on the front gate, the epitome of coolness.

So the day of the party we took the bus to the Sangeles', but the bus only goes as far as the bridge, so we had to carry all our stuff and the bucket of aji in 100 degree heat over the river and about 1 more mile further to their boa constrictor gate. All the kids were already in their bathing suits when we arrived. Martin, (pronounced Marteen) being the awesome Canadian that he is, had hollowed out a bobsledding-type hole in his steep cement boat landing that ends in the Napo river. Then he lined it with plastic, made it more slick with a bar of soap, somehow inserted a flowing water-hose in the cement at the top and, Voila!! a water slide Emerald Point Wet N' Wild would covet. After a few other kids tried it out and lived, Carlie soaped herself up more with the bar of soap and went down with her hands in the air. It's times like this that I'm still pinching myself because I can't believe we live in the Amazon. I can't believe my Pop-Tropica playing Carlie is going down a home-made water slide into a river that flows into the Amazon river!

Anyway, the rest of the party was great! The food was amazing (espcially whoever brought that tasty aji) we had fun dancing Spanish line dances, including the Macarena and we laughed till we almost cried playing silly Ecuadorian games. The best game we played was when it got dark and Martin turned off all the outdoor lights. We were surrounded by jungle trees barely lit by the moon and we couldn't see two feet in front of us. Before he turned out the lights we were given a small piece of paper with the name of an animal. Mine was gato. (cat) When the lights went out you had to meow or make the noise of the animal that you were given and find the other gatos in your group. My group had 5 gatos. Imagine the noise and confusion of 80 people making animal noises in the dark and you had to find only your "species". Then the lights came back on. With your newly formed group, the game changed into a crazy version of American Idol, and you had to come up with a group song. Of course you could only sing it in meows or your corresponding animal. Then everyone else voted for the best "song".  Our group meowed to a Latin song "Tres Polliotos" , which thankfully I already knew the tune. But other groups were more creative. The dogs barked out a reggaeton rap. The chickens clucked out a love song. The cows mooed a opera song complete with a director. When it was time to vote by applause, Matin reminded us all who had hosted the party and prepared the pig. Yes, it was the little old brother who  had bought the pig, but it was Gary and Martin who had shot it between the eyes with a nail gun, slit it's throat, bled it properly and then roasted it to perfection in a fancy outdoor glass oven. In the end, the dogs won and were given a prize. I didn't see what the prize was, but we all celebrated with more dancing and chocolate cake that Jessamyn had made. It was one of the most fun parties I've ever been to, and definitley the most interesting.

QUITO

Moving to any foreign country can be an exciting adventure. It can also be a major headache when it comes to governmental red tape and following the laws of the land. Ecuador comes in first for giving miraines. Literally.

For any foreigner residing in Ecuador for more than three months you must get your passport registered and a censo card within 30 days of landing. A censo card is like a driver's license. It identifies everything about you and also has your most hideous mugshot in the top left corner, but doesn't allow you to drive. You whip out this baby on almost every occasion- from grocery shopping, to buying a new pair of shoes, to reserving a room at a hotel, to paying rent. For now, I'm using my old censo until I get my new one. I forgot the feeling of power and belonging I feel everytime I reach inside my pink paisley wallet to retrieve it. Without it, you're just a tourist with maybe a week left of your vacation before you have to head back to the rat race in the States. With censo in hand, you're basically an Ecuadorian, and it symbolizes you're here to stay for as long as you want and the country is open to you...as soon as you can hack your way through the red tape to avoid deportation, of course.

So Joe, Carlie and I went to Quito two weeks ago to register our visas and get our censos under the 30 day requirement. Well, as soon as we returned from the 4 hour bus ride back to Tena, our lawyer emails to inform me that I don't have any free passport pages, so it can't be registered. I had to make an appointment, he said, with the American Embassy to get new pages, then bring it back to him to redo the whole process. The registration takes two whole days in which they keep your passport in limbo somewhere between Quito heaven and hell. Afterwards you can finally get your censo. So Joe and Carlie got theirs registered, came back to Tena, went back to Quito without me two days later, had to go to the police station to report their old censos stolen (long story in itself), and finally get their new 2011 censos.

I had to admit, I was jealous. They were done with the whole mess and I couldn't even get an appointment until a week and a half later. Finally it was my turn to return back to Quito. Carlie came with me. We traded in our tank tops and shorts and packed jeans, hoodies, and llama wool scarves. At night it easily dips into the 40s. At 7am Wednesday morning we rode with friends to Quito who were just doing some shopping there for the day. They dropped us off at Andino hotel and later that evening we met up with Jessamyn who was in Quito with her visiting dad and grandma who were leaving the next day from the Quito airport. Her dad treated us all to pizza at a really nice Italian restaurant down the street.

