Ecuador today, Nicaragua tomorrow

Sarah Scott and I are leaving the Manna House at 7:00am tomorrow. Why, you ask? We are hopping on a plane to go to Nicaragua. We are doing a site exchange for a week and celebrating MPI's five year anniversary.

We'll stay at the Manna house for the week and see how programs are run there. I'm very much looking forward to learning how to improve our organization as a whole and programs here in Ecuador based on attending MPI Nicaragua's programs and experiencing how Manna runs in a different country. An huge added bonus is that I'll be able to spend quality time with Leah and Hemby. ALSO, Tim Buttril and Kristen Walker will be in Nica for the week. It'll be great to spend time with some of my beloved Hokies. I'll update when I get back November 28th! Until then, I send my love and prayers. Happy Thanksgiving!

p.s. The following pictures are from my FIRST trip to Nicaragua in 2006. This was the trip that made me fall head over heels in love with Latin America and redefined my goals for the future. I can thank that trip to Nicaragua many years ago for leading me to where I am now. So in the spirit of the holiday, this a tribute to my thanks for that initial trip to Nicaragua and where God has so faithfully led me over the years.

It's Electric.... Boogie Woogie Woogie

New development in Ecuador: no power. Ever. Ecuador is in the midst of it's worst drought in over 30 years. We are supposed to be in rainy season (rain every afternoon), but we've had maybe 10 days of rain since arriving in July. Since most of Ecuador's power is hydroelectric, we are in the midst of an energy crisis. This means that every day we have a power outage. Our neighbors helped us out by showing us the website that posts the time of the scheduled outing the night before. Therefore, our outages are planned, but inconvenient nonetheless. Our house in Conocoto is on a different schedule than the library in Rumiloma, so we are usually without power for 8 hours a day. This makes holding classes/planning for classes/updating my blog very difficult. But again, learning flexibility is one of the joys of living in Ecuador. Hasta pronto.

Canoa y Cankles

This past week, there were 2 Ecuadorian holidays. On Monday, it was Día de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead) and Tuesday was Cuenca's Independence Day (Cuenca is an Ecuadorian city). Aside from eating the traditional snack of Colada Morada y Gua Guas de Pan, that meant that we had a 4-day weekend and some time to get out of the sierras and head to the beach. Saturday night we boarded our night bus, and that's where our adventure began.

Colada Morada y Gua Gua de Pan (Dia de los Difuntos Tradition)

This bus was about 4 sizes too small for my tall gringa legs. As soon as I scooted into the seat, my knees were permanently pushed into the back of the man in front of me. He didn't seem to mind, because he reclined his chair... all. the. way. Being a night bus, the seats reclined almost horizontally. So while my legs were permanently cramped in the space in front of me, this stranger's head was literally in my lap. Let me paint a picture of the rest of this 8-hour trip. Air conditioning: broken and stuck on freezing; fluorescent lights: randomly flipped on and off; techno music: blasting every 2 hours. Krysta and I snuggled up and tried to sleep as the time slowly creeped by. YAY night bus! Once we arrived in Bahía, we got on a water taxi that took us to San Vincente, only to get on another bus to take us to Canoa, our final destination. We made the trip and were in our hostal all before 7:30am.

View from one of the hammocks at our Hostal

Canoa is a quaint beach town with sand streets and little shacks on the beach. Each shack sells ceviche, cocktails, and fresh juices as well as blasts their favorite song, trying to overpower the noise coming from the other shacks a mere 15 feet away. It's a mixture of sun, sand, and reggaeton.

Canoa is nothing but a little fishing town

We had a nice relaxing weekend reading, napping in hammocks, kayak surfing, collecting shells, and doing a lot of nothing. It was a much needed rest, and we had a blast exploring a new part of Ecuador. We left late Tuesday night on another night bus (not half as bad as the first trip, minus the swollen ankles I had from not moving and increasing altitude), and were back in time to work on Wednesday.

Our budget trip had us eating tuna out of the can
for lunch. Mmmmm.

Halloweeeeeeen

Halloween is not quite the same if you aren't in the streets of a neighborhood amongst hundreds of small Disney Princesses or Monsters pleading for candy. However, when you've got flour, Halloween candy sent from Momma Booe, and a cape (Krysta brought her Wonder Woman cape to Ecuador so she would be prepared for Halloween... maybe that explains her 50lb and 70lb bags?), it almost felt like home. Krysta and I spent the afternoon making Halloween cupcakes and listening to Thriller on repeat. That's about as good as you can get, if I do say so myself.

