Was that a puma or is your stomach growling?

Our first retiro, or retreat, was this weekend. All of us somewhat sluggishly got in a van at 6:30am on Friday and headed to the north bus terminal in Quito. From there we caught 2 buses, packed into the back of a truck for a 30 minute ride into the forest, and hiked over a mile into the woods to get to our hosteria. I guess you could say we were a bit secluded. We stayed in cabins and the shut of the electric generator at 10pm promptly. We sat around a fire and played lots of Phase 10 and Catch Phrase. We laughed and enjoyed some great canned figs and peaches (this past statement is dripping with sarcasm... for some unkown reason, Ecuadorians love their syruppy canned fruit for dessert. It is gross). AND, we hiked, and hiked, and hiked.... and hiked.

The first day we arrived, the girls strapped on some rubber knee-high boots and headed into the virgin forest while the boys napped. We hiked for 2 hours, while we sank into mud, forged a river, battled vines and fallen bamboo, and tripped a lot. The next day, however was our hike of epic proportions. We left camp at 9:30 and returned 14km later at 5:00pm. Our guide had a machete to clear out some of the brush (and probably to defend us if we were to encounter a puma). We saw some beautiful birds and a 3-foot long worm, but we missed the larger animals. Although we saw some fresh tracks, the tapirs and oso de anteojos (relative of a panda bear) must have been scared and hiding just beyond us in the dense forest.

I'm not the most coordinated of people, so tripping was a problem on said hike. Imagine the setting from Apocalypto, you can't see past the trees and moss and ferns that grow like a wall on either side of the 3-foot wide path. It wasn't a pretty sight to watch me trip to gracefully avoid roots, rocks, and cut-down bamboo while lugging around in heavy rubber boots. My best fall left me with some scars on my face, as I fell face-first into a tree. Glad my parents decided not to call me Grace; I would be a walking contradiction. Our time in the cloud forest was relaxing and a team-building experience (pulling each other out of mud pits). It was great to be in such raw nature and enjoy the tranquility of God's creation. The retreat was also a well-needed break from the business of work. Now we're back into the swing of things, yet I feel as if I'm taking on my tasks head first with a renewed spirit and in awe of the beautiful country which I call home.

Our cabinas

Pretty

Excited/Nervous for our day-long hike

Those are some cute boots, Krysta

Guest Blogger

Every week we have a guest blogger on our MPIE blog, and this week it happened to be yours truly. So check out my post and leave comments; we love knowing who follows along. Also, the Manna Blog is updated daily, and it's definitely worth the read to see how we're doing as a group. I'll post back here very, very soon... promise.

My Momma Taught Me Right!

Dinners in the house are quite the ordeal. Everybody in the house really enjoys cooking, so we have had quite the assortment of food, and DELICIOUS food at that. However, we are cooking for 10 (11 when Bibi comes over), so it takes some planning and a chunk of time (everything we make is from scratch). Two of us are assigned to making dinner a night. On Friday night, Chet and I decided to go cajun, and we used my mom's recipes passed down from her daddy. Jambalaya and Bread Puddin'... YUM! It was a hit. Thanks mmd; your food never steers me in the wrong direction. Love you.

Work, work, work, play, work

Sorry for the absence, but as the title implies, I've been a busy girl recently. I've had several 12-hour days in the past 2 weeks.

Women's Exercise classes are up in running in the new space, although attendance leaves something to be desired. I think that the craziness of school starting is partly to blame, not to mention the fact that it takes awhile for Ecuadorians to get used to foreigners (and realize that we all don't have swine flu). In the meantime, I'll be patient and perfect my routines with our one regular, Susana.

This week several of us have been spending the mornings at Aliñambi, a school/orphanage, taking growth measurements of kids. We are measuring arm and trunk circumference, weight, and height, and we ask questions about their eating habits. From the information we gather, we hope to implement some sort of nutrition program for the community and school. This is very preliminary, but incredibly exciting nonetheless.

Lastly, Adult English classes have started this week. We are holding classes every Monday and Wednesday from 5:00-7:00pm (I'm only teaching on Wednesday, because I have an exercise class on Monday). Chet and I are teaching on Wednesday; Chet and Krysta are the teachers for the Monday class. We have enjoyed lesson planning thus far and look forward to how our class pans out.

This past weekend, us girls went into Quito for the day and had a blast at the Basilica. Check out pictures below!

