While Waiting for Sugar Cookies

I’m writing today’s blog post (albeit late into the evening, I know) from the unnamed (but unanimously accepted) headquarters of the Manna Ecuador house, The Kitchen. Not much to look at, this room is without a doubt the most frequented room in the whole place. Dunc would clearly like to spend all of his time here, as evidenced by his constant insistence that we put a bed next to the oven. At any given time during the day, someone will be in here cooking an egg, pealing a banana, slicing some mozzarella, or spreading some peanut butter on, well, anything that's edible. Most days, come 4 o'clock when dinner cooking commences, an assortment of chairs will mysteriously make their way into the kitchen, computers will be perched on laps, and we'll all catch up on each other's days and programs as the poor cook chops an exorbitant amount of vegetables. It's a wonderfully telling form of MPI Ecuador community.

I will not tell you how dirty this place can get (ahem, the floor), mainly because I don’t want to instigate a flurry of emails from concerned moms back in the states. The sugar cookies I’m baking for dessert are still in the oven, (plate number two, that is, seeing as how plate one was just confiscated by one Luke Lockwood, who has retreated to the hammock room with 5 cookies in tow) and I have 10 glorious minutes of downtime in a day that hasn’t seemed to slow down yet.

Last night we said goodbye to yet another MPI 2007-08 Program Director, Zak, and each of us has expressed how empty our hearts feel now that he’s gone. Yes, maybe I’m being just a little bit emo, but we all have noticed how much emptier the Manna House feels with all of the old PDs gone. I know what you’re thinking, Holly, you still have seven roommates for Pete's sake, what in the world are you going to do when you get your first apartment by yourself? I will become a crazy bird lady, that’s what.

Anyway, this is probably just my overly dramatic way of telling all the old PDs “we miss you!” and attempting to distract my overly eager self from opening the oven door every 4 minutes. Gotta keep these hands busy :)

Holly

A Different Kind of List

(Wednesday's guest blog comes from Serena Zhou, a new MPI Ecuador Program Director and resident whiteboard drawer. Serena can eat Eliah under the table at any given meal, has picked up Spanish faster than anyone I've ever met, and nearly cried when Zak's girlfriend mailed her the Olympic opening ceremonies from her dearly loved China.)

Things I Wish I Had Known...

-When possible, choose the window seat on crowded buses (esp. if you are a female). You never know what to expect in this "machismo" society.

-Never flush ANYTHING down the toilet.

-Always bring your camera with you (in case a cow decides to give birth in front of the classroom like Jocelyn and Dunc)

-Avoid carrying anything over a 5 dollar bill; otherwise, you may not get change.

-Don't rely on the internet to find information on...anything around here.

-Do not look at an Ecuadorian man on the street in the eye for over 3 seconds. They will think you're interested.

-Don't trust a stray dog like Diego who will use Gringos for food and then leave you and break your heart.

-Do not tell an Ecuadorian you don't like Pilsener (the Ecuadorian beer) even though it really is gross. It will shatter their national pride and they will get defensive.

-Don't attempt to play soccer with locals until you have had plenty of time to acclimate.

- Always bring a rain coat with you...everywhere.

-The Godfather is the most confusing movie ever made in the history of mankind. Even the Wikipedia site is confusing.

-"Chinese" restaurants are owned by Ecuadorians.

-Bed bugs actually DO bite.

-Try to put national pride aside if you want to conquer the world in "Risk." I learned this the hard way.

Serena

Omelets and Meetings

Every Monday night we at the Manna house (Mu Pi Iota, as we like to refer to it. And by "we" I mean Jos, Serena and I) sit down for a fantastic Zak/Luke dinner and a team meeting. During the week we all add meeting topics to the big white board next to the stairs, and come Monday we tuck in to dissect everything on the agenda. These meeting topics can range from the mundane (house-cleaning) to the complex (defining this year’s approach). This week, given the intensity of our list, we decided to meet early Tuesday morning to ensure fresh minds. Seeing as how Mark offered to supply us with omelets to fuel conversation, it was a wise choice.