The next morning after the free breakfast at the hotel (coffee, eggs, fruit, juice, and fresh bread) Carlie and I rode the Ecovia (Quito trolley system) to the American Embassy. We had some time to kill and there were some shops nearby, so we hung around for a while at the Ecuadorian version of Bed, Bath, & Beyond. After a hot lunch in a nearby tienda, we went back to the Embassy where we had to wait in a waiting room watching Vampire Diaries for no less than three hours. I had an appointment, but they claimed they were short on staff and I was waiting long enough to start counting the cracks in the wall. Three hours, several VD episodes and $82 later, I walked out of there with about five new pages taped into my passport book. Seriously?! I could have had Juan Valdez de Ambato tape in some note-book paper pages with a hand-drawn U.S. flag for an English lesson and a Fanta. Time to drop off the new-and-improved passport at the lawyer's office, which would close at five. It was four.

Carlie and I spent at least twenty minutes trying to figure out which trolley at the station to take back to the lawyer's office-- a 15 minute ride north. Every person we'd ask help from gave us a different answer in mumbled Spanish but we figured it out. By the time we arrived at the office, it was just about to close and the lawyer (who is a Brother) had already left for the day. Thankfully, his receptionist (who is a Sister) was able to phone him and let him know that I would be leaving my passport there on his desk. He told her to inform me that he'd re-register it tomorrow and it would be ready for pick-up Monday or Tuesday. Yes, folks, if you've paid attention you know that that means I have to come back to Quito AGAIN next week to get my registered passport and my censo. No, folks, I don't have the money to stay at the hotel and eat at restaurants until all that stuff is done next week. And I'm not even sure I'd want to if I had the money. Quito might as well be New York City to me, and I was missing my humble jungle hut, complete with a  hammock in the dining room.

By this time it was getting towards the end of a long and very stressful day. The lawyer's office, however, is located just one block from a very huge and fancy mall, Quicentro. So we walked over there and ate the most "American" dinner we could find at the Food Court: Taco Bell. Well, there also was a Sbarro, Burger King, TGIF's to-go, and Pizza Hut, but Carlie was craving stale tacos and cinnomin twists. I figured since I drug her all through this horrible experience with me, the least she deserved was the Taco Bell Socio Pack: 4 tacos, 2 drinks, cinnomin twists and chili cheese fries. Mmm. We shared it and she was thrilled. I was disgusted and got a migraine. Then we spent the next hour or so window shopping. Quicentro Mall is waaaay nicer than any mall I've been to in the States, and on the second floor it had a live band playing all the Christmas hits. When you live in the Amazon and it's 100 degrees every day, you forget it's almost time for fake Santa to return. Anyway, we took a taxi back to the hotel and watched the rest of Dr. Who season 1 on Netflix.

The next morning, (today), we ate breakfast and I went ahead and made my hotel reservations for next week. The owner, Miguel, was very pleased I'd be spending more money at his hotel next week, so he gave me a big discount. Then I took a twenty minute taxi to the bus stop where the Tena bus passes by. Four hours later and two Spanish Disney movies on the bus later, I was stripping off the pants and coat to throw back on the old tank-top and flipflops enssemble. 

Carlie and I caught up with Joe over the goings-on of the last two days over lunch at Restaurante Lucy. The restaurant, like the rest of our city, was also out of water so when we got home we still couldn't take a shower or flush the toilets. "Welcome home". See you in Quito again next week!

LEARNING THE ROPES

This Tuesday will mark us living in Tena for 5 weeks now. It seems finally we're getting into a bit of a routine--by Ecuadorian standards. By that I mean, "In Ecuador all is possible but nothing is certain" as the saying here goes.

For instance, our routine came to a halt Thursday and Friday. They were fixing the streets in our neighborhood and the water pipes burst. We had no water for cooking, showering, or flushing toilets for over 24 hours. But little things that used to annoy us aren't that big a deal in the scheme of life. We used buckets of pool water to flush the toilets and made good use of a little extra deodorant. And since we couldn't cook with clean water, we met up with a big group of our friends for beer, burgers and BBQ wings at Iguana restuarant. We were having so much fun, we almost wished the power would go out too. (after all, we have gas stoves here to cook with) But I think Carlie was the most annoyed when, on return home, she noticed bird poop on her mosquito net. A bird had flown into her bedroom and had lots of fun and then left his mark.