Scared sitting at the top of the Basilica with NO railing

Is it just me, or are the colors brighter here?

Living on the edge

Hasta la proxima vez!

Cleaning Day

This post is dedicated to the one and only, Mr. Jim Booe.

In preparing our new space for Women's Exercise, I had to clean the paint off of the windows in the library.

Those are some dirty windows...

Thanks to my many years working for Booe Building and Remodeling, I was prepared for such a daunting task, and I knew EXACTLY what supplies I needed for this endeavor. So I headed to the hardware store across the street to buy razor blades and some window cleaner.

Look at the progress!!

What a difference

Thanks, pops, for the preparation. You always said that cleaning windows was a job that always needed to be done. Maybe I have more of a future in window cleaning than I anticipated?

You can see out the window!

Casualty = cut finger with blade (I have paint dust all over my face)

Spanish lesson for today:
Hardware store = ferretería
Razor blade = estila? (still not really sure. I made the guy repeat it like 10 times, but the word he gave me isn't in the dictionary.... hmm)

The Big Move!

Today we did it. The Women's Exercise Program, here more commonly referred to as "Clases de Ejercicios para las Mujeres", has officially moved to the third floor of the library. This move took a lot of careful planning and discussion, since the Ecuadorian culture isn't something we have the firmest grasp on yet. For example, women may not attend classes at a new location because it is too far away from their house (change of location = 3 blocks). So after much deliberation, we decided a new location would bring more positive changes than negative. This decision also meant that today I called 50 out of the 125 women who have signed up for classes at some point to inform them of the move. My brain was such mush from the monotonous phone calls that I put on two different socks when changing for tae bo.

A couple highlights of having exercise classes on the third floor:

• the space is more than double the size of the community center we've been using
• we can network within the library members and have a central hub, from which all of our programs are run
• it is our own space, so we can leave equipment in the building (rather than lugging a scale, 3 blood pressure cuffs, 2 stethascopes, 4 binders of paper, speakers, and yoga mats to the community and back weekly)
• we can decorate the walls with nutrition posters and health information, so the space will slowly transform into a center for health/ preventative health clinic
  
• we get to see some awesome sunsets while doing sun salutations or tae bo routines

Needless to say, I'm excited about the move and what it means for this program. Also, I am pretty darn fluent at explaining where the library is, when classes start, and what to bring to class (eerily similar to how I can recite in my sleep proper flossing techniques in spanish thanks to our open clinic last weekend). Yay specialized spanish skills!

Hasta la proxima vez...

Ay caramba

So it's been awhile since my last post, but in my defense, life in the Manna house has been crazy over the past couple of weeks. Last week was emotionally and physically exhausting, and I still have my mom's voice ringing in my ear "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". So that's what I did. But now that things have calmed down, I'll give you a quick recap so you get a glimpse into the joys and challenges of living in Ecuador.

Last Monday, 3 of us were walking home from our Women's Exercise program when we were mugged a block away from our house. We are all safe, but it was a scary reality that as Americans, we are targets. We are taking the proper precautions to stay as safe as possible, but please continue to pray for our safety, as the economic crisis has drastically increased the crime rate in our small town. Last week I also found out about the death of two Tech students. This saddened me so much because I wasn't able to be there to mourn with my bible study girls. It is tough to process such difficult situations without those who understand the pain the Virginia Tech community has had to coninually endure over the last few years. On top of that, we also saw one of our campers beaten by his father. It is a weird dichotomy to accept cultural differences that we can not change, yet to remain opposed to such injustice in the world. Later on in the week, half of the PDs had parasites, and the oven blew up in Dana's face. It was an eventful week to say the least. I'm happy that this week has been more boring.

On a happier note, programs are going really well, and I love working for Manna more and more every day. Last weekend we hosted a two day open clinic. I gave a lecture on dental hygiene for kids while they were waiting to see the doctor. It was quite popular amongst the kids, and they were so excited to learn how to floss! We saw a good amount of people at the clinic, and we were able to solidify some relationships with community members. Women's Excercise is also going swimmingly, and I really enjoy seeing familiar faces in classes. I have even seen improvement in some of the women already!

From here on out, I promise to update more frequently. Until next time!

Spanish lesson for the day: ¡Qué bestia! = What a beast!
Example: The oven blew up? ¡¡Qué bestia!!