Our masterpieces

My scary face for Halloween

We're proud bakers

BOO(e)

That's NURSE Haley, to you

I'm a nurse! A couple of weeks ago I started shadowing a doctor at clinic. In Ecuador, after finishing medical school, new doctors are required to spend 1 year at a rural site. My doctor, Andres (or affectionately Andresito, since he's only 25), was the only one at his rural clinic (or subcentro, as we call them), so when several us expressed interest in shaddowing at the hospital, I was assigned to be the nurse at the subcentro in Jatumpungo, because Andres needed help. Excuse me? Jatum-what?

After explaining no less that 12 times that I am in fact NOT a nurse (university is much more specialized here, so they don't understand how the US degree system works), I made my first trip to Jatumpungo and fell in love. I'm working alongside Andres every Wednesday to help see patients and make house visits in the rural community. I do a lot of administrative work with paperwork and all, but I've learned how to do a lot of physical examinations of patients as well. Ecuador has a motto of "hear one, see one, do one", so Andres has taught me about and allowed me to do tasks I wouldn't be allowed to do until after finishing nursing school in the states. I've taken vitals, checked breathing patterns with a stethascope, written prescriptions, etc. My favorites were giving charlas (mini-lectures) to elementary school kids in the area about Tuberculosis and giving Hepatitis B shots to middle schoolers. I was so nervous giving shots, but the histerical kids forced me to keep my calm. It was so exciting to have hands-on experience like that.

At one of the schools, I was referred to as "Doctora Haley" by one of the teachers. Not yet, Se
ñora Suntaxi... but nurse just may be appropriate.

oops...

Dear Blogging world,
Please forgive me for the lack of posting in the last month. Life has been crazy as usual. I've been teaching an average of 9 women per exercise class. I have been shaddowing a doctor at a rural clinic every Wednesday. Children's English has kept me on my toes, while test making for Adult English has given me a new respect for teachers. Life in the house is chaotic, as usual. I spent a week with Dave, who came to visit and experience life "Manna Style". And I've been a slacker at updating my blog. Please accept my apology with a few annecdotal stories and pictures from Dave's visit.
Much love,
Haley

Fútbol!! I played in my first soccer game (EVER) last weekend, and I still have bruises on my legs to prove it. The best part of the game was not being as tall as the goal, or getting schooled by intense Ecuadorian ballers (whoever told us this was a non-competitve league, was SORELY mistaken), but when I got a yellow card. Why, you ask? I wasn't too aggressive, I didn't talk back to the ref, and I didn't kick anyone. I picked up the ball. I bent over and picked up a soccer ball as it rolled towards me. Despite my lack of soccer skills (what can I say; I'm a basketball player), we tied 3-3 against the toughest team in the league.

Listening to small Ecuadorian children (ages 4-9) trying to pronounce English words continues to be something I look forward to week after week. I always get a kick out of the enthusiastic "APPLAY!!" One of my favorite stories from Children's English arose out of our alphabet lesson. We asked the niños to give us an example of an english word that starts with the letter. With every letter, we would get responses in spanish or with the wrong letter (for c, one kid yelled "HORSE".... maybe because "caballo" is horse in spanish? who knows). When we got to "W", every kid raised their hands. Sarah and I looked at each other and were excited that the kiddies knew a word. When we called on them, in a loud unison, they all screamed, "WHISKEY"!

Soccer Times

A few of us recently joined a soccer league. Now, if you know anything about my previous experience with soccer, you might be laughing.... as it is none. Never ever played before, and I joined a county-wide women's league in a South American country. Am I insane? Yes.

We had our first practice several days ago, and BOY was it a day worth blogging about.

First thing in the morning, Sarah, Jackie, Krysta, and I hopped on a bus to meet Bibi at our field (about halfway in between our house and Quito). Once we got there our "coach" took us on quite the route to her house, because she wanted to see how the gringas play. After scooping up no less than 17 pounds of poop from her backyard (they have quite the collection of dogs), she through some tires down in her back yard, and we were off. She was having us run drills and yelling that our kicks were too hard, too soft, or just bad! All the while, a crowd had formed in the backyard to watch us while listening to Lady Gaga's new hit, "Pokerface" (where am I?!?!). Frustrations were rising on our end, as we were assured that this was a non-competitive social event.

An hour later, we were scrimmaging with other women on our team. We showed our loud mouth, nazi-esque, abrasive woman just how gringas can play, as we ran around aggressively and it showed that we were some of the best players on our team.

Of course, we didn't look as good as Liga (a pro soccer team from Quito of which we've become avid fans), but give us some time.

LIGA Game!!

mmm.. footlong hotdog with mustard, mayo, ketchup, tomatoes, onions, potato chips

The crew after the game

As far as our Ruminahui team goes, looking forward to jerseys and our first game next weekend!