Anyway, back to a routine, here is a vague rundown of how we spend a "normal" week:

Monday- Olivia the maid comes at 8am, bread from the bakery in hand. I cook breakfast for all of us and make Joe a sandwhich to-go. He leaves to teach English at a local private high-school called "Amazonica" during the midday hours M-F. Carlie gets started on homeschool lessons while I send Olivia out to do the week's grocery shopping. On return, I'll either have her cook an Ecuadorian-style lunch, or I will make something quick so that she can get started on the other house-cleaning duties. If I cook lunch, she'll make a light supper that we can all eat together when Joe returns. Olivia leaves at 5pm. So as you can see, Monday is our cooking, cleaning, and staying home in general day to get things done. Any given evening during the week, I might work 8pm to midnight teaching online also.

Tuesday- Long day in service, usually with Eleanor. Working with her means we get to ride to the territory in her car. Or it could mean breaking down on the side of the road like happened last week. If it's our lucky day, she invites us back to her house for a sampling of her latest pies, tarts, or torts or whatever other scrumptious British concoction she's whipped up. She also serves ice-cold sweet tea made from a certain dried tree leaf in her garden. It's better than Bojangles!! By the time we get back home, we're too lazy to do anything but take a nap in the hammock or watch Dr. Who on Netflix. (which, by the way, we can only get season 1-3 on South American Netflix! No more Matt Smith for us.) Dinner is Olivia's left-overs.

Wild Wednesdays- Again we meet at the Kingdom Hall at 8:30 for service. Those who want to, pile 20 deep in a brother's pick-up truck and we drive an hour down the road to go preach in tiny pueblos where you can't believe people live. If we want to be home before the driver does, we're on our own to catch the next bus back to Tena. The bus only comes once an hour and doesn't stop unless you do a funny dance and flag it down. The bus comes from Banos, a tourist town 3 hours away, so when you finally board, it's usually standing-room only for the whole hour's drive. At least there's a movie playing...if the TV works.

Thursday- Back to the homeshcooling, cooking, and cleaning. Since Joe comes home from work in the early afternoon, this is when we have family worship and can prepare for the service meeting. After dinner, it's time to leave for the Kingdom Hall so we can get there before it starts at 7pm. We usually leave enough time to catch the local bus. It's 60 cents for our family to ride. Sometimes we ride the same bus as Rita and Woody or other brothers. If we're running late, we flag a taxi for $1.

Friday- Anything goes. Carlie may be finishing up a school project or report. I may have some shopping to do. I may go with Jessamyn or Rita on a Bible study. We might catch the bus and ride 40 minutes to the pueblo of Misahualli to see the monkeys.Whatever happens on Fridays, it's for sure that we'll go with a group of friends to Iguana that night, our favorite American-style eatery here in town. It opens at 6pm but we make plans to meet at 6:30. We go early and let Carlie play at the park across the street. That counts as her Spanish lessons too, playing with all the kids there.

Saturday- We usually go preaching here in town starting again at 8:30am. If the territory is on one side of town, and we go on a Bible study on the opposite side of town (which is usually the case) we only have time to do like 4 doors of house-to-house in order to make it back for the study.  By the time we do the 4th door, the temps are already in the high 90s. We walk everywhere using an umbrella for shade, but usually take the Line 1 bus back home. If I don't have to work online, we might go swimming. Watchtower study, bed early if we can.

Sunday- No sleeping in. Our Sunday meeting is at 8:30am. I get up in time to walk to the closest bakery and come back and scramble eggs and get the coffee going. The smell of warm bread and coffee is usually enough to wake Joe. Carlie's a different story. We never make it to the bus-stop in time on Sunday's. We're always chasing down a taxi in our skirts, tie and bookbags. "The church on Cuenca street", we say in Spanish to the driver. Our hall is a simple but clean building with ceiling fans and plastic chairs to sit in. We usually have about 100 in attendance including studies and visitors.

After the meeting I get out my grocery list. The main super market, which is about the size of a large CVS, is on the corner. We always head to the store and pick up snacks for later or anything you can only find there for the upcoming week. It's THE place to be and be seen on Sunday, and we usually run into 20 other sisters shopping there as well as all our neighbors. After waiting in line for 58 minutes behind one person, we finally make it out of there alive and take a taxi home with all our goodies. We're usually invited over to someone's house to eat lunch on Sundays and then swim with a group in the river. Often, the brothers also play soccer after that. I try not to schedule myself to work on Sunday evenings so that we can benefit as a family from the wholesome recreation.

Sunday is Carlie's favorite day of the week. Mine is Monday because I love having Olivia's help accomplishing things in 100 degree heat. Joe's favorite day of the week is Friday night beers at Iguana. Joe also enjoys weekend nights because sometimes he gets some side-work as a bartender at a beautiful jungle lodge that a brother owns. Whiskey sours for everyone!

Well, that wraps up our week. Sunday nights for me is spent writing a grocery list for Olivia so we can wake up and start all over again. But like I said, this is Ecuador. I'm not sure there's even a literal translation for the word routine. That's something just to keep us Americans sane.

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.