Notre Dame Brigade

This Saturday, October 15th, a group of thirty people will be flying into Quito to form the Notre Dame Brigade.  This will be a special brigade for me, as it will be a "full-circle" type experience.  I was a part of the Notre Dame brigade last year, acting as a nurse, taking vitals and heights and weights, fumbling around with my Spanish, sitting in the back of the bus with the students, struggling with the fact that I was no longer a college student and I was in fact a "medical professional", a real Registered Nurse! It was maybe a little strange to the students that I wanted to sit in the back of the bus with them, but that was all I had ever known on the Timmy trips I had gone on before - as a Purdue student!

Now I will be leading their brigade, I will see many faces I remember from last year, but will be in a completely different role.  It will be comforting to know people, that not the entire group will be strangers to me.  It will be my second brigade to lead, and I am excited about seeing how it goes.  I feel more organized, but that could be just a trick of my mind!  I will have an update in another week!

One Year in Quito

Today marks my first full year in Quito, and it has been a tumultuous up and down experience, to say the least.  I offer this song as an explanation of what I want my next 9 months in country to be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=NPoxM0D_0n8

I truly want to use the rest of my time here to remove from my heart all the bitterness and past hurts I have carried around with me now for years.  It has gone too long, I have made too many mistakes, and I have carried around pain for far too long;  I really want to be remade, recreated by the grace, love and mercy of Jesus's Sacred Heart, in order to become the person I want to be and have always wanted to be.  That person is not one of bitterness, but of forgiveness, not of frustration but of patience, not one of despair but of faithful obedience.  It is my hope that this time rejuvenates me from the heart, mind and soul to become an outward display of the love and mercy of Christ. It is a daunting task, but one that I do not do on my own; one that Christ does within me.  The Lord gives love to our hearts, and continually fills it; while the earth has no love to give us, and only takes away what love we have. 

I cry thinking of all the opportunities I have had, all the calls I have tried to follow from God, all the times where I felt I was doing well only to fall again, or to half follow what God really wanted me to do.  I have time after time tried to do it on my own! What a fool, everything we do and all that we are are given to us by God himself, the first thing we must do is surrender to Him, to His infinite wisdom and mercy, to allow Him into our lives...if we do not allow Him into our lives, we are trying to do things on our own, and we of course will fail.  We have to allow Him to penetrate the barriers of our hearts, our pride, our own thoughts, to just listen to Him, to listen to what He says to us, not to what we say to Him.  He knows what we say and think and what our heart truly desires, and He wants to grant us those things, but only if we allow Him to do so.  We work so hard trying on our own, and to what end? As Paul told the Romans in his greeting in Chapter 1, we are ALL called to belong to Christ, and we are ALL called to be holy. 

Back in Ecuador

Now being back in Quito, after my second short trip home for the annual Timmy college conference, life has changed quite a bit.  I am now officially settled into my apartment, and have started making changes to it to make it a more liveable, homey space.  It will be my little project for the next nine months that I have left in country, trying to make it seem like it is a more modern, more apartment-like space, versus just a converted empty space of a pretty old hospital building. I have already painted the previously peach-colored bathroom a nice gray with white trim.  That in itself was a struggle, due to the strong fumes and lack of ventilation system (aka, a fan).  But it looks MUCH better.  The next project is trying to get the shower that is in the apartment to work!

Other changes include me, being more alone.  I live alone, and have broken up with my Ecuadorian boyfriend José.  Now I do not really have any friends in south Quito; I have two girl friends who live up in northern Quito, and I try and see one of them once a week.  Beyond those two girls, I have Paco and Pablo from Quito Eterno and will probably try and hang out more with them and their friends.  In the south, I socialize with my co-workers, but what I was explaining to some people from a surgical group that was in Quito this week, it that the people who I do know from work do not need to be friends with me.  Everyone has their own families, their own friend groups;  I am just a little gringa who is living here for a short time, nobody needs or really has ever invited me to be real friends with them.  That makes me feel lonely, but what I said a year ago before I came was that I wasn´t going to look at loneliness, but a time to share my peace with Christ and really try to still and calm my often restless soul during these months.  So, that is what I am working on, becoming more comfortable with a quiet apartment, with down time, with self-reflection.

Every day, I have a routine.  I wake up between 5:30-6am, and read the daily readings.  I go and jog 2-3 miles, then go to daily mass at 7a.m.  I have made friends with the three nuns who live at the church next door, Sister Juanita, Sister Rosita and Sister Blanquita.  Father Graziano is the priest who most often celebrates mass; he is this funny, always joyful, always energetic Italian priest, now well into his 60s I would say, who knew and was good friends with Father Carollo, who started the organization Tierra Nueva.  Father Graziano has a unique way of giving sermon, of insisting participation from those in the congregation when offering prayer requests and also in what we give thanks to God for.  He is a very special priest, and it has been such a blessing to have the church right next door.  Plus, I feel so much healthier, having a routine and jogging nearly every day!

I jog on what I call the "excercise highway" and or the "Chicago's Lakeshore Drive" of Quito Sur.   It is a little path in El Parque Río Grande that stretches a little over a mile along a ravine that has some tall, pretty grasses planted.  At 6 in the morning, it is packed with local Ecuadorians in their "calentadoras" or warm-up jogging suits, all jogging, walking, or doing jazzercise classes which are offered along the length of the park.  Yes, full on jazzercise...blasting music, lead by an enthusiastic jazzercist (?) encouraging the 99% women in the class to give their all, to flail their arms this way and that way, and to really work it out!  It is quite entertaining : ) and I have often had the urge to go and join, although I am not sure if it costs money per session...