This week’s list is as follows:
1. White plastic chairs (if left on the porch, they will crack under the intense Ecuadorian sun)
2. Program Attendance (addressing the issues we’ve had with interest/investment by the San Franciscan community in our various programs)
2. a-p) in depth discussion about how to remedy/address #2.
3. Late night ice cream binges (the girls begged the boys to yell “muffin tops!” at us whenever we lock ourselves in the kitchen to eat cartons of ice cream. Eliah volunteered to head up the effort)
4. PD recruiting (when we need to start!)
5. Projector (how to take care of it, especially since a new blub costs 400 dollars!)
6. Small business classes (Dunc has an upcoming meeting to find a teacher for our class)
7. Mingas (Luke is working to put together Mingas in the neighborhood, potentially collaborating with Engineers without Borders)
8. Couch in kitchen (Dunc wants to put a bed in the kitchen to lounge in, but is willing to compromise with a couch. Eliah threatened to filibuster the already long meeting until we all consented.)
9. Thanksgiving break group from Vandy.
10. Finances (being aware of our food spending habits)
11. Zak off the reservation celebration (Zak heads out on Thursday :( so a dinner send-off is in order)

It was a packed meeting, but we all came off with a better understanding of where our focus needs to be. We were reminded of the importance of being in the community, of being fully there; of showing up to soccer games and church services and community meetings, of knowing the families who trust their kids to us every day after school, of being present and intentional and focused on what work we want to accomplish hand in hand with the San Franciscan community.

I have no doubt that we are all ready to be fully in it.

Holly

First Day of School

As I write this the rains are starting to roll in; what started as 8 am clouds over the distant mountains has turned in to a full-fledged thunderstorm dumping buckets of South American rains down on our little Conocoto. Considering we’re all about to hop on a bus over to our first day of Apoyo Escolar, the rains came at just the right time...? So it goes, I’m told.

This morning Zak, Seth, Johanna and I packed all the supplies we’ll be needing for the next year of Apoyo Escolar into a truck bed and bumped our way over to the Casa Barrial. After schlepping three huge cabinets, countless dry erase boards, markers, crayons, paper, rulers, pencils, pens, notebooks, erasers, speakers, construction paper, and boxes full of books for our seedling of a library into the Casa Barrial, we got to work sweeping and wiping down tables and chairs for what we’re hoping will be a full class of students.


September 1st marks the first day of school for Ecuadorian students, and we’re ready for programs to get underway, even if it does mean the onset of the rainy season. Pull on the rain boots and let’s learn some Ecuadorian math :)

Holly

The Long Trek Home

Today marked the end of Jocelyn’s 2 week English refresher course for students in the San Franciscan community, and I got to tag along with her to host an ‘art hour’ to break up the dry (but direly needed) grammatical review. Considering Jos also baked sugar cookies and saved the last 30 minutes for a lively game of twister, I clearly chose the right morning to join her in the classroom. Her students were seriously hyped up even before we fed them cooked sugar and butter, but Jos handled it like a pro, not getting frustrated or discouraged but encouraging them to ‘escucha con dos orejas, por favor” (listen with two ears, please) and trucking right on through those conjunctions. She is definitely well prepared for the start of our Apoyo Escolar program, an after school homework help class that starts on Monday.


After shooing the little ones out of the Casa Barrial (the community ‘house’ in which we host our programs), Jos and I started our walk out of San Francisco to catch a bus back to home sweet Conocoto. Who knew we would still be at the bus stop 45 minutes later, having been snubbed/rejected/turned away from 3 buses. Maybe this doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but when you’re used to a quick ride home and you’re really hoping to beat the rest of your housemates to the leftovers from last night’s dinner, it becomes a huge deal. We’re talking about enchilladas and avocados here, people. I'm starting to get worked up as I type this.

Bus 1. Has a sign that says "To Conocoto" on it's front window. So why, then did the driver tell us “Ahhh...hoy no vamos a Conocoto” (Ahhh, today we’re not going to Conocoto). Ok, that makes no sense, but fine, off we hopped.
Bus 2. The driver encourages us to get on under the alluring promise of “Si, si, claro vamos a Conocoto, ya ya...” only to tell us 5 minutes into the ride that, oh, actually we’re heading over there AFTER we go to Quito. Considering we didn’t want to take an hour bus ride to get somewhere 10 minutes away, we obviously hopped off in the middle of the road. Which road it actually was turned out to be a little less obvious. If there’s one thing Jos and I love, it’s being stranded in the middle of nowhere, Ecuador. Have I mentioned that very few (read: probably 7) roads in the whole Valley have street signs? Great.
Bus 3. Doesn't even acknowledge us, despite Jocelyn’s excellent hand flagging motions.

Two seconds later the first bus we were on came screeching around the corner, the passengers inside chuckling to themselves at the idiotic gringas (read: us) who still haven’t found the right bus, covered in mud up to their shins (huge thunderstorm last night) standing next to a woman with a goat on a leash. Lovely.

Regardless, we made it home, stopping by the Panaderia for some much needed bread to lift our spirits. And guess what? We still beat everyone else to the leftovers. Sweet, sweet success.

Until Monday,
Holly