Tuesday, April 26, 2011

More Carrie Underwood...

And she's done it again! I cannot get enough of Carrie Underwood's songs, her voice is beautiful.  This is her singing "How Great Thou Art" at the Grand Ole Opry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhvaDJTUmrU

Thank you Carrie Underwood for being not only a talented and successful singer, but also a grounded and faith-filled person. Truly inspirational!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Exciting April Update : )

Well, I am finally starting to live how I will be living the next year + of my life here in Ecuador.  I will continue living at the Centro de Formación (Casa del Monseñor Proaño), which is within walking distance of the hospital. Although I am no longer working in the Emergency Room at the hospital, I still plan on putting in a lot of time in the hospital, working side by side the two nurses Marielena and Vicky who run the Salud Comunitaria department, or the Community Health department of Tierra Nueva. I am very excited with the change of pace that my life will now have. The shift to the brigades is awesome because this was my whole point/goal for coming to Ecuador. I truly have always wanted to work with the communities themselves, with the individuals that make up the communities, etc. That is where I've wanted to be since day 1, and now it will be my reality.

April has been a great month, and has gone by very quickly! I had the amazing opportunity to join a brigade for 10 days working as an interpreter. This brigade was organized with the foundation Shoulder to Shoulder, which is based out of University of Kentucky, collaborating with the University of Cincinnati family medicine residency program.  The group consisted of five bright-eyed senior nursing students and their instructor Tina, a well-seasoned veteran of brigades; alongside 6 family medicine residents/students and their two preceptors, Maria and Christy.  It was an amazing group of people, and interpreting went really well. I felt like it helped me gain confidence in how much I have learned and how much I can communicate now, although there were still some questionable terms that didn't quite directly translate like "me inca" and such.  But over all, it went really well.


Santo Domingo, 4th largest Ecuadorian city, where we worked at Centro Medico Hombro a Hombro,
aka the Medical Center Shoulder to Shoulder

During this brigade, the group decided to go to Canoa for the weekend, which is a beach about 4 hours from Santo Domingo, where we were working. I wasn't doing anything, and I had agreed to come back and help them translate for the first two days of the second week, so I went along to the beach! I hadn't been to Canoa, but it's a cute little beach town and there are waves big enough to do some surfing also. I didn't surf, but it'd be on my list of things to do if I ever get a chance to go back there.


Canoa beach

Beautiful sunset picture, taken from my balcony at the hotel in Canoa

Not only was the brigade great and we all got along very well, I also met some new people who were really great. I roomed with Sarah, coordinator for the Shoulder to Shoulder brigades, and Carissa, a fellow interpreter who is living here in Quito working for Partners Worldwide, a Christian-based business partnership organization. They are a very impressive organizaton and do some really great things in and around Quito! It was really great getting to know both Sarah and Carissa, and luckily Carissa will be around for another year as well!

I was sad to see that brigade go. Everyone was so friendly, and I loved chatting/running with the nursing students - that's my people! I tried to teach the Ecuadorian cardgame Cuarenta, but that game didn't catch on with too much enthusiasm except for med student Emily, she loved that game!!

When we got back into Quito we went to an artesenal market, where I met up with José (who had brought me a gorgeous bouquet of  orange/pinkish roses, my favorite color) and I decided to get my ears double pierced (because it was super cheap).  It didn't hurt as bad as I remembered, and my ears are not infected or anything. Everything was clean/sterile/etc. I had had my ears double pierced ears ago, but the holes had gotten infected/closed up. I do not think that will  be the case with these, so I am very happy!


Half of my flower bouquet (a week old) in the beautiful vase gifted to me by the awesome UC nursing students, Lexi, Molly, Ashleigh, Maggie and Kasha with their instructor Tina. Thank you!!

After that brigade, I had one day at home to get organized before José and I left for the beach! José was on vacations, so we decided to take advantage of his time off and go visit a priest friend, Father Colin MacInnes.  He lives in a small coastal town called Aconcito, which is super close to one of the nicest beaches called Salinas.  So, we were able to board for free at the youth center in Aconcito, and every day we took a bus to Salinas and spent the day there - no rain, all sunshine, beautiful water, I swam like a fish! I loved that beach.  It took us 12 hours to get there by bus, and mind you it's a little farther than the distance from Indianapolis to Chicago (welcome to Ecuador). We opted to take a night bus home, and it turned out very well as we had chosen a very reputable company. This time we didn't have to make stops in three other cities, or make stops all along the road picking up random travelers along the way. It was such a relief!

Part of Salinas beach, the most modern beach I've been to yet in Ecuador

Salinas...I loved it!

Teaching José that even in the USA we use porta-potties, and yes,
they are exactly the same...just large pots that hold feces and urine....how lovely.


I now am back in Quito, and will be a homebody for the following three + months. Katie and Josh have bought their tickets to Quito, and we are planning their trip for August 26th to September 5th to include a trip to the Galapagos Islands!!!! Although this is amazing and will be a once in a lifetime trip, it is very financially straining for me on my limited income and I am now on a mission to save every penny I've got!! I'm going to try to be as financially frugal as I can, which is kind of a fun little challenge to see how well I do.  I cannot wait to welcome in my first visitors to this country!!

As far as Easter went, José and I went to mass on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  We participated in a procession around the Solanda neighborhood with the Holy Eucharist, singing and praying for an hour in the rain on Thursday night. I really love my church, San Ignacio. It is so great!


The inside of San Ignacio, my church (iglesia)

The priest leaving with the Holy Eucharist to begin our procession around the neighborhood of Solanda, singing, blessing houses, and saying prayers along the hour long procession

The next couple of weeks I will be doing some things I haven't gotten a chance to do yet, i.e. find the nearest post office to send post cards, organize my room and life a little better, start running again, get better connected with activities in my church, San Ignacio, beyond just going to mass...

All in all, I'm extremely pleased with my new Ecuadorian lifestyle and can't wait for the Timmy brigades in May!