hey everyone!!
thank you SO much for the wonderful emails and snail mail. you should DEFINITELY keep them coming because i LOVE to write letters and emails back!! im so very excited to hear from all of you and pray for you guys all the time. things have been so great here recently!! got some good updates for you...
Basic Life -- so now were living in our house in AJS, complete with cold showers and big fans. yup, we may not have air conditioning, a microwave, hot water, access to cars, computers, cell phones, etc., but weve had a great time getting to know the neighbors. seems like everywhere we go we see someone we know! the AJS neighborhood really loves rostro, theyve been so kind. weve all been pretty busy -- for example i work 35 hours a week and am on a bus for an additional 7. its so great though, so life-giving to constantly be doing something! definitely trying to work on how to balance my time keeping in touch with home, meeting neighbors, Chicos work, Valdivia stuff and community time ... but im sure itll all come with time!
Birthdays! -- recently weve been to a few birthday parties, one for Wellington, one of our favorite guards who does a lot of maintenance for Rostro too; another for Kevin, Wellington´s son; and a third for Rosita, one of our neighbors who we also walk to Valdivia every day. some common themes included wonderful food (chocolate cake w choc syrup, queso y huevo cake, regular birthday cake, rice and chicken and veggies), Big Cola (definitely a treat here!), and LOTS of dancing. we may or may not have danced the waka waka multiple times .... but dont worry, were getting better. i mean, were pretty much the best dancers ever. ( .... not! haha.) but it was fun, the adults and gringos and kids were all just dancing for hours! it was so simple, what a nonmaterialistic way to celebrate life.
Visitors! -- we LOVE visitors! it was so fun having Father Jim and his friend Dave come to visit a few weeks ago, we had some great Masses (in ENGLISH yay!!!) and delicious dinners out during that time, it was a very very nice luxury and wonderful treat. last weekend, mark had some friends visit who were traveling thru south america, Ken and Pat. they were so much fun, we went to Las Peñas for another fantastic night, what a treat to have good meat!! we only have ten visitor days total, but most of us only have parents visiting, so it definitely leaves some room for flexibility if anyones up for a trip to ecuador!! also, our first retreat group, Santa Clara, comes tonight!!! i cant wait.
Soccer Game -- a bunch of us went to a Barcelona game a few nights ago. Soccer is HUGE here, the kids play all the time and everyone has a favorite team. Seems like a lot of people like Barcelona, one of the two Guayaquil teams. I think (esp after Barcelona´s poor performance at the game) I may be leaning towards Emelec though, the other Guayaquil team. That rivalry here is huge, though I hear some people also like Ligua in Quito, or possibly the team from Cuenca. The game was so fun though, a bunch of Arbolito and Mount Sinai people came too so it was fun to hang out! The fans were a bit crazy at times, but not in our section at all, so that was super nice. they did call us celebrities though, asking to take pictures with us! haha. oh ecuador.
Food and Water -- a bunch of you have been asking about the meals here! we have yucky water to bathe with, but for cooking and drinking we use waters from these big blue containers called pomas. for dinner, we rotate cooking ... right now still making fairly american meals, like rice, beans, lentils, fruit, plantains, eggs, potatoes, cheese, tomatoes, onions, peppers, etc. weve been trying to cook some ecua food too, like patacones (smushed plantains, fried). weve also started eating a bit in neighbors houses, and definitely a lot at work -- add soup, veggies, shrimp (at work! yay!), etc. so good!! omg and LOTS of bread! i love the bread!! we also love making banana bread (sometimes called gringo cake ... this is a new thing for them haha) with all our extra rotten bananas! yum!
That´s pretty much it for now! Also, we got our ecua ID cards the other day, def have to post that picture online, its SO funny. love funny traditions like making silly faces on our ID cards! And, a special Ecuadorian vocab word for the day: chévere. It means, quite literally, awesome! So things can be muy chévere, or just chévere. but you should start to use that because we think that word is pretty... well, chévere!
Have a great week! Love you all!
Beth
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