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.

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.