Happy thoughts about new changes to life include that I no longer am attacked by the several dogs that lived in the parking lot (a fence gate has been put up, which dramatically increased my standard of living), I will likely have Internet in my apartment by this time next week, and I have been learning so much about the love and relationship that Jesus our Savior would like to have for me.  His Mercy is limitless, and the treasury of His Compassion is inexhuastible.  He came not to condemn us, but to save us; to draw us closer, rebuild us, to envelop us with love.  What I have realized is that to become that woman who I have always wanted to become, a loving mother and wife, a patient and kind nurse, a woman with shinings eyes and a radiating smile, always willing to empathize with others, to share in their suffering and joys, to put others first, a woman who is mature and confident in her own experiences and knowledge, but also humble and generous, a woman who inspires others to do good, to give of their time, to believe in realistic optimism...if I ever want to have a chance to become that woman, I must repent, allow Jesus to truly enter my life, and to recognize that regardless of the many past mistakes I have made in my life, Jesus wants to offer me his love and mercy; the more I believe that I am not worth His Mercy or Love, the more I will reject the flood of Divine Mercy and Love in my life, and the more I will fall away from ever becoming the vision of that woman that has led me to come to Ecuador...If I want to radiate love and compassion to others, I first have to allow such love and compassion into my life.  By constantly degrating myself, I allow the Devil and sin to win, I allow darkness to fill me, I lose respect for my own self, for the Holy Spirit that was sent to me through baptism, I reject the light by believing I am not worth it.  And living in despair is letting sin win.  More than anything, I must allow Jesus to fill me, to flood me, to remove the bitterness from my heart and replace it with love. Believing that He wants to do that, believing that He was sent to live and die and rise again in atonement for our sins, that is a truly joyful thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef9jKHwHueQ&feature=related

What I love about Ecuador

In keeping with the theme of trying to convince (and guilt) my parents into coming to visit, I felt like maybe I should go at it from a different angle.  I will now try to convince my parents (and everyone else) into visiting by describing all the things I love and will miss about this country (although I have plenty of time to enjoy these things right now!).  So here goes (although this just scratches the surface):

1. Tiendas!  I love walking down the street and passing by a variety of tiendas: shoe shops, plastics stores, bakeries, variety stores, school supplies stores, internet places, clothes shops, fruit/legume stores and restaurants serving hot dogs, shwarmas, fritadas, empanadas and morocho, ceviches, secos, etc.  My favorite place to walk is in La Jota, a street filled with tiendas. 

This is a picture of my favorite empanada place called "Empanadas y Morocho de La Jota" right next to a clothes tienda, during the reconstruction of the sidewalk

2.  Fresh fruit juices - the fresh juice that we have almost every day at El Centro is something I will miss dearly.  I love the Mora, Piña, Maracuya and Naranjilla juices that we get to drink every week - fresh fruit juice is definitely not something that we do in America, and I will miss it!!

3.  Bus rides on Juan Pablo II - this is the bus I most often take in the city, and I love it because typically it is blasting the latina music and the little window curtain shades are blowing happily in the wind - I just love that it's like a little party on the bus!

4. The fresh beautiful rose bouquets that I can buy for a dollar, that I will truly miss.

5. Buying fresh bread every morning for breakfast with my coffee...mmm, fresh bread.

6. Rejoicing when I find a tienda that sells Coca Cola Light, because that was quite a task when I first started trying to find it here in the south...now I have a regular tienda that I go to in La Jota, but it still is a nice treat!

7. $2 haircuts...that is something I will really miss when I get back to the US!

8. The endless mountains that surround Quito, and are found all through the Sierra...the mountains are just beautiful, and depending on where you are in the city gives you a thousand different perspectives and views of them.

Quilotoa, volcanic lake in the Sierran mountain range

9. The amazing churches and history of the city...it is a very rich history and I love Centro Histórico!

Inside San Agustín

A sanctuary to the sacred heart of Jesus, in San Agustín church

10.  The beaches, it sure is nice to be able to go to the beach every once in a while!

There are many, many other things I love about Ecuador and Quito, however they seem to be things you just can't appreciate unless you come visit!! I will definitely miss a ton of other things, such as how greatful I feel when I recieve relatively ordinary objects with the brigades (ex: Ranch Dressing), watching and sitting with the kitchen ladies as they cook and talk about their lives all day, telling myself "you go girl" in my head for running with shorts on, the lack of obesity, some of the food such as fritadas, choclo con queso, sopa de fideos, fresh ice cream popsicles, etc...

I do really love this country, and am so happy that I have the privilege of living here for at least another year. That makes me really excited, because I get to enjoy all these things a little longer, and continue to experience new things!

Mingo Gets a Bath

Mingo is "my" dog here in Ecuador.  Truly, Mingo belongs to José, however I love to walk Mingo around and pamper Mingo so that Mingo isn't so crazy all the time.  When Mingo is let out of his backyard area, he runs around wildly and happily - I like to make sure Mingo gets alot of playtime, and is always fed. Last week I took a video of José giving Mingo a bath, because it was the first time I have seen Mingo just stand still, without even trying to fight it; it was like Mingo was a commpletely different dog. It was also quite cute. I will add the video later (the Internet at the hospital won't let me access what I need to insert the video on the blog), but here are some pictures:

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!

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!