One month in...

It´s crazy to think that as of tomorrow I will have been here in Duran for an entire month. In some ways time seems to have just stopped passing, as every day just runs together with the next - each full of wonderful neighbors, unforgettable scenes, exhausting days of work, countless hugs from children - and best of all, all in spanish!

I guess I will start with work. Working at Padre Damian in the mornings has been nothing short of exhilerating. I spent the first week learning some massage and ocupational therapy techniques. I spent the second week in scrubs paintings walls and planning murals. And now I find myself jumping daily from games of dominos, hourlong conversations with patients about anything and everything, a lot of just holding patients hands, learning how to make hammocks, running exercise classes for the women, organizing pharmacuetical supplies, and anything else that comes up.

One of the most exciting things about Damian though is that I am being trained on how to use this sensory testing machine that tests patients nerve operation. The surgical teams that come done for the states (the first one gets here the end of september) use this data to evaluate patients for nerve decompression surgury, a life-altering surgery for the patients down here, which i get to scrub in on if i want! I am learning so much about Hansens disease and just general health care in Ecuador every day it is unbelievable. How I was able to find a job where not only do I get to pass my day just BEING with people in accompaniment, but also get to basically take a service learning class on health care in Ecuador at the same time and learn all about the medical system here and all about this misunderstood disease is seriously unbelievable. I am just so blessed.


And that is just my morning job. In the afternoons Dan and I run an after school program for kids called Valdivia, one of three after school programs that Rostro runs. It is a challenge, to say the least, but I love it. It's basically just an open program run in the Casa Communal, this big open community building around the corner from my house where kids come to do homework, take part in other non-homework activities, read, play, and basically get a break from home. For alot of them, it's mostly just a safe place to be (often in contrast with home life). It's alot like working at the YMCA, in that I spend most of my time thinking up random games or relays or ways to make a language lesson or math worksheet the most entertaining thing ever. It's beautiful how excited the kids get about learning for the most part, but depressing when you realize that the only thing they are learning at school is how to copy letters. They spend hours daily just copying over the notes the took in class, in perfect cursive, without having any idea what they are writing down. and if one letter is sloppy, they have to start over and do it again. They have absolutely no critical thinking skills. I feel like I have a monstrous battle daily with the ecuadorian school system, and am always beaten. And then I sit chatting with neighbors afterwards about how their daughter is about to graduate high school and can start work. What kind of work does she want to do I realize is a completely insensitive question as she will be lucky to find a job selling bananas. College is nowhere near a possibility. This is just reality. I thought I was beginning to recognize it, but every time I find myself in a conversation such as this I am newly blown away and brought back to reality-the reality of which I am so trying to be a part though subconciously know I will never be able to be.

Valdivia has given me an incredible opportunity to get to know the kids in the neighborhood. Last weekend Vicki and I went with a family to their schoool Olimpiadas, basically a giant field day in a gym with dance and futbol competitions. Kids got out of classes for a week to train, and some even missed classes the week before in order to make money to pay for their uniform, a rediculous seven dollars - enough to feed the family for a week. It was really just culture shock. On one level you see these kids running around and having a good time, but on another you are disturbed by the trouble the family went to just to get this day out, and the rediculous lack of order at the event. The family took us out for ice cream afterwards and to show us a little of the centro, and I was just just breathless realizing that this in probably the only time the family has gone out like this together for months, let alone treated to ice cream.

Life in Antonio Jose de Sucre has been one adventure after another. From trying to figure out what natural remedy the lady at the corner store gave us in an unmarked plastic bag to treat Eric's parasitic illness, to getting lost on the bus system (which i finally thought i had figured out), to late nights at the neighbors eating dinner and learning how to play Cuarenta....You never know what the day is going to hold. Nights at home with my house community seem to be filled with continual questions of the frustrating reality of gringo privelege, attempted reflections on the reality of poverty and lack of opportunity, and just the overwhelming challenge of finding our place here. I realize daily just how blessed I am to share this experience with four incredible housemates, and seven others close by who really just seem to get me after no time at all. We've become some weird combination of family members, coworkers, best friends and annoying siblings all at once. We laugh, we bicker, we cry, we sing, we dance, we hug, we comfort...... all in the course of a single evening.

I find myself in need of more personal reflection time, but find myself equally unwilling to cut into my time in the neighborhood, my time chatting with my housemates, or my sleep (already less then I need to function). It's a balance I will figure out with time, I am sure.

{This is longer than I imagined, so I will leave it here for now. Hopefully following blogs can be less of a this is what I am doing and more of a this is how I am feeling about it today. I really will try to update more often, the first one is always the hump to get over. }